Kit Acquisition--Informal Poll

1) I haven't bought any kits last year.  I guess that with the pace I'm currently building at, my stash of 130 kits will be one day completed by my future grandchildren.

2) I usually wait a long time, mainly to get it cheaper.

3 & 4) I only buy online.  I used to buy them from Military Hobbies, but nowdays, mostly from E-Bay or from a forum buddy that wants to thin the herd.

deafpanzer

 

Manstein's revenge:

 

 

wbill76:

 

You did Andy. Please see Herr Manstein for ticket and accomodation information.

 

A Gestapo staff car should be at your house within the week.  Please don't offer any resistance to the 4 burly guys in the ankle-long leather greatcoats and feddoras...After being stripped of all of your personal articles and delousing you'll be put in a cattle-car on a train to the East...if you survive that week- long journey sleeping in hay and on cow-patties you'll arrive in Kharkov just in time for the Red Army encirclement...your first activity will be a mine-clearing operation near the southern outskirts of the city....

 

...Congratulations...

 

 

Good thing I won't be home for a week... off to New Orleans for spring break.  Good luck finding me on Bourbon Street.

I love NOLA. I went there only once with my wife on and coming back from a cruise out of Miami. Didn't get to do as much as I'd like though, but I'll have to make another trip there.

Manstein's revenge

 

wbill76:

 

You did Andy. Please see Herr Manstein for ticket and accomodation information.

 

A Gestapo staff car should be at your house within the week.  Please don't offer any resistance to the 4 burly guys in the ankle-long leather greatcoats and feddoras...After being stripped of all of your personal articles and delousing you'll be put in a cattle-car on a train to the East...if you survive that week- long journey sleeping in hay and on cow-patties you'll arrive in Kharkov just in time for the Red Army encirclement...your first activity will be a mine-clearing operation near the southern outskirts of the city....

 

...Congratulations...

Good thing I won't be home for a week... off to New Orleans for spring break.  Good luck finding me on Bourbon Street.

Bill if you think you have a list, you should see the one Dupes takes to the shows ...looks more like a LHS stock inventory sheet ...LOl

I don't have many in the stash and mostly started ones.

I try to buy most of my kits from vendors at shows and may buy around 5-10 kits a year. I also buy from a dealer, Alpenflage Hobbies.

I don't go for the newest release and only buy what catches my eye or if I find ref pics of some cool wrecks. i plan how I would wreck or rust the model before buying it. If it's a newer kit then I may get it just to do a review of the kit or painting and weathering products on my forum.

That's about it for me.

wbill76

You did Andy. Please see Herr Manstein for ticket and accomodation information.

...Congratulations...

1. Went thru a feast period after  I came back to the hobby and before kids entered college. Stash stands at 2.3 lifetimes. Nowadays I just buy books/references and the occasional super-sale or release I cannot pass (ie, Encore's Olympia).

2. Wait wait wait. I have sucha huge stash, I can wait for a new release of an old subject, etc. Also I wait for "premium editions" (ie Academy's 1:350 modern ship releases), build reviews, etc.

3-4. SprueBrothers (their Dragon armor specials are ridiculous), Luckymodel (PE, holiday sales; cant beat their Trumpeter, HobbyBoss, and other brand prices); sometims Dragonusalonline and Squadron (green sales only).

And i always get an armful of stuff at the Danbury AMPS show; rarely kits though.

wbill76

It's good to see that the styrene-acquisition addiction is still alive and well among the forum members here. Thanks to everyone who posted!

It is an addiction. I've started selling some of the more vintage kits on eBay; ones that have more collector's value than builder's value. For instance, I have the old original Tamiya Jeep kit with an old Eduard PE set made for that kit (it was Eduard's 2nd 1/35 scale PE set and a collectible in its own right). I sold them for more than a new MiniArt Bantam Jeep kit goes for on eBay including shipping. Tamiya's original Jeep kit was outdated when Italeri's Jeep kit arrived in the early 1980s.

Bottom line, I get rid of an old, outdated kit and replace it with a modern up-to-date tooling kit of a similar subject, pocket a few extra dollars and someone gets a vintage kit for their collection.

