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Phoenix model swap meet


cobraman

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The swap meet was great, lots of bargains and lots of people. Good to see some of my friends there and say hello. Unfortunately, I did not find a single thing I was looking for, not even a P-47 razorback that I wanted to build. Not normally an airplane builder. There was a lot of car and military kits and items, just nothing jumped at me.

We then went to a new LHS that is close by and it was generally very disappointing. Huge facility with an indoor, electric cart track and a small corner of modeling/hobby items. No one was on the track, no one shopping in the hobby area and a lot of overhead seen everywhere you looked. Not a healthy business model. I'll be surprised to see if they make the year. Great concept, just no customers! I did find a couple of spray cans of Tamiya that I was looking for, so at least they made one small sale!

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Yeah, we went to that store during the week. Extremely disappointing experience.

First issue was the hobby store once inside the building was hard to find. No signs pointing the way. And it was quite a walk from the front (only) entrance.

My wife is in a wheelchair. If I wasn't pushing her I doubt if she would have even tried to get there. If I was in a wheelchair pushing myself I wouldn't have tried. This should be a concern since we aren't the only ones in that situation.

Felt like I was in a warehouse, not a hobby store.

The hobby store seemed like an after thought, not something that was planned.

Ceiling lights way too high, hard for me to see well. Old eyes.

Even the outside sign for the hobby store was small, not exactly something someone not looking for it would be likely to notice, especially from Greenway.

Kit selection was decent, although there weren't some recent releases I had hoped to see.

Very VERY little in the way of aftermarket stuff. Yes, I did look in the LOCKED cabinet that was in what I would call the main aisle, not even where the model kits were.

If this is how they planned it to be I don't expect them to last at all.

If not, they should have waited to open until everything was ready to go. The way the store currently is does not make someone want to return. Maybe RC'ers, that seemed to be the main emphasis, and they do have the indoor RC track right next to them. But even that track looked wrong. We were watching a couple of cars run. There didn't seem to be anyway for someone to get to the cars in several spots if the car overturns, and that happened frequently. But not being an RC'er, maybe I am just not looking at it right. :lol:

Overall rating, I wouldn't go out of my way to go there again. Either Andy's on 59th and Greenway or the chain store (Hobby something, I forget the name) on 43rd and Bell would be my choice.

Russ

Edited by russosborne
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OK, I was at the swap meet and did not meet anyone from here. I was hoping to do that as much as finding a model I wanted. I had my Cobra hat on and nothing ! The meet was smaller than I thought it would be and to me it seemed that military and aircraft outnumbered the auto and truck kits. Nothing wrong with that but I was looking for specific kits and came up empty. I was tempted by a Trumpeter 1/12 scale GT-40 for 75 bucks but it was missing window glass and I wasn't sure I would be able to find a replacement or fabricate some.

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Ray, I have to say that as dark as it seemed in the swap meet area, it would have been hard to see a Cobra hat, unless it was fluorescent orange. It took my old eyes a long time to adjust and even then I had to look hard to see things. I came up empty handed, unusual for me, I normally come home with something even if I give it away later. Today, nothing!

Russ, you're 100% correct about the new LHS. I had some hope for the place after some hype but to me it was a bust. The only thing I really was looking for was Alclad paints, I need a few colors to add to my stash and they had no Alclad and a bunch of empty paint racks in general. I see a lot of red ink in their future. Hope they make it but it seems it will take a miracle.

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