Old-Timers Berkeley Model Company

Old-Timers - Berkeley Model Company

a Taibi-designed 1938 Powerhouse, powered with a Forster 99 spark-ignition engine. The photo was taken by Don’s brother, Kevin Sherman.

Sal Taibi (L) sanctifies Don Sherman’s first Old-Timer build: a Taibi-designed 1938 Powerhouse, powered with a Forster 99 spark-ignition engine. The photo was taken by Don’s brother, Kevin Sherman.

THE THEME FOR THIS ISSUE was selected while I was thumbing through three old magazines I’d just been given. The January 1957 issue of American Modeler had a brief article about Berkeley models that was slightly more than a page in length. No author was identified.

The model press, AMA, and various individuals have done a good job of chronicling the history of the many people who’ve contributed to our hobby. Many companies receive good coverage within those biographies. Not all companies, however, were run by well-known modelers or AMA Model Aviation Hall of Fame members. Companies aren’t as interesting as faces, so they’ve received less coverage.

Out of curiosity, I visited the National Model Aviation Museum section on the AMA website and found that there is indeed a category that covers company histories, but it only has 26 entries so far. There’s also an open invitation to contribute to the project. Scanning down, I saw four company names that are probably the most recognized of the major kit makers: Comet, Guillow’s, Megow, and Sterling. The Comet and Sterling entries are quite brief. The Megow and Guillow’s entries are more thorough. Fred Megow and his company were also chronicled in the October 2014 and December 2014 Model Aviation "Old-Timers" columns.

Berkeley isn’t yet included in that manufacturers list. That seemed odd because Berkeley has probably produced the largest number of kits of any of the major manufacturers. I read that the company made approximately 150 different kits. I suspect that number included basic model names, plus the multiple versions and sizes of each design; otherwise, the number might be smaller. The Buccaneer, for example, was kitted in nine sizes for various power sources. There were boat kits as well. I couldn’t find a master list of all of the Berkeley kits. Are there any volunteers for that task?

Bill Effinger founded Berkeley as a teenager and guided it from its 1933 beginning through its closure in 1960. Bill is an AMA Model Aviation Hall of Fame member, so his biography includes lots of good source material about the company. The introduction in his biography mentions that it’s a collection of articles, including the issue of American Modeler that started me down this path. Not mentioned there is that even Wikipedia has a write-up about Berkeley models.

The New York-based company began as a garage shop operation, as was common among many startup businesses at the time. Berkeley was the name of the street where the Effinger family lived. As Berkeley grew, it moved at least a couple of times to expanded facilities but remained in the New York area. Bill, an avid modeler, designed many Berkeley models himself, but he also commissioned many top-winning modelers and designers to produce kits.

Berkeley is said to have produced the first gas-engine-powered kit in 1935, the Free Flight (FF) Buccaneer. The company produced a variety of kits and other model products, but it soon became apparent that the bulk of its kits were Scale models, which were popular during the so-called Golden Age of modeling.

Rubber power was predominant in the beginning, with powered FF quickly emerging, followed by Control Line (CL), and later RC. Throughout the years, many of Berkeley’s basic designs were adapted to more than one of these categories and were produced in several kit sizes. The company’s boat kits were also mostly scale watercraft.

Berkeley went into bankruptcy in approximately 1959. Duke Fox bought out the remains of the company, selling some kits under the Fox banner, but engines were Fox’s specialty, and after three or four years, the kits disappeared from the Fox line. Sig Manufacturing also sold some of the kits for a while.

I’ll speculate as to why Berkeley flourished and later failed. During the company’s period of success, there were lots of young, first-time model builders. I was among them. Many lived in cities with no easy access to flying fields, so a large number of beginners built Scale models, and Berkeley was most heavily invested in them. Scale models generally don’t fly as well as models designed for competition, and many Scale models were never even seriously intended to be flown by their builders, especially the World War II warbirds.

As model building matured, the building of rubber-powered models, powered FF, and Scale models shrank in comparison with CL, and then RC. Meanwhile, newer and more specialized competition classes were emerging. At the same time, general business and overhead costs for manufacturing, storage space, etc., increased steadily. Relatively fewer sales of built-up-type Scale models that were in the lower price range wasn’t a recipe for continued success.

SAM President Bob Galler won this Berkeley kit at this year’s John Pond Commemorative contest. The box is shopworn, but the contents are untouched. Bob has nearly completed building it.

A typical find: SAM President Bob Galler won this Berkeley kit at this year’s John Pond Commemorative contest. The box is shopworn, but the contents are untouched. Bob has nearly completed building it.

Brian Sargent launches Brian Chan’s Record Hound. Many of Henry Struck’s 50 model designs became Berkeley kits, but this one apparently got away from the company and was published in Air Trails instead.

here apparently was a sizeable backlog of unsold Scale kits that survived going to the dump. Even today, you can find reasonable numbers of those attractively packaged kits for sale, often having never been unpacked. Kit collectors specializing in Berkeley can quickly get a good start.

Getting back to the AMA History Project, I was surprised to find that after I’d picked out the four most familiar kit makers, most of the remaining listed names were kit makers as well. Obviously, there are dozens of other categories of companies that produced modeling accessories and could appear there, but it seems to me that after biographies, the next most important history category is the models and the companies that produced them.

I suggest that those of us who might have information, write-ups, or other sources about kit makers sort them out for the AMA History Project. The format could be complete write-ups, as well as simple source citations of books, specific articles, internet offerings, etc. For those early days of modeling, however, the time is now, while a few among us might still remember some specifics.

History is something we’re making every day. It just needs some "aging" before becoming of interest. Someday, the history of RC turbine jets might become suitable for the AMA History Project—and even drones. Well, that one’s open for discussion.

Sal Taibi Remembrance

Sal Taibi has been described by some as the most famous modeler of all time. His autobiography, plus contributions added by others, is certainly one of the most voluminous biographies in the AMA History Project.

The Southern California Antique Model Plane Society (SCAMPS) is planning a Sal Taibi Fun Fly to mark 10 years since Sal passed away in December 2012. Everyone is invited. More information will be released before the January 2023 event.

Sal was one of aeromodeling’s legends. His honors include the AMA Model Aviation Hall of Fame, AMA Fellow, National Free Flight Society (NFFS) Hall of Fame, and the Society of Antique Modelers (SAM) Hall of Fame. Sal was instrumental in the creation of SCAMPS and was a lifetime member.

He was a mentor and friend to generations of Free Flighters. The SCAMPS remembered Sal in January 2013 with the first Sal Taibi Fun Fly. This second Sal Taibi Fun Fly will be at Taibi Field in Perris, California. Bring your Taibi-designed airplanes and memorabilia for a day of relaxed flying, remembering, and sharing.