Mike999

Same kit, 2 different approaches to box art, years apart. Original ESCI and Italeri re-issue. No doubt for licensing reasons, Italeri didn't even mention the vehicle name on its box. The ESCI decals also had several trademarks in them, like "Air Camping" and the Land Rover logo. The re--issue decal sheet is tiny, but gives you tiger head decals for the doors. The basic kit is a nice curbside, whichever version you find.

The AURORA Pontiac Fireball was a kit I thought I wanted for years. I foolishly expected it to look something like a '59 Pontiac. Luckily, the first one I saw on eBay was a built-up about as sad as the one in that photo. That cured me. Off the "Want" list forever! And what have we here? Painting camouflage on an otherwise all-white vehicle kinda defeats the purpose of camouflage. Especially when the camo looks like a bunch of drunks threw up all over your Landie. Here's some weird trivia about that kit: many years ago, on Usenet's rec.models.scale group IIRC, a poster said he had worked on the very Land Rover that MONOGRAM copied for that kit. Said he knew that because the Landie was modified with a U.S.-spec carburetor, which MONOGRAM duplicated exactly. I believe he even said the work was done at a shop in Burbank, CA.

Don't feel bad. I've had a spread-sheet inventory for years and still do that. I recently bought a 1/35 Trumpeter model of a Russian truck, and got home to find I already had one. I really should put that inventory on my phone and carry it with me at all times. I exercise by walking several miles at a huge flea market every Wed., and sometimes another flea market on Sat. At flea markets, I'm to the point where I often see model car kits and pass them up. Which surprises me! I used to snag everything, using that excuse "for parts." I try to be more selective nowadays. With a few exceptions. I always pick up old AMT Trophy Kits, in any version - the '32 and '40 Fords etc. Easy and fun to build, and hold a lot of memories for this old geezer. The flea market yesterday made it easy for me. The only car kits for sale were old NASCAR stuff. Quite a few, as usual. Those are very easy to pass up...

I'll bet many of us geezers got hooked on scale modeling with this Aurora box art, and had this as their first kit. How could you resist that box-top, with the Me-109 shot full of holes and the pilot bailing out?

Small world! Thanks, I'll have to keep an eye out for that wagon. I go to Anderson every couple of weeks to hit Hobby Lobby, Michael's, Ollie's and Books-A-Million. It's only about 25 miles away from me.

Great job, no problems here. Thanks for all your hard work.

The Corvette America was real ugly. But it was also real. http://www.corvetteonline.com/news/the-four-door-“corvette-america”-nobody-bought/ The one in the pic below ended up on eBay: http://www.corvetteblogger.com/2017/02/06/corvettes-on-ebay-the-four-door-1979-corvette-america/

You can never have too many accessories! I've never seen that Fujimi "Remix" box before. It looks like they took stuff from the 3 existing tool sets, visible on the box side. The shop vac and parts cleaner are really neat. One of the sets also had a bookcase with shop manuals.

Aurora did some nice art on their big line of 1/32 car kits. Some illustrations, some photos:

And the Wednesday scores continue! The Fe-Mail carrier just dropped off a pair of 1/35 scale marsupials, as shown below. Made by Legend. (For use with Aussie armored vehicles. Maybe I'll make one a driver...) Also received my first order from Shapeways, some 1/24 scale AK-47 rifles. As somebody else on this board said, Shapeways packing is really impressive. The rifles were in a bubble-wrap bag, with larger bubble-wrap around it, all shipped in a sturdy cardboard box.

There was some...spirited discussion about Girls Und Panzer on armor-modeling boards. Some people were outraged at the whole idea, most were just: "Meh. The Japanese doing their own thing, as usual." I have a friend in Los Angeles with 2 young sons. They loved that series and bought/downloaded every episode they could. The funniest comment on one of the armor boards: "How does this series end? When American teen-age girls in their B-29 nuke the Hiroshima Prefecture Girls' School?"

Flea Market Day! Snagged 2 of the old, hard-to-find Crestline books on Packard and Plymouth-De Soto. Also a full-color older book on the Harrah car collection. As a free bonus, the seller threw in that dealer brochure for HCS cars. As in Harry C. Stutz, who formed HCS after he resigned from the Stutz company. The company only lasted 7 years. But it was long enough for Tommy Milton to win the 1923 Indianapolis 500, driving an HCS racing special. The brochure has a penciled note inside, probably from a potential buyer: "3300.00, Los Angeles, E.J. Darst salesman." The brochure's quoted prices are $2925 for a 2-passenger roadster and $2975 for a 4-passenger sedan. So that buyer must have been adding some options. Off-topic: also found a cheap, sealed 1/48 Tamiya Raiden (Jack), Japanese WWII fighter.

Real, AFAIK! That came from eBay, listed by a vendor in Japan. I was scrolling thru the "Ending Soonest" listings, saw it and grabbed the pic.

