Ramfins59

Scale Motorsports now has those "Wizard of O's".

Welcome to our plastic playground Jeff.

If you have a Gangbusters Lincoln kit, I think there are a couple of grenades in there.

Welcome to our plastic playground Bart.

Welcome to our plastic playground Randall.

Welcome to our plastic playground Pierre.

Oh man...... Do I miss the New York "dirty water hot dogs"...... They just don't taste the same when I make them at home...... Of course it's because I don't use real hot dog cart "dirty water". For those that aren't familiar with dirty eater hot dogs, The NY hot dog cart vendors have a "tank" on the cart that they boil the hot dogs in. At the end of the day, they park their carts in the "cart warehouse or garage", and the next day they relight the "fire" under the tank, breaking up the grease or fat that solidifies at the top of the water. It eventually melts down into the water...... Believe it or not it adds to the taste of the dogs... Just add a nice soft bun, a good slather of mustard, and either sauerkraut or cooked onions in a tomatoey sauce... or both kraut and onions... Yummmm... When I was a young kid (less than 10... in the mid 50's) I lived in the Inwood section of northern Manhattan. There was an old Italian guy who would push his cart with the Sabrett umbrella on it around the neighborhood on the weekends. When we saw him coming down the block I'd call up to my Mom who was in our 4th floor apartment from the courtyard. She'd throw me down a quarter and I'd get 2 hot dogs with mustard & onions and an orange drink...... What a feast for only 25 cents...!!!

Wow Joe, I don't think there are many bars that give buy backs anymore...... and, you went to Nathan's and didn't get hot dogs and their great french fries...!!!

Welcome to our plastic playground Jason.

Welcome to our plastic playground Tom.

Welcome to our plastic playground Tommy.

Welcome to our plastic playground Spencer.

Congratulations to them. I hope they have a long and happy life there.

Thanks Jim. I'll let you know after I speak to him again.

I got a phone call from my younger brother (who is 60) living in New Hampshire. The tests came back from his prostate biopsy.......... He's got prostate cancer...!!! Now he's got to have more tests to see if it may have spread to anywhere else. The news really bummed me out.

Welcome to our plastic playground Perry.

Lots of great stuff there Bill. Thanks a bunch for it all.

I think I'll be ordering the '53 and '54 as soon as finances permit.

For the past 4 or 5 years I have been assisting my friend, Tom Valenta, who takes pictures of models for Model Cars Magazine at the NNL East Show in Wayne, NJ. We both walk through the model display hall, taking turns placing the photo shoot info sheets next to the models which we feel meet certain "criteria"; The model is well done, the model may be of an "unusual" subject, the model may have an unusually intricate paint job, etc... We place the sheets with the model before we look to see the name of the builder. Tom usually takes at least 3 pictures of each model that is brought to his photo table. Overall, he takes pictures of an average of 150 or more models, depending on how many are brought to his table. You'd be surprised to see how many builders don't bring their model to be photographed. Once the show is over, Tom goes back home to write the captions for the models pictured and loads all the pictures and captions onto a disc and sends the disc to Gregg Hutchings (he used to send it to Harry Pristovnik). Gregg then looks through the 350 or so pictures on the disc and picks the ones that he feels will show up best in the magazine coverage. Out of 350 pictures of about 150 models only an average of 2 or 3 dozen pictures (depending on how many pages in the magazine are allotted to that Show's coverage) might actually be printed. There is also the possibility that additional models will show up in separate "Contest Issues". Many people seem to feel that just because their model is photographed, it will show up in the magazine. There is no "favoritism" when models are picked for photos at the show. Every effort is made to pick the widest variety and selection of models for pictures. No one wants to see 10 pictures of '32 Fords and 12 pictures of '57 Chevy's.

Welcome to our plastic playground Michael.

No Joe, I never did that, but it looked like it would be a time-consuming but fun thing to do... A wad of gum on the end of the string to stick to the coins so you could pull them up... and hopefully get them up through the grating without knocking them off..

Yeah, I remember picking up ditched soda bottles at the park for the 2 cents deposit... Every once in awhile I'd find a LARGE bottle and those had a 5 cent deposit, which was like a home run...!!! When the movie The Ten Commandments came out, we HAD to go see it per instructions from our Catholic School. Everyone freaked out because admission price was 50 cents, when movies usually only cost 25 cents at the time...... It was a 4 hour movie so I guess they had to charge more.

I turned 71 back on April 3rd. Started building model cars in the very late 50's....... Stopped when I discovered girls and bars and then got married...... Got back into the hobby in '92 and have been at it ever since.

Welcome to our plastic playground Bill.

Welcome to our plastic playground Ryan.