The Aurora, Revell, Monogram Models Story

[Music] when plastic hit models hit their stride in the late 50s and early 60s there were three main companies that held the greatest market share Aurora monogrammed and Ravel these three companies could not have had more different personalities it's despite having all been basically garage or basement startups up in the mid 40s and early 50s Aurora was a New York company with a fly by the seat of your pants feel to it they focused on three things keeping costs down and prices low having a wide selection and perhaps most of all getting the market first even if it meant sacrificing accuracy their idea of market research was hey that's cool let's make it and they were usually right monogram was the polar opposite of Laura the Illinois based company focused on making the best most accurate models and had no interest in being the biggest only the best and they were not afraid to be a little more expensive Ravel sat squarely between the others with a focus on both quantity and quality its founder had a burning desire for the Venice California based company to be the biggest model company out there but to do so with a good quality product only Aurora and Ravel really pushed hard into the international markets but in the end even that could not save them from a fickle market in a changing world let's take a look at all three beginning with a war aybe hikes and jogeum Moreno started Arora in a garage in a workshop in Brooklyn in 1950 making plastic items for other companies Henry collage cam was their injection molding expert in 1952 Joe Cuomo joined Aurora this was the first year they made their own products toy bows and arrows under their own name it was about this time that Raymond Haines of HMS associates approached them with an idea he had to model airplane kits made by the company Hawk Milwaukee f19 a Grumman Panther jet Haines and loved aviation suggested they make plastic kit model planes Abe shakes ran the numbers and liked the idea as a major shortcut they simply copied the hot models with only a scant few changes even the box and instructions were mostly copied but they did include a tube of somewhat hard to obtain plastic styrene glue as a bonus they would be confronted about this by the folks from hawk at the next hobby industry convention but Hawk accepted that it was just business however they did take precautions to ensure that future kids could not be copied for better or worse Aurora was in the plastic gift model business 1953 they added to their line a series of 1/48 scale model planes molded and bright colors George Bert was hard to print up the boxart which was sent to Acme box company in Philadelphia for gluing to the boxes those completed boxes were then sent to Aurora and Brooklyn to have the kits and instructions put in them and load it up for shipping to the customers and that's how it worked at GM Marino's insistence Aurora always put aside 10% of its earnings to reinvest in new equipment this allowed them to begin a line of model ships which began with a model the nuclear submarine Nautilus it was a huge success and remained in their catalogue until the company closed in 1977 by the end of 1953 Aurora had outgrown their little Brooklyn facility so they moved the operation to West Hempstead Long Island by 1954 retailers wanted more expensive products to which Aurora responded with a 19 inch wingspan model of the Martin b-26 Marauder medium bombers selling for a whopping two dollars and 59 cents the plastic kid industry was in growth but was also a period of weaning out the weak aura had a simple philosophy yet to market first in volume with a quality product at a low price but in order to do this they often had to sacrifice accuracy any new airplane ership that came out had an Aurora model of it on the shelves probably before anybody else even if it wasn't completely accurate the molds and designs were often based on nothing more than some photographs that were available say what you like Aurora was becoming a top selling model company one of the ways Aurora kept the price down was by using a standard size box which resulted in a wild variety of scales but it kept the prices down ergo the models sold in 1955 Aurora decided to try their hand at crafts that girls will enjoy came up with a copper etching set did okay but was not the Bonanza they'd hoped for so they dropped it after a few years and told store owners said they wanted it back never a great seller but it stayed in production off and on they tried a few other craft products that failed so they focused on models one reason that Aurora kits had less detail than their competitors was that the patterns from which the molds were made were cut to one-to-one scale most companies made the pattern at a double scale or larger and then used a pantograph machine to cut the mold at a reduced scale by doing it this way Aurora limited the detail but they felt that it wasn't critical in 1950s in the 1960s that would not be quite so true [Music] in 1956 Aurora issued some of the first plastic kit model tanks and other tracked vehicles complete with vinyl tracks some feel these are the best kits they had produced to date they also tried something new by introducing a figurine the silver night this was their first foray into what would become a very large part of their business kit figurines in 1957 Aurora even introduced a line of small-scale kits that sold for only 29 cents they're the cheapest kits