Mike999

Now this is interesting...from a person who worked in China for 15 years: "In almost all cases Chinese scammers are individuals. China still maintains the DEATH PENALTY FOR FRAUD so in most cases of foreigners being scammed of money it is very unlikely that a company is involved... First off, no legitimate supplier in China is going to accept payment via Paypal. Most will not have ever heard of Paypal and even those that may have heard of it will not use it as it can be difficult for them to set up in China and also unnecessary for them as they do plenty of business with the standard payment method of bank transfer so will have no interest in Paypal." http://www.ebay.com/gds/Scammers-in-China-protecting-yourself-from-ripoffs-/10000000020060921/g.html

Thanks for the heads-up. My small town has a Tuesday Morning, which advertises itself as "brand name home decor and furniture at closeout deals." The one here is like a smaller version of Big Lots, you never know what you'll find. When I relocated back here 2 years ago I needed some plates, bowls etc. and Tuesday Morning had some good ones cheap. Never seen model kits in Tuesday Morning, but I have seen some 1/24 and 1/18 die-cast cars in there. Also some cheap "princess castle playhouse" type toys. Those sometimes have cobblestone or other patterned bases that can work for diorama bases, walls etc. Now I'll have to drop in every week and check out their toy aisle, when I make my rounds of the thrift stores. This little town has 7 of those. Their workers tell me that on weekends, people drive for hundreds of miles to hit those thrift stores.

Yep, thanks. According to an old Art Anderson post, what I meant was Tenite: "Those older JoHan promo's prior to 1963 (and AMT promo's through 1961) were most certainly molded in acetate plastic (trade name Tenite), and for a very good reason: Safety. Styrene plastic in its early years was very brittle, and a styrene plastic toy, when dropped, could shatter very much like glass. Acetate plastic doesn't have that hazard as it is a lot tougher, more resilient. However, acetate plastic has a tendency to shrink after being molded, as well as being affected by humidity, which leads to warping of complex hollow shapes, such as a promotional model car body. For 1962 promo's, AMT switched to a then-new type of plastic: Cycolac, which was the early trade name for ABS plastic. JoHan made this switch for their promo's for 1963 (MPC came along a couple of years after the introduction of ABS." And I didn't get one of these, but just saw it on eBay (Buy It Now price of $100, so I won't be getting it any time soon, either). Thought people with a fondness for weird kits (like me) might appreciate it. This is the "Nichimo 1/20 Honda Vamos Leisure Car Series 4:"

Flea Market Day. No good hauls this week. One seller had a very nice 1961 Mercury Monterey 2-dr hardtop promo. Good condition, complete and undamaged, only the whitewall tires were a little dirty. No warp, since AMT was using polystyrene and not Cycolac for promos by 1961, IIRC. He was asking $40. Another seller had 2 1960 Ford promos, 1 hardtop and 1 convertible. They were Cycolac and seriously banana-shaped.

If you get over to this part of SC, there's a big Ollie's in Greenville, on Wade Hampton Blvd. Also another in Anderson, SC on the Clemson Highway/76, coming into town. The one in Anderson is near a Hobby Lobby and a Michael's. The Greenville Ollie's never seemed to get any good kits during that last big sale - just Lindberg ships and a few other drecky kits. At the Anderson store I found 1 Slingster dragster, 2 Surfites and a '67 GTX. It also had a couple of the Lindberg Ramcharger Dodges. I checked last week at that store and there were very few kits left of any kind.

Thanks. A quick look on eBay turned up a few, with the search "Imai 1/28." Here's a Ford CL9000. I put in the auction link because it has detailed photos of the parts and instruction sheet: http://www.ebay.com/itm/FORD-CL9000-TRUCK-1-28-IMAI-MODEL-KIT-/262759223788?hash=item3d2dab91ec:g:mfsAAOSw4GVYNZXP

Admiring that Kenworth, I see it's in an IMAI box. Never seen one of those before. Is that a straight reissue of somebody else's kit, or an IMAI original? And you got the Monogram Chevy Sport Truck with the gun rack, a great find! Everybody's had some great finds lately, like that neat Tempest. I love seeing these discoveries, keep up the good work! I recently stopped at a local Anteek/Junque shop that had a few old kits. All had been built and painted (badly) with missing parts, instructions, decals etc. And they were pretty common older reissues, like the Monogram 30 Ford Woody and AMT-ERTL 40 Coupe. Thought I might pick them up just for parts, but no way. They were priced at $20 each and the shop owner wouldn't budge. He also tried the sales pitch I hear all the time at flea markets - "They go for way more that that on eBay!" Maybe on Alternate Universe eBay. No thanks.

