The oldest would have to be the fit the box scale P-40 Flying tiger I built in the mid 50’s. I also built the fit the box scale of the B-47, B-52 and IL-38 in the mid 50’s. The oldest kit I have in my collection is the old Hawk, F-2H in 1/48 scale. I just can’t bring my self to build it, or get rid of it.
The oldest I’ve actually built was a 70’s era Monogram 1/48 Devastator. It wasn’t the reissue that just came out but the original kit that I remember building as a kid with the bland box (the white backing with a photo of the plane).
I recently acquired Monogram 1/48 P-40 and Fw-190’s circa the early 60s. I don’t believe I’ll build the P-40 as it is a nostalgic kit for me, as I recall this exact kit being the first I ever received at about 3 years old. Box still has the shrink wrap on it.
Hi all,
My 1st kit was an Airfix 1/72 Spitfire,in the 60’s. built and painted in 20 mins. My dad said ,Did all aircraft have fingerprints on the wings!!!. [ Some friends ?? say I have not improved much !!!. ] My oldest unmade kit is an AIRFIX Seahawk.
Now I try to buy the kits I missed, off of EBAY, Just looking at an old AURORA Graff Spee boxtop brings back a lot of memories.
Whatever you model, enjoy it.
My first kit ever was an Aurora Catalina. I really couldn’t pin down an oldest kit. I have several 60’s era kits on the to do pile. I don’t dismiss a kit because of it’s age, some of the old 1/72 Monogram kits have held up very well indeed. [;)]
Oldest plastic kit I can remember building was a Revell “boxscale” USS Missouri - Think it was late 53 or early 54 - Don’t remember the first aircraft I built, but my buddies built a slug of wooden models from that time on (anybody out there remember Comet stick built flying models, Comet Struct-O-Speed or Monogram Speedee - Bilt kits?)
Earliest kits I have on my shelf are two Revell kits I remember building in the 5th or 6th grade (somewere between 55 and 57), a Northrop F-89 and a Douglas Skyrocket. Found them at a yard sale a couple of months ago and got both for a buck - Allways liked the F-89, 'cause it was the first kit I had ever seen that the canopy could be modeled in the open position (never mind the one piece interior complete with crew)[swg][swg][swg]
It is the 1/72 Airfix Beaufighter I built in Sept. 1969. After watching the movie Battle of Britain I went directly to a dept. store selling model kits looking for a Spitfire. Not finding any I settled for the Beaufighter, the only British fighter available then.
A school project in first grade in Bulgaria (c.1975) required a scale model of an airplane. My dad bought Veb Plasticart Jak-40.
It was his first time puting anything like this together and he glued the windows on the outside. I thought that every year they would require making models in school and I was very dissapointed when they didn’t.
When I was growing up I resorted to breaking my piggy bank for a model train set and also begging for money from strangers on many ocassions. Now I have about 100 + unbilt kits.
Borislav
I remember bringing an F-102 model to show-and-tell in Kindergarten. That would be 1962. I have no clue what brand the kit was, but I remember it being very small, even to 5-year-old me. It may have been 1/144, or even just a small box-scale.
I still have kits to build on my shelves from the 70s. I have the Monogram Wright Bros plane that I got as a present in 1974, and I have and Aurora Nieuport 11 and K&B Hobbies Gotha Bomber from 1970s-issue.
On my “finished” shelf is a Monogram Fw-190 that I certainly buiilt in High School in the 70s, and a Lindberg Me-262 that I converted to the cannon-nosed version in HS as well.
Revell’s Convair R3Y Tradewinds - the kit molds are dated “1956”…