to ever be made and marketed they also ventured into model trucks but they were a disappointment there was some good news with the new figurines market beginning with an additional series of nights as well as introducing the guys and gals of all nations line of figurines in the late 1950s the industry was starting to shake out some of the weaker operators an Aurora acquired the molds of some of these companies in 1959 they tried model cars again with molds eight acquired from closing companies these enjoy better success which was good because by 1960 the figurines were no longer selling well Aurora had also diversified into toys at this point largely by buying out other companies by the early 60s Aurora bought out molds from seven different companies including Strom Becker's t t1 and cessna t-37 molds part of Aurora success was their frugality and I mean to the point that Abe shakes would yell if he found the lights left on in an empty room in fact now might be a good time to get into personalities of some of the three men who ran a roar the company present from 1952 Abe shakes was born in Russia during the days of the Tsar but he left for America after the Bolshevik Revolution he spoke fluent Russian and at five foot four his gregarious and energetic manner made him seem taller he was a World War two veteran who'd been in the Battle of the Bulge and although great at getting things done he was by all accounts I could find an unapologetic self promoter he was a major stockholder in a war and a silent partner at first but became president when John Cuomo came on he was a hard-driving businessman if you drove hard bargains with vendors and suppliers in a nutshell he was a force to be reckoned with initially the president of aurora was jogeum Erina a soft-spoken man who was known as mr. Arora he primarily handled day-to-day operations and the company's technical issues he insisted that the models had a good fit in 1952 he took over operations full-time to keep the company running and handed the presidency over to Abe hikes last was John Cuomo who came on in 1952 when he came on board he got 10% of the stock and shanks and gia Marino's split the rest primarily a Salesman he was very well-liked and by all accounts was an affable personality this is probably one reason he was so good at sales and promotion although these three different personalities complemented each other in the success of the company it also led to simmering tensions and as we shall see eventually that had an adverse effect in the end in 1962 something happened that was to have a bigger impact on the company than anyone could have predicted it sent Arora on an entirely new trajectory they made their first movie monsters and it almost never happened at the hobby industry annual convention they showed their first monster kid Frankenstein they were almost laughed out of the place but on the last day the members could bring their families in what could only be described as a generation gap in marketing the attendees kids absolutely flipped over the Frankenstein model the calculus was rather simple these 30 year old properties were frequently recycled on weekend television and the parents had no idea how popular they were with their kids this kicked off the entire line of monsters and character kids it was ironic that the previous figurines had flounder because Aurora had made kits of things that parents would like but not what the kids would like lesson learned the list of products that are produced in the 1960s is staggering they had acquired some molds from other companies that were simply not up to the increasing quality standards of their competitors so they just kept them cheap at the same time they made new molds that were actually quite good they did everything and I mean everything ships planes cars tanks cannons trucks characters monsters and this was an edition of toys games and especially the new slot car racing Aurora would get into slot car racing in an enormous way some flops some soared and some just putter DeLong like the model the USS Nautilus Aurora had always been interested in going international and it done so as soon as they could aurora canada opened in 1964 and through the company mccoy they had developed a distribution network in britain by making models in canada they could import to Britain and the Commonwealth nations without import taxes eventually Aurora set up manufacturing in Great Britain they had also moved into a much new larger facility off to him stead turnpike everything was coming up Aurora in 1966 Aurora hit a real milestone when it was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in the banner a you are there was so much going on at a roar in the 1960s that it really did take a book to lay it all out the 1960 were truly the golden era of plastic kit modeling it was a growing industry until it wasn't in 1967 Aurora had 284 kits in its catalogs more than any other kit maker but then the bottom fell out of the slot car market almost as fast as that had started in fact there was a recession the whole hobby industry and the personality differences between the three men who ran the company bubbled to the surface ape shacks wanted to move towards gains based on the wild success Aurora had with the game skittle Bowl gia Mourinho was convinced that the success was a one-time fluke John Cuomo was tired of dealing with Abe hikes and so at age 66 he packed it in and retired in 1968 with tensions still brewing