Models Replicas

Every fisherman dreams of catching a trophy fish, one he can put on a wall to support his tales of angling prowess. That's a fundamental truth of fishing. Another fundamental truth: Fishermen lie. "We get that all the time," says Robert Munoz, who owns Robert's Fish Mounts in Baldwin Park, providing fishermen fiberglass replicas of their alleged catches. "With this catch-and-release thing, more and more people are releasing--but we don't know if they're catching," Munoz says.

Larry Stark's sliver of imaginary Los Angeles, where it's forever 1937, is a Depression-bitten place of scrap yards and tumbledown wooden shacks, weedy yards and soot-smudged tenements. Hobos still roam with their knapsacks, and the great steam locomotives -- the kind that left him gasping as a kid -- still dominate the rails. "It's sort of like my little empire," said Stark, 63, who has spent the last six years building the 12-by-17-foot model railroad in the guest house behind his Burbank home.

Cars, bank notes and TVs were going up in flames one chilly winter morning in the parking lot of Universal Chung Wah Funeral Home in Alhambra. Thirteen white-clad relatives of Dam Lam, 87, formed a circle, each cradling a stack of paper models: a foot-long 747 jetliner, a black-and-gold car sitting in the courtyard of a 2-foot-tall, red-tiled paper mansion. One by one, the items were thrown into the fire licking out of a 4-by-4-foot wheeled container, charred from years of use.

The producers of the low-budget indie science fiction film "Moon" wanted computer-generated effects to create the lunar vistas and futuristic vehicles seen in their film, but budget restraints severely limited their options. Luckily for them, they had veteran model-maker Bill Pearson on hand.

Artworks are commodities. And like cotton, soybeans and pork bellies, when there's a glut of products on the market, prices take a nose dive. Consider what's happened in recent years to knockoff copies of bronze statues by 19th-Century Western artist Frederic Remington. Last year, prices fell 25% for replicas of Remington's Wild West statuettes, and two local firms that specialize in Remingtons have redoubled their sales efforts to stay in business.

Italian sports-car maker Ferrari is suing an Oregon auto body shop, claiming the shop builds and sells imitations of the company's famous cars without permission. In a lawsuit filed Nov. 16 in U.S. District Court, Ferrari alleges that M & N Auto Body has made several fakes of its sleek F 355 GTS model, even using its trademark "prancing horse" logo. Ferrari is seeking unspecified damages and wants the body shop to stop making the replicas.

News of the Jan. 1 closing of the Carole & Barry Kaye Museum of Miniatures never came as a formal announcement. Its founders and owners--estate planner Barry Kaye and his wife, Carole--never called a press conference.

On a recent hot day, Paul Boyington took some time out from his work to pose for a photo in Hollywood. The logistics of the shot proved to be no easy task. It turned out, in fact, that Boyington was too big to fit in Hollywood, so he had to settle for a photo of himself somewhere over Hollywood. "You mind if I stand here?" the photographer asked, towering over the corner of Sunset and Vine.

The sensei (master) of paper airplanes can't recall anything unexpected happening while flying one. "Always, something expected happens," Yasuaki Ninomiya explained. But the question prompts a reminiscence from Ninomiya, a retired Japanese engineer whose books on paper-airplane design are best sellers in Japan. It's the story of the roots of his fame.

They say the only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys. Tim Howard of Torrance has managed to turn a former hobby into a lucrative business selling high-priced toys to grown-up boys. The "toys" are model PT (Patrol Torpedo) boats, beautifully intricate, four-feet long, accurate to the last detail replicas of the famous small boats that played an important role in World War II. His company, T.

The first thing you notice upon entering the tidy white room is the pervasive smell of formaldehyde. Then you see four people in lab coats cutting into an enormous, dripping elephant's heart. A few feet away is a table strewed with a human head, feet and arms. And on a shelf nearby sits a large set of someone's no-longer-functioning intestines. Oh dear, you realize, it's another day at Orange Coast College, full of learning and fun. "How beautiful!" exclaims Ann T.

Cars, bank notes and TVs were going up in flames one chilly winter morning in the parking lot of Universal Chung Wah Funeral Home in Alhambra. Thirteen white-clad relatives of Dam Lam, 87, formed a circle, each cradling a stack of paper models: a foot-long 747 jetliner, a black-and-gold car sitting in the courtyard of a 2-foot-tall, red-tiled paper mansion. One by one, the items were thrown into the fire licking out of a 4-by-4-foot wheeled container, charred from years of use.

Forget Tom Cruise and that new movie. Rosemead homemaker Elizabeth Gonzales starred in her own version of "Mission: Impossible III" when her 9-year-old triplets came home from school with their separate fourth-grade California history class assignments. Marin Gonzales was supposed to build a scale model of Mission San Juan Capistrano. Christopher Gonzalez was given Mission San Luis Rey. Joseph Gonzales got Mission San Juan Bautista.

In the two years since an action figure modeled after Nancy Pearl first went on sale, owners of the 5-inch plastic toy have sent Pearl photographs of the mini-Nancy at the Eiffel Tower, the base camp of Mt. Everest -- even atop a wedding cake. The Pearl figurine outsells models of Da Vinci, Einstein, Freud and Houdini, and currently runs second in sales only to Jesus Christ. Not bad for a librarian.

Trekkies wishing to own a piece of "Star Trek" memorabilia better than plastic Spock ears or a rusty 1960s lunchbox don't need to use the Vulcan nerve pinch or a toy store clerk to wrest items for their collection. For $349, they can own an authentic reproduction of an original series Tricorder, a device used to scan alien planets. They can also own a Klingon disruptor -- a weapon used by an alien race -- for $249.

The City Council passed an ordinance Wednesday to bar the sale of illegal replica guns, and other illicit goods, such as drugs, from ice cream trucks. Councilwoman Jan Perry introduced the measure after receiving a complaint that toy guns were sold to children from an ice cream truck.

The distance between Northridge and Memphis can be calculated in measures other than miles. But to the crowd that marked Saturday's 20th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death by flocking to a quiet San Fernando Valley street to see a copy of the singer's Graceland mansion, such details are beside the point. "I've admired Elvis all my life," said Mary Tribble, 49, of Granada Hills. "It's nice to have something around here so we can remember him."

From his converted workshop garage, Anthony Tremblay has a terrific view of Los Angeles City Hall--not to mention Iraq's Great Mosque of Samara and the Mayan Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl. He also can see the ornamental windows on New York's Flatiron building, and the weathered limestone of the Great Pyramid of Khafre. No, he's not operating spy satellites.

Behind the black-tinted windows of a Buena Park storefront, electric-powered slot cars whiz around a grooved, wooden track, crossing the finish line in the blink of an eye -- and giving boys in their 40s and 50s the biggest rush of their week. Never mind the fast-paced video games favored by their children; this cadre of aging slot-car enthusiasts clings to a hobby that, for the most part, hit the skids about three decades ago.

A corps of state carpenters and painters spent more than 51 hours on state time preparing an elaborate prop for one of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's public appearances, a practice that a watchdog group says is a misuse of government employees. Promoting his plan for budget restraints, Schwarzenegger appeared at the state fairgrounds last month next to a 25-foot model of the Capitol, twisting a "spigot" to shut off a flow of "red ink" symbolizing the state's spending habits.