and see
Airplanes on the main Comet/AUTHENTICAST page.
Comet Metal Products Co., Inc.
AUTHENTICAST
(Logos from 1945 Catalog)
Comet AUTHENTICST WWII Tank ID Box
An amazing (to me, at least) find turned up! The Rev. Timothy Henley wrote
that he'd spotted a WWII tank ID model box in a second-hand store and was kind
enough to furnish details and photos; here's what he first saw and what's inside:
(Thumbnailed picture - click on the image for a larger picture.)
[All pictures courtesy of and © 2004 T. E. Henley - all rights reserved]
The outer markings are so faded as to be virtually indecipherable.
[Many of the detailed photos which follow have been cropped and doctored by me,
but NOT at the expense of any visual detail.]
Three pieces were loose and are shown in front of the opened box and in detail:
[All pictures courtesy of and © 2004 T. E. Henley - all rights reserved]
It would appear that the pin on the turret of the right-hand tankette swelled from
IGC (InterGranular Corrosion), or the hole swelled, and it snapped off; that on the
M10A1 probably just sheared off mechanically.
Next, here are closer shots of the left and right sides:
[All pictures courtesy of and © 2004 T. E. Henley - all rights reserved]
For an even better look, Rev. Henley sent these head-on views:
[All pictures courtesy of and © 2004 T. E. Henley - all rights reserved]
Those models that didn't break loose are held in place by threaded studs which
project through the removable plywood shelves and have a nut underneath:
[Picture courtesy of and © 2004 T. E. Henley - all rights reserved]
The printing on the underside of the shelves is also so faded as to be virtually illegible on most shelves.
Then, icing on the cake, Rev. Henley sent me a very-high-resolution copy of a contact
sheet of individual shots of each model (it's some 38Mb and, no, I did NOT post it):
[Picture courtesy of and © 2004 T. E. Henley - all rights reserved]
(Thumbnailed picture - click on the image for a larger picture.)
I have identified the individual model photos as follows:
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30
31 32 33 34 35
36 37 38 39 40
that is because not all are captioned correctly; Rev. Henley did his best based on
information gleaned from another site.
I then cropped out and reformatted each one so you can see these great shots up
close (the crops are not to any uniform scales, refer to the above contact sheet for
relative sizing); I have not changed the captions but rather commented above each
as I deemed appropriate, nor have I verified the AUTHENTICAST model numbers (yet -
I sure hope I can turn up that little green ca.-1945 handbook) -
1 - a half TRACK; 2 - an M6, (not an MB, Mark II or otherwise):
[All pictures courtesy of and © 2004 T. E. Henley - all rights reserved]
3 - an M7 Priest (not an M&), missing its main gun barrel; 4 - M10A1:
5 - M18 Hellcat Tank destroyer (not M1B); 6 - M3 Gun Motor Carriage (not M8 Howitzer Carrier):
7 - {OK}; 8 - M8 (not MB):
9 - {OK}; 10 - M5A1 (not MSA1) - turret reversed:
11 - M10A1; 12 - turret reversed:
13 - {OK}; 14 - by it's modern, large turret, that's the Churchill Black Prince,
as I recall, with its turret reversed:
15 - {OK}; 16 - main and secondary gun missing (see 21):
17 - Churchill Mk II (not Daimler); 18 - another Churchill Mk II
(not a Covenanter Mk IV, a cruiser tank) [odd - these are identical except for the
post]:
19 - Daimler Armored Car (not Infantry Mk IV); 20 - the famed Matilda:
21 - {OK} (see 16) ["UK" is a post-WWII term]; 22 - both secondary guns (in
separate turrets) bent down:
23 - {REALLY odd*}; 24 - this is a PzKpfw III, but a later version with added
armor:
[* - look at the track on the Pazerjäger, which is nothing more than a special open
turret on an stock
PzKpfw I chassis; the rear sprocket is raised but is NOT raised on the standard
PzKpfw I (?)} (see below* - #29)!
and see enlarged views and comments below]
25 - PzKpfw 234{?}, turret reversed; 26 - PzKpfw 38t [Tschechisch (Czech)]:
27 - added armor (Model G is Ausführung G); 28 - {OK}:
29 - PzKpfw I (not III) {see #23, above*}; 30 - main gun missing {see #31}:
[* and see enlarged views and comments below]
31 - {see #30}; 32 - turret reversed:
33, 34 - {OK}:
35, 36 - {OK}:
37, 38 - I don't know what the A and B are for; these appear to be one and the same vehicle:
39, 40 - {OK}:
Looks like it's long past time for me to do the full photo bit on my 90-some-odd tank
models.
How I wish I could find that little ca.-1945 handbook!
- - - * - - -
Those two PzKpfw I chassis (23 vs. 29) are a puzzlement, indeed; here
are enlarged crops of the two for comparison:
(01 Sep 08)
* - The Pazerjäger (23 - left), which is nothing more than a special
open turret on a stock PzKpfw I chassis, has the rear sprocket raised
on the suspension, but it is NOT raised on the standard
PzKpfw I (#29 - right)! Odd, indeed; there must have been two
different suspension plate/track molds at one time.
1:500 Ships Price List
Paul Jacobs found this undated Teacher Scale 1:500 ship models price list, along with
a Comet AUTHENTICAST letter of transmittal dated 25 Jun 1954 (from which I have
deleted the name and address for privacy):
(Thumbnailed image - click on picture for larger image)
[Picture courtesy of P. Jacobs - all rights reserved]
(Thumbnailed image - click on picture for larger image)
[Picture courtesy of P. Jacobs - all rights reserved]
Mystery Model
Speaking of mysteries and ship (or, more properly, boat) models, the
Electric Boat Company (ELCO) of Bayonne, New Jersey, was the biggest
producer of PT boats in World War II. PT 109 was an ELCO boat.
