Just wanted to encourage everyone to support their LHS as the benefits can come in many unexpected ways. Last night we had our local armor club meeting at our LHS: Hobby Island. The owner, David Heno, had attended the IPMS nationals as a vendor and brought back from the show several box loads of Dragon's Late Tiger I, the Albin Drzyk M4A3E8 Sherman and the Johann Huber Jagdpanzer IV L/70 all of which he had held off the shelves until after our members had a first shot at them. Picked up all three (apparently for less than they were selling at the show). While I have not opened the two show special kits, the contents listed on the boxes are impressive (photo-etch, barrels, etc.). The Late Tiger I's contents have to be seen to be believed.

Keith

I agree wholeheartedly. Our LHS, as in most, is where we gather to share good times and modeling info with our friends and fellow modelers. That in itself is a wonderful thing. But, all too often, we meet, have a good time and leave without buying anything. An LHS can't stay open on good times. We have lost too many good ones over the years to be complacent about it now. Mine is AAA Hobby in Atlanta. I go there every other weekend, simply because it's over 2 hours away. But it's worth it because of the great people I meet each time and the care and effort I get from James and Rusty. I always but something, even if I don't actually need anything. Can always use paint and glue. Support your shop. We just can't lose any more.

That's "buy", not but. I always buy something. :-)

I have a personal level that I will spend in order to keep the LHS happy. I won't pay a high markup to them, like $10 or $20 over what I could get it online, including shipping. I will though happily pay $5 or $10 more, to get it right away and help keep them in business.

I know many people don't like their LHS, and don't care if they go out of business or not. I can understand that if the LHS isn't giving good service, I won't deal with them either.

Went to my LHS today....... :-) :-)
Went for a bottle of paint....
didn't have the color I needed, so will have to mix my own....
hey making dark gray darker doesn't take too many brain cells to figure out...... :-) :-)
Ended up buying a few other colors I was running low on. He finally got in his shipment of Tamyia Extra Thin, (still in all Japanese labels, still causing cancer in California)so grabbed two bottles of it, and somehow an --- "God forbid" --- aircraft kit got in the pile....... :-) :-) :-)
$56.00 later I left.......
I really do need MA meetings....... :-) :-) :-)

Hey Grumpy, which Hobby Shop do you use? sorry, but I was just curious as we live in the same state and probably don't live too far from each other.

Grumpy,I do the same thing.I can spend 20-30$ online for a 'deal'.Go to my LHS for paint,Plastruct-Evergreen,Maybe a Mag or fig kits,and I'm 50 bucks out when I leave
My stash overflow-eth my bench

An interesting topic, and I wanted to toss in a couple of thoughts I'd been having about the issue of the decline of the LHS.

Living just outside of London, my "local" LHS's are invariably parts of a chain called "Modelzone". Used to be that a firm called Beatties ran most of the modelling stores, but they firstly turned themselves into a kind of toy store, then they went bust. In their place, Modelzone came along. Nothing particularly bad about Modelzone stores, but they aren't anything special either. The staff, generally (and I can, of course, only speak about my personal experience), are not actually invoved in the hobby, and don't know anything much about their product. The product range is varied from store to store, but is never cutting edge, and kits like Dragon's Tiger I Initial have yet to make their appearance. Price is pretty normal, and is hopelessly undercut by net-retailers like LuckyModel.

If I go further afield, I can get to more specialist, non-chain stores like Hannants. However, my experience of these places has been, I'm afriad, universally bad. The people staffing them, whilst knowing a lot about the hobby i'm sure, seem to have barely disguised hostility towards customers they don't know. Unless you're buying hundreds of pounds worth of kit, or you're an old hand familiar to the staff, you won't get any service to speak of. I actually went to a small shop several hours drive away just to check it out, and I had to force a strained conversation with the propriator even though I was the only person in the store. The prices in these sorts of places are ridiculously high, and frankly I think they can only hope to stay in business by offerring "value added" services like friendly salesmanship and interesting product lines (I can never understand, for example, why LHS's don't stock things like Klear floor varnish, or other "non-modelling" products that every serious modeller actually needs).

So, I wonder if I personally mind too much about the decline of the LHS. The internet has helped me far more in this hobby than any store ever did. Online sellers can send me a broader range of products at lower prices than the shops ever can. More importantly, sites like Armorama have been far more instructive and helpful than any store manager or clerk has ever been.

Don't get me wrong, i don't have anything against the LHS, I just am sturggling to find things in its favour! Just my two cents worth, I guess...

HobbyMasters Red Bank N.J., about 1 hr or so north of me on the G.S.P. exit 109, great store and the employees are modelers.
Wide range of models A to Z and tons of them all.
Military - armor, figs, resin, plastic, accessories, p.e. etc. all major manufactures, U.S. and abroad.
Aircraft - ditto
Ships - ditto
Cars & trucks -ditto
Books & mags. - ditto
R.R. stuff - ditto
Sci-fi - ditto
EVERYTHING -ditto, and in great quantities.
Prices are a tad higher than on - line shopping but when I need a modeling fix - I go, I get, I'm happy.
Instant gratification.
No affiliation I just shop there.
Cheyenne
Oh yea when you shop there you get a card they punch and after about 10 or 12 purchaces you get some bucks off the next purchase.
They will also order you anything you want.
Cheyenne

F&M on Rt10 in Denville..... a few miles from my house.

OOPS, sorry, Grumpy, Jared, p.m. me if you want to go I'll meet you there.
It's worth checking out and its in the middle of the state - Red Bank - should'nt be too far from you guys.
You will definitly love this place.
Also I'm sure there's a place close by that has beers & burgers.
I do believe they also have a web site HobbyMasters.com - I think
Cheyenne

Oh I know where HobbyMasters is .... many years ago way before the present location, it was a much smaller store, and NJIPMS use to meet in the back room.

