Hi
I have been restoring these orreries for over ten years now and have built up a considerable following, thanks largely to the appeal of the orreries themselves. I am a retired engineer who never really got to use my training during my working life and am now enjoying tinkering with orreries and bringing them back to life. My regular readers know that I withdrew service for quite a while after my first wife died, covid struck, I remarried and moved house, so apologies to anyone I was unable to help then but I am now settled in our new home and enjoying my hobby again.
For newcomers, I am an orrery enthusiast and I specialise in the Eaglemoss Build a Model Solar System (BAMSS) and Earth, Moon & Sun Orbiter (EMSO) partwork collections. I have complete orreries, kits of parts, individual spares, magazines, DVDs, binders, toolkits and glossy pictures so this listing is unfortunately pretty complicated.
Luckily I am a friendly person and if you are at all unsure, do please ask me a question and I will do my best to answer it. Please don’t order anything until you have checked availability with me and one key thing to remember is that ONE ITEM IS ONE SPARE PART, NOT ONE ORRERY. I mention this because lots of people have made that mistake in the past and it just leads to disappointment all round. Also, apologies to any overseas buyers – I used to offer you the option to order directly but I had to take it off as this listing is hard enough to understand if English is your first language and people were ordering without checking with me first and the postage costs weren’t accurate. Double apologies to anyone abroad who does speak English but I wasn’t able to differentiate. I do still ship overseas and I only charge at cost but I have to get a specific quote each time.
The orreries are beautiful works of engineering and that’s a phrase you don’t hear very often. I have taken loads of photos and videos to try and demonstrate this. If you are buying an orrery then I always make an individual video for you of your orrery including some proof of when I took the pictures as I have a fairly continuous turnover and I want you to know that what you see is what you are buying and not an old stock video.
If you know all of this already you may want to skip to the prices at the end.
Background:
BAMSS depicts the Sun and all of the planets in the Solar System, including the dwarf planets Ceres, Pluto (demoted) and Eris, so 11 in total plus moons while EMSO just depicts the Earth, Moon and Sun but in much more detail and precision. They each came with a series of magazines from Eaglemoss Publishing issued over 52 weeks and every week you received a separate part so that it took you two years to finish both. The series ran for several years ending around 2012. They relaunched both the BAMSS and the EMSO in September 2015 as a single run with 104 issues over 2 years. From their website, it seems that you can still buy some back copies but not all and you can no longer subscribe.
The cover prices were £5.99 for BAMSS and £6.99 for EMSO originally but the second time round the BAMSS was £6.99 an issue and the EMSO was £7.99 an issue. All the parts are interchangeable between the two series and the magazines are unchanged apart from the cover price and the EMSO’s numbering sequence as far as I can tell.
The magazines contain not only the assembly instructions and maintenance tips but also the story of how the solar system was formed, the history of space exploration, background information on the planets and the stars, biographical information on important astronomers and scientists, setting and calibration data, future predictions and theories, related science fiction stories and some stunning photographs and artists’ impressions.
I am always on the lookout for orreries in need of attention which I can restore but invariably I have too many parts left over which I can pass on to you. If I do get enough parts to make a complete orrery I get great pleasure from assembling it and getting it to work.
The orreries are made of brass coated steel and look absolutely stunning as well as being fine pieces of engineering capable of providing astronomical information. I have included lots of pictures but to really appreciate them I have made two videos, one in normal time and one speeded up.
Videos:
As well as showing you how the orreries work, these videos more importantly demonstrate that they really do work as it is easy to assemble them with minor mistakes which prevent them from operating:
BAMSS & EMSO in real time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVaJV9GX2Eg&list=UU5l1WYLK0frm9SovqDZbekQ
BAMSS & EMSO time lapse:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL6XQ053aeY&list=UU5l1WYLK0frm9SovqDZbekQ
Customers’ videos. The owners have very kindly allowed me to show you their home videos of them making their orreries from kits which I supplied. All of them are time lapses of the BAMSS:
BNIP kit
Second Hand kit (animation)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9l3pFEXEeM&list=FLLDP_ONSdh_S1_F520duh6g
Kits:
When I sell a kit which isn’t Brand New In Packaging (BNIP) I assemble the orrery and get it working fully before I then disassemble it again for you to rebuild yourself. This way you know that everything is there and in working condition. Inevitably the second hand orreries do sometimes have minor cosmetic flaws consistent with age but I can replace badly marked parts from my stock of spares.