Abe hikes got enough support from the stockholders to oust jogeum arena this flabbergasted the Aurora staff Joe had been mr. Arora but Abe shakes victory would be a Pyrrhic one just a year later in 1969 jogeum arena was sold his stock to an investment group run by Charles duiker in New York investor duiker almost immediately had checks removed as the president they created the position of chairman of the board for him but a year later he retired with the massacre complete duiker took over and everything changed duiker a harvard-trained businessman his chewed the haphazard fly by the seat of your pants way the previous team had run things he was going to structure Aurora like a modern business Tiger had been a vice president ironically at Revlon cosmetics and knew what a modern corporate structure should look like and Aurora was not it duiker wanted to push headlong in the toying games business even though he knew how ephemeral it could be he pumped money into departments such as sales and research & development as well as jazzing up the headquarters but duiker needed more money and got turned down everywhere after posting a 1.5 million dollar loss for 1970 the white knight was Nabisco who bought Aurora and infused badly needed cash here's where it gets a little weird Aurora did sell a lot of games in fact only Milton Bradley sold more their sales skyrocketed but they still lost money fiscal issues aside duiker face a new self-inflicted wound in 1971 in order to separate Aurora from other model makers they went back to their monster characters but added some new flourishes such as torture devices long story short it caused an outrage with parents Nabisco wanted nothing to do with it these were the same parents who bought their staple food products the product line was dropped any remaining inventory was sent to Canada Aurora plotted along with various ways to keep modelers interest funny cars nice World War 1 aircrafts superheroes some of these kits at large sales volumes but the 1973-74 Arab fuel embargo had hit the plastic industries hard by 1975 things had stabilized but Aurora got another knock on the head Lee Bickmore the president of Nabisco who okayed the purchase of Aurora fell ill and had to retire his replacement was not nearly as supportive to Dyke's policy of losing money up front to get a large foothold in the market it cut back on her horas financial support prompting dykes to leave dykes replacement was Boyd Brown and to his credit he tried to make her rural work but problems were rife many of the old-timers were gone and much of the staff were just punching the clock many of the molds were in bad shape Brown worked hard to get the operation working smoothly and they put out some good kits but market forces were just not in their favor essentially young people were finding new ways to spend their time and money 1977 Nabisco decided the best way to unload Aurora was to part it out monogram models bought Aurora's molds essentially just to keep anyone else from getting them but they knew that Aurora had some really good molds in their product line so those were now added to the monogram product there are molds kept churning out models until July of 1977 just in order to complete the order backlog that they had after that that were loaded on a train and sent to the monogram facilities in Illinois there was one final indignity for the Aurora gang the train carrying the now-former Aurora molds derailed and many of precious molds were tossed into a field many of them finally arrived in Illinois caked in mud some would see further services monogrammed kits others were tossed although Aurora ceased to exist many of its kits continued in one form or another not only as monogram kits but also as Adar which was started by Abe hikes in part with old Aurora molds that he'd least there was also polar lights Mobius Atlantis monarch and now round two vintage Rorick it collecting has become a subculture in its own right john cuomo passed away in 1971 abe shikes who had never been sick a day in his life passed from cancer in 1982 and jogeum Arino passed away in 1992 but the passing of mr. Aurora the company was truly gone well as long as we still build them they're not really completely gone Ravel the California kid Ravel was based in Venice California started by Lou Glaser shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor it was originally called precision specialties and like Aurora started out making plastic items on contract for other vendors but unlike Aurora it grew during World War two ironically it was largely cosmetic cases that made up a fair chunk of their work the customer Revlon cosmetics Lou Glaser wanted to make the cosmetic cases under a new name in a case of what today we would call crowdsourcing he held a naming contest Ravel was the winning entry because it had a similar sound to Revlon but it was actually inspired by the French word Revilla which means to awaken so precision specialties made the Revlon cases under the Revell named after the war in 1946 Glaser took a shot at the toy market and it was a rough for years for precision specialties they almost tanked despite repeated attempts to launch new plastic toy lines they finally got traction in 1950 with a 1/16 scale pull toy model of a 1911 Maxwell automobile this outdated car was made famous as the car Jack Benny used in his comedy routines car was a hit in precision specialties followed up with other cars in a series called