Nicholas Kove

Nicholas Kove (born Miklos Klein 1891 in the village of Anarcs, Szabolcs, Carpathian Ruthenia - died 17 March 1958 in London) was a Hungarian-British businessman best known for founding the Airfix plastic toy company.

His birth name was Klein, but he changed this to Koves (pronounced "Kurvesh"), and subsequently Kove. An energetic and resourceful man, he was a cavalry officer in Franz Josef's army in the First World War, was captured by the Russians, interned in a camp near the Korean border and escaped across Siberia with the help of Catholic priests. It took him four months to return home to Anarcs. (Constant Scale. No's 25, 29, 30.)

After the war he worked as an under minister in the Béla Kun government, and then, fleeing fascism, emigrated to Algiers in 1922 with his wife Clothilde and baby daughter Margit. In 1934 the family moved to Barcelona where Kove started a plastics factory; at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in August 1936, they fled to Milan. There Kove patented a process for stiffening shirt collars, which he called "Interfix".

In the autumn of 1938, he moved his family from Milan to London, where he established Airfix Products. He obtained the first available plastic injection moulding machines, and for a while was the largest supplier of die-stamped metal belt buckles to the War Ministry^{[citation needed]} and was also a major producer of combs in the UK. After an operation for cancer in 1950, he took on Ralph Ehrmann as assistant manager, who together with John Gray persuaded him to move into construction kits. Shortly after seeing Airfix become a public company in 1957, Nicholas Kove died at his home at 252 Finchley Road, London, on 17 March 1958, three weeks after the death of his wife. Daughter Margaret Eliott inherited Kove's estate, became well known in casino and gaming circles and was a prolific society hostess in London and Palma, Mallorca and she eventually sold her majority shareholding in Airfix for many millions, most of which she lost through investing in the infamous CADCO pig farm scam which also involved film star George Sanders. Margaret Elliott died in July 2002. She is survived by a daughter Judy Boden,(dv. Julian Bray 1982) grand children Dominic Julian Bray (Surgeon) and Oliver William Bray (Businessman), and son Jo May-Prussak, an author and retired psychologist, also known as Peter May, an Actor.

Sources

• Arthur Ward. Airfix - Celebrating 50 Years of the Greatest Plastic Kits in the World. Collins. 1999.
• Plastic Warrior - Airfix - The Early Days. 2004. The Birth of Airfix. Paul Reboul.
• The Register. Margaret Elliott. The Times. July 22, 2002.
• Early Days at Airfix. Constant Scale - The Journal of the Airfix Collectors Club. No. 25 - Vol 7. No. 1 - 2006.
• Early Days at Airfix. Update. Constant Scale. No. 29 - Vol 8 No 1 - 2007.
• Early Days at Airfix. Further Update. Constant Scale. No. 30 - Vol 8 No.2 - 2007.

Persondata
Name	Kove, Nicholas
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1891
Place of birth
Date of death	17 March 1958
Place of death