Introduction
Inspirerd by a message in theYahoo group Scale Model Nostalgia from Nov 18, 2005 I decided to do some research on EKO models and open an entry of EKO in the Kits 70 up section. It was an experiment to find out , how long it takes to create an EKO page from scratch , having not known anything about EKO before. It was December, 1st, 2005 when I first published these pages.
Looking up PAK-20 Burns (2003) I noticed that I already had bookmarked the page were EKO models are dealed with. I did it some time ago. Obviously I was interested in the two aircraft types shown above: The Hispano HA.200A Saeta and Republic RC-3 Seabee.
I succeeded to buy a couple of secondhand EKO kits, on .That helped to get a better impression what EKOs are like. Sadly my favorites Seabee, Saeta, Piper L-18, DC-3 are not among them.
Additionally I found some closed auctions of ECO models with the help of . I contacted the sellers and asked for the photos. Special thanks to BDB Modellen Holland, Isabel Baeza García de Quirós and Jesus Vera.
History
I did not yet find much about the history of the Spanish company EKO and their 1:150 scale aircraft models.
In the website 87thScale.info, which deals with 1:87 model cars you can read, that at the end of the 1950s, Blasco Industries in Barcelona (Spain) released a series of miniature vehicles under the EKO name.
In PAK-20 Burns (2003) you learn, that EKO aircraft kits were marketed in 1978 and were the only unassembled kits ever issued by EKO. The F-84F (#5002) is definitely a copy of the Busch kit. Burns speculates that 5001, 5003, 5005 and 5014 could be Busch copies as well. The built-up models were available in Spain at the time of writing. There are no entries on EKO kits in PAK-20 updates 2003 and 2004.
According to a mail dated November 2005 from the webmaster of the Spur N website, to his knowledge EKO does not produce items in N-scale (1:150 ) since a long time.
List of EKO Aircraft
I have compiled a list of EKO aircraft in aphabetical rder with the help of PAK-20 , and checked the Catalog numbers (Ref.) with the Spur N website, the closed auctions and my own Eko models .
Remarks and Observations.
- The readymade models came with a stand similar to that of the WIKING ready made models.
- The back sides of the blister packs are blank, the back side of the boxes have a description of the particular aircraft in Spanish language.
- I have identified 3 types of boxart for the readymade models, they are all depicted on this page.
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