How About A Bit o' Ertl History ?

[Tom Geiger]

I am currently working on an International Scout II, which was tooled up by Ertl before they acquired AMT. I looked up into the body, so that I could sand off mold marks and such, and up on the inside of the roof is the lettering "(copyright sign) 1978 VICTOR COMPTOMETER CORP." What? This was an Ertl kit, so I did some digging on the Internet.

I found that Victor Adding Machine Company was one of the first companies to build adding machines in the early part of the 20th century. They produced some technical products like compasses, gun sights, meters and gauges for the USA during World War II and came out of that a richer company that went on to produce adding machines, calculators and cash registers.

They started to evaluate the computer market in the 1950s and in 1961 merged with Comtometer Corporation, which produced calculating machines and a communications device called the Electrowriter. They became the Victor Comtometer Corporation. In 1965 they produced the Victor 3900, a fully electronic calculator with multiple functions, three storage registers and a CRT display. The unit incorported an early MOS integrated circuit for processing and storage.

I don't know why, but in 1967 Victor acquired Ertl. It doesn't seem to fall within their business. There is no mention of Ertl in the Wiki report on the company, but on the Ertl site it just states they were acquired. It would be interesting to know what the strategy was. Or if the owners just liked toys!

Victor was acquired by Kidde Inc. in 1977 and was renamed Victor Business Machines. In partnership with Sirius Systems Technology and marketed one of the earliest PCs and some of the first dot matrix printers. Victor was eventually purchased by Sirius and eventually sold to Tandy Corporation... no doubt the source of the early Tandy PCs sold in Radio Shack stores. Apparently Ertl stayed with Kidde during these transitions. We've all seen the Kidde name on older Ertl kits.

Kidde was purchased by Hanson LLC in 1987, who eventually sold Ertl (which owned AMT since 1981) to Racing Champs in 1999. And we all know where that went.

I find it interesting that Ertl was part of Victor, an innovative company that was always at the head of technology during that period. I'll bet you never knew that the Tandy PC and my Scout had a common heritage!

Edited February 5, 2015 by Tom Geiger

[Bruce Poage]

Yes, interesting. Corporate mergers often make one scratch the scalp. I remember touring the Ertl plant in Dyersville in the early 90's and was surprised to see the chrome plating equipment was being used to chrome plate plastic drapery rod parts. It was subcontract from another company that was a way to get more return on their equipment investment. The parts were about the same size as a chrome parts tree.

[62rebel]

diversify!

[southpier]

hope you're leaving the lettering as pedimento.

i'm in process with an original revell parts pack bantam body and have left the Revell 1962 stamping under the trunk lid. since it was 69 cents then, and a whole 3 in 1 kit was only $1.19 at Flemings, it was way overpriced for this 10 year old.

[lordairgtar]

In regards to Tandy, Radio Shack has declared bankruptcy and will sell off 2400 of it's stores. I knew that when they became glorified phone sellers, the end would be near. Tandy also had a leather store and I believe the Heathkit electronic kits were sold through them.

[southpier]

it was most likely the Battery Club that brought them down.

also, first store to ask name & address whenever you bought anything, so they could send the free monthly flyer.

[chunkypeanutbutter]

Really sucks that RadioShack has turned into a phone store.

Two years ago, on a class trip, we stopped at the Maine Mall in Portland. The teachers gave every kid either $10 or $15 (can't remember which) for lunch. I took that money to RadioShack instead.

I was perusing the stuff that was there, and the associate comes up and asks me what I want.

"Alright," I said, "what I'm looking for today is a roll of assorted resistors, a sheet of project board or perfboard, and two DIN plugs."

He gave me the most vacant, confused look I've ever seen. He had to go and get someone else because he didn't understand one thing that I wanted. With three simple item requests, I had stumped a 30-something year old electronics store worker.

[Danno]

Really sucks that RadioShack has turned into a phone store.

Two years ago, on a class trip, we stopped at the Maine Mall in Portland. The teachers gave every kid either $10 or $15 (can't remember which) for lunch. I took that money to RadioShack instead.

I was perusing the stuff that was there, and the associate comes up and asks me what I want.

"Alright," I said, "what I'm looking for today is a roll of assorted resistors, a sheet of project board or perfboard, and two DIN plugs."

He gave me the most vacant, confused look I've ever seen. He had to go and get someone else because he didn't understand one thing that I wanted. With three simple item requests, I had stumped a 30-something year old electronics store worker.

Yepper! I knew RS's end was rapidly approaching when the small electronic components (as you noted) disappeared from the sales floor and the gadget-sellers had no idea what you were talking about when you asked for any of the items that represented RS's core business . . .

I lost it one fine day when I was looking for a bulk eraser and the mall crawler fone-seller told me he had never heard of such a thing (after I had to describe to him what a bulk eraser was . . . he initially suggested I go to Target's back-to-school supplies section for a big selection of pencils and erasers).

But then, he went further to knowingly assert that Radio Shack had never carried any such product!

I had rolls of electrical tape and coils of solder older than that idiot was!

RS . . . RIP. You lost your soul, you lost your life.

[southpier]

on the other hand, i undeniably know any 18 year old understands more about phones, apps, and computers, than i ever will.