Our History: 1972-1980 (content updated December 28th, 2009)
Joe Friend (Lester Friend's son) took over "Yankee Shop" about 1950 and operated it as "Friends Steam Models" until about 1972, at which time poor health was beginning to take its toll on Joe. In 1972, he sold the business to a new owner (not a member of the Friend Family) who operated it as "Friends Models" in Groveland MA throughout the 1970s. Joe Friend died in 1989.
Once "Friends" had been purchased by the new owner in 1972 (not a member of the Friend family), Friends Models operated during the 1970s. Its ads can be seen in back-issues of Live Steam Magazine of the era.
From the beginning, Friends Models was chronically.....in fact mortally......short on cash. Friends Models never sold enough castings to stay in business.
Today we joke about it a little, and say that the owner was "losing money on every sale, but making it up in volume!", but it was serious business thirty to thirty-five years ago and nothing to joke about. Only the owner's love for the hobby and the trains, and his hope that "business would get better next year", is what made the business last as long as it did. Despite sales, the business was simply incapable of letting the owner "pay himself back" the money he had borrowed from himself to buy the business.
The hope that "tomorrow" or "next year" would bring better business, more sales, and a profit, gave him hope. But throughout the 1970s, "tomorrow" came and went, as did "next year". It never got better. So by 1979-1980, it was over. Friends Models ceased operations and canceled its advertising about 1979-1980.
The designs of Lester Friend and Laverne Langworthy were off the market.
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In the newspaper clipping seen above, the Yankee Shop/Friends Models 3/4" scale 4-6-6-4 Challenger is shown at the New England Live Steamers track at Danvers, Massachusetts. In the lower part of the clipping, Joe Friend, owner of Friends Steam Models until 1972, is shown at the Danvers track.
