One of my earliest memories is building the Monogram P-40B Flying Tiger. I was three. I am quite certain that it was the box-art that made little me simply have to have that, certainly did not know exactly what was in the box but that started me on a near life-long hobby.
Monogram was a staple in my childhood. I built very nearly every Monogram warbird, as well as some cars, a few ships and even a tank or two. Also built most of their science fiction, dinosaur and movie/comic character releases as well.
Of course, at some point I lost interest in this hobby, and spent a lot of years playing baseball, going to school, pursuing girls, non-interesting stuff like that. But after I finished my education and got the girl, and my athletic days were largely behind me, I noticed a desire to return to the hobby of my childhood. So one day I was in a store and came across a row of kits, some of which I had built as a kid. Something snapped, and I walked out of that store having spent a nice chunk of change on about half a dozen kits, as well as some glue and paints. All of those kits were either Monograms or Revells.
Initially I got back to building as I had built as a kid, with similar results. But I discovered Squadron Mail Order and Fine Scale Modeler, which opened up a big new world, and slowly, over time, I built up my skills and added kits from manufacturers that I had never heard of ... Tamiya, Hasegawa, Nichimo, Accurate Miniatures ... but I always had a soft spot for those old Monogram kits. The Monogram Pro-Modeler kits were great, but they were not those older kits.
A few years ago I decided that I just wanted to build all those old kits again. What I remembered was the baby blue boxes that Monogram kits came in in the sixties, so I scoured ebay until I found just about each and every one of them. My stash includes a bunch of Monogram kits, the majority those old baby blue boxes. I am building those at a steady rate, 1-2 a year along with the many other kits that I build each year. I am keeping the boxes with a goal of displaying them somehow.
While I think Tamiya makes the best, bar none, kit available, I have a soft spot for the Monogram kits. These days I enjoy building those as much as ever, but I also enjoy the challenge of upgrading them with some scratch-building in the areas where they simply didn't provide much, if any, detail (cockpits and wheel wells mostly). They are mighty fun to build.