FROG 123P HMS Ashanti destroyer, 1963

HMS Ashanti
Scale 1/500

The kit showed the ship in its early appearance.

FROG model aircraft 1932-1976, R. Lines, L. Hellstrom

Tri-ang/Frog (France)
Lines Freres S.A., Route de Dunkerque, Calais, France (to mid-1964);
Meccano - Tri-ang Lines Freres S.A., 70-88 Avenue Henri Barbusse. 93 Bobigny. France (from mid-1964)
Period: 1962?-1972?

Early in 1964 Lines Bros, bought the Meccano group and - almost as a bonus - also got control of their French branch. Meccano was already a well-established name in France - much more so than Tri-ang - and the two companies were therefore quickly integrated, the Meccano name being worked into the Tri-ang brand name on most products. The existing Meccano manager became the new managing director for France. He had no objection to the name Frog - indeed, he thought it a good joke! - and their kit range was thus renamed Frog/Tri-ang.

A new box style and new artwork was adapted for new releases. For reasons unknown, these also reverted to the old suffix-P. Kits already in production were not changed, apart from getting a sticker indicating the colour series when appropriate (red for the Attacker etc.). There is no known example of an old kit being given a new box. The fact that the Britannia was released in this style is admittedly confusing, but probably only indicates that it was never issued in the early style for some reason.

By 1966, kit production was becoming uneconomical and was consequently terminated before long. This was partly caused by poor sales and partly due to problems in planning the mould swapping programmes. In early 1967 some 50000 standard Frog boxes were sent over from Britain and most remaining Tri-ang stocks reboxed - in some cases this was done by simply putting a new box over the existing one. But for certain kits, such as the ships, airliners and small-scale WWII bombers, no new boxes were available and old stocks of these were still sold as Tri-ang in the early 1970s.

FROG model aircraft 1932-1976, R. Lines, L. Hellstrom

UPC
Universal Powermaster Corporation, New York 10, NY. USA
Period: 1967-1970?

Compared to most other kit companies, UPC is something of an oddity. They had a very large number of kits in their range - more than 150 at one time or another - but they never made any moulds of their own. Instead they repacked kits from countless other manufacturers and sold these under the UPC label. The company was apparently more or less a "one-man show" under the management of Mike Tager.

The first Frog kits bought were the ten ship kits, in quantities of 15-25,000 pieces each. The R.100, Gannet, Barracuda, Beaufort and Lancaster followed in 1968 with the rest of the aircraft in 1969. Quantities varied between 10,000 and 20,000. The 5,000 Jaguar kits were scheduled for 1968 but eventually delayed until the following year. Most kits had new artwork but used stock decals supplied by Rovcx. Instruction sheets were standard Frog, except for a change of logotype.

The R.100 came without the cardboard base of the Frog issue. A UPC R.100 with kit number 6040 has been reported elsewhere, but this is probably just a misprint.

For four of the aircraft kits the situation is a bit unclear. UPC ordered 10,000 pieces each of these, and apparently at least some were produced by Rovex of all except possibly the Mosquito, but their issue by UPC is still not confirmed. Were they in fact issued, they probably got kit numbers in the 51 xx range.

FROG model aircraft 1932-1976, R. Lines, L. Hellstrom

FROG model aircraft 1932-1976, R. Lines, L. Hellstrom