Category:Tremo Models

Toy Brands and Manufacturers

Tremo Models

1937 - 1940

Tremo Models "Fighting Ships of All Nations" [image info]

Tremo Models "Famous Fighting Ships of the British Navy", Set No.4 [image info]

1937: Advert in Games and Toys, July [image info]

1937: Advert in Games and Toys, November [image info]

TREMO MODELS (with "Tremo" short for for Treforest Mouldings) produced a range of rather nice painted cast lead 1:1200 waterline ship models between around 1937 and the end of the Second World War. the company logo was the superimposed letters "T" and "M", standing for either Treforest Mouldings or Tremo Models.

Tremo HMS Hood

Tremo HMS Exeter

Tremo HMS Valiant

Identification

As well as showing an "enthusiast's" level of class detail, Tremo ships are quite weighty, and make a point of having fully swivelling gun turrets (the HMS Valiant model actually has ten swivelling turrets, two large front, two large rear, and a cluster of six tiny turrets midships).

Tremo "TM" moulded into a hollow waterline ship base. The markings were often much fainter than this.

The hollow bases tend to carry lettering, but it's often so faint as to be barely discernable. The most readable lettering is usually "BRITISH MADE" in bold capitals ("British Made" rather than "Made in England", since the factory was in Wales), and a large but faint thin line version of the TM logo. Some models also carry a very faint ship's name – we don't know whether the others technically didn't carry a name, or whether it's just that the name was too faint to successfully appear on some or all of the models.

1939 British Industries Fair:

Treforest Mouldings Ltd.

Fleets of the world were a prominent feature of thi stand at the B.I.F., for this firm specialize in waterline scale-model ships. Treforest Mouldings Ltd. issue seven interesting catalogues dealing with this side of their productions. They comprise the British Fleet, the United States Navy, the German Fleet, the French Fleet, the Italian Fleet, the Japanese Fleet and various countries. All the ships are true scale models and most realistic in appearance. The fleets are complete up to the latest additions to the various navies.
Other lines manufactured by this firm, who have ther headquarters at Treforest Trading Estate, near Cardiff, include wooden toys, Stenolite animals and garden gnomes and pliable lead soldiers. The selling agents are J. Kohnstam Ltd., 2 Bradford Avenue, London, E.C.1.

— , -, , Games and Toys, , April 1939

Addresses

Treforest Mouldings Ltd., Treforest Trading Estate, South Wales

Treforest Estate

The Treforest Trading Estate (now Treforest Industrial Estate) was founded in 1936 by the nonprofit South Wales and Monmouthshire Trading Estates Ltd. (1936-), which was set up to create a series of trading estates around Wales. The Treforest estate had tenants by 1937, and ... due to the political climate ... was attractive to established European traders and manufacturers fleeing from Nazi Germany and looking for factory space to found new businesses in Britain. With the outbreak of WW2 in 1939, parts of the estate were taken over by the government for war work.

More recently, the estate was probably best known for BBC Wales' Upper Boat Studios, which was used for filming of some episodes of Doctor Who, Torchwood and Sherlock.