I recently purchased a number of Supermodel and Heller kits from a Chicago hobby shop; all had been in someone’s stash.
All the kit boxes were meticulously notated with the month and location of purchase ( 1984 thru 1987 ) at the now long gone Squadron Shop store in Elmhurst, Illinois.
As the former owner obviously never had time to build the kits, I am curious how many others have kits purchased long ago but never assembled.
While I own a few AURORA and HAWK kits I purchased during the early 1970s…
The vast majority of my stash was purchased during the last three years; most are old, former stash kits acquired at swap meets.
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So how about you folks?
How long ago did you buy the the kits in your stash?
My stash currently consists of over 200 kits…some I’ve started some I haven’t. While I can’t say for sure how many, a pretty good number of them go back to the '90s.
Two types to consider- old kits that I bought new myself, but have not built yet, and old kits that I bought at a flea market or show, more recently, but have not built. The later type tends to be the oldest kits. I have a hudson miniatures car kit, and a couple of wood “solid” models, both date back to either pre-plastic or earliest plastic days. I was into modeling in that era, but have no kits left that are from the era. Those kits are at least fifty years old, probably going on sixty.
I have some kits from 1965 around yet, but, I bought them in 1972 or so,I didn’t keep a stash when I started building in 1965, but, I had a backlog that grew into a stash from 1969 on up until now (I was 12 in 1969)
Christmas of 1969 I got more kits as gifts than I could build in one week, then soon after that I got my first “real” job that paid more than odd jobs and lawn mowing.
I do have some late 1950’s kits that I picked up for a song at a show’s discount table last year, but, I don’t think those really count for what you meant.
Like most of you, my earliest builds and kits purchased in the 1960s did not survive childhood/adult moves.
During the late 1980s, I did purchase a few AIRFIX airplane kits matching those I built as a child but do not intend to build them. A shame the old AURORA kits are so bloody expensive. I’d like to build their armour kits again.[^o)]
I’m really considering the years I purchased most of my unbuilt kit stash as the age of my stash, rather than when some my oldest kits were manufactured.
I think my oldest purchases in the stash (30 models) date from around 2004. There are two, and they are 1/350 Dragon modern ship models. That was when a local hobby shop in Northern Colorado moved to a new location on the west side of town. They went out of business about a year after that. I mostly bought them for sentimental reasons, as I grew up with that hobby shop.
Like a few others, I’ve got several very old kits that I have collected in the last 15 years or so. I also have some kits I bought new in the early 1980s that I haven’t gotten to yet or haven’t completed.
I also have a couple of kits I’ve built when I was a teenager in the 1970s. Some are competed and some are now in pieces in a box. I have several Star Wars kits I bought and built in 1977-78 as well as the original Star Trek The Motion Picture Enterprise from that same time period. It’s been through the wringer, but is complete.
I’ve only been building my stash for six months. So nothing’s been sitting in there for long. But the oldest kit I have is a Monogram F-80 Shooting Star from 1988. Making it as old as me.
I have some kits that I bought in 1981 at Orange Blossom Hobbies on 36 st in Miami and a couple of Monogram kits (from around the same time) from either Lionel Playworld or Toys R Us when they carried plastics. Orange Blossom closed its doors I think around 2001.
Much/most of my stash was purchased between 2001 when I discovered eBay, and 2007 or so. I have several hundred unbuilt kits (including figure sets), and they range from some of the latest releases to some kits that are from the late 60s to early 70s boxings. But the oldest kits of mine that were new purchase date from Christmas 1982, which was the last Christmas that I was still in school and my folks gave me models as gifts. Most of them were never built and went into storage when I enlisted and left for the Army that next summer. I think that I have five or so left from that batch…
Stikpusher…I happened to see the photo you posted in another thread and the thought occurred to me that any old kits you didn’t want anymore could be readily disposed of with the help of the duty shotgun in the photo…[^o)][whstl]
I am going to date myself by answering this. I have several factory sealed Strombeck, Comet and Aurora kits which I bought decades ago when they were new on the shelves of the hobby shop we used to have in downtown Laconia, NH. I also have some original Strombeck wooden kits which I never built.
I have a Strombecker X1-B kit I purchased for 89 cents at a Chicago hobby shop in 1970…and initially delayed building until I found further info. on the original aircraft. Only in the last decade have I located sufficient info…but no longer intend to build the kit.
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The X1-B Kit also included a small photo brochure of Strombecker wood kits.
The most expensive wood kit is a 23 5/8 inch wingspan B-29 listed at a then hefty price of $3.00.
The most interesting wood kit (for me) is the USS Gambier Bay aircraft carrier (jeep carrier) .
To be more specific (which I should have included in my first post), the oldest kit (one I purchased via internet from someone who had heard I was looking for one) is a kit of a midget race car from a mfg called Ace. They went oob in the late forties. I suspect the kit was mfgd in '47 or '48. The kit is balsa wood except for composition wheels and some strips of brass for leaf springs.
I wanted to keep the kit and build it too, so I duplicated all the balsa parts by band sawing them from hobby shop balsa stock. I made molds of the wheels and cast them in resin. Car is just about complete but I still have all of the original kit now!
the BB gun and firecracker method seems to have been a common method at one time.
Doubt it happens much anymore. Probably just as well for safety reasons alone.
The oldest kit I bought only just recently just before the holidays was a 1/72 scale Supermarine S.B1. The date on the kit is 1973. Found it in a clearance rack at my LHS.
I started modeling in the late 50’s with my father, but then took off a few years for high school, college, getting married and starting my career. I started again right after we bought our first house in 1978 and I had a place for a workbench and a few extra dollars to spend.
I’ve got some old kits that I’ve collected over the years, but I think the one that I’ve actually had the longest is an original issue Monogram 1:48 B-58 Hustler that goes back to about 1984. Started it when I first got it, but then moved shortly after and for whatever reason never have gotten back to finishing it.
All my old kits are built. Too impatient to have a stash in the 50’s and 60’s. I have some that I built in the 60’s but none from the 50’s. Probably the oldest kits I have are a Wright Military Flyer and a Curtiss Golden Flyer by a Los Angeles company called Hillcrest. Plastic framing, paper covering, and white metal engines. Early 50’s.