Mike999

Here's something interesting I found over at the Airfix board. Somebody contacted Aoshima about the MGB kits nearly TWO YEARS AGO. He said they "have plans to bring the kit back." Posting his response and the link to the whole thread. It has some pretty good info on the kits, re-issues etc. Posted at 16:50:01 Fri, 6 Nov 2015: "Recent correspondence with Aoshima - really nice, enthusiastic people - tells me they still have all the tooling and have plans to bring the kit back. Perhaps a chance for Airfix to do a deal..." https://www.airfix.com/uk-en/forum/124-scale-mgb-kit-airfixaoshima/?p=1

Yes! Pix, please!

He may have started it at an even higher price. I checked his Revision History. It was listed on 7/24. On 7/27 he changed the Buy It Now price, then changed the price again on 7/31. eBay doesn't show the prices that were changed. This listing caught my eye earlier today: $550 for HALF a kit, plus $100 shipping from Russia. It's legit - a 1/8 scale Deagostini ZIL-111 limousine. That's just the kind of weirdo subject matter I like to build. But $1100 plus $200 shipping? Uh...no. You get "Parts 1 thru 60" in this auction, then have to buy the second half of the kit. Sounds like the subscription deals for kits that some Japanese magazines run occasionally. http://www.ebay.com/itm/build-a-car-ZIS-110-scale-1-8-Deagostini-1-60-the-first-half-of-the-kit-/182647625804?hash=item2a86a5984c:g:vRAAAOSw1WJZIXu1

I moved back to (Upstate) SC almost 2 years ago and still haven't been to Myrtle Beach. Went there a lot as a kid, every summer. Tourist traffic and related problems seem to be the same all over the world. For nearly 4 years I lived in Alexandria, Egypt, right on the Mediterranean Sea. Every summer weekend, about a million extra people visited Alexandria from all over Egypt. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper on the Corniche, the wide street running along the seaside. Prices doubled for many items. Even the beach vendors selling roasted ears of corn and falafel jacked up their prices. The people who lived in Alexandria had an Arabic phrase for this. It translated to: "May the holiday-makers rot in hell."

Aoshima made a kit in 1/24 scale, see pic below. They misspelled "urethane" on the box. It's a really nice kit. Along with the rubber bumper parts, it still has the old chrome bumpers and an old-style MG grille. It also has an up-top, a folded top, and a rally-type tonneau cover, all molded in frosted clear plastic. The only drawback (for Americans) is that it can only be built as right-hand drive. It's also a curbside kit - no engine and the hood (or bonnet!) is molded shut, but it has nice chassis detail. I sold one of these on eBay just recently. Auction starting price was $19.99. It finally sold for $36.55 + $7.60 shipping and got 7 bids.

Thanks for all the nice comments! I did some experimenting on this kit (as usual). Those thin brown lines separating the camouflage colors were done with a brown Sharpie marker. "I also built this but with Pegasus low rider wheels set and posed hydraulic 3-wheel motion." Now that sounds awesome!

I did the thin brown separation lines between the camouflage colors here with a Sharpie marker. This is a 1/35 scale Skoda PA-II armored car. A few more pix of it are in "All the Rest."

That Hess motorhome is in awesome shape, and must have been kept in the box since new. It's pure white. I see many (and have a couple) that are heavily "yellowed." I guess they were kept in an attic or some place where heat changed the color of the plastic. At least I've seen that mentioned as a reason on some other boards. The fe-mail carrier delivered this tractor today, courtesy of eBay. Finally! Been trying to get one of these for years. This kit is partly built, engine/chassis only. I don't care, it's neatly done so I can live with it and carry on.

Thanks a lot! Didn't even think about the MPC C2's as a source. Now I'll keep an eye out for those kits.

Not just on eBay. I'm in the heart of NASCAR country and go to some big flea markets almost every week. NASCAR kits (and die-casts) are all over the flea-market tables. I talked to a vendor one day who bought a huge estate collection from a widow - more than 1,000 NASCAR kits and die-casts. Said he paid her $1.00 each for them, and was having trouble making any profit at all. When I see the Monogram kits below going cheap, I usually buy them just for those accessories and part out the kit. Because you can't ever have too many accessories...

Agreed! And clean up the molds, as they've done on most re-issues. I pulled out a "Prestige" '63 Vette roadster recently and started fooling with it. It was issued somewhere around 1987-89. The body is pretty clean, with just the usual flash on the tops of the front & rear fenders, and the body "dip" into the doors. But the stock hood had some gaps at the rear and on the right (passenger) side of the hood. Almost like a short-shot, but not quite as bad. Also quite a bit of flash on some of the smaller parts. I'll probably build it out of the box. But I also started fooling with the chassis from an MPC '75 Vette. Looks like the wheelbase is right on. Getting it to fit under the floor pan is a bigger problem. Was even thinking of try to mate the MPC chassis with the cut-away AMT floor pan. I'd like to have the separate front and rear suspension, instead of the one-piece AMT chassis. Think I'll probably chicken out and use the AMT. I would like this to be simple, fun build. Not one of the hair-pullers where I end up ruining the kit.

