In
''Frog Modelaircraft 1932-1976'' by Lines/Hellström a prominent place
is given to the Penguin collection of Vagn Espensen. In the August 2003
edition of K.C.C. (Kit Collectors Clearinghouse / USA, see "Credits/Info"
page) an article was published in which Vagn wrote about his collection.
The article was in fact meant to be added to the book, but unfortunately
did not survive the final editing. It was actually Vagn's second collection, as he had most of the Penguins as a boy in the early days of the war, including the now very rare Short Empire Deluxe. Like probably happening often with modelkits, his Penguins ended up broken and were eventually all thrown away. In the early 70's Vagn became curious if any Penguins were still around and to his amazement he succeeded in finding some. Eventually it took him hard work, a lot of patience and some luck, but after 20 years he was able to complete his collection. Several models took years to be completed, and for some, like the Avro 504k, the parts came from 3 different sources. Each model he finished he photographed on color slide and sent it to Richard Lines, who got more and more excited about them and included several in the book on Frog. Too excited actually, as the publishers had to stop him from adding more! |
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Part of his collection was photographed
on a kitchen table in his garden (Lines/Hellström page 46). He restored
many more models after this photo was taken, but they did not make the
book as by then it was almost finished. |
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I was very,
very fortunate when I was able to aquire the (almost) complete collection
in a very good condition. A total of 41 made up models, including a wooden
1945 H.P. Halifax (Penguin Series 9), one of the two Short Singapores
and the Short Empire. I thought it might be a good idea to make this comparison
photo, although I wasn't able to find the same kitchen table... I have decided to leave most of the collection in the present state, which means: no restoration. Especially a repaint would mean ruining the original decals. But from Vagn's article can be concluded that he sometimes had to use other decals as the waiting to find original ones took too long. In these cases I will consider a restoration, if necessary. In time photos of the whole collection will be added to the website. |
| One last advice from Vagn for collectors: never refuse anything, however small or seemingly unimportant. The parts or models you have double in your collection, may one day be very usefull in trading with another collector and finding or completing that special model you have been searching for years. |
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I was sorry
to hear Vagn has passed away in February 2005. Vagn, thanks for what you
did to help bringing together a wonderful collection of models. |
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One final photo:
the complete www.frogpenguin.com collection (August 2004) plastic and wooden kits, boxes, cars, recognition models and Merlin models |