Scale Model Memories.

Scale Modelling memories
Today I took a ride to my nearest model shop, just North of Durham, just South of Chester-le-Street : North East Model Centre in the old Chapel on the A167. It was a 36 mile round trip for a couple if sheets of Plasticard and a bottle of Decalfix.....which they didn’t have of either !!
It is all well stocked with plenty of kits for most people, even several AMT and MPC 1/25th. scale kits, many which I had built several times before, but for my current American car pursuit there wasn’t anything to tempt me. There was a 1/8th plastic kit of a scantily clad ‘Vampirella’, to go with my 1/8th scale models.....but my wife’s face said NO ! Kit prices on the whole were eye watering, having not bought a kit for years. A long way from when I sold kits from a stall at drag racing events at Avon Park and York Raceway in mid ‘90’s. I used to purchase AMT kits from a contact of my sister in Brooklyn, New York, who had a model shop. I would buy a big box of 48 kits for about £2 each model, per month, for about eight months until the last order didn’t arrive, and later found that the shop had closed. I had no choice on what models would arrive, and occasionally I got a box full of duplicates with only a few actual different models (Mustangs and Corvettes) - but I retailed those £2 models for £5 or more on my stall - still cheap at the time, and great to be part of a sporting weekend.
My favourite modelling haunt when I was growing up in the early ‘60’s, was Listers in Middlesbrough - nobody else stocked American car models at the time, especially Hot Rods, and Revell and AMT custom kits - but I’m sure we all have memories that could fill a book.

Here in the states we had a nation wide pharmacy chain called Rexxal Drug. It is still around in different parts of the country, but nothing like it was before. It had quite a large model selection in the '70's, and maybe the '60 as well. The cool thing was, they held a nationwide model contest every year. You took your entry into your local store, and they put it on display. Every year I would drool over all those wonderful builds. It was always a large display at my local store.

You are lucky to be living in a automobile orientated country like the USA, particularly in the 50’s -‘70’s when plastic scale modelling was at it’s peak. Especially to me who was into American cars. We in the UK had nothing like nationwide stores that sold kits, apart from Woolworths, who sold homegrown Airfix kits - but I did purchase from there the early AMT 3in1 kits, with all the add on antennas, fender skirts and continental kits ...so I can’t grumble.

Thanx for the memories. Here in the U.S. model kits of all kinds were available in retail stores like Woolworths as well as wonderful (but small) retail hobby shops. By the mid '60s discount stores, think of the olf K-Mart chain and others, were cutting prices by 20 to 33 %!!!! As teen populations grew so did model interest. I truly miss those days, but life moves on and trends change. I am simply thankful I was there during the business boom.
Finally, some craft chains like Michaels and Hobby Lobby stock a fair selection with coupon offers that can cut a price by 40%. The hobby will continue until the last of us oldsters heads to the boneyard.

See below for rant

I’m relatively new to the model building thing.
Started 2014 ish and quit for 5 years then came back.
I found a post on here and it showed kits I’d bought back then. The Fw13b was a tenner and I bought one last week for £45
The only thing I have near is Hobbycraft and they don’t do the kits I want and if they did I wouldn’t buy them. I think part of the reason everything’s gone up like crazy is eBay fees and postage. I saw kits on that thread which were like £5 including postage. Now it’s nearly £5 just for postage. Places like eBay have bumped up the fees, £1 to list then about 20% of the overall sale is removed as another fee.
Some of the kits are ridiculous, £95 for the tamiya Astra dtm yellow and white version, £100 for a monster energy yzr, £100 A-Team van.
Everything I once had is now on sale for silly money but people pay it.
A hasegawa Lancia Delta kit arrived today from plaza Japan (won’t use them again, HLJ is way better)  limited edition with pe parts included, £55 from eBay and I got that and a trailer (£35 eBay) for £55 for both from Japan. Postage was £22 of the 55.
Everything these days is a limited edition of sorts, DM Models seem to be on the ball somewhat releasing 2 per year but even they are €60 each + postage. On the whole I blame the energy companies, they make billions in profit and it shouldn’t be allowed.

I agree to some extent Ash - Ebay has set costs and postage. I have bought things on Ebay with an advertised postage cost of £5.95, yet I receive an old recycled box with £2.95 in stamps on it. Sadly, there isn’t any options any more. Buy from abroad like the US and we get HM Customs charges on top - and we never know how they work out those charges. Model Shops are few and far between, but the prices are still high when we eventually find one. Buying anything these days has gone up massively, resulting in our pastimes costing more too. A small mini tin of Revell paint is about £2.50....four tins for a tenner - madness!
50 years ago, a tenner in 1973 was half my week’s wage and bought a full tank of petrol for my Cortina, plus a week’s grocery shopping !

Wow a tenner as half a wage and could sort you out for the week. Things truly have changed.
Japan - uk post has £135 limit before customs charges so I just stick below that. Tamiya paint is 2.50 from hobby craft, so I took half of their available stock when I went last week.. sorry model builders but I got there first