Winding down – wound down

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

I am afraid I haven’t a clue on how to reply directly to posts.   This is in reply to “My last four models arrive at their destination” in Static Models.

It keeps saying “log in  to reply!”      I log in again, and when I try to reply, it is saying once again “log in  to reply!” and I see that I am logged out again – I give up!

Anyway – to the reply.   The last two models that I actually built are Olivebank and Baron Vernon. (See below)  Neither of them are for sale, but just something to keep to remind me of what I once did.

It is a relief to have stopped making them, as I was finding all the vague communications that I was getting, too hard to deal with since I stopped taking private commissions some years ago   Examples:

Put me down for the next steamer.

Put me down for the next sailing ship.

If you ever think of building  xxxxxx I will buy it.

Let me know when the next is ready.

Have you ever thought of building xxxxxxx

If you do a “one-off for me, I will pay you in full before you even begin!

I want first refusal on anthyhing you build – the cost is of no importance to me!

—————-

Those who make these statements or ask the questions always seem to consider them “firm orders,” even though I usually only grunt non-commitedly, in reply.

Plus there was always the very real worry of models getting damaged in transit.

It all got too much for me!

 

[Richard SimpsonParticipant @richardsimpson88330]

I’m not quite sure what the complaint as regards the ‘vague communications’ is Bob.  Maybe if they were considered enquiries and you simpy followed up with a set of your terms and conditions it would then be left with the potential customer to either place an order or not.  I suspect many people simply didn’t know how to place an order and so started by making an enquiry.  It’s bound to be vague until they know how you do business.  If you openly admit your response was to “grunt non-commitedly” in reply I think you have done very well to have found enough customers to make the business worth your while.

I seem to remember a few years ago asking you myself if you would consider building a specific ship only to be told that you were no longer taking commissions.  From what I can see above, and my own experience, your business model and your attitude to potential customers has to be one of the strangest I have ever come across.

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Ah, I have found out how to reply to posts here on MB.  

(comment edited – Colin)

After I had worked off a waitng list of 24 models in the years immediately following 2000, I decided to stop accepting private commissions, so did not have a set of “Terms and Conditions

I had effectively ceased trading, with the intention of just building whatever I felt like, and disposing of them when the opportunities arose.    I was then subjected to any of the requests below:

Put me down for the next steamer.

Put me down for the next sailing ship.

If you ever think of building  xxxxxx I will buy it.

Let me know when the next is ready.

Have you ever thought of building xxxxxxx

If you do a “one-off for me, I will pay you in full before you even begin!

I want first refusal on anthyhing you build – the cost is of no importance to me!

How would you answer them?   If I just said that I only build whatever I felt like, and it would be available when complete, a standard answer would be, what are you buillding now? and if I told them, ten to one, they would say “I will have that then when it is finished!”  In other words they would be effectively turning it into a private commission.   I can no longer gain any pleasure building anything whilst there is someone lurking in the backround waiting for it.   I just want it to be a hobby again like in the days when no-one wanted them, and I had to work hard to sell them.     I am equally aware that my attitude is a flaw in my character, but I really can’t help it   I get such a lot of similar requests that if I went along with them and kept. a list in date order, it would be years long by now!

Some time ago, a plan of the German five-masted steam barque RC Rickmers came into my posession, and I began to get things ready for the build.    At the local ship model club, I mentioned having obtained the plan, but did not say I was about to start it, when one member piped up “If you ever think of building  RC Rickmers, I will buy it.”   Consequently, I abandoned it and never built it!     Some time after, I made a tiny brig, and took it to the meeting, when the same member asked if it was for sale.   As it was complete, I said “Yes, £150” and the sale went through perfectly.    Another time, I took the barque Marjory Glen along and another member asked if it was for sale, and I quoted several hundred pounds.   He agreed, and the sale went through.    Is it so difficult for people to just leave me alone until I declare something complete and for sale?

Yet another time, I took a completed model of BIs Sofala in, and had it on the desk.   I also passed a 10 x 8 inch photograph  of it around.   There were no comments, or any interest shown, so I took it home, and sold it a few days later to someone in the Far East.   At the next meeting, a member came up and said he would like to purchase Sofala, and when I said it was gone, he was very disappointed.    I pointed out that at the last meeting, he did not even come across and look at it, or show any interest and I did say it was finished.    He said there was no need to look as I had passed a photograph around!     This sort of thing is beyond my comprehension.

