Ship models in 1:1250 scale have their origins in the early 20th century, when they were used by the militia as ship recognition models.

In the 1920s, Wiking, a German company, started to produce such models for collectors. Although they were quite simple by today's standards, they introduced the 1/1250 scale for the "mass market".

In the years following the Second World War, several companies, especially in Germany and Great Britain, began to produce this type of ship model, and the level of detail increased dramatically with new moulding techniques.

Today there is a wide range of ships available, covering all types of military and civilian vessels. The International Maritime Museum in Hamburg has a collection of almost 50,000 of these ships on display.

These types of models are not cheap, especially modern made models with a very high level of detail. Therefore most of my collection is bought as second hand models on ebay and other places.