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Mike999

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Everything posted by Mike999

  1. Just did a great trade with larry ray. His trade items were delivered quicker than expected and just as described.
  2. Me too, that box is small. Just for fun, I compared it to original boxes for the Lindberg 1/16 BMW R75 and Triumph Tiger 100. It's quite a bit smaller, but those old boxes were sort of over-sized and had a lot of air in them. I also had a little sticker shock at the price: $29.99, or the same as a Round 2 car kits. But I used a 40% off coupon. And it's not like 1/16 scale Honda bike kits from the 1960s are common.
  3. The "MPC" Honda Super Hawk CB77, just arrived at my local Hobby Lobby in Seneca, SC...along with the AMT '40 Ford sedan, Gear Hustler Elky, Scout II and some other new kits. Round 2 updated the Honda's decal sheet with a nice choice of different Honda emblems and markings. The Super Hawk is shown below in its original Lindberg box, dating from the 1960's or early '70s. Don't let the Lindberg origin scare you off. All their motorcycle kits that I've seen were very well done, and I have a few of them. They had some of the most in-scale wheel spokes of that day. At flea markets and swap meets, I've bought some glue-bombed and incomplete Lindberg 1/16 bike kits just to get the wheels for other projects.
  4. If you're in Burbank, I hope you hit Burbank House of Hobbies. And AutoBooks on Magnolia Ave., where Jay Leno sometimes drops by to browse. I used to like eating at a little burger shack named Norm's, also on Magnolia.
  5. Link below to a great, detailed article about Lennon's "bigger than Jesus" remark and its effect on their touring (and lives). It shows that the media creating a circus is nothing new. Nobody said anything about Lennon's interview for 6 months, even though it was syndicated internationally, including in the New York TIMES. Then a DJ in Alabama heard about it and starting burning records. If you've never seen it, try to find the video "Beatles Anthology - The Director's Cut." It's the bootleg version of the Beatles Anthology, with all the interviews left in that the lawyers cut out. Among other fun stuff, you get to hear McCartney and Harrison discussing how they REALLY felt about Yoko Ono. The set runs to 10 DVDs. The last 2 discs are random interviews and extras. It's very rough, with video timestamp codes on most of it and the color often uncorrected and ugly. But definitely worth seeing. You can sometimes find it on eBay, but I think The Other Apple gets it removed quickly. It used to be available free in strange dark corners of the Internet... https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/when-john-lennons-more-popular-than-jesus-controversy-turned-ugly-106430/
  6. Must be a trend. Same here today in the Seneca SC store, 3 young women tearing apart the model aisle. I asked what was up. One said: "We're adding more scale models." Yay!
  7. Green salad with vinaigrette dressing. Bourbon beef & peach shish-kebabs over rice. (Don't be impressed, bought them at the store but slathered a little more homemade bourbon/hot sauce on them before cooking, just to perk them up.) Dessert, fresh cherries and white grapes.
  8. I made a note of your Lust List and will see if the seller has them, if he shows up this week. Funny you mentioned the Norseman. At this flea market a few weeks ago, from a different seller I found a Matchbox #PK-125 Norseman/UC-64. Somebody liked floatplanes! The same seller had the MPM Northrop N-3PB (nice, with photo-etched parts) and Antares Curtiss SC-1 Seahawk. If I decide to get rid of the Norseman, maybe you can trade me something weird for it. I really like the civil paint scheme on that one, for an Alaskan "puddle-jumper." That Eastern Express Martin Maryland is a re-issue of the ancient FROG kit. Also released by ARK, Novo and no telling who else. The horror, the horror...(actually it doesn't look too bad. Famous last words...)
  9. I also browse the Goodwill website. Everything you said about it is true. Prices escalate rapidly on the good stuff. Interesting about the SR-71. A few months ago at a local swap meet, I found its ugly kid sister: the Testors SR-75 Penetrator, still shrink-wrapped. The seller was asking $3. Decided I didn't want to build it, partly just because of the size. Those things are huge, even in 1/72 scale. Put it on eBay with a starting bid of $9.99. It got 16 bids and eventually sold for $51. I couldn't believe that. The buyer was 3000 miles away from me, so shipping was another $47.
  10. That is good info...unless you're a speculator. Keith, if you just want a GMC pickup, check my post in Trading. I have the GMC pickup with snow plow, but I removed the snow plow and the gas can for another project. I also have the Big Game version; might trade that one, if you can live without the gun rack and gas can.