highway pioneers the series was a hit and unlike most offerings in the fickle toy market demand stayed high year-round not just at holidays so more toys were introduced precision specialties was now on its way in the toy business in 1950 Lou married his wife of oil a student at Berkeley who initially hailed from the American Midwest she would become an important figure in rebels future in 1952 Lou decided to get precision specialties under the new plastic kit model business with a detailed model of the USS Missouri battleship this was no small undertaking and he was betting the company on it as part of this new direction he completely renamed precision specialties Revell the Missouri model was a huge smash and following its success Revell released a line of somewhat lower quality kit model jets like Aurora Lou had an eye for what was new and so he made what could be called a scientific wild that's guess at what the Navy's newest submarine the nuclear-powered novelist looked like Aurora and Lindbergh were also making kits of the famous sub that were actually much more accurate than the Revell offering but the Revell kit sold regardless about this time Tony baloney the artist who made the model for the Missouri molds showed some small detailed figurines he had carved and it was obvious as such figures to dead life to the somewhat rudimentary models of the time and this began a trend that is now a staple of kit models this also led to the 1953 introduction of Ravel's masterpiece miniature series Lou was afraid that the big companies like Mattel might get into kit model business and crush a small operation like Revell so he focused on expanding the line as quickly as possible this man taking on debt by 1954 Revell was producing an expanding catalog of kits with beautiful artwork provided largely by Scottie Edison and later hungarian-born Richard to Shady ironically cachet D had been a hungarian combat pilot who flew Stukas and focke-wulf 190s against the russians before immigrating to America throughout the 1950s Revell grew and sales soared the factory was enlarged and morale was high Lou Glaser treated his employees very well and was in fact paying above the industry standard of Ages he ate lunch in the company cafeteria and talked with his employees like the folks at Aurora he kept in close touch with the workers this makes a good segue into the person that lewd laser was originally from New York blue and his family moved to California when he was a kid hard-working and curious by nature it was well liked by everyone but he was also a workaholic much the occasional irritation of his wife royal she said he would sometimes fall asleep at dinner and then work right through the night his dedication to Ravel was without question in 1958 Glazer formed Ravel of Great Britain and later Ravel of Germany in 1959 they marketed their kits in Japan although they would bounce around between numerous vendors by the early 1960s about 20% of Ravel's profits were coming from overseas sales in 1967 Ravel which already had a prodigious product line introduced what many modelers feel is the best kit series of modeling's golden era the 1/32 scale world war ii combat aircraft series the first of these kits with their outstanding artwork like Jack Linwood was the p40 II it was followed by the bf 109f and the Spitfire mark 1 many modelers feel that the p40 was nearly perfect the line later at a ju 87b Stuka a p-47 thunderbolt p-51d mustang an f4 f4 wildcat an a6m5 zero and a uh-1b huey and a h1g cobra helicopters and later even a hawker hurricane these kits are still popular today sometimes commanding over $50 the series was so popular that more kits were added to the lineup in the mid 1970s including a Corsair and a phantom jet amongst others the end of the 1960's brought new problems to revoke the chief of which was Lou Glaser's cancer diagnosis he underwent treatments and continued to work into the early 1970s but the new decade had more obstacles where though one issue that began to crop up probably in no small part of the Vietnam War was why so many products were military in nature blue Glaser simply and honestly answered that those were the kits that sold Revell had an enormous number of non-military subjects but combat aircraft and vehicles still made up a good portion of their product line in order to stay in business they had to follow the popular trends or risk going under Revell had always been in a financially precarious situation they had a wide and varied product line in international presence but that required great expenditures this was the risk that had to be taken in order to be a major player in the industry by early 1972 Liu's illness forced him to work from home he put his beloved and very competent wife royal in charge on September 12 1972 Lu lost his battle to cancer both Liu and Ravel's Board of Directors have spent some time grooming royal to take over the company despite the loss of such a well-liked and respected leader Revell continued on royal brought a certain pragmatism to rebel that helped him stabilize and stay financially in the black she did not have lose desire to be the biggest model company at all costs she trimmed dead weight consolidated the business and got them back on a solid financial footing in 1975 Ravel purchased Rin walls tooling royal explained that it was a cost-effective way to extend Ravel's product line at a low cost Ravel's R&D and marketing teams found ways to keep Ravel relevant