My attitude to it all may well be the strangest you have ever come across, but I can assure you it has worked well for me – -over 250 models built and sold all over the world.   Those who can put up with my eccenrtricies in this matter come out best.

It is all academic now, as I am all washed up with glaucoma, cataracts, bronchiectasis and cancer (prostate).   I am NOT looking for any sympathy with this lot, and none of it is new diagnosis.    If I could get rid of just one of these things, it would be bronchiectasis that has made me allergic to glue fumes.   The rest, I am not really aware of, as as age 79, the media has hammered into us that it is more-or-less compulsory at that age.

The three models mentioned are shown below.

Bob

[Ray Wood 3Participant @raywood3]

Hello Bob,

I think your issue has been discussed on this forum before many times, but your niche market as a professional model ship maker has been confused with a hobby modeller because they are so sort after and are collectable, my advice is never mix business with pleasure as money makes building things a chore ultimately.

Best of luck with your wind down.

Kind Regards

Ray

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Hello Ray,

You have got it exactly – but you would be surprised how many do not think it applies to them.   Years ago, I longed for success in the field, but when I got it, with a waiting list of 24 models, it was not as glorious as I thought!   I wouldn’t say I was a professional model maker, as I took it up following 31 years at sea.  

Years ago, after I was able to take my pension, I announced no more private commissions.    My only terms and condtion after that were – “You are welcome to contact me and ask what is available from time to time.   I will give a price, and you can then purchase or not as you wish!”    Then the questions or statements above followed, that to me was just as bad as a waiting list!  

I have regular collecter in Panama who sticks to my rules.  Once a year he asks what is available, and I give him a list, with the prices, and he normally purchases the lot, and arranges collection and delivery, but he never pushes me beyond that – so we are both kept happy.

I charge rock-bottom prices, but am “unreasonable” enough to expect my rules to be strictly adhered to and not given the “third degree” of what I am building now, or intend to build in the future.   

I believe the famous American model shipbuilder Chales G Davis had similar problems, and eventually got fed up of becoming exploited, and became very cantankerous in old age, but I can fully sympatise with him!

Years ago, I was asked by a young ldy if any models were available that she could purchase for her dad’s birthday (he was one of my regular clients)   I suggested Archibald Russell (see below, that was half complete.   We agreed to a price of £100.    He was delighted with his birthday present, but only a few weeks later, told me in great glee, that he had sold it for £400.   Did he need to gloat over it to me, and what did his daughter feel about it?   I have come across this sort of thing  many times over the years, so is it any wonder that I have become “awkward?”   

 

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Tell me who he is Bob and I will send the boys round! That’s breathtaking rudeness…besides which showing no consideration for the daughter. £100 is no small money for a present.

Ashley

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Hi Ashley, It was years ago – he is long gone now.    It is amazing the things that I had to put up with in those days, my “unreasonable” attitude usually branding me as the villain!

“When will the model be ready, I have already sold it, and he is agitating for it!” being one example.

(From an art gallery) “We have taken an order for xxxx on your behalf, please advise us when it is completed!   (then they took 40% commission).

From same gallery “We have just sold the model of xxxx for £150 to someone you know in Avonmouth” (I live in Preston)  – “We leave it to you to make the delivery (Then they took 40% commission).

14 months ago from an individual.   “Anything available?”     “Yes xxxxxx, £400. but you will need to arrange collection!”     “Great, I will collect it in four or five weeks!”    That was the last I hear from him!

 

 

 

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

I have just been totting up all the models I have built since leaving the sea in October 1992.   Not counted them accurately yet, but certainly over 280 – all sold!   They have tipped the scales at a total of just over £61,000.    Not much for 31 years work, when you consider the income tax have taken over £12,000 of it!   

Fairly satisfied with it though – 

Here are some of them – 

 

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Wow Bob, that’s some collection! That’s almost as many as I have built (if you ask the Mrs how many boats I have in the shed…..)

Well done. Any doubles in there or are they all one-off’s?

