Well, Mike, I didn’t say built.
But, if it’s a 48th scale aircraft model that is injection-molded, chances are I’ve owned it in the past, currently own it or have held it in my hand. Other scales too, but I’ve settled on 48th.
I really don’t know the degree to which many of you are truly involved in this hobby, but I get the feeling that there are alot of you who are what I consider to be casual modelers.
I, like Rick, haven’t owned or even bothered to look at too many vacuforms, but I have owned a good number of resin kits, and still have several of them. I also have owned quite a number of military vehicle kits, but their numbers have never equalled those of things with wings.
As I mentioned above, it comes down to experience and what you’re exposed to. So I guess maybe, to make this all believable, a little background info is in order.
I haven’t been in this hobby as long as Rick has; I only started ‘serious’ modeling in 1981-82 at the age of 10 or 11. But even at that young age, I was ‘serious’ about it. I ran with it, have never looked back and have made this hobby my own. I make it my business to know this stuff, so long as the subject matter is something that I find to be interesting. And when I say ‘this stuff’, that encompasses not just the models and modeling-related things, but also the history behind it all.
I’m very fortunate in that, at one time or another, there have been upwards of a dozen hobby shops in my area, most within half an hour’s driving distance. Right now there’s only three shops around here where a serious modeler can go and not laugh at the selection of kits. But that’s still more than many folks I’ve come into contact with over the net have. Some of you guys don’t have any shops at all.
Also, there’s several shops within an hour or two driving time that I’m able to visit on a semi-regular basis.
Another reason for the degree to which I’ve involved myself in this hobby is the model club which I belong to. My Dad and I joined the club after he took me to my first contest and I have been a member ever since. (except a few years during my teens when I discovered guitars and cheesecake)
My involvement in the club has exposed me to some great modeling and great modelers, including a few folks in this club itself and several others from other clubs who are nationally, if not internationally, reknowned.
The people I know from my experience in the club have, themselves, pretty large collections. Whenever we have a Saturday Night Mafia Groovy Get-together at Guido’s, we generally mozie on down to the dungeon to inspect the collection and see what’s new. The same is usually true for any gathering we have at someone’s place.
My membership in the club also led to my being able to attend upwards of 6-8 one-day shows a year, if I so choose. Hell, if I really wanted to and could afford to, I could hit twenty shows a year. In addition, there are usually two, maybe three regionals which I could travel to each year. The NATS… I’ve only attended three of them, but even once is enough to boggle the mind.
I’ve been involved in almost every aspect of this hobby imaginable, except kit production and actually owning what you could consider to be a hobby shop.
However, on a number of occasions I’ve been involved in a consortium whose sole purpose was to buy a model collection or collections and sell them. To this day I buy, sell and trade kits whenever I am able or when the mood strikes and generally have vendor tables at many of the shows I attend.
And that’s just the pure modeling side of things…
With all these opportunities open to me, it’s no real wonder that I can claim what I do.
Having a number of pretty good hobby shops nearby where you can hang out and drool over the new releases, being in a club where there’s always plenty of stuff around to look at, getting together on a weekly or semi-weekly basis with modeling buds, going to at least half a dozen shows each year over the course of twenty years… anyone who is able to do that will probably have quite a collection of kits and fixins, and will probably have handled many thousands of kits and other items.
I guess maybe I just take it for granted. But I also realize that not everyone has the same resources or contacts that I do. Because of that, I consider myself to be very fortunate…
Fade to Black…