The Michaels I normally visit is only about a mile from a Hobby Lobby, but I've been to several other Michaels in this area (Upstate SC). They all have the same poor selection of kits that are almost never updated. A few months ago I wanted to replace my 10-yr-old Aztek/Testors airbrush, which finally died. Michaels had the right one in stock, and I used one of their rare 50% off coupons for it. Usually it's 40% off. I get their coupons in my email every couple of days. Sometimes they have One-Day-Only specials or Online Specials. But to be honest, on many trips I don't even bother stopping in to Michaels any more. Just hit Hobby Lobby, Ollie's and Books-A-Million for the monthly magazine load.

OK, that was good timing! Received 2 emails from HobbyLinc this morning. The usual pair, one for models on sale, the other for paint on sale. With the note: "Specials are valid Friday through Thursday, while quantities last." The emails probably came in last night (Friday). The emails always have links to selected items on sale, and I saw these 2, for anyone interested: Italeri Ford Transit Van Mk.II - 1/24 Scale 33% Off $25.39. This kit was Unobtainium for a LONG time. AMT/ERTL 1940 Ford Coupe (Orange) - 38% Off $17.56. The big flat "Art Box" release with the extra goodies, molded in Orange. To find the discounted items quicker: on the home page click the "Models" tab at the top. Then click "Specials" (9 pages this week). After you're done there, click the "Models" tab again and then click "Clearance" (10 pages this week). That is 9 and 10 pages of all model-related items, not just cars. http://www.hobbylinc.com/

Thanks, I was confused about that. The home-page banner says effective 8/7, the warehouse and E-fulfillment Center is now open only 1 Sat. a month. But the "Retail Hours" tab still says "open from 10:00 - 5:00 Monday through Friday and from 10:00 to 4:00 on Saturday." I was thinking the retail store and warehouse were 2 different things, but I guess not. Freetime is a little over 100 miles away from me. But I've been meaning to drive over there for some time. Looks like now it will be a Saturday, all-day road trip!

Stopped at the Ollie's in Anderson, SC last Saturday. Looks like they've run out of stuff for the Big Kit Sale. Couple of weeks ago, they had a whole center-aisle "island" with nothing but plastic model kits. Mostly Lindberg boats, Civil War cannons and other un-interesting items. Now the few remaining kits have been tossed into the regular toy aisle.

Not an option here, as others have said. The closest thing to a local hobby shop is a long drive, and they concentrate more on RC cars/airplanes. They only sell Testors paint, and most of that looks like it has been sitting in the racks for a long time. They do get new car kits. Usually the same kits as Hobby Lobby, which is just a couple miles down the road from them. I do stop in to that shop when I'm in the area. Other than that, the nearest full-service hobby shop is about 50 miles away. I just re-located back here to SC 2 years ago. When I lived in Los Angeles, I made the rounds of 3 great local hobby shops almost every week. I really miss that.

I think the emails usually say "...on sale this week." But it's really hard to tell. One thing I've noticed about HobbyLinc - prices on some kits will change pretty quickly from "on sale" to "not on sale." And others seem to stay at the sale price forever. I've thought about buying kits several times, then the price would go up. So the best advice is probably: if you see something you want at a really good price, buy it then and don't wait.

Bumping! I posted the other day about this latest sale. If you subscribe to their e-mail list, you'll get advance notice about these sales. They usually have 2 clearance sales at the same time - 1 for model kits, the other for paint and tools. They seem to carry almost all of the Alclad paints. My favorite online vendors in the U.S. are Freetime Hobbies in GA, HobbyLinc, and MegaHobby. Between those 3 I can usually find anything I'm looking for. And all 3 ship very fast. That comes in handy when I'm running short on something like Tamiya paint. Which nobody sells in this part of SC.