You can also decide how much work you want to do yourself when putting it back together again as with the BAMSS I can just take off the planets and separate the base and gear train or I can remove the gear arms and gear sandwiches as subassemblies or I can strip it right back to every screw and washer. The only exception is the base unit which I leave complete as it protects the electrics in transit.
The EMSO does not travel well complete as it is just too delicate so I only sell it as a kit unless you are collecting in person and can nurse it on your knee on the way home! Once again you have options as to whether I leave subassemblies intact and I do reassemble the base unit having taken out some of the internal gears in order to protect the sensitive electrics again.
I am often asked how long it takes to build an orrery and it does vary widely, even for me, as the last few adjustments can take a very long time but to give you an idea, I recently built a BAMSS and an EMSO to order from BNIP kits and I video'd them using time lapse photography. There is a clock in the background which runs backwards - I haven't just disassembled two orreries and filmed them in reverse!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4u3XCk2Sng
Prices:
If you have seen my listing before you will realise that I have put my prices up, once after five years and now again after ten years. I used to try and keep the prices at or below the original prices but that is no longer possible thanks to higher fees. Since the relaunch, people are starting to charge higher prices for second hand ones and I have always been reliant on buying second hand orreries for reconditioning. These are becoming rarer and rarer now and people are paying more and more for them, so my costs are going up and although this is a hobby I do have to make a small profit if I want any pocket money.
I used also to charge the same for each part but although Eaglemoss used to do that, they were getting 52 payments for the whole orrery and in practice some parts such as the motor, control system, adaptor and base units were clearly worth more.
Also and most unfortunately the commonest
and saddest enquiries that I get are for planets on the BAMSS and the moon on
the EMSO. They are just too small and too easy to lose thanks to
carelessness, pets or grandchildren and too delicate to withstand rough
handling. My problem is that when I buy orreries in need of repair, if
they are missing any parts at all, those are they, so I am in need of them
myself. I do have some planets, but I can't
afford to sell them separately from an orrery as the orrery is then unsaleable.
BAMSS or EMSO spares: £8 each
BAMSS or EMSO magazines: £1 each. If you buy a complete orrery you can have the 52 accompanying magazines for an additional £25.
Complete Orreries: £270 BAMSS, £320 EMSO, £320 BAMSS BNIP, £370 EMSO BNIP. I know that this is more than the original prices but, as I have tried to explain, I am not profiteering and it is a lot cheaper than buying bespoke orreries which often are not as detailed or beautiful as this. The other advantage is you don’t have to wait a year before it is gracing your home.
Binders: £7 each
DVDs: Journey to the Stars, Hubble, Eyes on the Skies and Sixteen Days: Columbia’s Final Mission £7 each
DVD magazines: £1 each
Glossy A4 photos: £1 each
Toolkits: £12 each
Postage and Packaging:
For small items this is £1.20 each but there may be a combined discount if you order more than one item. Some of the items are heavy or bulky or both so the price will go up but only to reflect costs, usually to £3.60. Complete orreries are £20 for BAMSS or EMSO. Ideally I prefer you to collect in person if you are buying a complete working orrery as they are delicate mechanisms and don't always travel well. I now live in Tadworth in leafy Surrey.
How to order and pay:
Please remember to contact me to check availability before ordering and to discuss what you would like, whether it be spares, kits, extras or any combination.
Once we have agreed what you are ordering, that is confirmed through the eBay correspondence and then you can do a BUY IT NOW for a calculated number of spares to give the required payment, allowing for P&P. You are fully covered by the eBay guarantees.
I’m also very happy for you to collect in person and either bring cash or pay by Paypal.
Finally:
I apologise that the listing is quite so complicated, but if you are in any doubt, do please ask a question and I will be more than happy to help to the best of my ability. You can check my feedback to see how satisfied other eBayers have been.
Thanks for reading to the end!
Chris