Warning 
Nostalgic model warship ramblings from the 1970’s follow.
Curiosity driven, how does xyz ship look, not detail accuracy fueled my teennage building motivation. I had difficulty in the 1970’s, finding quality pictures. Model building provided a work around solution.
Build the model, discover how the warship looked.
Warships NEVER looked sleek and deadly in crappy old black & white pulp magazines as they did as plastic models or in real life.
I’d always thought the HMS Hood ugly due to seeing crappy 150 dpi pictures.
After building a 1/600 Airfix kit, I learned HMS Hood was an elegant beautiful ship. This picture seems a fairer representation than the first.
The one exception that proved the rule, the Moskva
…which always looked like a garbage scow with poor sea keeping tendencies from every angle…in pictures, models or real life…
…according to my uncle who’d been in the USN.
My quest to acquire a 1/400 Heller Prinz Eugen appears nearly complete. It started in 1977, after building a 1/400 Scharnhorst. I felt at the time, Heller made the most fantastic ship kits.
BTW - the old 1970’s kit Scharnhorst still survives…
…but mauled as if the HMS Duke of York worked her over! The pinnacle of my model ship build skilz. 
Anyway, the fire 
burned to follow up with a Heller Prinz Eugen but there was a problem of kit availability.
The Scharnhorst had been my first mail order model purchase via a magazine advertisement. My parents had been very unhappy with that Scharnhorst purchase. They’d allowed it once but said absolutely no more mail order model kits. Even with grass cutting cash in hand, I wasn’t able to convince mom or dad to write a check for another mail order Heller kit.
What all the fuss is about…
That’s the model kit, I wanted as a young teenager in 1977 and missed. Zero availability at brick & mortar hobby shops in my area.
Several times over the next forty-five years, I searched for the Heller kit. One local hobby shop provided a Heller 1/400 Tripitz in the 1980’s but said the Heller kits weren’t available in the USA anymore via distributors.
Found one 1/400 Heller Scharnhorst for sale at an IPMS Nationals in the mid 1990’s for $250. I’d paid $17 plus shipping previously. Otherwise nothing.
In the late 1990’s, I bought Heller’s 1/400 reissue of Gneisenau and De Grasse in the hope the Prinz Eugen would become available. Again zero luck with mail order or hobby shops or vendors.
Fast-forwarding to present day.
Thanks to the power of the interwebs, this should arrive next week! Ironically, inflation adjusted $80 plus shipping is less than the $17 plus shipping I paid in 1977 for 1/400 Scharnhorst.
To be honest, I had to think about paying $80 for a model kit, seemed pretty expensive! Finally, I realized why my mom and dad had been so opposed to me spending $17 on another mail order model kit from France 
back in the 1970’s, seems extravagant with hindsight for the time period. Live & learn.
Of course, there’s newer better 1/350 scale kits but one of those wouldn’t have the same nostalgic significance.
Anyone knowing of a quality mail order source(s) for 1/400 scale PE or 3D printed parts please steer me in that direction. I’d like to replace the railings and a few similar features. Thank you.
Summary of KMS Prinz Eugen’s history.