Thanks. I'd love to see that thing. I'm a geezer with a lot of books on scale-model history and I've never even heard of a 1/25 White half-track. Instead of a "second tier" U.S. manufacturer, I wonder if it could have come from a Japanese company? Back when Tamiya was still "Tamiya-Mokei," circa early 1960's, they released quite a few military kits in oddball 1/21 scale. All are extremely rare today. Bandai did some military kits in 1/30 scale. Their Hummel WWII German self-propelled gun was the ONLY kit of that vehicle available until about 1992, when Dragon finally did it in 1/35 scale. One other place I'll look: I have a couple of Japanese-language books about old kits. One is called "Scale Model 1960," IIRC, and covers all sorts of weird kits sold in Japan at that time. It might be in there, if it even was Japanese.

Well, if you ever need any more...Sprue Brothers in Liberty, MO has a big selection of that Eduard mesh, including the one in your photo, #00-110. They mostly sell aircraft, armor and ship kits. If you get on their e-mail list, on weekends they often do discounts on entire product lines like Eduard. (This past weekend was 20% off all Dragon/DML kits.) Prices are already pretty good without any discounts and they ship very quickly. Here's a link to the search results for "Eduard mesh:" https://store.spruebrothers.com/searchresults.asp?Search=eduard+mesh&Submit=

You can also buy that 2-part clear epoxy in Loew's or Home Depot. I've used the "Devcon" trade name for years, but Gorilla and several other companies also make it. It really is useful and versatile stuff. In dioramas, it's great for making small mud-puddles or even water dripping out of a broken pipe. One way to shrink pictures down etc. is good old Microsoft Word. Just paste your poster, sign or whatever into a Word document. Word will recognize it as a picture and you get the 4 "handles" on the corners so you can re-size it. Then you can print it on regular paper until the size is just right, then print it on decal paper. Or thick card-stock, if you're making road signs and the like.

I just checked the Hasegawa #CA-10 XJS Cabriolet kit in the basement. It not only comes with left and right hand dashboards: it also has different door panels and the entire floor pan for both versions. All these parts are in the box, and marked "not used" on the instruction sheet. I bought this one at a kit swap meet a few years ago, and it still had "$10" price tag on it. So maybe you can find one fairly cheap. There's also the old Revell #6203 Snap-Together Jag XJS in 1/25. Here's a parts layout pic for it and a link to a detailed build, in Spanish. I also have one of these, but it's still shrink-wrapped and I'd rather not open it. The box art shows a LHD dashboard, and the Spanish modeler had to cut apart the dash to make it RHD. But this kit was originally sold as "The Saint's Jaguar XJS" and "The New Avengers" XJS. Those should have been RHD, since they were product tie-ins to British TV shows. But I could not find a pic of the parts. So maybe Revell cut separate LHD/RHD dashboards. Or maybe they just did it as LHD only and ignored any complaints. http://modelcarlistspanish.forumotion.com/t948p1-jaguar-xjs-1979-1-25-revell-snap-together

I've bought from Tokyo Hobby on eBay several times. Not long ago I bought an old Subaru Sambar kit from them that showed up as "Discontinued" from every other vendor. Never had a problem with them. Lucky Model is also a great source for Asian kits at decent prices. Both of those vendors ship very quickly. I did order some Tamiya Epoxy Putty from Lucky Model once (along with some kits). They warned me that it could only be shipped Surface (not Air) because of its chemical makeup. They estimated it could take as long as 6 weeks to arrive, but it took less than half that time. In the case of the Astro van, I've seen people on this board who don't use eBay and others who don't like to order from foreign vendors. So I was just passing along info on where they could get the kit if they wanted one.