Ashley

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Thanks Ashley,

Most of them are one-offs, but I have occasionally made repeats when specifically asked to.   I have never really understood how the general public’s mind works on these models.    If I take them to the local model society, or exhibit them in exhibitions, you could almost see eyes glazing over if anyone’s glance accidentally fell on them.    But there was always a hard core of collecters who couldn’t get enough of them.   If you put “Bob Wilson miniature ship models” in a Google search, you will come up with hundreds of them over the years, but none of them advertised for sale as far as I can remember.    I continue to get requests for them, and numerous methods are employed to try and persuade me to produce more, but I really am weary of it all!    Some collecters have said that they want them because they are either obscure or semi-obscure, or because they are fed up generally with warship models.    They are mainly merchant ships, although I did build the battleboat HMS Dreadnought some years ago, and  also the heavy cruiser HMS Norfolk. See below.

Bob

 

[James Hill 5Participant @jameshill5]

That collection Bob is incredible.

I know that you’ve said that building has now ceased, but to be able to look at that collection must give you great satisfaction. I always think it’s people who make models themselves who really appreciate the skill of others and what you have constucted is the real thing…….in miniature. That to me, is more like a work of art.

Jim.

 

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Thanks Jim, but I  haven’t got them anymore, they are all sold.   We do have a few that we are keeping just to remember what I used to do.    We have fou-masted barque Olivebank, (See above) wooden barque Christine, tramp steamer Baron Vernon,(See above)  barque Gulf Stream, four-masted full-rigged ship County of Peebles, four-masted barque Colonial Empire, tea clipper Lothair and collier Gorsefield.    But when we have visitors, hardly any of them even seem to notice them, such is the lack of interest amongst the general public!   But I could sell the lot today to a collecter. if I felt so imclined.   This is the wooden barque Christine (fictional), completely designed and built by myself, and named after my wife.

Bob

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

I think Jim has it. If you have a “build” hobby, then if you see things like this, you want to have a look…regardless of the subject, just to admire the build quality. However if you don’t have that sort of hobby, or an interest in things Nautical, no one one will look.

Ashley.

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

There has never been much interest in them at the local Model Shipwrights Society either.   I believe the reason is they are merchant ships, as opposed to warships.

The following words were written by Frank Bullen in 1906, and hold true today:
“I think it may justly be inferred that the public do not want to hear about the Mercantile Marine, are entirely indifferent to the status of its members, and are content to take all the benefits to them as they take light and air – as coming in the course of nature, with the management and production of which they have no concern.
This opinion is borne out by my experience throughout our islands as a lecturer on the subject. Talking from the platform, I can always interest my hearers in any phase of the sea without introducing the slightest element of fiction. But I cannot induce them to read the matter up, nor can I find any evidence of the subject having been studied, however cursorily, except by persons who are, or have been, directly connected with it!
This I cannot fail to lament as being, in view of the paramount importance of the subject, quite unnatural and unnecessary, more especially when I see the intense interest manifested by people of all ranks and grades of education in games such as football, cricket and bridge, and the amount of earnest thought expended upon acquiring information concerning them, not only in their present, but in their past history.
Moreover, I know personally working men who have lavished upon horse racing an amount of brain-power that, legitimately applied would have made them a fortune!”

Frank T Bullen, 1906

It has never bothered me excessively, because I found life in merchant ships extremely adventurous, varied and interesting with a wide variety of ports of call, and all sizes of ship from a few hundred tons to quarter of a million tons.   

When my ship was “called up” for the Falklands, I volunteered to go as well.   It was very  interesting, but the continuous exercises and discipline in practicing for something that I hoped would not happen, was not exactly my scene, and I was glad to get back to normal after about a year of the South Atlantic.   I took this from our helicopter – my ship in the middle –   I would not have missed it for anything, but one year was more than enough for me.

 

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

There has never been much interest in them at the local Model Shipwrights Society either.   I believe the reason is they are merchant ships, as opposed to warships.

