What Used to Be,.,,,

HEY :

You aren't any different than me now ,are you . he! he! Good model that , but have you built  the punch press that mints coins in clay ? Now ,that,s old and I did one about forty five years ago . It,s fun , this modeling thing ain't it ? Tanker-builder

I can buy most anything online these days.  Try to find a good well stocked hobby shop!  These seem to be in short supply.  I know of a few in my metropolitan area.  The closest has nice people, but not much stock.  I wish to see more stores, but realise that the electronics are more of a lure to our kids and the prices of some of the models.  I do not mind paying a good buck for a special kit, but most seem to be out of reach for a lot of people and especialy kids.  Maybe someone can bring back the Bachmann bird series.  I have enjoyed them in the past.  I do mostly aircraft and a few other things when I have time.

Well, let's see.  The oldest rocks we have here in the Rockies are 1.7 billion years old.  I can thus date the material the tank model if made of the schist or granite to that.  Complex model building life may have began in the Cambrian, the earliest period of the Paleozoic.  That's my story and I'm sticking with it, until evidence changes my mind, lol.

Now, some of the sandstone, limestone or shales  etc, that model builders use can be dated to Paleozoic and Mesozoic as well, so those builders may be younger dudes existing in the Cenozoic,  perhaps as early as the Fredflintstoneilithic,  or as late and the Bambamilitic.

If you wish to date yourself the the Archaeozoic that is swell by me.

I always respect my elders

I'm known around here as someone who builds all genre.  I used to say I'd model anything that moves.  Then, I found in a catalog on book accessories (lap desks and such) a kit for a model of the Gutenberg printing press, which I bought and built.  Now I guess I'll have to say I'll build a model of ANYTHING!

HELLO :

 You sir are dead wrong ! Those of us who started with balsa and other findings were NOT PALEOZOIC ! We go further back than that ! Haven't you ever seen a model of a tank out of granite or schist in the museums ? HA ! HA! HA ! This is fun !     Tanker-builder    P.S. they call e'm rocks today !!

My Holy Grail of models is the "Westinghouse Atomic Power Plant".

I would go by Woolworths at least once a week just to open the box and look at all the colorful parts.Cool decals. String that looked like high tension wires. Neato!!!

One day a sales clerk told me not to open the boxes because parts might become lost. Scared the crap outta me. Didnt go back for several weeks only to find it had been sold.

Now its not uncommon to see it go for $1000 plus for a complete mint kit on Ebay.

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Most of the old Aurora monster kits and prehistoric scenes kits (with those bases that fit together) were reissued by Monogram and later by Revell-Monogram as well as Polar Lights and Atlantis (I saw the T-Rex advertised in the Squardon flyer last month for $40). Between my brother & I, we had just about the entire line of dinosaur kits.

Sadly, the non-dinosaur kits like the Cave Bear, Cave Men/Woman, Saber-toother Tiger, haven't been reissued, but the Wooly Mammoth and that giant bird have along with most of the dinos themselves.

The old Aurora Monsters and Superheroes have been reissued and many have been available recently.

I've seen a few of the Jurassic Park dinosaur kits from the 1993 movie reissued by Lindberg without the JP tie-in, the raptor and the T-Rex I'm sure of along with a few of their ancient dinosaur kits they added to the JP line.

One of the old Aurora prehistoric scene kits my brother & I needed to complete our collection was the tar pit. We never did get that one, but we did have the swamp with these neat, huge dragon flies in a funky metallic clear plastic color.

They went the way of the "dinosaur" because the market shifted. Look at this forum. There is an aircraft forum, armor forum, ship forum, auto forum and a sci-fi forum. We can lament what was but in doing so we must admit that we killed them off. All that is left is what we chose to support through our purchases.

Oh, yes. the old Dinosaur kits. Fun back in the day.  But, wow, talk about accuracy issues.  Kids won't care though, which is the important thing.  But certain modelers now, who get bent out of shape about the smallest dimensional error in a tank or airplane might not be impressed.  I volunteer at a Dinosaur trackway and Dinosaur bone quarry  site near Denver, and those old kits don't look anything like what we think they used to look like now.  Never the less, they were cool kits back then. And they do sell.  Some are still around.

