Small companies with a big impact on model manufacturing, the history of W. Osgaard & Co. and A/S Fermo Model-Factory is one about success, creativity, fun and craftsmanship at the highest level. Let us take you back in time. To a time when air travel was an exotic luxury, and when one of the main marketing media was something as tangible as models of the newest aircraft put on display in travel agencies all over the world.
The first model factory associated with the later companies W. Osgaard & Co. and A/S Fermo Model-Factory was called Osgaard & Olsen. This company started out in the 1930s making large models of ships and steam locomotives. Some of the latter were displayed at Copenhagen Central Station for many years.
Osgaard & Olsen, W. Osgaard & Company and later A/S Fermo Model-Factory were all located at Jægersborg Allé in the suburb of Charlottenlund in northern Copenhagen. Around 1970, Fermo moved to Østbanegade in Copenhagen where it was located until closing in 1982.
Fermo at Jægersborg Allé in 1970
Making these models required skill, time and lots of manual work, and apparently it made the painters thirsty at times. On this magnificent September 1959 image of the painting of what appears to be DC-8 seats, the foreground is dominated by unopened beer bottles. This beer type, Faxe Tower, was an export strength beer produced until 1963 in Denmark.
