[Palmer model kit history?]

Thank you for reposting my comments from elsewhere.  The history of Palmer is far more interesting than the models themselves. An evolution of Premier, one of the earliest American plastic kit makers, Palmer remained popular for over a decade, relying upon marketing in dime stores and pharmacies. They were an incredibly prolific manufacturer, often creating the same car in different scales each year. As noted, their annuals were very poor with sub-par engineering and fidelity of detail.  The 1/32 scale 1930's and 1940's cars were much better, being mostly sourced from Pyro.  The 1940 Ford Tudor Sedan was an original mold, though it appears to be a copy of AMT's version of the same car.

Towards the end of their run, owner Pyro was sold to Life Like.  Palmer attempted to continue as an independent, going through a few rebrandings.  Around 1971, they tried to compete with AMT and MPC 1/25 scale annuals with their own "initials" brand, PMC.  These were of a higher quality and the molds were used for Lindberg reissues in the 1990's. Around 1973 and '74, the Palmer name was briefly dropped and the brand became Winneco. This iteration not only continued the 1930's and 1940's cars, but also reboxed 1/72 scale tanks from Japan.  In their final year, 1974 - '75, the final rebranding ",Palmer Hobbies," was in place.  It reissued most of the classic cars and added a line of 1975 annuals. By the Bicentennial year, Palmer was history.  Most of their molds ended up with the aforementioned Lindberg, who continue to reissue vintage Palmer to this day.

[Palmer model kit history?]

On 4/20/2018 at 6:47 AM, Mike999 said:

Here's a Palmer discussion at The Other Model Car Magazine.  One poster mentions that Palmer mostly made plastic food containers, and model kits were only a side job.

Comments from poster Jimmy Razor:

"I am a regular contributor at scalemates.com, and have additional insight into Palmer.  Like AMT and MPC, Palmer offered a series of "annual" kits, featuring cars from the current model year.  Specifically, these are the "bad" kits.  Palmer's outdated molding process meant multi-piece bodies with shallow interiors.  The individual parts were poorly-engineered with terrible fit and often with inaccurate shapes.  Again, these were "junk" models, only of interest to nostalgic collectors.

Not all offered by Palmer was "junk," though.  Through a mold-sharing program with Pyro, Palmer offered a budget version of Pyro's "Table Top" series.  These were a selection of 1930's through 1950's cars in approximately 1/32 scale.  Price was kept at 29 to 60 cents through the omission of clear or chrome parts.

Although these "Budget Pyros" were basic by today's standards, they were fairly accurate in their overall shape and detail. Engineering was fair-to-good with decent fit, in spite of multi-part bodies.  The primary weakness of these kits was aging molds leading to excessive flash.

I built about a half-dozen of these Palmer cars in the early 'seventies, and really enjoyed them.  Most were later reissued by Life-Like and Lindberg, and remain available.  An experienced model builder can make these basic kits look rather nice."

http://cs.scaleautomag.com/sca/ask_scale_auto/f/11/t/125685.aspx