everything from movie tie-ins to sponsorships of drag racers and models of wacky cartoon vehicles some of the purists in the design department were not too thrilled about some of the wit and sickle models but they were a success in 1976 America's bicentennial year a model of the Goodyear blimp was made and it was a huge success if even only for that one year around this time the Space Shuttle was entering the American lexicon and Revell wasted no time in making a model with working bay doors Revell stayed nimble as the sales of dragster sag Ravel began producing a line of tractor trailers and semi truck models to cash in on this CB radio and trucker craze they even made a deal with Billy Carter President Jimmy Carter's colorful brother to make a model of his truck or more accurately a truck that Ravel had made and gifted to him in fact despite all the challenges of the 1970s 1976 turned out to be Ravel's pinnacle year with earnings of 34 million dollars but rising operating costs were eating into the profits things were okay for now but they could see the storm on the horizon and nobody was kidding themselves unlike their chief competitor monogram Revell had a high cost operation and something had to change in order for the company to survive Revell had to break the $3 price barrier for kit models which was considered industry-changing royal kept fighting but everywhere she looked Barbie dragons enough was enough and it was time to merge the company or sell it the 1979 revolution compagnie générale de jouer and a French transition team started moving in the French promptly out sourced much of the work and let many of the employees go someone got jobs of the new company but many did not it was the beginning of the 80s and a new way of doing business had arrived in Venice royal was given a seat on the board but in 1982 she left her Bell closing the door on a 41 year long leadership Kadri at Revell four years later in 1986 the French company decided that Ravel was not meeting their expectations and it was sold to the Odyssey group The Odyssey group had recently acquired monogram models and after 45 years have had to head competition the two companies were merged in Revell monogram the operation in Venice was closed and everything was moved the monograms facilities in Illinois the old Revell was gone but the name and the kit survived now this is where the two stories were revealed a monogram become one so I'll stop here and pick back up after I told the monogram story monogram models was founded by Jack Besser and Robert reader in 1945 both men had worked at common models before World War two but upon their return to Chicago they founded their own company they initially began out of a basement of readers mother's house they quickly found a place to set up a more permanent operation and again making wooden model kit ships that were easy to assemble and had a good look in 1946 they introduced a flying model called the whirlwind a flying model that did not really resemble any particular airplane but it was easy to build and flew well in 1949 speedy built kits were introduced these were flying models of real planes that came with many pre shaped parts this made them easy to build and as a result there were popular kits but as a line expanded the heavier pre-made parts often made of solid balsa made them hard to fly sometimes they didn't really fly at all but the kids liked the looks especially of the warbirds the 1951 super kits were introduced these were non flying scale models for display purposes they were made of wood but the woodworking machines the era could not really cut the fine details super kits sold but not as well as hoped and the line only lasted about four years monogram had moved to a bigger facility but the conservative management of Jack Besser and Robert reader meant that it also ran a tight ship so despite this expense monogram was on a solid financial footing a situation that would become characteristic of monogram under the leadership of reader and Besser monograms conservatism meant that they were a bit slow getting into plastics even though Hawk models had introduced plastic kits as early as 1946 many modelers thought plastics were flash-in-the-pan then in 1951 Ravel started making plastic kits in 1952 both Aurora and in Europe Airfix were starting to make plastic model kits even too old-school wooden model builders like Messer and reader it looked like they needed to get plastic some serious thought this is where the old school and the new school collided old-school modelers believe in craftsmanship woodworking an artisan practices veteran reader did not want to see those skills lost but they also knew that this is a business so they hit upon a compromise in 1953 to 54 plastic detail parts that could not be cut on industrial wood lathe were added to the kids to serve three purposes okay the models a nicer look they were easier to build and it preserves some of the wood crafting skills and as a bonus it helped draw the attention of kids it did help sales but monogram was slow to move entirely to plastics this conservative approach may have limited their market saturation but it also limited their exposure setting up for plastics was a hugely expensive endeavor mold making was expensive and time-consuming most companies took about a year from the time they committed to building a plastic kit model until it was actually on the store shelves after starting in all plastics with model cars and