I always loved the Parker planes -- although I didn't collect at the right time.

One of my favorite childhood memories was living next door to Henry Rose. He was a nuclear engineer, and converted his entire basement into 'Rosania', a village with N scale railroads, hundreds of aircraft, and hand build war ships. Many of the latter are in museums worldwide. 8-foot aircraft carriers with working lights, elevators, etc.

I spent a lot of my childhood in that basement! I inherited about a dozen of his airplane models (why, oh why did I pass those on to my nephew!), which became the basis of the Normanian air force!

The Roses' moved to Bay Head, NJ, many decades ago, and I was fortunate to visit them both before and right after Superstorm Sandy. He unfortunately lost a lot of his creations -- but they'll always remain in my memory.