A.J. Fisher

A. J. Fisher is a long-running American ship model kit and fittings company based in the United States, originally founded in 1925 in Michigan. The company was founded by Archibald J. Fisher, a seaman who spent years working as a chief engineer on the oceans and Great Lakes before turning his practical knowledge of ships into a business making scale model parts and fittings. Fisher ran the company until his death in 1957, after which it passed through the Irwin family (Robert Irwin, then his son Robert) until 2001, and was purchased by William Partridge in 2003, who relocated operations and worked to update and reissue the classic kit line; the business is now based in Newburyport, Massachusetts. A. J. Fisher is best known for classic solid-hull wooden ship model kits, historically produced at a scale around 1/8 inch to the foot, along with an extensive line of cast (often pewter or brass) scale fittings, blueprints/plans, and building supplies for scratch builders. Notable subjects in their catalog include Great Lakes schooners such as the Lucia A. Simpson and Challenge, pilot schooners like the John McKeon, the War of 1812 brig/privateer Lark, and various historic American sailing vessels, trawlers, and tugs.

Each kit traditionally included a pre-carved solid hull, stripwood, dowels, fittings, rigging, plans, an instruction guide, and a display base, reflecting the company's decades-long reputation among model shipbuilders for authentic, accurately scaled fittings and classic American maritime subjects.