Monday, January 2, 2012

Zvezda 1:72 Scale Black Swan

Black what??? Not familiar with that ship? Well, you shouldn't since she doesn't really exist. Zvezda's Black Swan is technically the Black Pearl, but since Disney has pulled the licensing rights from under Zvezda, the kit had to be repackaged as something else.

That would also explain why so many people had problems trying to buy her. I had to resort to eBay (from a Russian lady seller) before my local hobby store came through for mine. And with the repackaged kit, that would also mean that some time in the future, the original Black Pearl kit is going to be a collector's edition, that is if you manage to get her in her original box.


Its funny that someone from a scale modeling forum mentioned that it would only be a matter of time before the kit is repackaged so that she can be sold in stores worldwide, and true enough, here she is.




As far as I can tell, the only difference I see would be on the figure head, that statue thingy you see at the front of the ship, an additional structure at the bow to support the figure head, and the nameplate on the base.



And I already know of a few people who are keen on this kit as well. At the time of writing this post, I only know of a few places that offer them

1. Whatever Hobby , a relatively new hobby store owned by Bart Van der Taelen and his wife, Anne. I have written to him and he has mentioned that he has sent kits to as far as US, Australia, France, and Germany. He has a Facebook account under the name De Tempeliers Scotty, and is among the first few to advertise the Black Swan. Kits are sold in USD$.

2. Super-hobby.com, another superb store but they charges in Euro. There are also a number of shops in the UK who are already selling her, like emodel.co.uk and Modelzone and these are in GBP.

So if you are still looking for the Pearl, this would be a good alternative as you would only need to either scratch build the figurehead, or have on re-casted by someone who already have the Black Pearl (don't look at me though, I'm no pro with recasting).

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