Dating Kits

[iBorg]

With the flurry of reissues, are there good ways of dating kits. For example, prior to the late '60s kits were taped shut. Were the insides in poly bags? The boxes were much heavier in the early sixties. When for each manufacturer did the sealing of kit parts become normal? When did shrink wrapping become normal. I know UPC codes are from the 80's and web addresses form the last ten years. When did manufacturers start adding copyrights? I'd like to create a chart showing these changes as a way to date kits and identify the true age of the box and the contents.

 

Any interest from the community?

 

[Greg Myers]

Take into account all the reissued kits in their many guises , including nostalgia box art. 

[Force]

The thing with copyright dates on the kit boxes vary with manufacturers, some like Revell and Monogram started to print the dates on the boxes in the early 70's, maybe even earlier than that,  and others like AMT and MPC don't have dates until the mid to late 70's, and Jo-Han had dates on some boxes in the early 90's, not so much before that.

Edited May 16, 2018 by Force

[Chuck Most]

If the decal sheet is intact, often there will be a date printed on the back. This was being done on some kits as far back as the late '60's. Here are the dates on a sheet from an MPC '82 Cavalier (dated 8/81) and an AMT/Ertl Ford Explorer dated 7/95.

 

[iBorg]

I never knew about the decal dating.

[Tom Geiger]

Zip codes came about in 1963, a fact also useful in establishing time frames of boxes

[George Bojaciuk]

I don't date kits or people I worked with. Just a personal rule.

[SfanGoch]

Too bad Pip's in Sheepshead Bay closed. I'd pay twice to see the rest of your standup routine.  

[Art Anderson]

6 hours ago, iBorg said:

With the flurry of reissues, are there good ways of dating kits. For example, prior to the late '60s kits were taped shut. Were the insides in poly bags? The boxes were much heavier in the early sixties. When for each manufacturer did the sealing of kit parts become normal? When did shrink wrapping become normal. I know UPC codes are from the 80's and web addresses form the last ten years. When did manufacturers start adding copyrights? I'd like to create a chart showing these changes as a way to date kits and identify the true age of the box and the contents.

 

Any interest from the community?

 

Tape-sealing (or gummed printed "Sticker-like" strips to keep the boxes closed, stem almost from the very beginnings of plastic model kits--all the way back to the early 50's.  Somewhere, about 1961-62, Aurora and Monogram began maching wrapping kits with Cellophane (and later a clear plastic wrap that was still machine-wrapped, with shrink-wrapping coming into use by, I want to recall, about 1966-67 or so.  This "umiversal" use of shrinkwrap was probably due to the rise of the "discount department stores", such as Korvette's, K-Mart and the like--who wanted merchandise that kept its clean look, and resisted what is known in retailing as "shop-wear", with the added benefit of discouraging the pilfering of desireable parts from model kits on virtually unattended store shelves.  the now-amost-standard practice among model kit mfr's of sealing parts trees into polybags before boxing the kits didn't really begin until the very early 1980's, IIRC.

The now almost universal practice of acknowledging the ownership of car names, the real car manufacturer, and the use of those designs (styling or appearances) came about, for real, in the middle 1980's after GM won a "Landmark" US Supreme Court decision, regarding unauthorized, counterfeit replacement parts being flooded into this country from places like Taiwan--SCOTUS ruled that in order to prevent such counterfeits from appearing for sale in the US, GM (and by association, virtually EVERY OTHER manufacturer of cars, machinery, consumer goods) had to take serious steps to "protect"their trade styles (designs), technical specs (patents), and images (copyrights), with the vendor of such items (other than the OEM) required to denote on their packaging that they had acquired the rights from OEM's to manufacture likenesses..

[Mark]

When shrinkwrap or bagged parts came into use differs by manufacturer. 

AMT started shrinkwrap with the '67 annual kits, and bagging unplated parts started with the '69 annuals.  In both cases, Trophy Series kits were phased in; when a kit got new box art it also got the shrinkwrap or bagged parts.  Plated parts were bagged also, starting in the mid-Seventies.

MPC kits were shrinkwrapped from day one.  I'm not positive about bagged parts, but they were definitely bagged with the '69 annual kits.  '68 and even '67 annuals may also have bagged parts, I'm not sure.

I'm pretty sure Jo-Han started shrinkwrapping with the '67 annuals.  Their kits never had the unplated parts bagged until the SeVille era in the early Nineties.  This also includes the Jo-Han kits sold by AMT in AMT packaging.  These were apparently manufactured at the Jo-Han facility and packed with AMT boxes, decals, and instruction sheets.

Revell was all over the place.  Some of their Parts Packs were at first shrinkwrapped to a piece of cardstock, but were soon changed to cardstock packaging with a cellophane window so you could still see the parts.  I recently sold a Revell '62 Dodge kit (non-Metalflake first issue) that was shrinkwrapped.  But their other kits had the heavier thickness boxes without shrinkwrap until about '67 or '68.  

 

[BrianC]

4 hours ago, George Bojaciuk said:

I don't date kits or people I worked with. Just a personal rule.

I was going to suggest  just ask politely

[iBorg]

1 hour ago, Mark said:

When shrinkwrap or bagged parts came into use differs by manufacturer. 

AMT started shrinkwrap with the '67 annual kits, and bagging unplated parts started with the '69 annuals.  In both cases, Trophy Series kits were phased in; when a kit got new box art it also got the shrinkwrap or bagged parts.  Plated parts were bagged also, starting in the mid-Seventies.

MPC kits were shrinkwrapped from day one.  I'm not positive about bagged parts, but they were definitely bagged with the '69 annual kits.  '68 and even '67 annuals may also have bagged parts, I'm not sure.

I'm pretty sure Jo-Han started shrinkwrapping with the '67 annuals.  Their kits never had the unplated parts bagged until the SeVille era in the early Nineties.  This also includes the Jo-Han kits sold by AMT in AMT packaging.  These were apparently manufactured at the Jo-Han facility and packed with AMT boxes, decals, and instruction sheets.

Revell was all over the place.  Some of their Parts Packs were at first shrinkwrapped to a piece of cardstock, but were soon changed to cardstock packaging with a cellophane window so you could still see the parts.  I recently sold a Revell '62 Dodge kit (non-Metalflake first issue) that was shrinkwrapped.  But their other kits had the heavier thickness boxes without shrinkwrap until about '67 or '68.  

 

Great information.......that's the type of information I'm looking for. 

[unclescott58]

17 hours ago, SfanGoch said:

Too bad Pip's in Sheepshead Bay closed. I'd pay twice to see the rest of your standup routine.  

??? I don't get this? ☝️Who or what is Pip's? Who was doing standup there? And how does this fit in with the topic? 

Edited May 17, 2018 by unclescott58

[SfanGoch]

It's a reply to George's comment. Pip's was a famous comedy club located in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn. If you didn't know what Pip's was, why didn't you search the name? That's what Google is for.   Who was doing standup there? Name any comedian from the last 40+ years.

Edited May 17, 2018 by SfanGoch