RSchnell

Wow! That's nuts!

The price of eggs. Stopped at the Groceteria earlier with a list of my normal provisions. Everything's great until I get to the eggs. $6 for a dozen? Really? I know there's some new bird flu or whatever, but Christ! Jesse James used a gun when he robbed people. Ended up going with the cage free 18 count which was a dollar cheaper than the normal dozen. I miss growing up where we had acreage for 5 different types of citrus & watermelon, we had a vegetable garden at the house in town, our neighbor out in the country raised & processed cattle. the local Model T guy hooked us up with eggs from his egg farm. The only thing we bought at the store was stuff like condiments, bread, etc. Henry Ford said it best in 1932 "With one foot in agriculture and foot in industry America is safe".

I think a lot of these youtube "modelers" just love hearing themselves talk. I lurk on the Britmodeller aircraft forum and how those guys do unboxings is doing it right. No video just high quality photos of each sprue and a good discussion follows.

My haul from a local show/swap this morning. Photo thread in Contests & Shows if you're so inclined to look! I went not really needing anything but found some deals. The ancient set of Revell Highway Pioneers was a nice find, some are missing parts but scored the whole lot for $20. The '54 Corvette promos were a good find especially the Pennant Blue one-those are hard to find for some reason. There was a guy with a whole table full of cheap rebuilders. A couple of the '32s, the '56 & 59 will likely get cleaned up and put on the survivor shelf the others are good for parts. All told I spent right around a hundo for everything in these pics including the lot of Speed Age magazines from 1949-1954. Sometimes it's hard to turn down a good deal.

I took these pics at a local show this morning with this thread in mind. I didn't think the prices were too out of line.

Here's a few pics from the swap. I got some great deals and talked to some folks I hadn't seen in a bit. I thought prices on stuff was reasonable for the most part, hindsight being 20/20 I should've bought the Star Truk kit but I'm running out of room. Paired with a Chorizo breakfast sandwich from Wawa & it wasn't a bad way to spend Saturday morning. Even had an international presence with the German police there. 🤔

It's pretty incredible the scope of all the fires going on right now. I ran across these photos while reading up on it this morning.

I got mine off Amazon. It was cheapest one I could find! https://www.amazon.com/Ford-Design-Department-Concept-1932-1961/dp/0967242800

Mailman was good to me today. The Ford Design Studio book has been on my radar for a while, finally snagged one at a good price. From a cursory glance it's a nice book. Will have more time to look at it tomorrow evening. The 2 volume '32 Ford book is exactly what I thought it'd be & more. I may not have time to do anything with my '32 pile of parts but at least I can start compiling reference material.

My wallet is safe this month. (Somebody had to say it!)

I too think the next 20 or so years will be interesting. I'm in my mid 40s and don't know anyone my age aside from myself that seeks out the really old stuff. I'm sure they're out there but I don't see them at the shows I go to.

I will put it on my schedule. I'm sure it blows away the infamous Southland show, which moved to a new location for this year. That should be interesting!

Is this show worth a 6 hr drive? Been thinking about going this year.

I use good sable hair or taklon brushes and Tamiya acrylics, AK 3rd generation acrylics, occasionally Humbrol & Testors enamels. I brush paint 90% of chassis components & interior and usually only airbrush or spray bomb bodies or other big surfaces. Sometimes I'll brush paint a body after all that's how I was taught all those years ago by my Grandfather who was a master modeler by every definition of the term.

My TV s*** the bed. From what I've been able to troubleshoot it's the backlighting part of the TV. In this disposable society we're in it's cheaper to just go buy another TV. Or maybe I won't.

I've been a fan of them for 30+ years. The Dead is certainly one of those bands you either love or hate. Like Jerry Garcia said- And to get this back on topic! '55-56 Mercs. Always been more into the 55-56 Ford camp, but I've found myself somewhat seriously looking at a couple of '56 Mercurys for sale that are somewhat reasonably close to me. one of these I've looked at the ad twice. Not a good sign.

