Franklin Mint 1/48 Checklist

[RedBaron]

Is there anywhere I can get a complete 1/48 checklist of the planes released by Franklin Mint? Particularly WW2 era. Thanks!

[PHANTOMWARRIOR]

Are you looking for a list that includes the old Armour 1:48 models as well.?

Terry

[PHANTOMWARRIOR]

I know I saw a list on the internet a while ago, but I can't find it now? The best place to look for me is Aiken's Airplanes because his site keeps many of the sold out planes on his site for reference even after they are sold out.

http://www.aikensairplanes.com/fm48.htm

But I know he doesn't have all of them. I was selling some of my older FM and Armour 1:48 WW2 fighters, and some of them are no longer listed on his site.

Terry

[Coreyeagle48]

Greetings:

A complete list is going to be tough to find, for the early years (when it was the CDC Armour Collection), you might be able to find the old product catalogs. Some online retailers even have them for sale yet. They showed illustrations of all the models.

Also, certain planes and schemes were only sold in certain markets. For example some of the planes were European only releases. So I know some dealers never stocked them here and some dealers never even had the item number as they would never get the model. There were also some models that were cancelled by the Armour company and then later by the Franklin Mint.

I do not know the whole story, but I have a friend who works for Franklin Mint and he had told me the whole reason the Mint picked up the Armour company was that the Armour company had fallen on economic problems and the only way they could survive was through a purchase by another company. The Franklin Mint kept the line name because it was already well known, but as time went on you got to see more of the Franklin Mint influence. It is interesting that the Franklin Mint just kept using some of the old tooling for some of the models. For example the F-18 Hornet cast was an Armour cast, as it did not have rotating tires. The Franklin Mint toolings had rotating tires, better paint and better details than the Armour models did. I thought the last releases (Catalina, B-17, C-47, etc) were all really nice pieces, but expensive. I know from my friend the reason the line stopped was Franklin Mint was not selling enough of them to justify continued production. Though I do know they've kept the toolings and could produce the models again in the future.

There must have been a ton of stock out there on these models though, because many of the more common models are still readily available via ebay and online retailers.

Corey

[PHANTOMWARRIOR]

I sold 12 of the older models through cosignment at a local hobby store. I was lucky that all of the planes had conventional camo schemes and were flown by name pilots. That leaves me with 8 still to sell but I had to do some digging to find information on them, especially a photo. Some had both an Armour model number and a Franklin model number, but a few had just a CDC model number (Pearl Harbour Zero CDCC974) and I have not found a photo for that one. And I'm not even sure that number is correct because it isn't on the box - it's on a store price tag.

I think that a complete list probably doesn't exist. The list I saw on the internet quite a while ago may not have been a complete one anyway. No way to know unless you have an Armour model that isn't on the list.

Terry