This cased ship model of the Barque DAVID MORGAN is a very good example of the Port Glasgow shipbuilding by William Hamilton & Co. and the modelers employed by this renown firm. The steel sail/steam cargo vessel was built in 1891, directly for H. O. Morgan of Liverpool. She spread 246'L x 38'1" x 21'6" with a gross of 2550 tons.

Mirrors at 45 degree angles at both ends of the case allow one to look down her length coming or going, with the bow having a gilt trailboard leading to her name. A box aft of the captain’s quarters has a nameboard as well, near the proliferation of portholes and angled cabin skylights. Other deck instrumentation and cabins are carved wood with black inked details, such as on the anchor cathead.

The cargo ship ran many routes, and Morgan sold her to Andrew Weir & Co. in 1896. Weir was a prominent Scottish banker who began investing heavily in steam shipping in 1885, evolving his company into the Bank Line of Liverpool until 1955. DAVID MORGAN only made it two years for the company, when on a run from Philadelphia to Nagasaki, Japan, with a cargo of case oil, she cleared the Delaware Breakwater and was never seen again. In this model, she sails and steams onward still.

More information to follow.

A delicately carved and assembled French Dieppe Model in a period-glass dome case. The ship is set on a piece of ebony wood, and some of the interior gunwales are painted with a polychrome red. The entire model is made of ivory, even the sails and rigging lines.

Whaleship built in 1910 at Essex, MA. This fine quality model comes from a large collection of ship models in a Los Angeles collection, assembled over a period of fifty years. Nice custom wood and glass case with a mirrored bottom

Designed by the patriarch of the Thornycroft family for his own use, the MIRANDA IV is the world’s first hydroplane. Built by Hart-Harden on the Thames, she launched in 1910 with her four-cylinder 110H horse-power Thorneycroft engine. When put to full throttle, the forward plane of the hull would rise clear of the water, and in speed trials the racing hydroplane achieved speeds around an astounding 35 knots.

The model is of carved beech wood, finished in varnish and mounted on turned brass columns on a mahogany base. This laminated ‘bread & butter’ construction was definitely directed and possibly carved and shaped by Sir John Thornycroft himself. The precise sharp lines give a good indication of her built-for-speed purpose, which she answered. The ship measured 26'L x 6'B and weighed nearly a full ton, with mahogany bottom planking and English pine sides. She was painted an English racing green with a white hull and deck.

Thornycroft raced the hydroplane in two Bournemouth regattas and at a motor yacht club regatta in Southampton in 1910, winning all three events. At the latter, MIRANDA IV covered 16 miles in 33 minutes. The hydroplane is still in existence in the Old Tailem Town Museum in South Australia.

Provenance: Fom the Thorneycroft Family, of Chiswick & Southampton, England.

Ship Model Overall Length 38 Inches with a 8½ Inch Width & an 11¼ Inch Height; Mahogany Base Measures 35⅞ X 6⅝ Inches with 1¼ Inch Legs & 3 Inch Brass Columns

The famous entrepreneur Frederick Vanderbilt, member of the New York Yacht Club, purchased the 1899-built Steam Yacht VIRGINIA, designed by G.L. Watson and built by Bath Iron Works, Maine. Vanderbilt had Cox & Stevens redesign the vessel and her complete refit performed by Bremesiter & Wain of Copenhagen in 1924. This quality dockyard model is representing this period, her second full dockyard builders model.