This thread reminded me of an event, one that I had forgotten until all the right neurons connected. I used to sell parts at the now defunct swap meet/auction that used to be held in Zephyrhills, FL. A group of us would setup together and make a weekend of it, selling car parts, BS'ing around, go hit the bars at the end of the day, sleep in the back of your car etc. Where else could a Ford guy, a Corvette guy, a Porsche guy, a Pontiac guy all hang out for 4 days and not get on each other's nerves? LOL We had a pair of walkie talkies so if one of us wanted to go walking around the others would watch their spot and if any questions arose one could get an answer. I'm watching Porsche guy's spot when he gets on the walkie "hey you build model cars, did you see this guy on row 3 with about 1000 kits?" I replied that I hadn't and as soon as he got back I'd go check it out. Well Pontiac guy sees me salivating like a blind dog in the smokehouse, tells me he'll watch my stuff if I want to go see what the dude has. I find the magic booth is short order and there was at least 700 or so kits. The vendor tells me "all kits are $5 each". Nothing earth shattering, mostly newer stuff but there were a few 60s & 70s AMT kits in the mix. I notice they're all sealed. I start making a pile. I grab all the 60s & 70s AMT kits, There's 5 of the Revell '48 Ford Woody add those. This went on for about 30 minutes when I thought I could flip a lot of these for $10-15(still had 3 days of the swap meet to go), keep what I wanted for my collection and the stuff I kept would be free in the long run. I ended up buying 325 kits, sold 250 of them minus a 10 or so I gave away to kids who showed a sincere interest. Went back Sunday afternoon and bought the last 25 he had for $2 each since he didn't want to take them home. I found out that this was all his father's collection and he had neither the interest or room to keep anything, that's why the blowout prices. Only problem was now I had a bunch of kits with no room in my '55 Ford to haul them home. Luckily Corvette man lived in the same town as me and offered to haul them in his truck. Things went great when I got home until the wife saw Corvette guy backing his truck in the driveway. She went in third orbit when we started stacking kits in the garage. I still have some of the kits both built & unbuilt. No longer have the wife! One thing that I've thought about since this happened in 2005 and I'm sure some of y'all have to. Like Porsche guy said "it makes you wonder how many of those kits are going to get bought, never built, resold, never get built and it's like an endless cycle. I'd venture to say 35% of the kits produced ever get built." He was a numbers guy so he thought about stuff like that. But he does have a point!

Just remember there are outliers. I've spent a good portion of my life hunting down rare & NOS parts for 1:1 stuff and the same rule applies to that as the vintage kits. You just never know where you'll find something! As an example: Pair of NOS 1932 Ford rear fenders for $100 at a steam engine show swap meet, Rough but complete down to the spare tire '61 Ford Starliner that was an original 390/401HP 4 spd car bought for what was scrap price at the time $250(1998). This only came about because the guy who owned the car saw my '62 Galaxie Convert sitting in front of the local breakfast joint where I dined often. Also bought a '54 Hudson Jet from him for $100. My Dad bought a '41 Lincoln Continental for $75 out of a garage in Georgia back in the early 80's, but that's another story LOL

I've gotten lucky at 1:1 car show swap meets. In fact I just passed on a bunch of 50's acetate promos last month cheap because I didn't want to deal with the shrinkage issue. Should've at least gotten a few pics but I'd been walking all day and was ready to retreat to the heated seats of my car. I bought a mint '60 Galaxie convertible built up for $5 at a vintage tractor show a few years back. "Antique malls" and I use that term loosely as there's usually very little antiques and more chalk paint furniture and live laugh love signs. I've found several kits at these at good prices, but not all followed me home. I left the Jo-Han Mopar stuff behind as I'm not a Mopar guy. General swap meets are another good source. I tend to go to the swaps catering more towards antiques as I collect Ford Memorabilia also. I've seen vintage built-ups for as little as $5 but then again I don't buy everything I see. Stating the obvious, I've gotten some great deals on vintage built ups at model swaps/shows. Thankfully not everyone is into the same thing so you can score big if you're timing is right. One man gathers what another man spills. To quote the Grateful Dead "You just gotta poke around"

I always thought this was a well done commercial. That same year I bought a J30- couldn't afford a new one so I bought one that was hit hard in the rear and put another rear clip on it. My first foray into collision work. 1997! It doesn't seem that long ago. LOL

That's interesting and does make sense. Back when I ran the roads Flying J was my preferred stop. Love's wasn't really a thing back then. Now that Pilot & Flying J merged & took out the restaurants, I seldom stop there. Flying J never sold kits, but they had good coffee and plenty of parking.

Best I recall they were full retail. Next time I'm out towards the local Love's I'll pop in & see if they have them too.