Grumpy, they are on White St. now and the whole 2nd floor is models.
Cheyenne

I can't anymore, at least not for kits. Not when they have Tamiya's M26 Recovery Vehicle (cab only not the dragon wagon) for $98. The Dragon Tiger 3 in 1 for $70.
Not when put a model on sale for 25% off and put a marked up price on it to cover the 25% - AND don't even bother to take the lower sticker off.

Cheyenne, I would like to go sometime, but I am going away for two weeks and im leaving on sunday, so after i get back, i'll try to go. I normally use Z&Z Hobbies in Hamilton, as it is relativelyt close to my house, and the only hobby shop I know of around me. It has a good paint selection, but not much in the way of models, as it is mostly centered around trains.

My lhs owner believes that because iam a 16 year old child i have a tendancy to go around and steale. he belices acrylic paint cant give nice results, and doesnt seem to no much about military modeling. his prices are a good 20 dollar to expensife and doesnt have any specials. why encourage outrageous prices?

Frank

If your in the Niagara Area in Ontario, St. Catharines Hobby Shop is pretty good Prices and selection are great. In Toronto area I have been to Keiths Hobby shop. I found it really cool with lots of kits and decent prices.

Keep on Modelling

Brian

I have been living in UK for 14 years and have spent most of the time in Kent, Hampshire, London and Surrey. I had similar experience as yours at Hannants. LHS's were also few and far between, prices were high....eventually I just given up the hobby altogether.

Relocated to Hong Kong in 1996 and have picked up the hobby once again. There are a lot more specialist stores here and the prices are very competitive. Their web sites are very primitive, I afraid. Similar to those in UK , the smaller specialists are being driven out by the market force. I used to visit a small specialists regularly, buying magazines, kits and aftermarket items despite it is out of my way and it is probably cheaper elsewhere. Unfortunately, it has gone out of bussiness couple of months ago.

Mixed results with my local shop.

They did just get my a 12-pack of Tamiya Extra thin (English labels and a new plastic brush in the bottle.. where did the wooden handled ones go? )

Anyone got an empty bottle with the old wooden brush inside they were going to throw away? I'll pay postage.

And I got a small discount on the order, but it took almost a month to get it.

They were not able to get 3 bottles of each of the new Tamiya JSDF colors for my type 90 and Trumpeter projects however.
They needed me to buy a carton of each , 6 bottles.

But they have an annoying habit , like another poster mentioned, of taking MSRP adding 15% listing it as 'recommended price' , taking 5% off that and listing iit as 'our price'.

They are also VERY slow about getting new release kits on the shelves. I order almost all my kits mail order, but VLS has been a little slow getting things out on pre-order as well lately. I'm still waiting for a 251/7D

With a VLS membership given to me as a birthday present, the discount, free shipping, and generally good pre-order service and the holiday sale, my LSH cannot compete.

I'm as much of an impulse buyer as the next guy and WOULD plop down an extra $5-$10 for the new Tiger or 251 if he had it on the shelves.

There are less than 10 armor/figure kits on the shelves of my LHS right now. 10 +- planes, 1-2 ships, and some cars. The have mostly Hobbycraft or Lee armor kits at the moment, good for the walk-ins, but nothing i'm going to spend $$$ on. He does good buisnes on the art supplies upstairs, trains and RC cars and does not sink much into the basement model room.


Mike

I have no problem driving over to Red Bank......
Just need to establish a date.....
I'm basicly surrounded with good hobby shops up by me, F&M over in Denville, Kenvile about 10 miles west, Hobby Hut, about 10-15 miles east. 30 mile north is Hi-way Hobby (been going there since I was a kid) and my old buddy Jimmy about 40 miles east in Ridgefield, Ridgefield Hobbies. (great for rare-out of production-hard to find kits)
A little south-east is Maplewood Hobbies. A little north west in Sussex is a HobbyTown.....
Yet I still do a lot of mail order..... sometimes it just a hell of a lot easier.

Another point to think about is that many of the places I buy through mailorder are actually lhs that have added a mailorder business. Admittedly, I am usually buying some rare, resin piece of armor that the site specializes in. I also use VLS for figures and other AM stuff. I use my LHS for most other mainline stuff. I try to use all types of model oulets and do my bit for for my hobby in a balanced way.
capnjock

Whilst on Holiday last week, I happened upon the area’s LHS. As it was after 8pm, I was prepared to just ‘window shop’. The owner was inside packing new items, a knock on the glass and I was waved inside with a smile. “Open?” “Naturally” was the answer to my question.
After a quick browse, I found Airfix’s MTB and E-Boat for a combined price less than Hannants sell just the E-boat for. Whilst paying, I had a hearty chat with the very knowledgeable and enthusiastic owner.
Unfortunately he does not want to move to my area, much to my wife’s relief! This is one shop I’ll be visiting again on my next trip to the area! Hopefully he’ll have the Flower-Class Corvette in stock!

My favourite LHS closed today as the owner is retiring. I've been a customer of his for around 12 years and had got to the stage when every time I went in there I got a cup of coffee and lots of friendly abuse. They never had much in the way of kits but the supplies of peripherals (paint, glue, wire , tools etc etc) was outstanding. The only good thing about today was that I picked up a Tamiya Humvee, both the Academy Sherman kits and the Airfix 1:24 scale Harrier GR3 at a very good price.

Now I've got to find somewhere else to get coffee and abuse on a saturday

Pete