Mike: This is all great stuff. Nice model and an interesting story.
Thank you for sharing.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Here are a couple pics from an old issue of Brass magazine that was published for a couple years back in the very early 1990s, just before the internet took off. These show the tiny Orion Models factory in Japan. Only the big Korean brands like Ajin and Samhongsa had big factories, and possibly Tenshodo in Japan. But the Japanese were very much a "cottage" industry with individuals making the coined side frames, others doing the lost wax castings and final asssembly in these tiny factories scattered around Japan. Mike
Silly NT's, I have Asperger's Syndrome
That's a very pretty model.
Congrats on being the owner!
Ed
That's very cool.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
The 48 3. 3- is March 3 in Showa year 48 in Japan, which is 1973 to the rest of us. Kindly translated by a Japanese gentleman in another group for me.
Here is a more unique brass piece, not due to what is is but where it was sold. The car is a Pacific Electric "Tens" wood coach, built by Orion Models in Japan in early 1973. Imported by Ed Suydam that year. But this model is diffferent, there is no yellow Suydam box lid or instructions/decals that came with his models. This car was sold direct thru a hobby shop in Japan near the Orion factory. Most builders in Japan would make 10-15% over the order from the importer. This would cover damaged models and such during the production process. The good extra models would many times be sold direct thru shops in Japan to local customers as well as tourists and service members stationed in Japan. It was purchased March 3, 1973, less than 2 weeks before I was born on the 12th of that year. A translation of the decal is in the pictures.