He pushes back the loading opening of the drum revolver and sets the magazine – click! – into the container provided. “I’ve already shot my teddy bears with that thing,” says Oliver Stoll. However, the revolver is not suitable for real use, because it is only a few centimeters tall – and made of paper! Stoll is currently exhibiting his life’s work made of paper in Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm. Well over 700 handcrafted models of ships, trains, seaports and much more are here in the art gallery. The largest collection of paper and cardboard models and thus a world record, as the record institute in Hamburg has confirmed. This includes 230 ships and 60 locomotives from five different continents.
The designer keeps his oldest treasures in a small showcase. One of them is the revolver, the age of which can be guessed from the yellowed paper. Oliver Stoll grew up in the early 1960s in rather modest circumstances, as he says. “What do you have in every household? Paper, scissors and glue,” he says. “So the toys I couldn’t afford, I just made my own.” As a little boy he had a 1,000-strong army of soldiers, and they just needed equipment. It all started with a simple saber and then quickly grew into entire fleets of ships.
“When I was in my early 20s, I had it in my head to build a Russian fleet that would have defeated the Japanese in the naval battle of Tsushima in 1905,” Stoll recalls of his first major project. He built many Russian ships, but has since renamed them all as a consequence of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine.
The 66-year-old is interested in history and has read many books. Back then, before the Internet existed, he also got his templates for the models from them. He was well equipped there, but he lacked the visual specifications for one project: the offensive minelayer. “I only had rough documents, and the rest happened up here,” says Oliver Stoll and taps his head. That was in the 1970s. In 2002 he then saw a plan of such a warship in an exhibition, which corresponded to 95 percent with his design. Then his jaw dropped, the hobbyist says proudly.
Oliver Stoll with the model of a torpedo depot ship, which he worked on repeatedly for ten years.
(Photo: private)
He often compares his craft to the work of a painter, because ship designers can be faked in the same way. He prefers to fake British engineer William White; four armored cruisers in his exhibition that never existed before were inspired by White. Stoll doesn’t need much for his works of art: commercial squared paper, a pen, compass, scalpel and scissors – and of course glue. Although paper cannot be compared to iron and steel, the ships are more stable than expected when lifted. This is due to Stoll’s personal trick: he sticks the paper together in several layers, usually four.
Some models, like a small machine gun, are less than two inches tall. He takes the model in his hand; It’s almost unbelievable that these broader fingers can form something so filigree. Oliver Stoll just shrugs his shoulders, he doesn’t know how to do it either. The small models are only for the “ambiance”. If you look closely, you will discover some funny details: For example, he has installed a toilet in a wagon. “With the toilet lid open, well, who does that?” he jokes.
Some models are tiny – also in comparison to Oliver Stoll’s quite broad hands that formed them.
(Photo: private)
The model builder sometimes sits for several hours on his larger constructions. It took him the longest for a torpedo depot ship: almost ten years. “I started with enthusiasm and then I was just too stupid. I didn’t have it in my head,” he says. That’s why it first became a freighter before he could finalize the model. He does that more often, rework what has been built. “After all, it’s my own fleet.” He only needed eight sheets of paper for the ship, because nothing is ever thrown away when he folds it.
The 66-year-old is also fulfilling dreams from his childhood. “As a child, I had never been able to build a detachable breech for a bayonet,” he says. “I managed to do that 20 years ago.” The paper models will be in Pfaffenhofen until Friday, after which they will come in boxes – probably forever. “I’m not the youngest anymore either,” says Oliver Stoll. But he won’t give up tinkering. “I’ll have enough paper until I’m 120 years old.”