Ship models: from useful tool to coveted collectors items

Cruise Travel, Jan-Feb, 2005 by Theodore W. Scull

The craft of ship-model making is as old as ships themselves. Used for thousands of years as guides to constructing full-size working boats and ships, the earliest known models date back to the tombs of Ancient Egypt. Sailors working at sea with time on their hands made scratch models from whatever wood was available, plus bone, ivory and even match sticks--some of these homemade versions are nothing short of spectacular renditions, while others are delightfully eccentric. Children have played with ship models for centuries--the popular ones today are remote-controlled. The most elaborate and detailed models are of full-rigged sailing ships, warships, and passenger vessels.

In the steamship era, a builder's model was an integral part of the construction contract, and these have become the most intensely prized for collectors. Tank test models, highly important for nautical engineering purposes, were much less elaborate in overall detail, though their hulls had to be perfectly scaled miniatures to what would ultimately be built. Half models showed just half the ship when seen from one side, with perhaps a mirror backing to give the illusion of completeness or to show a rendering of what was inside. Waterline models exhibited the ship from a representation of the sea up, but not the hull, keel, propellers, or rudder located below the waterline. Powered models were designed for operating on ponds and lakes; and the very largest of these, one of the pre-World War II Bremen, could transport a human navigator.

But an elaborately detailed, and now prized, builder's full-hulled showcase model by a renowned firm such as Bassett-Lowke was designed to be as reflective of the real thing as a miniature could be, right down to replicating rivets, portholes, windows, railings, wooden decking, holds, rigging, masts, ventilators, lifeboats, davits, anchors, winches, bollards, mooring lines, skylights, and funnels. The boot-topping, hull, superstructure, funnel, and flag colors had to be exact representations. Most models were built to the traditional scale of one-fourth inch being equal to one foot, or 1:48. Another often used scale was one-eighth inch equaling one foot, or 1:96. But there are metric and many other scales, creating confusion if comparing ship sizes in a model gallery.

The best models, designed primarily to develop business by calling attention to potential customers, were put on display at the company's headquarters, in the director's office, board room, reception room, lobby entrance, or the street-level windows. In London, once the epicenter of world shipping, ship models by the score were accessible to the curious public in the City where companies' headquarters were located or in the West End passenger-booking offices.

The model display I remember most vividly was a large, lighted cutaway of Union-Castle Line's Windsor Castle in the company's Old Bond Street office, showing what life was like for a passenger on the great liner en route from England to South Africa. It must have had the desired effect because I made a May 1968 booking from Durban to Southampton aboard the Windsor Castle and another for running-mate S.A. Vaal in July 1976.

In New York, handsome steamship models once graced companies' midtown offices along Fifth Avenue and in the area of lower Broadway. Climbing the steps of Cunard Line's massive headquarters at 25 Broadway, one was greeted by flanking models of the Majestic on the left and the four-funneled Mauretania, painted white with green boot-topping, on the right; and then within the Great Hall, the Queen Mary held a dominant position to the left, with the Queen Elizabeth to the right.

In the mid '60s when I worked at Holland America Line on Pier 40, a huge outdoor model of the SS Rotterdam was mounted atop the pier facing the elevated West Side Highway, and it was gloriously illuminated at night. When HAL moved its ship operations uptown to the present Passenger Ship Terminal, the model vanished.

In Paris, the French Line passenger office on Rue Auber had its entire fleet of passenger liners, cargo ships, and fast Mediterranean packets shown in a miniature convoy in the front window. Around the corner and down the Boulevard de la Madeleine, the offices of Cie, des Messageries Maritimes had a large map of the world in their window with tiny ship replicas showing where every vessel (some 45 of them) was located on that specific day. At noon, a clerk would appear with a long pole to move the entire fleet to its new location.

Models illuminated from within could be seen in steamship lines' passenger offices in smaller cities and on promotional loan to travel agencies. The American Express office on Park Avenue in New York displayed a model of the Royal Viking Sun, later updated to the Seabourn Sun, for many years. Perhaps the largest one on view today is the huge Disney Magic model seen in the line's Port Canaveral terminal. Both these models came from the firm Maritime Replicas, which supplies models to today's cruise lines and also to individuals.