Submarines

Thursday, May 15, 2016

Submarines

   Man has always been curious, so it was with little wonder that he first ventured below the surface of the oceans.  There are recorded incidences of people using "diving bells" to go below the water's surface. Basically, a large bell-shaped device attached by a rope (or a chain) and lowered by crank was described long ago. Later (early 17th century), the first recorded "submersible"was  described, having been built in 1620, however the description seems more like a bell towed by a ship. IN the 1700's there were a few "submersibles" created  as means to destroy ships, but they failed, and many of their occupants died. By the time of the US cicil war, both the North and the South had functional submarines that could "safely" transport men under the water's surface.

   The big leap in technology of course, came in WWI with the German U-boats, sadly at the expense of many lost men and ships. I often wonder why the Allies in WWII had not foreseen the use of U-boats again and had been better prepared, but that's another story.  However, I have a better story. A plastic model-making toy company came out with a model of a nuclear-powered submarine in the 1961.The model was so  accurate to a "real" U.S. submarine, that the U.S. government took issue at the time, claiming that this model would provide the Russians with classified secrets of that submarine. The manufacturer was Revell.

 You can find the story about the submarine below:

http://belatednerd.com/revell-sells-secrets-to-soviets-for-2-98/

Please click to be redirected to Bertoia's fine Website

Most of the submarine toys have a small screw in the top middle  surface. It's airtight, probably coming with a rubber gasket. When opened, a key would wind the clockwork movement. When released, the submarine would go below the water's surface and move about. I would think that this type of toy would mostly be used in shallow city park lakes, where the toy could be retrieved if it stalled in the centre of the lake.

You can see the wind-up key lying in front of the submarine. I'm always amazed at how the original box of a toy that is  at least 100 years old could have survived over such a long time span!

  I placed the word "soldered" in quotation marks, as there were no written descriptions as to how the toys were made.  I therefore "assumed" that soldering was used to add the railings on the top surfaces of these submersibles.

Although there is no dates assigned to the above submarines, I would estimate that they were manufactured in the later years (1930's-1940's) or even after WWII.

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always, have a great part of the day,

wherever you may be.

Stacey