That's what I always heard too. Too bad. MPC and Lindberg both made some 1/20 kits I would have bought more than once, if they had been in the "right" scale. I often wondered why, after the 1/20 MPC kits didn't sell, he persisted with the idea many years later at Lindberg. Seems he might have thrown in some decals or accessories to make them "support vehicles" or something for the Japanese 1/20 Formula 1 cars. As for those, I can sort of understand it. For one thing, 1/25 F1 cars would be tiny and benefit from the larger scale. For another...well, it's the Japanese. Who not only march to the sound of their own different drummer, but often have their own parade.

No, you're not making that up...

I just sold a '59 Imperial on eBay. The sale ended Sunday 11/26. The Imp was up for 2 weeks. The first week I priced it at $39.99, close to the original retail price. It didn't get a single bid. Dropped the price to $29.99 for the second week. It got 4 bids and finally sold for $46.00. You just never know what will happen on eBay.

Happy to leave another testimonial. I recently ordered a Jimmy Flintstone body (Econoline pickup). For a hearse project, I also ordered a resin Coffin Table (the platform in the back of a hearse used to roll the coffin in/out). An eBay vendor was selling the Coffin Table, but their price was a couple of bucks higher than the JF website. JF sent me TWO Coffin Tables. And as another free bonus, they also sent "Toe Tag Tony." Perfect for a diorama with one of the "Gangbuster" vehicles!

This one was posted back in 2012 by Casey, on this very board. The extremely rare AMT-FROG kit of the '68 Ford Galaxie, released by FROG in the UK. FROG also released an AMT '68 Corvette. The funniest part is the sign in the background spelling out "DAYTONA," but the Galaxie is racing on a dirt track.

Best explanation, from cruising around the internet...both of these series were released in the late Sixties, along with crazy stuff like the Edsel funny car. At the time AMT was in financial trouble and had little money for new tooling. So they were making the most out of some old existing molds. I just wish they had left the molds alone and not butchered them for later releases like the Modified Stockers. One poster mentioned that the box art for some of those late-Sixties series was drawn by artists from MAD magazine, either Mort Drucker or Jim Davis. As for "Havana Banana," "Beard of Paradise" '65 Lincoln and "Che Riviera" '65 Buick Riv...they almost make you wonder if AMT was earning a little extra money by joining the CIA payroll. It's hard to see, but in the "Havana Banana" box art, the white-haired character is wearing handcuffs. Is he a sky-jacker? A secret agent caught with a chemical to make Castro's beard fall out? A Congressman caught with a Cuban hooker? Inquiring minds want to know!

That's the Takom 1/35 scale Skoda PA-II "Turtle." Pretty obvious where they got the name! Only 12 were built in the 1920s by the Czech company Skoda. The police dept. in Vienna, Austria bought 2 and used them to put down coup attempts by both the Communists and Nazis, just a few months apart. The Turtle had dual drivers and 4 wheel drive, but were not very good off-road. That's why the Czech Army didn't order any more. Here's one I built a few months ago that is in a thread, somewhere in here:

Drat! I could have helped you out. I had an eBay sale end yesterday and one of those '65 El Caminos was in it. I started the bidding at $9.99, and that's what it sold for, with 1 bid. It had been up on eBay for 2 weeks. The first week, it didn't get a single bid, so I re-listed it. Another identical kit did sell that first week. I have 1 '65 El Camino left and plan to keep it. At least for now. AMT/ERTL did a "Buyer's Choice" release of this kit once that was a little better. The drag version of the El Camino was on the box top, on a plain white background with no text. Just the "Buyer's Choice" sticker.

Yep, that Ferrari was the old 1/25 scale Aurora. And double-Yep, AMT-ERTL just seemed to give up in the 1990s. Submitted for your approval, as Rod Serling used to say...look at these 2 boxes for the same kit. What a difference! The original art, with the camper out in the woods, just screams "Build me!" You want to buy it just for the box. And along with the camper, it had all the drag and custom parts. So did the second kit shown, but you'd never know it. Not one word on the box about the camper being inside, or any other parts/options. Just that flat, uninspired "retouched photo of prototype model," as the box helpfully (and unnecessarily) tells us. Plus 3 small photos of the engine and interior. Ugh.

I recently removed wheels from a JADA die-cast, which looks similar to the Maisto. I used a pair of long needle-nose pliers. Put the pliers between the wheel and the chassis, and gently pried a little bit at a time, until the wheel finally came off. It took a few minutes but didn't break anything. The JADA wheels were Cadillac "sombreros" and I didn't want to damage them. To get the other wheel off, I just gripped the axle in a pair of regular pliers and pulled with my fingers. It's easier to get the wheel off when you have plenty of room and the chassis isn't in the way.

Thanks! Great review. I have that thing in a SME(a)R box. It met two of my personal criteria for aircraft kits; it was weird and cheap. The SMER boxtop promises "Super Decal!" Haven't had the nerve to check and see what horrors that might mean. The SMER box art is a little better, since the Amiot isn't painted in Excremental Brown. Looking at the Potez on the side of your kit, along with the Amiot, it looks like French aircraft designers were inspired by the "Flying Salon" school of aviation engineering. All those windows! Makes me wonder if the planes were also equipped with easy chairs, wine racks, croissant toasters and maybe fine Turkish rugs on the floors.