StevenGuthmiller Posted July 20, 2018 Posted July 20, 2018 48 minutes ago, iamsuperdan said: I wonder, has anyone ever reached out and asked this guy about his builds? Is there a reason they're built this way? There must be a story here somewhere. They also must be quite old. All the glue has yellowed, and I don't think anyone can fake the kind of weathering and dust and random hairs and whatever else is showing up on those kits. The other interesting thing is the diorama. It looks well done. If I had to guess, I would say that either this is an accomplished builder, (going by the diorama) who acquired a bunch of old built kits from some 8 year old of years past, or he's a guy that built these kits when he was a kid & bought the diorama somewhere along the line. Steve
SfanGoch Posted July 20, 2018 Posted July 20, 2018 Andy Warhol once told me, "You can put a coffee cup on a pedestal, call it "art" and people will kill each other for the privilege of owning it."
Oldcarfan27 Posted July 20, 2018 Posted July 20, 2018 2 hours ago, StevenGuthmiller said: ....he's a guy that built these kits when he was a kid & bought the diorama somewhere along the line. Steve Who said he was a kid when he built these? To me that would insult the kids! The insulting part is he thinks people would pay $25 or more for this rubbish. But then again, what's the saying - "there's one sucker born every minute"
oneescalante Posted July 20, 2018 Posted July 20, 2018 You can buy the whole store for 14000. That's over 4, 000 items.
SfanGoch Posted July 20, 2018 Posted July 20, 2018 If you mean 14000 Venezuelan Bolivars, that would be 13,999 too many.
Ace-Garageguy Posted July 20, 2018 Posted July 20, 2018 13 hours ago, SfanGoch said: Andy Warhol once told me, "You can put a coffee cup on a pedestal, call it "art" and people will kill each other for the privilege of owning it." In 1987, Andres Serrano put a plastic crucifix in a jar of urine, photographed it, and for the effort was a winner in the Southeast Center for Contemporary Art's "Awards in the Visual Arts" competition (sponsored in part by the U.S. government in the guise of The National Endowment for the Arts). The guy who is offering the OP mess for sale has often included bug parts, spider webs and rodent feces (from storage) as no-cost extras. Sounds like "art" to me.
Jordan White Posted July 20, 2018 Posted July 20, 2018 20 hours ago, Don Wheeler said: Just as there are people who collect bad art, maybe there are some who collect bad models. It could be this guy's buyers are people with money to burn and a sense of humor. He has 100% positive feedback for the last 12 months and 726 sales. It's like some movies that are so bad that they're considered good. Don 16 hours ago, iamsuperdan said: I wonder, has anyone ever reached out and asked this guy about his builds? Is there a reason they're built this way? There must be a story here somewhere. They also must be quite old. All the glue has yellowed, and I don't think anyone can fake the kind of weathering and dust and random hairs and whatever else is showing up on those kits. The other interesting thing is the diorama. It looks well done. Just looked through his sold listings, looks like most that were sold were much better quality than the ones pictured here. I wonder if they were all obtained in “collections” and he’s just selling them off. A better question is who is paying full kit prices for some of the built kits though? Some looked bad enough where I would rather pay $20 more for an inbuilt kit and have a bunch of good extra parts.
peteski Posted July 20, 2018 Posted July 20, 2018 18 hours ago, iamsuperdan said: I wonder, has anyone ever reached out and asked this guy about his builds? Is there a reason they're built this way? There must be a story here somewhere. They also must be quite old. All the glue has yellowed, and I don't think anyone can fake the kind of weathering and dust and random hairs and whatever else is showing up on those kits. The other interesting thing is the diorama. It looks well done. While no doubt the kits and dioramas are old and dusty, I don't think the glue has just yellowed. Going by the copious amounts and the stringing on the engine, I think it is a brown rubbery contact cement.
Spex84 Posted July 20, 2018 Posted July 20, 2018 It's clear to me that these kits were probably obtained through estate sales etc, and the seller is just clearing them out one by one, placing them on the diorama base for sales purposes. I wouldn't pay more than 50 cents for 'em. While I agree that these absolutely merit glue-bomb status (yikes!!), if you look at them from the perspective of say, a 9-year-old, they're really cool. In particular, I like the aqua/yellow and green 4x4 truck conversions. The green one in particular has fun proportions. With higher degree of execution, it would be a neat piece. The thing that sorta weirds me is the extremely shaky paintjobs--as a kid, I think I had better hand-eye coordination than I do now. What I lacked was construction skills. I kind of wonder if these were a father-son collaboration. Dad arranged the parts according to son's wishes, and the kid (too young to be able to paint well) got the honor of decorating them. If so, that's nothing to sneer at! Pure speculation though.
Don Wheeler Posted July 20, 2018 Posted July 20, 2018 Maybe rather than looking at these as scale models, they could be considered folk art. I can just picture some old guy (like me) slapping these together and having a great time doing it. Don
SfanGoch Posted July 20, 2018 Posted July 20, 2018 6 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said: Sounds like "art" to me. Arty the Seal sez
iamsuperdan Posted July 20, 2018 Posted July 20, 2018 There have actually been a couple of those builds that I've seen and considered buying. One was a van that had been finished to the same exacting standard, but hadn't been hacked or chopped up. I thought I might be able to purple pond it, strip it, and turn it into something. I've never actually gone through with that though.
Ace-Garageguy Posted July 20, 2018 Posted July 20, 2018 1 hour ago, iamsuperdan said: There have actually been a couple of those builds that I've seen and considered buying... I've bought from the guy, eons ago. I got a bunch of only slightly mangled C1 Corvettes for a decent price, and since they were only going to be hacked into race-cars anyway, no problemo. There has been speculation on this site for several years as to what the story is regarding his seemingly endless supply of models built to this standard, but I doubt anyone has ever asked the man hisself.
SfanGoch Posted July 21, 2018 Posted July 21, 2018 He's got the market all to himself. He wouldn't divulge his sources. Somebody might decide that he wants to get in on the action and put a crimp in his business.
Spex84 Posted July 21, 2018 Posted July 21, 2018 19 hours ago, SfanGoch said: Arty the Seal sez... So would you say these models have your......Seal of Approval? I'll show myself out.
SfanGoch Posted July 21, 2018 Posted July 21, 2018 Hey, art is in the eye of the beholder. Similarly, one man's garbage can contents are another's cash cow on ebay.
Maindrian Pace Posted July 21, 2018 Posted July 21, 2018 The '59 Ford car-based stepside pickup might be the basis for an idea. Same basic theme... '70s style street machine...
ChrisBcritter Posted July 23, 2018 Posted July 23, 2018 My foot won't be loud enough, or make the pieces fly far enough.
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