Somebody at Britmodeller had the same problem. This thread is from late October 2016, so not that old. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound too hopeful, based on this response: "I'm not 100% but I don't think there is an official importer for Fujimi kits, same goes for Aoshima I think. If a shop or online retailer sells them it's because they've imported them themselves. At least that's what I've heard from a couple of places that stock them. So getting replacement parts might might be a struggle. Contact whomever you brought the kit from, as long as it wasn't a ebay or similar purchase, they should be able to at least try and source a replacement part for you." http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235011189-contact-for-fujimi-replacement-parts/

Not likely. Monogram Pictures ceased to exist in 1953, when it became part of Allied Artists. Many years ago I lived in Darkest Hollywood (between Sunset and Hollywood Blvds., near Western Ave.) That was pretty close to the old "Gower Gulch" and "Poverty Row" areas, where many of the smaller movie studios like Monogram had their headquarters. It was always fun walking around there and thinking, "If these streets could talk..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogram_Pictures I thought "Hot Rod Gang" had too much nonsense and not enough hot-rod gangin'. But I did enjoy the brief glimpses of the Ala Karte, and it was fun seeing Gene Vincent.

Thanks, I meant to post a heads-up earlier today but got busy. If anyone is still up late and reading: you might want to set the DVR (or coffee maker) for TCM at 1:30 AM EST Wed. morning. TCM is showing "The Fast & The Furious" from 1955. With John Ireland and Dorothy Malone, a combination of crime drama and sports-car racing movie. Watch for producer Roger Corman in a bit part as one of the drivers. Like most Corman movies, this one was shot quick (9 days) and cheap. It uses tons of stock footage from California road races in the early Fifties. That means we get to see plenty of vintage Jaguars, Triumphs, MGs etc. tearing up the roads. And yes, the producers of the 2001-up "Fast & Furious" franchise had to pay Roger Corman for title rights to the movie. I have Corman's book "How I Made A Hundred Movies In Hollywood And Never Lost A Dime." It's a great read.

I finally managed to finish something! And it's a car...sort of. Here's the TAKOM 1/35 scale kit of the Skoda PA-II "Zelva" (Turtle). Skoda only built 12 of these Steampunky-looking things in 1927. They failed as a military vehicle because of poor off-road performance. They could be steered from either end, and 5 people had to cram into the vehicle - 2 drivers for front and rear, 2 machine-gunners, and a commander. The police in Vienna, Austria bought 3 Zelvas and used them impartially - to crush a Communist coup in early 1934 and a Nazi coup later in the same year. The Czech Army kept the other nine. The Wehrmacht converted at least one into a disarmed radio car with a big frame antenna and used it during the 1940 invasion of France. The TAKOM kit is a "2-in-1," with decal/paint options for 4 armed vehicles plus the German radio car. It's a nice, simple kit, only about 100 parts. Front and rear axles are poseable if you're careful. Fit is generally good. The trickiest procedure is getting the parts of the "turret" aligned with no gaps. Sorry for the lousy photography, it's hot out there and either the model or myself risked melting. There was no vehicle "07," I wanted something different so patched the kit decals together. That also goes for the chassis number "NIX-13." The headlight "buckets" were chromed with a Molotow 2mm marker.

It's not mentioned or shown on the box, but if you find one of these cheap and still sealed - the last AMT-ERTL reissue of the 1965 El Camino had the "Topper" camper and the drag parts. I've heard people ask that about sealed El Camino kits at kit swap meets etc. It's AMT-ERTL kit number 31741 and the box art looks like this:

The concealed engine didn't help, since those chrome-drenched Roth engines always looked so good. I think another reason for its failure was that wonky "asymmetrical" styling. For you youngsters, that was a (thankfully) short-lived styling fad in the early Sixties. IIRC, the reasoning was that since the driver always sat on one side of the car, the styling should offset that. That meant putting a pronounced/exaggerated styling feature on the other side of the car. Like in the Orbitron, that weird 3-lens robot eye or whatever it is. Tex Smith's XR-6 was another example of asymmetrical styling. Which is probably one reason we've never seen that kit re-issued, but its double-kit partner the 1927 Model T Touring Car has been re-popped several times.

Not a scam, but a very weird thing just happened to me on eBay as a Seller. This morning I spent quite a while on the phone with eBay getting it fixed, so I'll just post as a warning to others: 1. Auction ended on Mon. 7/17/17. A buyer tried to pay immediately thru PayPal. My eBay "Selling" page showed his transaction as Pending. But the payment never cleared. Buyer canceled his first PayPal payment and tried to re-send payment. That didn't work. 2. Finally, I noticed that the listing's "Item Location" was a street and email address I had not used FOR OVER 2 YEARS. Called eBay. The woman said the eBay system has an internal Auto-Complete feature. Sometimes it fails, and Auto-Completes using the first available data it can find in the system. Which may be old data. She guessed that because my current email is similar to the 2-yr-old email address, the system found that old address and inserted it into the listing. She did not know why it might do that. She looked at all 54 other items I listed, and all were OK, with correct addresses. Just the one listing was wrong. I could have goofed and not completed the listing correctly or something, so that may have been my fault. At this point I'm not sure and eBay-Woman said they can't verify what happened, either. 3. Solution: I went to PayPal and sent the buyer an invoice. He paid thru PayPal and I marked the item "Paid." eBay is STILL showing the payment as pending, which is irritating. But it did recognize he had paid, and told me to go ahead and ship. Lesson Learned: check all listings very carefully before clicking the button to put them up. And make sure all the data is correct. Especially "Item Location" and email address!

