Mobilis - in - Mobile

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1954. The curtain is falling on the screen, the Nautilus has just sunk, Aronnax, Ned Land and Conseil are sailing away aboard the iron boat from the vanished submarine. Sometime later, same theatre, same curtain: the Calypso is inaugurating half a century of undersea adventures, having just opened the great book of the Silent World.

As I am waiting to get older so that scuba diving can at last become accessible to the public at large, how many Thursdays (no-school days at the time!) spent dreaming and running around the Champ de Mars, Luxembourg or Square Saint-Lambert basins, Parisian spots dedicated to toy boats, ships, and of course that then-very restricted toy, the submarine!

My first was a white and grey iron JEP, probably the best-conceived product in its category, so revolutionary its working simplicity and endurance were for the times. Later I inherited my little brother’s GIL, a magnificent sea-grey beast with an electrically-timed dive mechanism. One of those reached a record depth of 40 feet at sea, unsurpassed since then!

Then there was the neighbourhood theatre, with its sword-and-sandals, western, monster and science-fiction films, my Thursdays’ other pastime, when the basins were dry in winter... Mysterious Island, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Fantastic Voyage, Atragon, the baroque Japanese flying submarine, the Thunderbirds’ Stingray, which I discovered in England at the same time as my first Beatles concerts in Liverpool... They are all to be found on this site, 50 years later. 

Over 150 toys, models, dioramas, in short, the nostalgic craze of the lingering teenager I remain, a state I proudly shoulder.
This virtual museum cannot hope to represent the whole of the submarine toys or models produced in the 20th century, but it gives a concise view of those items.

Let us remember that the concept of the modern submarine – just as those of the plane and the helicopter – was born in France: with that great visionary Jules Verne, of course, but also with Gustave Zédé who imagined the first electrical submarine in the 19th century, and engineer Laubeuf who invented the water-ballast and the double hull, inventions that were later reworked and perfected as early as 1914 by the Germans with the “success” we know...

Toy submersibles sound like one of French poet Prévert’s inventories: everything goes! Rubber, mechanical, electrical, chemical or pneumatic propulsion; made of wood, iron, plastic or resin. Radio-guidance has not been included here, as it does not properly pertain to our field, except insomuch as S.F. subs are concerned.

Any attempt at chronological classification would be impossible, given the diversity of genres; therefore we will first present the toys according to their power mode, then science-fiction submarines, subs in comics, dioramas, creative and wild compositions, and the sources (books, pictures, websites). As a conclusion: building your own collection.

Two “Golden Ages” can be distinguished in the history of the toy and S.F. submarine:

- From the end of the 19th century to the beginning of WW2 (with the inevitable gap from 1914 to the early 20s): this is the high time of the German brands: BING, MARKLIN, etc.

- Next, from the 50s on, with the revolutionary release of the Disney film, 20000 Leagues Under the Sea, and the very real exploits of the first nuclear submarine, the Nautilus, extrapolated from a type XXI U-Boot and conceived by Admiral Rickover’s team, to which Irwin Allen implicitly pays an homage in his fabulous production “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.”

From that period on, the development of imaginary submarines (toys or models) was ensured until the mid-70s.

I would like to thank here all those who helped me enrich this collection thanks to their obstinate inquisitiveness (and big withdrawals on my banking account): Fabrice Mestrot, president of Toymania, who recently released that wonderful book “Voiliers et Canots de nos Bassins” (Ships and Boats of our basins), Bertrand Bigaudet (A.C.B.), the Librairie du Jouet et de la Poupée (Toy and Doll Bookshop) in Remiremont, where reference works can be found; also the “Avec Passion” team, who materialized most dioramas, my old accomplice from 20 years, Pierre Vigneron, for taking most of the photographs in this museum. To conclude, the idea of constructing this virtual gallery was born while visiting Michael Crisafulli’s impressive website, “Jules Verne’s Nautilus”, an absolute “must-see” for devotees of Ol’ Jules and his submarine.
Crazies all