I was thinking today about how long I have been modeling, and how few kits I really have in my collection. I started building about 30 years ago when I was 8 yrs old, building cars with my Dad. Since then, my passion switched to space, aircraft, armor, then back to aircraft. Many years ago, I foolishly threw out boxes of the built kits I had built as a kid. How many times have I thought back and regretted that decision…
Now, looking at all of the kits I have built, the oldest one is a 1/35 Tamiya M1 Abrams that I built in the late 1980’s. And, since I build primarily aircraft anymore, the oldest aircraft I have that I built is the 1/48 Tamiya Spitfire Mk.Vb.
Here’s a couple of pics:
As much as I enjoy looking at my most recent builds, I still have a soft-spot for these older builds. Anyone else care to share theirs?
Another interesting thread Frank, how late do you stay up at night to come up with these??? I honestly don’t know what the oldest kit inn my collection is. I have a few aircraft that I honestly cannot remember when they were built. Some of the earliest I suspect were built between 81-83 but I too have been building since a young age. Most of the early endeavors were lost in combat and died horrible deaths [}:)][:-,]. Anyway, I’ll try to figure out which ones are likely to be the oldest and post some pics.
My oldest built kit I have is an Aurora MBT70 tank in 1/48 scale. It was the first tank model I built myself and had been played with when I was a kid. If I was to guess, I think it would have been built between 1970-75. It was a favorite tank and it survived multiple vacuumings by my mom over the years. It was badly built, unpainted and many parts were broken and missing from the turret.
Around 1996, I discovered eBay and found a partially built kit for $5. I picked up the kit and the next time I made a trek home, I retrieved the old kit. I used the two kits to rebuilt my old kit. I painted it up and decaled it with old Tamiya M113 decals.
I’d love topost some of my “oldies”, but my pre-1994 kit collection is all lodged at my parent’s house in Pennsylvania, 2.5 hours away!
I have some old Nichimo Panthers, and especially, some old American tanks I built back then. An old Monogram Patton, and an M88 Cargo Tractor (?) by NITTO, I think?
Got some of the older Tamiya’s too, like the Sgt York and the Stuart…ahhh–memories!
The oldest kit I have, and still not completed is this old Airfix Apollo Lunar Module. I got it when I was 10 or 11 (now I am 44 ) Never did finish it at the time as someone gave me a Centuri Model Rocket catalog and it got shelved to build “Flying Rockets” . I look at it every now and then, thinking I might finish it up. [:-^]
I originally built stuff from around 1983-1993 while i was still in diffrent apts.I don’t have anything from that long ago.i then stopped for about six years and then started up in 1999 when I was able to set up a work area in my first home.I have everything i have built in the past nine years,but the oldest I think might be my:
I’ve still have a Monogram 1/32 Pzkfw IV from, what, 1970?. Maybe earlier, whenever it first came out. Painted it by brush in Pactra yellow? and green patchy camo. It the oldest more or less intact one I have. Everything else I built before 1973 has been given away or destroyed in one manner or another, firecraker, BB-Pellet guns etc. This includes, gasp, the Aurora 2001 Moon Bus, ( given away)! I had dozens of kits from the early sixties, cars, ships, planes and any Renwall tank that was available, and that was pretty much all of them. ( I’ve been building since the late 50’s. One thing I’ve seen is the constant upward advance of models. Just keeps getting better!
Oh heck Frank you know I have a bunch that are sadly still in the boxes. Mostly stuff from the 1970’s that look like they were built by a 12 year old looking to have some fun. A couple like the Monogram B-25 still have a lot of sentimental meaning to me. Heck I found a Revell Arizona that still had fireworks hidden from mom in the hull for over 30 years.
Most of the stuff I built BK (Before kids) has vanished or died a horrible death. This was the first build I did after buying my house. I am guessing it to be about 12 years ago. It is a Fine Molds 1/72 Me410A-2
Since I am in the military, my oldest models right now are those I have built at my current duty station (completed kits either get donated to the LHS for display or packed away into storage somewhere)… I took a break from modelling during college for booze, books, and babes but my dad still has many of my kits that I built from maybe about 1977 (when I was five) to when I graduated high school in 1990. In fact my first kit is still on his shelf (Monogram’s 1/72d scale F8F Bearcat built in 1978). It’s always nice to see these despite the layers of dust on them whenever I go home on leave…
The oldest kit I still have is the 1/35 Tamiya Quad Car for the Desert Rats. It’s missing a fender, though. I threw away all of my old cars I built in the early 80’s. I had some cool ones, too.
I still have the first model built since getting back into he hobby as an adult: the venerable 1/48 Tamiya A6M2 I picked up for $5 during a Hobby Lobby sale.
Oh wow, I just got back from a trip to shanghai and visiting my grandma’s place. I found a huge box containing my old badly built kits (pre 93) and snapped some pictures since the airfare just wasn’t worth it to bring them all back to the states. I will post the pix as soon as I get them all sorted out.
It’s funny, I was just thinking about this last night. My oldest kits are the armour kits I built in highschool, 25 to 30 years ago. I still have most of them and my 15 year old is using my 1/35 scale Tamiya Stug IV as a reference for his WIP Stug IV. The kits have survived 3 moves and storage in shoe boxes in my attic. They are still in pretty good shape. I’ll try to post some pics inbetween work and kid’s sports!
I will attempt to dig out that kit (it is still in the original box along with unpainted vacuformed base). I was very proud of the effort 30+ years ago and quite happy with the reconstruction I did several years ago too.
I also have another old rebuild project that has been ongoing for at least 7 years. In 2001, a friend gave me a parts kit of the old Renwal Ontos. I had built the Revell reissued kit around 1982-83. It had lots of moving parts so many of them were vacuumed off by my mother cleaning my room. I started using the old parts kit to rebuild my original kit. I’ve set it aside and have not bothered with it in a few years. One day I will finish it though.
My oldest model that I still have is the Revell 1/32 F-14A Tomcat. I bought it in the early '80s, possibly late '70s but did not build it until 1990. It was the very first model that I did a realistic finish on, and even fooled around with sheet plastic and wire to improve the ejection seats and landing gear and gear bays.
I started building in the early '70s around the age of 4 or 5. Started with snap-together dinosaur kits and then started glueing King Kong, Godzilla and Frankenstein kits and then moved on to AMT Star Trek kits. Been building most of my life but the Revell Tomcat was the first build where I could call myself a modeler.
The oldest ones that have survived (terminally ill, I’m afraid) are a bunch of 1/72 WWII aircraft that I built between 1968 and 1971. They were sold in packages of two and were adversaries; like a P-51 and an ME-262, an Oscar and a Wildcat, a George and a Corsair,etc… My mom kept them in a box, all jumbled together. They’re a mess now. I just can’t bring myself to throw them away. They were by no means my first models though, those are long gone.
It is a Fine Molds 1/72 Me410A-2