boats monogram released six all plastic model airplane kits they also included very nice store displays the models were packaged in uniform size boxes that had store shelves in mind they were all so cleverly marketed as a gift packs as plastic models grew in popularity so did monograms product line robert reader ran the shop despite his quiet reserved demeanor he was a stickler for detail and accuracy Jack Besser ran the business end of things with an incredible energy always a physical fitness buff Besser had a great deal of drive-in Stan and eat rates when growing such a labor-intensive business the two men made for a well-oiled operation when combined with their conservative proach this made monogram a very successful company 1957 like the other companies they started a line of military and armored vehicles but they did something that confuses people to this day they made some of the models in too near but different scales 1/32 scale and 135th scale there was no standard back then and monogram just wanted to make kits that would fit into a standard box little did they know that this would drive some modelers nuts the kits were not big hits and although they stayed in production no more military vehicles will be added until the 1960s in 1958 they started a line of rockets and missiles they even teamed up with famous German rocket scientist Willy lay on a series of possible future spacecraft these vehicles were all over the news at the time and at first sales were brisk but as these systems would fall out of the news or retired early by the military due to superior technologies kit sales likewise fell on in the series floundered at the same time other kits were enjoying great success as they got back into model cars by 1959 building models was listed as the number-one boys hobby with four out of five boys in America engaged in it ten years earlier it didn't even make the list Aurora and Revell were beating each other up as they vie for the position of top dog with the 1959 Aurora catalog showing 152 kits for sale versus Ravel's 118 monogram stayed out of the fray by focusing on quality not quantity monograms 1959 catalog only showed before kits and almost a third of them still have wooden components as with all the model companies the 1960s brought change the 1961 monogram having outgrown its current facility moved operations from Morton Grove Illinois having always kept a close relationship with they're now 350 employees and not wanting to lose these experienced workers Besser and Reader decided to offer a bus service to the Chicago suburb to ease the transportation issues that the move might have brought about for employees they did not really expect it to be very popular but in fact it was and continued for several years this is also when monogram put out one of its most iconic kits the 1/32 scale phantom Mustang for such a conservative company it was clear pardon the pun that monogram did not hurt for imagination this is because they hired a lot of very clever people to work in their research and development department more and more kits were edited there a line and deals were struck with exotic car designers like Darryl starboard and his futuristic predicta automobile as a response to Hawks popular line of weirdos which were essentially plastic models of cartoon cars the serious straight-laced team at monogram released its own set of model cartoon cars in 1964 and to great success monogram may have had a reputation as the choice for the serious modeler but business is business monograms ever growing line of quality products and conservative management could not save it from a changing market sales were still good but monograms management team was very aware that larger and better funded model companies were on the scene now and then the marketplace was only going to get tougher for example from Japan the Tamiya company had a well established reputation for quality that raised the bar everyone knew especially Jack Besser that if monogram was to survive in the long term it needed more resources that meant a merger preferably to a powerhouse company in 1968 besser reached out to potential suitors and to their surprise Mattel Toys entered the picture Mattel was the largest toy company in the world and wanted to diversify into other areas the problem was that kit models are not toys their hobbies their crafts it's a different market a very different market Mattel Zoners ruth and elliot handler promised to keep all monograms people in their current position and the deal was done in October of 1968 payment was made in the form of Mattel stock when the announcement was made to monograms employees there was a sense of dread about what was coming despite being insured by Besser and reader that this would guarantee monograms future the very next year 1969 Mattel let the entire monogram sales staff go despite their promises to keep all the monograms employees they handed the sales off to the Mattel sales department but they lacked experience in selling models which was a very different market than selling toys all the monogram still had a great deal of autonomy betherine reader had to go to California every month for meetings with the Mattel senior management every major decision required Mattel's approval one thing they did agree on was when they recommended to Mattel to make a toy like model of Snoopy's airplane Metellus all had play value and being a toy company they liked it and it was a huge seller in 