Got an email from Hobbylinc this morning. (The one in the USA, NOT Hobby Link Japan). They have the Fujimi 1/24 RS87 Chevrolet Astro LT AWD Van on sale for $44.43. They say that is 25% off the regular price of $59.98. The Astro kit is often available on eBay for $40-50, but mostly from Japanese sellers with high shipping costs. I'm just passing this along for anyone who wants the kit and would rather deal with a U.S. vendor. I have no connection with Hobbylinc, other than being a happy customer. Other car kits I noticed on sale: AMT 63 Studebaker Avanti $12.47; AMT Elvis Presley Meyers Manx $9.61; Revell Datsun Off-Road Pickup 1/24 $9.37. From the Hobbylinc home page, click on the "Models" drop-down and select "Specials" to find the Fujimi Van. When done, go back to "Models" and select "Clearance," which is where you'll find most of the car kits. http://www.hobbylinc.com/

Will keep you in mind! Though I have to say, I'm partial to that Crown Highway Patrolman myself. Some of these will probably end up on eBay. All are still shrink-wrapped, except the LS Luger and Nambu. I have an LS Broomhandle Mauser and a Colt Model 1911 .45. The Colt is mostly assembled, so I got it fairly cheap at a kit swap meet. The LS Luger still has its price tag on it, visible in the photo: $14.00. One of the Academy short-barrel .44 Magnums also still has its price tag, from "Team Hobbies." It was $13.00. Now if the Flea Market would just cough up a stack of old AMT and Jo-Han annual kits in this condition...

The LS 1:1 gun kits came out in the early 1970's. They're made of an ABS-type plastic, so have to be built with super-glue. They have metal springs and other internal parts that make them work exactly like the real guns - slides recoil, magazines load, etc. (Though they won't work too many times without breaking.) Each also comes with brass-colored bullets. Most parts are in gun-metal colored plastic with brown for the wooden handgrips. So some builders didn't bother painting, just rubbed them down with a coat of powdered graphite to add a little shine. And maybe weathered the "wooden" parts.

Flea Market Day! Couldn't find any car kits, so I bought an arsenal. I've been trying to find some of these for years, especially a Luger kit. And eBay prices for these kits give me sticker shock, so I'm very happy. I bought all these together as a lot, for a very reasonable price. The Academy kits are re-pops of the old LS 1:1 scale gun kits. The one in the lower right is a Crown re-pop of the LS Model 28 Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum Calif. Highway Patrol.

Parked outside the Huddle House where I was eating breakfast...a time machine! Took me straight back to the days when everybody wanted one of these... 1957 Chevy Bel Air --White top, red body. Matching red-and-white tuck & roll interior. Even the package tray was covered in white tuck & roll Naugahyde. Instrument panel and carpet were black. --Cragar 5-spoke chrome "mag" wheels --Hurst floor shifter --Chrome dual exhaust extensions. When I was a kid, '57 Chevys were everywhere. My cousin's boyfriend had one, in black and white with matching tuck-and-roll interior. His had been updated with a 327 and 4-speed out of a Corvette. Another cousin (married with kids) bought an ex-police 4-door '57 Chevy. You could still see the marks where the roof light "bubble gum machine" had been mounted.

OK, I can't get rid of that mysterious Quote Box that came out of nowhere... Tom Geiger said: "I once went in an antique shop and there was an AMT/Ertl 55 Chevy kit..." What a jerk! I had a similar but more pleasant experience in a Los Angeles antique shop. Woman had the AMT 25th Anniversary '40 Ford coupe tagged as "from 1965." Told her it was from 1973, since "25th Anniversary" meant the anniversary of AMT, dating from 1948. She actually thanked me, said she knew nothing about scale models, and was happy for the correction. I did have several experiences like yours, mostly when eBay first really got rolling. Some people asked me to put their kits up for sale, since they didn't want to bother with taking pix, listing, etc. (And it was harder to put up sales in the old days.) I would do that and take a cut of their sales. A few guys I just could not deal with, who owned either small toy/hobby shops, or those Antik/Junque stores. They had some common, recent and unpopular kits gathering dust on the shelves. They wanted those kits listed on eBay for full store retail, at least. I explained, and even showed them on the computer, that those kits would never sell at that price. The response was always "I have to get this much." Meaning 100% profit, I guess. I did sell quite a lot of stuff for one hobby shop, before they started their own internet operation. But they were realistic and just said, "We know these are dogs. Just get whatever you can."