I remember all the other odd kits that were out in the 50's and 60's.  the frog, birds, engines, etc. Some of this stuff was sold in the Drug stores and Woolworths and Kreesgies five and dimes in Iowa, where I grew up.  I didn't really buy any of them.  I liked the AMT car kits and Monogram and Revell,  Airfix ship and airplane kits more.  The Aurora monster kits were fun, but I still didn't buy many of them.  My brother did though.  Those older odd kits were just so much back ground models for me.  But now fun to look at on line and remember.  Sort of the Dinosaur (Mesozoic) days of modeling.  We have some old guys in our model club who go back to balsa wood models.. now they're in the Paleozoic.  

I did the Stegosaurus, T -rex and Triceritops, IIRC.

I went on ebay some long time ago and did a search on model kits I used to have from my youth years. Holy cow! They're going for a premium if you can find it.

I remember those huge prehistoric snap kits - T-Rex, Triceratops, Cro-Magnon Man, Cave Bear, Saber-tooth cat, The Cave, Swamp. etc... Remember those?

How I wish I still had those old kits from my childhood. LOL!

I've been surfing that category daily for over 12 years now. I remember when you could browse the entire models (and entire toy category for that matter), in about an hour. It is fairly easy to add a couple filters and reduce the category to a more manageable amount of pages. Like I said, I've been active on eBay for quite some time (my feedback is above 1100) and I know a few tricks.

For example, this evening, I scored the Eduard PE set for the 1/72 scale Academy Dragon Wagon for $5.43 delivered. It's a set that runs around $20-25.

Man, I'd love another crack at some of those Dino kits, especially the skeleton models. Built the T-Rex decades ago (one of my first models). As I recall, there was also a Stegosaurus and a Brontosaurus. They were amazing kits. Another that comes to mind from that time was a huge cut-away kit I built of a field cricket, accented by smaller, almost true scale mini kits of other insects to display along with it (one was a wasp, and I glued a small thorn to it for a stinger, probably my first AM add-on! LOL). Those bring back some awesome memories.

some of those "used to be" models are still being sold today

the 1/4 scale working visible V-8 is from the sixties, I had one, my cousin had another,,,,,his dad "helped" him and got just a touch of cement on the wrist pins,,,,I was one year older and didn't get any help, mine turned over but, the 3 in 1 oil I used for a lube during assembly all pooled in the clear oil pan sump,,,,my engine wound up demonstrating what an engine looks like inside just before an oil change, the oil yellowed and picked up dust, but, it did "run" as long as I fed it batteries,,,,,,,,,it is still sold today, it is Revell now, instead of Renwal, and has a hand crank to turn it, instead of a motor in the starter housing,,,,,,so, the batteries only have to run the spark-bulbs

there were 4 to 1 scale model Ants at one time,,,,,,and I think some of the Bird models were 4 to 1 or 2 to 1,,,,,I have this memory of a Huge Finch sitting on the window sill and keeping real birds away from that area at my Grandpa's house

When plastic injection molding was young, and just after the explosion of kits,,,,,,,there were hundreds of working toys that were made from the process,,,,,,,,we could get kits to build houses and skyscrapers, they had styrene panels for wall panels and the same plastic as "army men" for the dozen differently shaped girders

RPGs man. Those "kids" are driving tanks, poppin' commies, stormin' the beach heads at Normandy and Anzio. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I still have an OLD Pyro Kit#G194-500 Bavarian Wheellock Rifle that builds to 4 feet 4 inches long. One of these days.  Had a couple of the Pirate pistols for years hanging on the wall in the workroom. Gave them to the grandkids to play with about 3 years ago. They still have them in their bedrooms.

Jim

Nope, they get a screen shot and post it online.... so when your doing an image search, here comes that game screen shot...

Yes, it is amazing the variety of kit subject matter that used to be available .. don't forget the old models of antique firearms such as old west wheel guns or various muzzle loading pistols...