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Spare Parts
For non-modeling topics and those without a home elsewhere.
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HARV
#012
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Posted: Friday, March 08, 2019 - 05:56 AM UTC


Randy
ivanhoe6
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Posted: Friday, March 08, 2019 - 08:43 AM UTC
I sure do. But after all, I'm a senior citizen now a days. The grocery store also had a small toy section with bagged Airfix kits.
Where I grew up, Iron Mountain, MI, they had a hobby shop, Khouri's. Lot's & lots of kits back in the day when there wasn't the variety that we have now a days. $1 Hawk, Aurora & Monogram kits, $2 AMT cars, same molds but different box art & decals are $20+ now. Painting models with the $0.15 square bottles of Testors and a single paint brush who's bristles were curved from permanently leaving the brush in a little bottle of gasoline. Man, those were the days..... Thanks for the trip down memory lane Harv !
retiredyank
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Posted: Friday, March 08, 2019 - 09:01 AM UTC
Small town trap, here. I was in awe of the whole 20 kits available at my only local hobby store and I guess the 10, at Wal-Mart. It wasn't until 10 years ago that I discovered the internet.
RobinNilsson
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Posted: Friday, March 08, 2019 - 11:32 PM UTC
When I was young the toy stores et.c in Sweden were pressured by the pacifists to remove "war toys" which meant all kits of military land vehicles (i.e. Airfix, Italaerei, Revell, Tamiya).
Aircraft were still allowed though for some strange reason ...
I think they had a time limit set at 1914 or so, anything before that was OK ...
Now with internet I have access to a "hobby store" which is huge compared to the 50 or so Airfix aircraft kits in the shops back then.
No internet
No mobile phones
Only 2 channels on the TV
Only Airfix aircraft kits
On the other hand I was a lot younger when I was young ...
/ Robin
Scarred
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Posted: Saturday, March 09, 2019 - 04:56 AM UTC
Woolworths, K-mart, there was a pharmacy near my high school that carried Tamiya, Hasagawa, Testors and Monogram kits plus paints and supplies, there were grocery stores that carried kits too. Bottles and cans of Pactra, Testors and the good old tubes of Testors glue. For exotic supplies I still had to hit the LHS which was a 30 minute drive from home and I had to beg mom for a ride there being no such thing as mass transit up here in those days.
Tojo72
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Posted: Saturday, March 09, 2019 - 09:00 AM UTC
That one is an oldie but a goodie
Growing up in NJ we had some great stores for kits

Two Guys
EJ Korvette
Branch Brook

to name a few,not to mention so many dedicated model shops


HARV
#012
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Posted: Wednesday, March 13, 2019 - 09:19 AM UTC
We had a Woolworths and a Gibson's. They had a pretty decent selection for a small town.

Thanks,
Randy
CReading
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Posted: Wednesday, March 13, 2019 - 10:09 AM UTC
Yeah, I remember back in ancient times when I was young there were hobby stores with kits stacked from floor to ceiling. Everything from plastic to balsa....trains to planes.
When I got back into modeling in the early 90's our local Long's Drugstore had a pretty decent selection including the occasional Dragon kit (my wife got me a Dragon Hetzer for $4.00 because the box had been opened). We also had a toy store with an assistant manager who built models so their model section was always well stocked with good stuff.
Fast forward to 2019. All the hobby stores are gone. All the stores that had a model section no longer carry them. It's pretty sad but the internet is about all that is left unless I want to travel 60-70 miles to a Hobbytown that really doesn't stock a whole lot of things that hold an interest for me.
Now days I usually hold off until I can buy enough online($$$) so I qualify for free shipping.
Gone are the days of buying a single kit online when the shipping is almost equal to the kit cost.
Rant over,
Cheers,
C.
bbailey_33
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Posted: Thursday, March 14, 2019 - 06:29 AM UTC
I'm old too
Down south in FL we had "Toy King"
Internet shopping has def soiled us.
sgtreef
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Posted: Wednesday, April 03, 2019 - 11:55 AM UTC
Good memories,even the 50 cent airfix at the candy stores.

Great days indeed.
timmyp
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Posted: Wednesday, April 03, 2019 - 03:22 PM UTC

Quoted Text



Randy


Yeah, I sure remember those days. For me, it was the local JC Penny store at the mall...just like in the picture, they had a wall that was filled with models, of all kinds. Sure miss those days!

The hobby shop I went to was called Strete Hobbies, it was bit more geared to model train enthusiasts (I remember seeing lots of all-brass steam locomotives in the display counters). For a while, they even had a miniature race car layout in the back of the shop. Plus, since it was next door to a bakery, it always smelled of rising dough. It was worth it just to hand around for the aroma! Of course, all this was in the mid-70's, before the oil embargo, Watergate, Jimmy Carter, and the Iranian hostage crisis.

At the far end of my street where I grew up, there was King's Drugstore. While not having an entire wall devoted to models, they had a very nice section for models, plus paints & glue. And you didn't have to have permission from your parents, or be a certain age, to buy glue and paint!
timmyp
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Posted: Wednesday, April 03, 2019 - 03:25 PM UTC

Quoted Text

When I was young the toy stores et.c in Sweden were pressured by the pacifists to remove "war toys" which meant all kits of military land vehicles (i.e. Airfix, Italaerei, Revell, Tamiya).
Aircraft were still allowed though for some strange reason ...