They were 80' long. This model is of a late war ELCO PT boat.
It is 20" long (thus 1:48 scale), made of metal, very well made and
finely detailed. It is gray in color, with a dark red bottom,
mounted on a mahogany base with a Plexiglas cover:
(01 Sep 08)
[Picture courtesy of buyer - all rights reserved]
(click on thumbnailed image for larger picture.)
The seller told the buyer that this was a promotional model made at
ELCO. Another source told him that this model was built at Comet
Metal Products by commission of ELCO. The model was made in 1945;
along with a few others. ELCO presented these models to VIP's to
promote their product (PT boats).
Which story is true? Does anyone know the real story
behind this model? Everything the buyer has been told is hearsay.
We'd love to hear from you.
Old AUTHENTICAST Photos
As noted on the main page, I used to make all sorts of things out of shirt cardboard,
such as a fortress-cum-castle with an operating drawbridge, from which I got the idea
to build a rather large landing ship/craft, sort of like a giant LCVP-cum-LCI-cum-LST,
with an operating bow ramp, to transport my AUTHENTICAST tanks and AFVs and
troops across the carpet ocean to the carpet beachhead; I found some and here is
Fort Cardboard, with an M6 heavy tank crossing the drawbridge behind an M8
Greyhound armored car, with an M3A1 armored car and a Seep standing by (in lens
flare):
(ca. 1945 photo by and © 2005 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
Those are 37mm anti-tank guns peeking out of the bigger gun ports and 50 cal.
machine guns in the smaller ones, with kneeling soldiers behind the crenelations.
Perhaps the vehicles were sallying forth to the Battle of Counterpane (slightly
lightstruck):
(ca. 1945 photo by and © 2005 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
That's a black, rubberoid HO-scale Ju-87b Stuka ID model nosed in.
Now, if only I can find more of these photos.
I got my first Kodak Portralens ca. 1946 (still have it) and mounted it on my
Voightlander bellows camera, "arranged" for two belligerent warrior ants to be in the
proximity of the M3 Grant, and took a series of pictures of the resultant "battle" [this
one (cropped dramatically) turned up - wonder where the others are]:
(ca. 1945 photo by and © 2005 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
WWII Japanese Ships ID Box
[Originally posted 24 Feb 05 and heavily revised 26/27 Feb 05.]
What have we here? Yet another type of WWII ships ID box, one with only
eight (8) models in it. Happily, the finder/owner respects them (he
works for the U. S. Navy and will display the set). These were found in an attic
of a house purchased. The box is labeled "US Miniature Models Japanese
Navy Sup. 11" and stamped "1310" on the wood by the hinges.
The ships are labeled with their name and have "Comet Metal Products Richmond
Hill" stamped on the bottoms of the wood shelves on which the ships are
mounted. The names stamped on the underside of the wood shelves the
owner originally could read are the Tenryu, Mizuho, Izumo, Hosyo (the aircraft
carrier), and Kuma.
Here is the box and the top with the stenciling:
(Feb. 2005 photos by owner - all rights reserved)
Next, the box with its cover off, showing the contents:
The markings cast into the sides of the models were so faint the owner hadn't noticed
them at first; with the aid of a magnifying glass, they turned out to be as follows (the
alphabetical classes are USN classes):
(1) JINGEI CLASS JAP AS - (5) KUMA CLASS JAP CL
(2) IZUMO CLASS JAP OCA - (6) HOSHO CLASS JAP CV
(3) TENRYU CLASS JAP CL - (7) MIZUHO CLASS JAP CVS
(4) KATORI CLASS JAP TRNG CL - (8) NO. 13 CLASS JAP AM
NOTE - Hosho is shown as "Hosyo" both on the underside of the shelf AND in the
1945 Price List. The key illustration which follows synopsizes the data:
Now, I depart from my usual posting practice; what follows are cropped pictures of
the models as thumbnails, clicking on them will yield the full image of each cubby in
top-down and left-right order (the descriptions which underlie the photos are a
combination of the cast-in data and information from Paul Jacobs):
[ 1 - Jingei (auxiliary, submarine tender) / 5 - Kuma (cruiser, light) ]
[ 2 - Izumo (cruiser, light) / 6 - Hosho (carrier, aircraft) ]
[ 3 - Tenryu (cruiser, light) / 7 - Mizuho (carrier, seaplane) ]
[ 4 - Katori (small cruiser, training) / 8 - No. 13 Class (auxiliary, minesweeper) ]
(Feb. 2005 photos by owner - all rights reserved)
{Cropped thumbnailed images - click on picture for full cubby image}
The names are as read from the badly faded inscriptions and the cast-in
impressions and as corrected and amplified by Paul Jacobs.
There was something odd about this set to me; some of the ships didn't match the
1945 catalog on cont. page 1, nor did they appear on the
1945 price list on that page. Once Paul Jacobs set me straight, of course,
all are right there on the price list or in the catalog [exceptions on the price list: Izumo
is listed as a "Coast Defense Ship" {gunboat?} and Mizuho as a Large Seaplane
Tender {but Paul says it was a true carrier in that it launched and recovered scout
seaplanes, albeit on the water]. In addition, except for the ship models in
cubbies 1, 4, and 8, the models are of very old ship designs; I think it may be
a very early set, perhaps even the oldest extant. If anyone knows otherwise,
please advise me (I'm checking further).
[Originally posted 24 Feb 05 and heavily revised 26/27 Feb 05.]
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S. Berliner, III
To contact S. Berliner, III, please click here.
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2003, 2004, 2005,
2008
- All rights reserved.
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