  11. Just stopped by the closest Hobby Lobby today (Seneca SC). It only had 2 new kits not there last week: the '55 Chevy Cameo with Coke machine/dolly, and the '58 Edsel. No '40 Ford Sedans yet. The Chevy Cameo was priced at $32.99, the '58 Edsel was the usual $29.99. A '59 El Camino "Art Box" kit on the shelf was also $32.99. I have a '79 Impala "Art Box" kit that I bought about a year ago at HL, clearance priced at $19. Its original sticker price was $31.99. So prices have crept up about $1, I guess. When the "Art Box" '40 Ford Coupe came out a few years ago, I was still living in Los Angeles. That kit was available in either white plastic or orange plastic. A local hobby shop got in 2 big stacks of those, one in white and one in orange. The molded-in-white kits sold out very quickly. The orange ones stayed on the shelves for months, until the store finally discounted them to clear them out.
  12. Great job, especially on a kit that tiny! One of my "side projects" now is 1/144 scale. But it's a 727, so a lot bigger than your Jug. Here's a book I found at the local flea market a while ago, for 5 whole dollars. "The Thunder Factory: An Illustrated History of the Republic Aviation Corporation" by Joshua Stoff. That was a great deal, since I had more than $5 worth of fun reading it and it's now in my reference library. Covers the whole history of Republic, with very detailed coverage of the P-47's development and use.
  13. Hey Adam, I thought about you and your blog today at the local Wed. Flea Market. One seller had 2 big tables full of old 1/72 aircraft kits...probably including some you see in your nightmares. Lots of old Airfix, Matchbox, and obscure Eastern European stuff. Even a few ancient vac-form kits. No Farpros, though! He was selling them cheap, and I hope he's there next week. I may snag a few more. I picked up these: Matchbox PB4-Y Privateer (still the only kit of that aircraft in existence, AFAIK) Eastern Express Martin 167 Maryland (the old Frog/Novo/etc. kit) Minicraft PV-1 Ventura Gunship Hobbycraft Beech C-45 Special Hobby Bristol Beaufort Mk Ia/II "Home Islands/Malta" Italeri B-57B Canberra USAF From another seller, I picked up a partly-built and cheap Trumpeter 1/24 scale P-51D Mustang. Luckily the builder used Elmer's Craft Glue, not model cement, so everything he had glued fell apart easily. That one has some parts I can use on car kits, like the Merlin engine. It also comes with three 1/24 resin pilot figures, though they're all one-piece figures and look sort of goofy.
  14. I used to sell pretty often at kit swap meets in Los Angeles. It's a lot of fun, especially if you unload a bunch of kits and make some $$$. Things I learned, off the top of my alleged head... 1. Go to Staples or Wal-Mart and get some small white price stickers. Especially when the show first opens, your table will be very busy and mobbed. You don't want to be trying to quote prices to 5 people at once who are yelling "How much?" This will also force you to think about how much you want to sell the kit for. I always priced them a little high, to leave room for negotiation. But still, my Number One rule was: "I'd rather sell cheaper than take them back home with me." As the show gets closer to closing time, you'll notice other sellers marking stuff down. 2. Before the show opens, other sellers will be walking around looking for deals, probably including some pro kit dealers. If you're lucky, you may be able to unload quite a few kits before the show even starts. 3. If possible, take a wife, kid, friend or other victim with you to help. You'll be on your feet for several hours and will need bathroom breaks etc. And you'll probably want to walk around and find some deals for yourself. If you have to work alone, be very nice to the sellers on either side of you. They'll watch your table while you're gone. 4. Got lots of plastic bags hanging around the house? Take a bunch with you and hand them out when somebody buys a kit. A lot of people forget to bring bags, and they'll be grateful . So grateful they might even buy more kits.
  15. You just never know with Hobby Lobby. Last Fri. a HL store about 25 miles from me had the stock Revell '70 Charger (pink car on the box). The closest HL to me, which just opened about 3 months ago, had no stock Chargers left. There was still a shelf for them, so maybe they're just waiting for a re-stock. But that store did have the "Fast & Furious" black '70 Charger.
  16. "Waiting in the wings to take his place" reminded me... Did a quick eBay check just now. Another seller who seems to have disappeared specialized in 1/24-25 Big-Rig parts for very stiff prices. Just guessing, but I got the idea they were not model people. More general Anteek & Junque dealers who lucked into a bunch of truck kits from an estate sale or something. Then saw some of the parted-out kits on eBay and got inspired by those asking the highest prices.
  17. Thanks, just checked the '58. You're right. It has a big square "TEAM R&R 1994" marking inside the body. It's also a (mostly) complete kit, not a trans-kit: body, interior, chassis and chromed parts. The chassis has a cutout for an engine. The only thing missing is tires and wheels. For '58 Ford kit fans, the R&R kit has the hood scoop molded into the hood. On the original AMT '58 Ford, I think that was a separate chrome part.
  18. '58 Ford hardtop? That's probably the old R&R Vacuum Craft resin kit. I found one of those at a kit swap meet not long ago for a reasonable price and grabbed it. It is very well done. In that case, the seller knew it was R&R. Sometimes it's not easy for me to tell where a resin kit came from, since I bought quite a few of them long ago at swap meets or off eBay, and there was no indication of the maker. Recently I was looking thru my resin kits and found a real prize bought many years ago - the Modelhaus '62 Chrysler station wagon.