Breaking news! Just got another Michael's e-mail flyer this morning. --Extra 20% off entire purchase, including sale items, --40% off all fine art acrylic, watercolors and oil paints, brushes, pencils, pastels and markers. Don't think they carry Molotow markers but don't know for sure. But this may be a chance to pick up some oil paints/brushes for weathering etc. These deals are only good thru tomorrow, Sat. 7/22/2017. I plan on going out today, hopefully without melting since it's supposed to be about 100 degrees/100% humidity. I'll probably swing by Michaels and check out the art stuff.

I just got an e-mail coupon from them a few minutes ago (and I'm in the USA). No 50% off, just the usual 40%. But they are having a Clearance Sale right now, with up to 70% off on items with orange clearance tags. Agree that selection is awful, the same old kits over and over. The nearest Michael's in my area is very close to a Hobby Lobby. Also near an Ollie's and a Books-A-Million with a good variety of scale model and car magazines. On my last few trips, I haven't even bothered stopping at Michael's. The last time I stopped in, I think the newest kit on the shelves was that "Super Stones" Firestone Ford pick-up. Or maybe the Ohio George '60 Falcon Ranchero.

Hey, it's just one state over from you! A link to their website is below. This flea market is only open on Wednesdays, which strikes me as strange. I should warn you, it's hit-or-miss on scale models, like all the flea markets I visit. Sometimes a bunch of kits, sometimes none. The flea market is only 15 miles from my house, so I hit it every Wednesday, weather permitting. You can ignore the website warning to "get there early, before daylight." I've done that, and most vendors weren't even there, or set up yet. I usually arrive around 7 AM in summer. http://www.visitpickenscounty.com/vendor/110/pickens-flea-market/

Another good haul at the Wednesday Flea Market. The Monogram Woody is partly built. No problem, I wanted it for the stock '30 radiator shell (later re-issues had a '32 radiator) and wire wheels. The others are all complete/unbuilt, with the inner bags still sealed. Off-topic: the FROG aircraft is the ancient 1/72 scale Tupolev SB-2 "Katyuska." The big red box is a die-cast, the First Gear 1/34 scale GMC C7500 Overcenter Bucket Truck. Or tree-cutting truck. It was cheap and I mostly got it to try some wear and weathering tricks.

Welcome! Always good to see another South Carolinian. I'm in the Upstate, near Clemson.

Serious DM/FM collectors want the shipping box, Styrofoam inner box, title and everything else, including that goofy little tag hanging from the rear axle. On eBay you often see DM/FM die-casts advertised with "COA," which means "Certificate of Authenticity" (or title). Don't worry if you're missing some of those things. Some people buy DM/FM die-casts to get parts for restoring others and already have the COA etc. Or they may want to completely rebuild it and don't care about the box and paperwork. For some perspective, I had an eBay sale end just yesterday (Mon. 7/17/17). One item I sold was a 1/24 scale Franklin Mint 1924 Hispano-Suiza "Tulipwood" roadster. It did not have the title or shipping box (but did have the goofy little axle tag). It had a broken windshield and the right-side spare tire was busted off and completely missing. I started it at $9.99. It got 22 bids and finally sold for $42 plus shipping.

Steampunkery! Got one of these coming in the mail: the Micro-Mir 1/350 scale British K-15 submarine. No, your eyes aren't fooling you - those are 2 funnels sticking up. The K class submarines were STEAM-POWERED. As you might expect, that wasn't a very good idea. To their crews, they became known as the "Kalamity," "Killer" or "Kursed" class. One minor problem: with the sub surfaced, heavy weather could pour seawater right into the funnels and extinguish the boiler fires. For submerging, the 2 funnels folded down into the hull, using a complex hydraulic system. It usually worked OK but took some time, a luxury surfaced submarines don't often have. The K-15 was a later build, with the bulging "swan bow" to try and fix some of the problems. Micro-Mir also makes the earlier K-class, with a flatter bow. Micro-Mir is a small Ukrainian company that makes all kind of weird and interesting ship and aircraft kits. They do a CSS Hunley, Bushnell Revolutionary War "Turtle," and several German mini-subs, all in 1/35 scale. So "military scale" figures and accessories will work with them. The owner of Micro-Mir often posts his plans, test shots etc. on modeling forums for feedback before going into production. The kits seem to build up pretty easily and look good, according to on-line reviews. The only U.S. source I've found for Micro-Mir is Freetime Hobbies (and eBay, but those are usually foreign vendors).