About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Saturday, October 28, 2023

E is for Epemera - The 'Other' Gem

We often feature, here at Small Scale World, the output of Gem, Gemodels, Gem Models, the cake-decoration and novelty figures of George Musgrave's 'Gem' and Festival (as also supplied to and copied by Culpitt et al), he who also sculpted for Britains, among others, and I have mentioned from time to time the name change from Gem, to Gemodels, due to the threat (or veiled threat?) of legal intervention from the other Gem.

And here is a flyer for the 'new' narrow-gauge locomotive kits, which would have been mixed-media (whitemetal and brass) kits. Running on TT-gauge track for an in-scale rail-gauge, this was the existing Gem company which forced the name change on Musgrave's enterprise.

2 comments:

jon attwood said...

This GEM stands for George E. Mellor, a very well known name in the model railway world. Manufacturing a range of railway parts from the late 1920s onwards (I'll see if I can get a more accurate date from my old magazines stash). Loco kits appeared in 1964. He was still trading in the 1990s,and died in 1994. I met him at a model railway event in Camborne about 35 years ago, he was propped up by two attractive women (his daughters?) and waxing lyrical about modelmaking, I wish I had stopped to listen, There are so many questions that I didn't know to ask at the time.
I have built a couple of GEM chassis kits and can confirm that they are well engineered, go together easily and produce a smooth running model.

J

Hugh Walter said...

That's very useful Jon, as the 'other' Gem is George E Musgrave! And I'm not sure if that detail has been in previous explanations, Cheers!

H