  19. Ha! Guess I deserved that. This was my first visit to Pizza Hut in a LONG time. I usually hit one of the small independent pizza joints, and this town has several good ones. I only went to PH because it's right beside the Hobby Lobby, making things quick and easy: order/pay for pizza, go next door to HL and shop, come back and pick up pizza. Done. And I agree with mikemodeler: among pizza chains, Pizza Hut is one of the best.
  20. Or mount it on your favorite 1/24 scale Japanese truck! Here's one in Libya, 2011...getting a helping hand. Note the cardboard 105mm ammo canisters piled up, right under the spare tire.
  21. True, and I talked to a nice woman at the Post Office about that a few years ago while I was shipping eBay packages. She said the USPS used to only charge for shipping by weight. Then they started charging by weight plus size. PO Woman told me the most expensive package to ship is one that's big but light. That's accurate in my experience. Something like an AMT or Revell triple-kit set in a big box will cost a lot to ship, even though it doesn't weigh very much. On my recent eBay sale, a buyer on the West Coast (3000 miles from me) won a BIG airplane kit. He paid $51.50 for the kit and the eBay Shipping Calculator showed the Priority Mail shipping as $56.45, so that's what I charged him. But at the Post Office, the actual shipping cost was $47.10. I refunded him the $9.35, as I always do when there's a big difference between the calculated and actual shipping. BTW, as indicated by that story, the eBay Shipping Calculator is not always reliable, and sometimes goes totally haywire. So if you see an outrageous shipping cost on your item, message the seller and ask them to double-check it.
  22. Glad you're enjoying it! I don't know if this story is in there, but it's in the book "The Mulholland Experience" and makes me LOL every time I think of it. Early one morning long ago, a guy with a new 911 was heading home, north on the 101 freeway in Los Angeles. He was feeling no pain after some heavy partying, and had the Porsche's sunroof open to enjoy the night breeze. He was only one freeway exit from home...but he took the wrong exit. I lived in the West San Fernando Valley and know where he goofed. The exit he needed is a nice flat, gentle curve coming off the freeway. The off-ramp he took has a wicked 90-degree curve. He said there was a loud BANG, then "everything went quiet" for a second. That's because he went straight thru the barrier rail on the curve and his 911 was sailing thru the air. It hit the ground on its roof and started sliding downhill, thru the woods. With the sunroof open, dirt and leaves poured in and the guy nearly suffocated. When the car finally stopped, he crawled out and walked over to a Denny's (which is still there, or was when I left L.A. in 2015). A few minutes later, a California Highway Patrol officer walked in to ask about that wrecked Porsche. The CHP officer saw its owner sitting at the counter, bruised, bloody and filthy from his ride thru the woods. The CHP officer just said, "I think you've been punished enough" and didn't even give him a ticket.
  23. That really grinds my gears. I still sell on eBay and know what shipping costs. Not long ago I did a trade with a guy on this board. He was on the West Coast, I'm on the East. We were both shipping pretty big boxes. We both paid exactly the same price for our Priority shipping: $17.30, to ship those boxes to each other all the way across the country. Everybody probably knows this, but just in case they don't: eBay lets the seller add extra "handling charges" that you can't see. They're rolled into the shipping price. That's one reason shipping can be expensive on eBay. Another thing that downright strips my gears: sellers who won't combine shipping. Packing/shipping 2 boxes when you can only pack 1 doesn't make sense...unless you want to collect those handling fees twice. If the seller doesn't combine shipping, I don't buy from them. As for Revell prices going up...out of curiosity, I just searched eBay for "Revell '70 Charger." One seller is offering the new kit with the pink car on the box for $43.99 + $10.99 shipping. Or you can Buy It Now for only $57.99. Such a deal! Hobby Lobby still has that kit on the shelf. But the real winner is the other Revell '70 Charger, Dom's from Fast & Furious with the black car on the box. eBay has one of those with free shipping...for only $135.26!!! I also saw them offered at $45, $64 and all kinds of other high prices. That kit is also still on the shelf at Hobby Lobby. I also saw both '70 Chargers on eBay at reasonable prices. So there's no need to deal with the greedheads.
  24. I ran over to HL to check on that 50% off sale. It's only a short drive. I badly needed a pizza anyway, and Pizza Hut is right beside HL. Two employees said they weren't having a 50% sale. They wondered if your 50% off was a mistake at the store, but otherwise didn't have a clue. This store also has no Airfix kits yet. But since yours does, I'm hoping they show up in this store. This store has the Hobby Boss 1/48 scale UH-1C Huey helicopter. But that's a really basic kit for beginners, so I didn't bother.
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