Tom Geiger

Plans should be made with best intent, but always have a Plan B

I mail a few hundred pieces a month with my little eBay store. I recently had a guy in England receive his package in a week... and it even went through eBay's International Hub in the USA! In the meantime, left coast can take 2 weeks. I had 2 envelopes go to the same guy in Texas mailed same time, arrived a week apart. Then I had one to Alaska arrive in a few days. Most collectors will message me rather than filing a "Did Not Receive" through eBay. I explain and they are 99% cool with it. I did have one clown in New York City, a 3 hour drive from me, complaining after 4 days... and he bought it on a Friday evening. I have 3 day shipping which doesn't include weekends so I had until Wednesday to ship. I mailed on Monday and he was having a conniption. Left me nasty negative feedback and fortunately he called me the F word so eBay removed the feedback! I have blocked him. I swear some folks hit the "Buy It Now" button, then go out to their mailbox to see if it has magically appeared! 🙂

Drones flying over New Jersey may very well be run away pigs!

90s was once the price of a very nice house in New Jersey. Now that's more like $900,000

Parts are very important to model builders and having a big stash of these can be the difference between a good model and a super build!

It's Revell of Germany. Very nice kit with tons of detail that goes together very well. Similar in construction to their Trabant wagon. Fun kit! I'm watching your build. I intend to build one of these as a German postal vehicle.

Primer is something those clowns complaining about their hardware store paint jobs on Facebook pages have never heard about!

Get outta here!

My Christmas Tree truck. It's sitting out with all the Christmas decorations right now! Happy Holidays to everyone! We should all be hankful!

One of my favorite kits! I already have a few dozen in my stash. When I see one of these, or the Revell 1950 Ford pickup, cheap at a show I always grab it. Then I did an inventory and found I had more than a case of each! So I took all the unsealed ones and dumped them into parts bins... one bin for each truck. Now I can build to my heart's content and if I mess up a part, I just grab another from the bin.

Spot was a friend of mine when I was a child, I hadn't even noticed he was a doggie

Boat owners waste a whole lot more money on their hobby than model car builders!

My eBay orders... I just got an envelope back in the mail yesterday. It said "Not Deliverable", I get these on a regular basis as their stupid AI cannot read zip codes properly and rejects it. There is no longer anyone actually looking at these pieces to confirm. But they let them sit. Average time back is 3-4 weeks, the one I got yesterday was sent out in FEBRUARY! Where the heck was this all this time?? And the funny part? The buyer never complained! Unlike the cry babies who are filing "Item Not Received" 5 days after they pay.

Um no... actually told to me by an industry person I was having dinner with the evening before NNL East. Round 2 no doubt makes more of it's money in diecast, sci fi and the TV and movie genre. They own the model companies and are pulling this old stuff out of the warehouse because Tom Lowe, R2 owner, is a nostalgic toy guy. He's doing it because he wants to. It's good to be king. Just like Frank of Moebius produced those Hudsons... not because there was a lot of market research, but because Frank LIKES Hudsons! As the Baby Boomers retire, more and more guys are rediscovering old hobbies. We see it in model cars, and I see it in stamp collecting as well. That's the market of new casual buyers. Understand that those of us so involved that we know all the company history and attend all the shows really account for 10% of the sales. We are those guys in Star Trek uniforms shaking our fists at the sky!

Remorse will eat at you if you let it, but the folks who should be the most remorseful usually just brush it off and go do the same BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH to others

If you were made whole with your vehicle repair and suffered no physical issues I’d let it go. These guys never learn a lesson. I was in a similar situation where people were pushing me to sue. Like you, I’d considered my situation to be done with. But the revenge of “teaching them a lesson” and maybe getting a cash settlement had me thinking about it. Then I realized a law suit would take years, and keep this all alive in my head. So I just walked away. I decided the best thing for me was to be done and over. The only ones who make out in these situations is the lawyers, which is why you got an ambulance chaser letter.

Of lion’s cage

Plastic models is what we call them but if you dissect a diecast car and build it your way, it indeed becomes a model

It has to be our government. They are flying over military bases etc., which hobby drones are restricted from. One year a drone enthusiast wanted to do a flyover at NNL East and do a video of how our line wraps around the building. He asked us permission and we were cool with it. Then he found it was restricted space because there was a government contractor building across the railroad tracks.

No good squirrel recipes until the Internet, but there's enough meat to be bothered!

First, Round Two is doing a great job. Bringing back old classics like the Ford pickups as new tools, putting money into incomplete old tools of kits we haven't seen in eons. Kudos to them! For the folks complaining that they are charging money for kits "whose tooling has been paid for since 1972", that's just not so. The company that created and paid for that tool in 1972 doesn't exist anymore. The tooling went through a succession of owners, who each paid up to acquire it. And that chain now ends with Round Two who probably has that tooling on the books as an asset with value. That comment is the equivalent to saying that a classic 1:1 1962 Corvette shouldn't be sold for big money because it was paid for in 1962! As far as rereleasing old kits on a regular cycle, those kits we all can buy older versions at discount prices at shows, remember that we are the lunatic fringe. We are very involved hobbyists who know about shows and even sources where we can buy new kits for less than retail. Some 80% of kits are bought by occasional hobbyists. I witness that as I don't know of another modeler in our circle who lives in my town. But new kits disappear from Hobby Lobby every day. I can see the changes in stock when I visit. Somebody is buying those kits! And that's the majority of the market that they chase. I once read that the average stay in the hobby for average folks is 18 months. That means that they could reissue old kits every two years to a brand new audience. It's not all about us.

Meals to eat

"Kill My Landlord" was a SNL Sketch starring Eddie Murphy

Meat appeals to PETA members because PETA stands for People Eating Tasty Animals!

unless he's amphibian