Feature Article
Strange New Worlds Issue 14 - June/July
1994
Vintage Spaceship model kits and popular
publications of the 1950s
by Elliott Swanson
Hawk Model Co.
This company produced some excellent models of space prototypes, satellites, and
rockets. They also made some wacky kits like the "Saturn Interplanetary Space
Vehicle" and a nuclear powered airplane. Hey, nobody’s perfect. Hawk went out of
business in the early 1970s. Many of the molds went to Testors.
Convair Atlas Space Station
513-98. 1/98 scale? Issued 1958. Designed by Krafft Ehricke for the Convair Division of
the General Dynamics Corporation.
This station is built around an Atlas rocket, and has a detailed interior. Kit 513
features Campbell box art.
Current value [1994]: $100-$150.
Reissued as 551--Manned Orbital Lab.
Current value of 513: $150-$200.
Current value of 551: $100-$150.
Saturn Interplanetary Space Vehicle
200-200. Issued 1958?
This strange multi-stage rocket isn’t a serious design prototype, but only an
attempt to cash in on the space craze, and has nothing to do with the actual Saturn
project. The box art (probably by Campbell) shows one of the crew entering the craft
through a door in the first stage fuel tank!
Current value: $150.
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