/ Robin


Hmmm, sounds like a case of the tyranny of the minority!!

Tim
RobinNilsson
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Posted: Wednesday, April 03, 2019 - 09:16 PM UTC

Quoted Text


Quoted Text

When I was young the toy stores et.c in Sweden were pressured by the pacifists to remove "war toys" which meant all kits of military land vehicles (i.e. Airfix, Italaerei, Revell, Tamiya).
Aircraft were still allowed though for some strange reason ...

/ Robin


Hmmm, sounds like a case of the tyranny of the minority!!

Tim


Yeah, sums it up pretty well.
It lasted for a few years and then everybody sort of quietly forgot about it.

When I was 14 or 15 I spent a few weeks in Stockholm (the capital) and visited a small shop, Eskader Hobby, which was sort of a time capsule from the late 1940'ies. I bet there was dust on the top shelves which had settled there 1945.
It also had smell of coal fired stove, cigars, old fashioned cooking, different types of wood and of course old dust.
They had trains, ship models, kits to build your own steam engine, strict ideas about quality vs garbage (I asked about a brand of wooden ship models which the owner disapproved of and got an education about proper materials to use, phew, my ears were glowing afterwards ...)
They also had a LARGE selection of ROCO Minitanks (1/87th or H0). When I commented on this and the "ban" on that kind of models he just sneered and said they didn't care since they were supplier to the Swedish Army HQ (General Staff) of these models since they were used for table top war gaming/education. I promply bought some trucks and jeeps for my H0 layout. They moved, maybe 15-17 years ago, to new locations, very neat and tidy inside but now I think they have slipped back into their old habits. In the old shop the floor are available to customers was something like 4x4 feet, two customers at the same time was a crowd, 3 was getting very personal and the fourth staid outside until the "crowd" dispersed.

http://www.eskader.se/stores.php
I think the inside view is from when they moved in ....

/ Robin
ivanhoe6
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Posted: Wednesday, April 03, 2019 - 11:04 PM UTC
Oh man, I forgot all about the ROCO Minitanks and Guillow balsa planes. Never finished a balsa plane a bit beyond my 10 year old skill set. Maybe I should try and find one......
timmyp
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Posted: Thursday, April 04, 2019 - 09:36 AM UTC

Quoted Text


Quoted Text


Quoted Text

When I was young the toy stores et.c in Sweden were pressured by the pacifists to remove "war toys" which meant all kits of military land vehicles (i.e. Airfix, Italaerei, Revell, Tamiya).
Aircraft were still allowed though for some strange reason ...

/ Robin


Hmmm, sounds like a case of the tyranny of the minority!!

Tim


Yeah, sums it up pretty well.
It lasted for a few years and then everybody sort of quietly forgot about it.

When I was 14 or 15 I spent a few weeks in Stockholm (the capital) and visited a small shop, Eskader Hobby, which was sort of a time capsule from the late 1940'ies. I bet there was dust on the top shelves which had settled there 1945.
It also had smell of coal fired stove, cigars, old fashioned cooking, different types of wood and of course old dust.
They had trains, ship models, kits to build your own steam engine, strict ideas about quality vs garbage (I asked about a brand of wooden ship models which the owner disapproved of and got an education about proper materials to use, phew, my ears were glowing afterwards ...)
They also had a LARGE selection of ROCO Minitanks (1/87th or H0). When I commented on this and the "ban" on that kind of models he just sneered and said they didn't care since they were supplier to the Swedish Army HQ (General Staff) of these models since they were used for table top war gaming/education. I promply bought some trucks and jeeps for my H0 layout. They moved, maybe 15-17 years ago, to new locations, very neat and tidy inside but now I think they have slipped back into their old habits. In the old shop the floor are available to customers was something like 4x4 feet, two customers at the same time was a crowd, 3 was getting very personal and the fourth staid outside until the "crowd" dispersed.

http://www.eskader.se/stores.php
I think the inside view is from when they moved in ....

/ Robin


Sounds like a cool hobby shop!

Tim
timmyp
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Posted: Thursday, April 04, 2019 - 09:45 AM UTC

Quoted Text

Oh man, I forgot all about the ROCO Minitanks and Guillow balsa planes. Never finished a balsa plane a bit beyond my 10 year old skill set. Maybe I should try and find one......


I loved those Minitank items - they seemed to be mostly of European military vehicles, which was cool, because you just didn't see those vehicles here in the states. I remember the packaging too - I think the cardboard backing was orange & white stripes, with the text in a dark blue.
ivanhoe6
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Posted: Thursday, April 04, 2019 - 10:28 AM UTC
You know, I wouldn't mind finding an old Marx large scale figure or two. 55 years or so ago I tried to paint them without much luck. Maybe with some of the new primers out there now it MIGHT work. I'd like to give it a try anyways.

Tim: good memory about the ROCO packaging !
RobinNilsson
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Posted: Saturday, April 06, 2019 - 10:26 AM UTC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh8eb_ACLl8
"do you remember when
things were really hummin"

I think they have changed the colours of the packaging

Modern/Current





Older


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