Even though I have too much stuff already, a few years ago I couldn't resist looking at this "hand-made destroyer" advertised in the local buy-and-sell paper, especially since, though it was described as electrically-powered, it was said to have a "small steam engine" with it.
The pictures show what I found. even though it's huge (the case is 4 feet long). I dragged it home, and a bit of questioning of the former owner revealed that his grandfather, an immigrant from England and thereafter a resident of Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada, spent over four years of his time in the 1920's building a model of HMS Lance, the destroyer that fired the first British shot of WWI on August 5, 1914, and assisted in sinking the German mine-layer Konigin Luise in the same action (first German ship sunk in the war).
It really is electrically powered--by the dandiest antique electric 6-volt motor I've ever seen--and the "small steam engine" is a good-running masterpiece built by Granddad, too.
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