1970 but development on serious scale models ground to a near halt the real problem came later as Mattel insisted on play value from models which led to some real duds probably the worst of which was the sky stick this ridiculous control stick that you could place a model on and manipulate with the joystick it really served no function I would love to have been at that meeting I'm pretty sure reader and passer or about to pull their hair out well Bester didn't have any but you get my point the monthly trips for California meetings with Mattel were wearing on Besser & Reed or both and Ruth handler wasn't terribly thrilled with vesser's constant pushback he was not used to answering to higher-ups and she was not used having her orders question but they made it work in fact in 1973 Ruth handler admitted that firing the monogram sales staff was a mistake and asked pastor and reader if they would like to take back control of the marketing they jumped on the chance unfortunately Mattel had some underlying problems that monogram did not know about and they were going to spill over in the monogram in a big way to make a complex story very short Mattel had suffered some decline in sales particularly of its hot wheels brand during 1970-71 and instead of omitting the losses they basically cooked the books covered it up the security Exchange Commission caught wind of it and the fallout was the handlers were forced to step down a new CEO took over at Mattel and friction with Jack Besser began not long after in 1975 the Mattel CEO went to the monogram Factory in Illinois and unceremoniously fired besser one of the two founding partners that started monogram was out of his office that evening Besser was replaced by Tom Gannon who ran the business without sentiment but wisely left Robert reader in charge of running things at the factory Gannon oversaw such new ways of doing business as having molds made in China and updating the plastics pellet processes and a lot of other things production was increased and mass marketing was introduced Ganon was a no-nonsense businessman who could be hard to work with but he was very effective he was also willing to tolerate pushback if something good was to come of it monogram continued to put out new kits in business crew 1977 they were able to acquire the now-defunct Aurora molds despite the train derailment that tossed molds into a muddy field many former or kits were put into production and the monogram name eventually even the popular Frankenstein figure monogram continued to come out with new kits and we're making models in every category at the end of 1983 Tom Gannon retired as president of monogram and shortly thereafter Mattel announced it wanted to sell monogram off Gannon was able to get investors and bought out monogram in 1984 only two years later the new investors decided to sell it again in 1986 Odyssey partners bought monogram and it already had an option to buy rival models whereas monogram was consistently profitable Revell was not but Revell had the larger product line and it received presents and now for the conclusion of the Revell monogram story although monogram was the buyer ergo the dominant company the decision was made to keep Ravel's name on top partly for tax reasons and partly due to their larger market presence and brand recognition despite this the Revell plant in Venice was closed the people let go and the molds moved to monograms plant Illinois as I mentioned earlier Tom Gannon retired shortly after the merger the models were still produced and marketed under separate names until 1997 when they were fully combined into the Revell monogram logo with the exception of the monogram pro modeler series after this there were a litany of owners in 1994 it was sold to Hallmark in 2001 Alfa International a year later gearbox toys then to the new Revell and in 2007 to hobbico unfortunately in 2018 hobbico itself went bankrupt and went into liquidation this ended at least for now the Revell monogram line with the exception of Revell Germany which is still operating [Music] someone may yet acquire the molds and put them back into production but whether the monogram name has permanently gone from store shelves or not they existed for over 70 years and gave four generations of model builders a reason to open a tube of glue and start building the early entrepreneurs have all passed away now but my respect for them has not their hard work attention to detail commitment to the Hobby not to mention their willingness to assume the risk of starting a new venture their business skills and vision allow them to flourish and guide an industry to maturity despite the eventual fates of each company what these people did during their influential years in the industry still resonates with us today from the captivating artwork that covered the box tops and stimulated our young imaginations to the sense of accomplishment at a completed model these pioneers amongst others helped spark the imaginations and creative spirits of an entire generation of kids and for that we should always be grateful [Music] you [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: maxsmodels

Views: 565,064

Rating: 4.9278517 out of 5

Keywords: aurora, revell, monogram, kit model, business, manufacturer, maker, producer, kit, model, models, tamiya, lindberg, amt, mpc, plastic, scale, airfix, history

Id: KBgCRQ2wIvw

Length: 47min 0sec (2820 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 27 2019