John1955

Yes, that's now true. What causes some confusion is that Ertl bought AMT in 1982, and labeled some kits as AMT or AMT/Ertl. Then in 1989, Ertl was purchased by Racing Champions but they were only interested in the diecast market, not plastic kits, so later, Round 2 made AMT branded kits and bought AMT completely in 2012. See what I mean about confusing?

Well, when I got married, I sold the Torino Cobra, but it was junk by then, rusty and not running, so I got only $200 for it. I kept the Torino GT for awhile, but a guy at work made me an incredible offer for it that I couldn't refuse. Much higher than book value, so I said yes. Apparently, he'd done research and a car equipped that way was extremely rare. His intent was to drive it very little, then store it as the value increased over the years. But he wrecked it only 6 weeks after I sold it to him, a total loss and he was in the hospital a long time.

I remember a long time ago, the downtown department stores in Pittsburgh. Toys and hobbies were always on the top floor, Gimbel's had seven stories so that was quite a ride to get up there on the escalators. Beginning with the 4th floor, they still had the original wooden kind that made lots of neat noises. The Woolworth's in Pittsburgh was an ancient store, huge but only two stories and had no escalators or elevators, just stairs. For some reason, their toy department was on the main floor as you walked in the doors. Those cool revolving doors! Mom would yell at us when we kept revolving them and never got out, LOL.

You mentioning Kmart made me wonder about something. I wonder why Kmart is fading away nationwide but the Kmart is always very busy with many customers. Our Walmart store is larger and does great, but they have only about a dozen plastic kits for sale and no paint or glue available. But our Kmart has an entire aisle of plastic kits, and sells model paint and Testor's glue, and hobby paint brushes. I wonder why.

TV got better? I must have missed that. I do like talk shows though, especially when hosts and callers actually think that anything they say matters.

I am sorry to hear this. My mother liked him so much on that show that she named my youngest brother "Mark".

I wish Round 2 would label re-issues properly, give credit where credit is due. Put the ERTL name on those, and mold the chassis in black as Ertl did. Round 2 keeps labeling MPC re-issues as "AMT" as well.

Any re-issue of '68-'72 Chevy pickups should use the MPC molds, not the AMT molds ('71 and '72, only MPC made them, the '71 and '72 AMT ones were GMC). Otherwise, it's a bad idea because the AMT ones were totally inaccurate and did not look like the real trucks. I have both in my collection. The problem with the AMT Chevy pickups was the front end, they made the bumper and grille a single piece unit that had a slight slant to it, the real trucks had no slant. MPC made the grille and bumper separate pieces and no slant. The AMT box art shows the body color between the grille and bumper, which is authentic, but that's not what was in the kit. In the MPC kit, that section is molded as part of the body so gets painted when you paint the body.

I love them!

Dinner tonight was an Arby's reuben sandwich with an order of onion rings and an order of their curly fries, at the drive through window and I came home and enjoyed it with beer to drink. For a fast food place, their reuben is surprisingly good.

Oh I love that, my mother used to make great food like that.

It was delicious!

It sure did! I'd grown up in a GM family and my first two cars were a '65 Impala ($75.00) and '67 Impala ($200), both 2 doors, automatic and the standard 283 2 bbl and both were ratty I suppose but I was in high school and working at a Gulf station, so I loved them and was proud that I'd paid for them all by myself. But when Ford came out with the Torino fastbacks in '68, I fell in love and wished that Chevy's Chevelle and Mopar's mid-size cars could look that racy and have fastbacks. Right out of high school, I joined the U.S. Navy and gave the '67 Impala to my mom (the '65 had been junked). I saved my money in the four years in the navy, and when I got out, I went hunting for a used '70 or '71 Torino or Cobra with 4 speed stick and the big 429. I don't have photos of the two I bought, sadly, I did take pictures but have no idea what I did with them now. One was a mint condition '70 Torino GT with the 351 Cleveland 4 bbl, bright yellow. The other was a '70 Torino Cobra in not so nice shape but with the ultimate engine, the 429SCJ, a mean green color. Both were 4 speeds (Hurst), the beat up Torino Cobra had cherry bomb mufflers and drank lots of oil. Ford was sued by the insurance industry for lying about the HP in the 429SCJ engine. That car blew the doors off of a friend's Road Runner 426 hemi, another's 427 Z28, another guy's 454 SS and everyone else who dared challenge me. Although it did overheat and slurp lots of oil in the process. Sigh, those were the days, I was young and foolish. Good thing there was no official police department where I lived then, just a township constable who had a large area to patrol.

When I worked in a plastics factory back in the 1980's, we made styrene model kits and parts. When I pulled out the styrene part from the mold, if it was plain white or light gray, no problems. If molded in a color, it was sometimes fragile. I concluded that certain kinds of color pigment must weaken the styrene. We did make the '57 Chevy Nomad (Revell) body there, molded in metallic bronze, many broke when removing them from the mold. It was a pain in the you know where.

I love all years to build mostly stock versions, from circa 1900 to current, it all works for me. My favorites though are cars and trucks from the 1950's, 1960's and early 1970's.

