Hi all,
I'm sure many among us have kits that we searched far and wide across our modelling universes for (pretty small B4 the I-net)....mine happened one day in 1988(I think)...driving to the in-laws house I passed a local hobby shop...dropping my wife + kids off (I had to get gas) I went back to the H-shop....lo + behold on the shelf, a shrink wrapped 1/25 scale Tamiya SU-100 (this kit had been out of production for a number of years then and was virtually unobtainable...in fact I had never seen it in the "flesh" until that day)....well I took all of six seconds to think about it....pulled out the $35 Cdn on the sticker....and back to the in-laws with the SU in the trunk...now in the re-release + eBay era finding the SU isn't so hard
but back then....ahhh

I snagged a lot of the old SF3D stuff in a little hobbyshop/comics store in Collinsville Illinios for very cheap prices in the days after the kits were oop and before the internet made hunting them easier ( or they were re-released)

the occasional yard sale will turn up a gem or two, but nothing that memorable.

Mike

Having cut my teeth on Shep Paine's books so to speak, I had always wanted a Peerless Max Dragon Wagon (this was back in the bad old days before Tamiya's release). At a model swap meet in L.A. there was one for only 30 bucks, I couldn't get the money out fast enough. Oddly enough, a few months later ran into a guy in Stockton who traded me another. An excess of riches! Actually, it was a terrible kit, only increasing my admiration of Paine's modeling skills.

Rick Cooper

p.s. I eventually sold both of them and bought the Tamiya offering.

Mine "biggest" score was an old Aurora MBT70. I had built one as a kid and had always wanted another. Back in the pre-eBay days, the only ways to get this kit was a lucky strike in some yard sale or to find it in a hobby shop that carried old kits at premium prices.

I had gone into an antique shop in Texas with my wife, where my main duty was too watch the kids to make sure they didn't break anything valuable. While taking the kids through the booths that had kids toys in it, I saw a small cardboard box that looked like it had some model parts in it. I recognized the box as the mailer for the Young Model Builders Club. I peeked inside and saw it was an old Aurora armor kit. Since the box was only labeled $5, I grabbed it. When I got home and inspected the contents, I found out that there were actually two kits in the box, an M109 Howitzer and an MBT70, both complete and in mint condition.

That was my big score since the MBT70 can grab up to $50 on eBay depending on the boxing and whether it is an original or modified molding. It's since been reunited with my original MBT70 after I rescued it from my mom's house.

I've had several "great scores" in finding models over the years. Probably the most memorable was a time when a lady called our model club in Alaska and said she had some models and stuff for sale. A buddy and I went over and checked it out -- her husband had run off with another woman and they were gettng a divorce. She sold my buddy and me about $1,000 worth of stuff (tools, kits, paints, airbrushes, Dremel, etc.) for the money we had in our pockets -- about $70. We spent the rest of the weekend splitting up our treasure.

Another time, I got a call from a friend saying that his neighbor is having a garage sale and has "a few" models. I stop by and it turns out this family had owned a hobby shop for many years and had all of the old inventory packed into the two-car garage -- priced at 50 cents to a dollar a kit. Most of the arnor was Italeri kits, but I also scored a few rarities -- including a Peerless/Max RSO with Nebelwerfer and ESCI 1/9th Kubelwagon.

I got the new rc 1/16th scale Sherman from Tamiya at a model show here in Toronto recently for 400.00 US tax included... THough I see you can get it for less than 400.00 on Ebay atm but you do pay shipping and in (Canada) customs tax etc...


MSW

When i lived in Germany a friend of mine....who only built planes..told me that one of the older members of a model club in Landau had died and his widow wnated to sell all of his stuff for DM 100.- I gave him the DM100.- (I guess about $60.00 at the time) sight unseen...and what a treasure trove I got! there was a Heller AMX tank unbuilt, some Italeri unbuilt armor, Tamiya 1/25 built, but not painted, Tiger and SU 100 and various other kits in different stages of assembly. I probably got $300.00 worth of kits for $60.00. The irony is that when I divorced my wife and returned to the states she gave all of my models, with the exception of a very few, to my friend that got me the models in the first place. He probably sold them to someone else..OH WELL! I did get the Tamiya FAMO for $57.00 at a hobby shop on sale...does that count? Jeff

A long time ago...
Actually, I was in a local Drug Store that also sold models. For some reason they had a Bandai 1/15 scale StuG IV for sale. It was priced to move $15.00 and I nearly broke my hand getting to my wallet. The StuG was not the greatest, but it turned out OK. I sold it for a hundie a couple of years later to a collector.

GSP :-)

My Wife had a friend who's husband had decided to get out of the retail buisness. So?
What does that have to do with this post? Her husband owned a hobby shop, a LARGE one.
The guy he had running the place was a moron and didn't know sqaut about models. He ordered these huge shipments from distributors and didn't understand how to market the most sought after subjects
We drove down the coast to see the store and I fell into heaven......Stacked from the floor to the ceiling was every Aircraft kit that Italeri had out. All the guy wanted to do was break even but at the same time close down fast(rent was murder) He offered the entire stock to me at a quarter on the dollar. I balked. He didn't. "50% of list price at $0.25 to the dollar" I said yes so fast I don't remember saying it. I had to rent a Uhaul truck to get my new found treasure home. What a day!!!!!!

The childrens toy shop near where I live used to have about 10 or 12 different Tamiya models as their build up kit section. My wife bought me a few of these as presents from time to time. They carry the full humbrol enamel range so i usually get them there. After reading an article in military modelling about Steve Zalogas M8, I thought Id get one but they had none left. So I decided to pick up the M20 instead as it was along the same lines. I took it home and opened it to inspect as usual and there were two colours of plastic. On further inspection it had the M20 and a complete Kublewagen. No instructions or decals but what the hell. They must have lost or damaged them and stuck the kit into the M20 kit box. It might not have been the greatest find ever but it made my day

My best 'Find' was when searching a old toy store on a trip finding the ESCI partisans set. It was somthing I always wanted to build when I was doing ww2 stuff . they landed up being IRgun fighters in 47.

Josh Weingarten
aKa shiryon

I was reading thru our local newspaper and saw an ad for Tamiya's 1/16 scale King Tiger, complete with motorization and the R/C transmitter, battery and recharger. Turns out the guy was in my neighborhood, so I drove to his house to check it out. It was built and painted in Panzer gray but was in excellent shape. He even had the original box and all of the leftover parts. He had bought and built it for his kid as a toy. He was getting divorced and need the money so he wanted only $200.00 (US) for the whole works. I figure he must have spent over $600.00 (US) on all of this stuff. I felt bad for him and told him it was worth a lot more than he was asking but he was satisfied with the $200,00 so I scooped it right up. I never did tear it down and rebuild it but I sold it all to another guy some 5 years later for the same amount I paid for it. No loss, and I had a blast driving it around my backyard.