As I toss out yet another little square 1/4 oz. bottle of Testors enamel paint with dried contents, it really made me wonder just how many of these bottles I had tossed out over the years. I started doing this when I was maybe 10 or 12, then disposed of everything when I “grew up” and model building was a ‘kids’ thing and then began again when I “grew older” and now it was an adult thing.
The little bottles were all I had at the time, and I can even remember them being marked as 12, 15 and then 19 cents! I had both Testors and Pactra paints. (Remember the Pactra bottles being embossed with the ‘P’ logo on the sides? And they were labeled as 'namel!) I just bought a bottle of Testors Semi-gloss black from Hobby Lobby for $2.69!
I think back on these paints, the Floquils (I loved their military colors line), Pollyscale, Model Master, Gunze, Mr. Color, and now all the paints available to me now such as MCW, AK Interactive, Tamiya… etc. all now in larger round glass bottles. I wonder how large of a pile of these little bottles I would have created if I had kept them all over the years…
Good Golly my brain goes off on these odd little journeys at times!
I remember those days well! I still have a stash of the 15 cent bottles that I use for detail work. What I did over time was to check the bottles. If it had separated, I mixed it up real good with my little electric mixer and added a few drops of odorless terpentine. Only had a few that hardened up like a rock and couldn’t be saved. Haven’t had to look for any in years so really sorry to hear that they’re up to $2.69 a bottle. That’s not with the 40% discount, is it??? Wow, that would be something else. I have been using Vallejo acryllics for quite a while and they are getting ready to top the $4.00 mark.
Just goes to show you, when I started driving in 1958, gas was 32 cents a gallon and cigarettes were 32 cents a pack. Oh wow, I’m old.
I’ve cleaned out and saved those wonderful little square bottles for years!
I mix my own colors on a regular basis – goes with the territory, using Tamiya acrylics pretty much exclusively – and the square bottles are the perfect size for the little bit of ‘leftover’ you never expect to use…but always end up needing for a touch-up or repair, before a project is finished! [:D]
You just took me on a journey. As I go through my “Little Square Bottles” The old ones. I realise how much the price has gone up and how many brands have come and gone since I bought my first for .09 cents a bottle with model, only at K-Mart! I had my Expedition with Pactra! Loved that paint! Oh? remember when it was Testors “PLA” and you could also get it in the eight basic colors for .90 cents plus tax which made it an even dollar?
The story has a twist for me. I was In Catholic School at the time. Everyone(The Adults) said we got a better education there. Sister Aurelia(200 hundred Pounds of very serious NUN)Was our art teacher. She was having us develop a “Color Wheel” so we would know not only the basic colors, but what colors could be mixed to make others. That sure had me experimenting at home. Got in trouble more than once pouring out drops of paint( Wasting it) my Granma used to say.
Learned a lot about colors I did. Got a degree from an Art School(A Child’s Degree) I was only 14. In color Blending and Creation. That actually, after almost twenty five years got me a job at a Plastics Company as a technicion in their color development department after I corrected a two ton batch of color for Cox industries. Gee, from Mill Room to Lab in one day and a jump from $5.50 dollars an hour to $9.00 bucks an hour. That was a lot of pay back then. And all because I loved mixing paint to see what kind of color I could get next. Yep, Love those little Square bottles!
I remember cringing when the oil embargo of '73 - '74 hit and watching the price of gas double as I waited for the day I could finally get my drivers license! A 1969 VW bug was given to me by my Gram before she passed waited for me!
I have become my parents when I bring up prices from “back then”. “Bread was only five cents aloaf when I was a kid!” they would say! Now this generation will be telling their kids how bread was only five dollars a loaf when they were kids!
More likely clear acrylic, as the use of glass with solvent-based products is functionally prohibited worldwide in post and common carrier trade.
Add in the number of nations with regulations on “volatile solvents” and we’ve seen entire product lines either change to unrecognizable to vanish altogether. This is as true of shoe polish as it is of model paints & solvents.
I still have a large collection of Testors paints in the square bottles. Loved Pactra as my go to paint in the 70s. Interesting thing is that Pactra is still sold in acrylics form in Poland. I miss the Testors Acryl line and was bummed out when the line was discontinued a few years ago.
“I remember cringing when the oil embargo of '73 - '74 hit and watching the price of gas double as I waited for the day I could finally get my drivers license! A 1969 VW bug was given to me by my Gram before she passed waited for me!”
I had that same year Beetle. I built a model of it many years ago, accurized with my actual license plate and the Star Wars sticker in the back window.