The following words were written by Frank Bullen in 1906, and hold true today:
“I think it may justly be inferred that the public do not want to hear about the Mercantile Marine, are entirely indifferent to the status of its members, and are content to take all the benefits to them as they take light and air – as coming in the course of nature, with the management and production of which they have no concern.
This opinion is borne out by my experience throughout our islands as a lecturer on the subject. Talking from the platform, I can always interest my hearers in any phase of the sea without introducing the slightest element of fiction. But I cannot induce them to read the matter up, nor can I find any evidence of the subject having been studied, however cursorily, except by persons who are, or have been, directly connected with it!
This I cannot fail to lament as being, in view of the paramount importance of the subject, quite unnatural and unnecessary, more especially when I see the intense interest manifested by people of all ranks and grades of education in games such as football, cricket and bridge, and the amount of earnest thought expended upon acquiring information concerning them, not only in their present, but in their past history.
Moreover, I know personally working men who have lavished upon horse racing an amount of brain-power that, legitimately applied would have made them a fortune!”

Frank T Bullen, 1906

It has never bothered me excessively, because I found life in merchant ships extremely adventurous, varied and interesting with a wide variety of ports of call, and all sizes of ship from a few hundred tons to quarter of a million tons.   

When my ship was “called up” for the Falklands, I volunteered to go as well.   It was very  interesting, but the continuous exercises and discipline in practicing for something that I hoped would not happen, was not exactly my scene, and I was glad to get back to normal after about a year of the South Atlantic.   I took this from our helicopter – my ship in the middle –   I would not have missed it for anything, but one year was more than enough for me.

This was more my scene, my first passeneger liner in 1965 – RMS Transvaal Castle.  https://youtu.be/8NsBnYOMEV8?si=FqT-0FAmx00NTdDF

 

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

My posts keep disappearing and then coming back later!    The one above has appeared twice.  The second one with the Utube link at the bottom is the real one.   The first does not have the link —

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

I have kept away for a while because the site has not been working properly with me.   It still doesn’t work when I use Firefox, but am now trying Chrome!   Here Gorsefield!

 

 

 

 

 

[James Hill 5Participant @jameshill5]

Hi Bob,

Regarding logging on, I think we’ve all had a few hiccups since the change but I think things have begun to settle down now. Although I don’t always manage first try , second go has always worked , so that seems to be the way now for me . Better than not being able to login at all. My system works through Norton safe site.

The model of Gorsefield is as usual, a great piece of model making.

Jim.

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

I am still having great trouble logging in.   Cannot manage it at all  with Firefox, so here, trying with Chrome.  Here a simple jig for drilling small portholes all at the same height.

I have not missed building models, and am now concentrating on drawing.

 

 

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Bob, in Firefox clear your cache:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-clear-firefox-cache

and also remove any Morton’s cookies:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/clear-cookies-and-site-data-firefox

This may help.

Colin

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

I didn’t even have to login this time – already there – My toolbox

 

 

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Two of my old models have turned up again Here is a link to the page:

https://www.jrusselljinishiangallery.com/robert-wilson/britannia-1874

I completed the Britannia in 1996 and it sold through Christie’s auction house London for £160!

The gallery is advertising it for $1,500 (£1,189.07)

The other is the barque Berwick Law, that I sold at Christie’s in 1996 for £180.

The gallery is advertising it for $900 (£713.44)

———————–

So you can see how the value increases over the years.

I have been told time and time again by shipmodel forums and publishers that models of merchant ships are non-starters if you wish to sell them, but I have always found otherwise

———————–

Their current high price does not bother me.   In fact I feel quite proud of the way they have soared in value.

[James Hill 5Participant @jameshill5]

Hi Bob,

I think you have every right to feel proud about your two models that have turned up. After all, they were beautifully made and presented. Makes you wonder what your total number constructed might be worth at those prices, quite a lot I would think.

 

Hi Bob, you have every right to be proud of your two models that have turned up again. They were beautifully made and presented. At those asking prices, it makes you wonder what the value of all the models you made would be? Nice to see them.

Jim.

 

 

 

 

[James Hill 5Participant @jameshill5]

Sorry for the double posting. I hit a button and the first post disappeared, so I posted again, only to find it had’nt gone anywhere. Senior moment I’m afraid.

Jim.

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Thanks Jim,

Neither model was anything special, and I really feel that they are over-priced now.    What upsets me more than  anything these days is when people say that my old models, built 20+ years ago are equally as good as my recent ones.   It makes me wonder why I spent so many years trying to improve –   Here are two examples, how anyone can say the Bidston

Hill is anywhere near as good as Donna Francisca is beyond my comprehension.

Bob

 

 

 

 

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