Bienengraeber
Plastic Kit Distributor
Browsing John Burns PAK-20 [
Burns (2003)
] I came across the following statement
"BIENENGEAEBER
West Germany, np (no longer producing )
This company also issued a number of ex-Frog
bagged kits in 1969-1974. These kits are
listet here. They appeared in the same
yellow box style with the kit number on the
side. "
That sounded highly interesting and I also
looked up
Frog Model Aircraft 1932-1976 [
Lines /Hellstroem (1989 )
].
There Lines / Hellström write in
The Frog Spawn , p190
"Frog (Germany
)
Bienengräber & Co GmbH, Hamburg, West
Germany
Bienengräber were agents fo Rovex [a FROG
association via Tri-ang] for a number of
years and, a such, imported standard Frog
kits for sale in Germany.However, they did
add new outer boxes to the black series
bagged kits, presumably because the bagged
Airfix kits were similarily reboxed by
Plasty
[ the Gernman distributor for Airfix ]. A
common box was used for all the kits, with
the kit number added with a pen on the side
of the box. The main color of the box was
yellow and the text was all German."
I managed to win the two kits depicted above
in an auction.
All there:
Black series bag
in yellow box, German text on box-ends, kit
number (in this case type) handwritten on
the side. Same box for every kit as seen by
the German instruction on the back (see
pictures right).
Here
is pictured a list of
Black Series
Frog kits from the 1972
/ 73
catatlogue. According
to the catalog they were available as bags
or in the box.
Sadly the two kits I found in
are not just my favourite types of aircaft
but they serve well for a start to have some
Biengraeber examples. I would be more
interested in a Gloster Whittle, D.H Vampire
( or S.6b and DH Comet racer as listed
additonally in [
Burns (2003)
]). Though I somehow like the Ta-152 boxart.
This plane would make a nice what-if racer (
as well as the Bf-110) but certainly not
built from this valuable issue.
According to
Burns (2003)
Biengraeber was an import company and ideed
one can find examples of Pyro and Fuji kits
in the above mentioned catalogue.
Other imported brands cannot be identified
directly. One has to determine the
individual brand by circumferential evidence
from the picture. |
|
Bienengraeber
Plastic Kit Distributor
|
