Lucky you. Great childhood memories.
In 1955 I was recovering from polio at age nine. Fortunately I escaped with no permanent or residual effects. I loved ship models so my dad got this one for me and him to build together for Christmas, in the old yellow box (which I still have). I believe he thought it would be good small muscle development therapy. He taught me how to build models and work with wood, and we did a lot of projects together. But when we opened this one we realized we were in over our heads. It had a roughly hewn pre-carved hull, made of sugar pine (not basswood, that came later). The box still has the sweet pine aroma. There were a lot of dowels, small slabs and blocks of wood, tiny pins and a smaller box of glascene paper bags with some really cool cast lead fittings, along with a mimeographed, illustrated, instruction booklet and three sheets of plans. Works or art in themselves. I remember that the admonition" it's not what you leave out that your model is judged by, but what you put in" as a hint as to how excruciating the details actually needed to be at that tiny scale.
So I carted it around for fifty years and started it in 2005. I got the hull carved and painted, deck, railings, bowsprit and jibboom installed and then realized I still didn't know enough to carry on, especially at that tiny scale. So eventually, with a few more models and restorations under my belt, I got up to speed and finally finished in 2021 as a Covid diversion. I kind of guessed at what she might have looked like given some analogs and some on line research, thinking "As soon as I'm finished someone will publish the definitive work on building a historically accurate model of the ship in granular detail." That's exactly what happened with the three volume publication of:
"Modeling The Extreme Clipper 'Young America' 1853" by Edward J. Tosti -SeaWatch Books. I was surprise at how close I got. So, not wanting to spend another three years rigging her, I finished her "dockyard style", declared victory and moved on.
It did, indeed, prove to be intense small muscle development therapy!
boy, Benjamin Latham, and Mayflower. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get to them. Larger models are easier to rig, especially schooners. Keep up the good work