I agree. When I was growing up, I recall my mother made hamburger helper before Betty Crocker ever did and pork helper and chicken helper, too. I watched with fascination when my mother cooked, she just seemed to throw stuff in pots and pans and sometimes would say "I wonder how this will turn out". When my father was off work a few times due to illness or a labor strike, mom would do meals that were creative and call it "making do". Frankly, we kids didn't notice when money was tight as far as meals were concerned. If my mom ever used a cook book, I wasn't aware of it.

I wanted to make General Tso chicken but I didn't have the sauce to do that, so I just invented my own version. I had chicken in my freezer that had been there a long time and I needed to use it up. I looked through my unorganized kitchen cupboards, found an old bottle of pure honey that had crystalized and I soaked it in hot water and it became liquid again. I mixed that into some blackberry jam while the chicken was frying on the stove. I threw in bits of veggies, chopped the cooked chicken into pieces and boiled some rice then I wondered what it would all taste like. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. You're supposed to bread General Tso chicken but I didn't bother because I didn't have anything on hand to do that anyway.

I do remember some early Palmer kits that included engines, I had this one. Palmer seems to have begun by making better kits, then later made very bad ones. Your experience was just like mine was, for my birthday one year, my aunt bought me this Palmer kit and when I unwrapped the present, I faked a smile and thanked her. I wished it was AMT or Jo-Han (or Revell). It wasn't a bad kit as far as details go, but for some reason, Testor's model glue didn't work well on it. That was weird because Testor's always worked great on all other kits. Maybe it wasn't styrene and was something else, I don't know.

I'm just the opposite, I love drinking beer while building models. No beer ever got warm when I was around!

I can't resist the M&M's, LOL. I love jelly beans but I hate the black ones, so what I did was save up black ones over a period of time and stuff a bunch into a plastic bag and rest my hand on that.

I listen to a wide range of music, it depends on my mood. I very seldom listen to music over the internet though. I have a massive collection of CD's, cassettes, vinyl records and 8 track tapes which I listen to. Yes, LOL, you read that correctly, 8 track tapes. In fact, I have an 8 track playing right now. I have an ancient 8 track changer that holds 12 tapes, it's connected to an old analog receiver and hooked up to old wooden cabinet speaker boxes that no modern sound system can ever compete with for thunderous bass from huge woofers and crystal clear highs from multiple tweeters and live sounding voices from the mid-range speakers. From the Carpenters, Pink Floyd, Nirvana, Creed, Beatles, Collective Soul, Pearl Jam, Laura Branigan, Tool, Snow Patrol, Van Halen, Metallica ... well you name it and I like it. Sometimes even country and classical, I keep an open mind.

When you're working on a model, do you also have the TV or radio on at the same time or do you prefer silence? I usually like to play DVD's of classic TV shows when model building, especially if it's a kit of an old classic car or truck. It sort of sets the mood, LOL. Like recently when I was building a '36 Ford, I watched DVD's of the Three Stooges and I actually saw several '36 Fords in a couple episodes! Listening to Pink Floyd CD's while building models is also cool. I'm retro so I don't have cable or satellite TV or radio and I don't use the internet much, I own no smartphones or devices either.

When my arthritis first hit, I never thought it would also spread to my hands and fingers. So for a few years, hardly able to move my neck up and down, I built models at eye level by stacking books on my bench. It was irritating but I was stubborn. Then my back got arthritis, it was too difficult to go back and forth where my tools and supplies are stored. So I moved everything into my kitchen, pounded nails and hooks into the walls around my kitchen table to hang all the stuff up within close reach. (I left a small space for eating, LOL). But when my hands and fingers got arthritis, I quit building models. But I didn't get rid of anything. I couldn't stay away so I adjusted my standards. When it's bad, I do only simple and basic curbside kits or restore old dealer promos. Molded in color models are given a quick wipe with Endust to make them shine like glass. (Works on older painted models too). On the few good days, I put those aside and try more complex builds again. It's not a great way to build I suppose, but it keeps me involved in my favorite lifetime hobby. Also, my eyes are failing now, so I use a magnifying glass for detailing and for small parts. I'm sure I look silly with a magnifying glass hanging from my forehead and with wrist bands on (to steady my hands) but that's okay. I live alone, no one can see me and I was never that good looking to begin with. I was never mistaken for Cary Grant or Brad Pitt.

Actually, it is quite the opposite. Petroleum is abundant and there's too much available, much more than the demand for it is. Just last week, CBS News did a story on this, U.S. storage capacity is near it's limit on unwanted petroleum, and the situation was exacerbated by the Saudi decision to increase its crude supply by 2.6 million barrels a day. This has caused a decrease in the cost to make styrene and other plastics. It has also decreased costs of shipping products from China and within the U.S. As the pandemic is now easing up in most areas, more people are going out and spending LESS time at home. Spectators are now allowed into sports venues to watch baseball games where I live. Restaurants are now allowing dine in eating. If Hasbro does raise prices, they can expect a huge sales drop and they will regret their greed and fake alarm.