I deleted my reply ............i wont tell a lie .............

tigerman

 

Shellback:

 

 

 

Oh please tell Carl.

Shellback

Oh please tell Carl.

I've taken to shooting my 1/72s with an air rifle. There are a few of my wonders that I'm kind of fond of and want to keep around. That said, I think pretty soon the 1/48s will be headed to the shooting range. Now that fireworks are legal again, could also try to reacquire my boyhood skill of booby-trapping all kinds of things with mini-mines. (Maybe you could work that into a dio?) On Top Gear I once saw them shoot a small car a few hundred feet into the air with a big rocket: their Shuttle. My kid never really took to models (the left-overs were the ones I started on a couple of years back and got me into the hobby again) but he did like model rockets. So did I. We even built some dual stage things that went way the heck up there and came to earth with a parachute. I'm wondering how high that rocket could have taken a Zero strapped to the side. Might find out. No question that unless you're one of the lucky few that can work on commission, this hobby is one where the journey is the point, not the destination. Zen. Like making road wheels.

Eric

tigerman

 

wbill76:

 

You did Andy. Please see Herr Manstein for ticket and accomodation information.

 

 

But Manny's in the cooler or so it always seems he is.

...........Maybe..................

wbill76

You did Andy. Please see Herr Manstein for ticket and accomodation information.

But Manny's in the cooler or so it always seems he is.

You did Andy. Please see Herr Manstein for ticket and accomodation information.

Who won the prize, Bill? 

It's good to see that the styrene-acquisition addiction is still alive and well among the forum members here. Thanks to everyone who posted!

Oh well.. I'll play..

1) How many kits (rough estimate) would you say you buy in a year?

Hmm.. Not sure, but since my return t the hobby after a ten-year break in 08, I've accumulated around 200 kits, and roughly 100 figure sets..

2) Do you buy a kit as soon as it is released or do you wait a while? If you wait, what's the main reason for waiting?

The only kit I bought that had been a new release was the Revell PV-1...  Other than that, I hae no interest in these over-priced, over-hyped new releases, prefering instead to purchase the classics and build them...  I cancelled my pre-order of the Arado kit, deciding to wait.. It was worth it to wait. Just got one on Ebay for 14.00...

3) Do you buy online or from a physical LHS or show vendors or combination?

I've bought mainly from Ebay, Hobby Lobby, and my other LHS...

4) If you buy online, from who? (feel free to list more than one if you have multiple favorites)

Ebay, more than anything, althugh I've bought a few figure sets from Great Models and Sprue Bros., as well as a large majority of tools from Model Expo.

tigerman

JohanT:

I very rarely finish a kit so my stash is growing for that simple reason.
And I really don't mind.
When a kit is finished i usually toss it away anyway.

 

I know Hans does that. He takes pictures of his finished build and then breaks it down. I just don't quite get that approach.

I'm in the hobby for the building, not the displaying..  They're just models, and they will never, ever look as good again as they do when you first finish them.. And it's also a big reason why I don't buy high-dollar kits...  Much rather toss a 12.00 kit-hulk than 120.00 one... Plus, I got one hellluva parts box... It's a regular salvage yard.. 

Built a stash much too quickly when I started. Didn't really know the difference between brands and scales. So recently I've been selling off 1/72s and "classic" kits - anything with raised panels and rivets. So, I'm going to rebuild some basics in the stash. I buy carefully so I know it could be liquidated by my son the eBay junkie with little loss if I drop dead. I'm not sure why, but I just like having the kits I think important around. Aaron Skinner wrote a column for FSM about "mental builds" that describes the feeling. I look at a box and think, "how will I do that one?" A lot of fun, and like a lot of Americans of my generation I can't possibly afford big things like a real boat (my tagline is literal) or a Porsche but do have what my wife calls "fritter money."

That said, once the stash has been reoriented, I'll be only buying to replace. So maybe 6-8 in a year. (Not counting paints, masks, PE etc. That's long become the biggest bite from my bank account.) Sprue gets a lot of business because of their selection of everything and sometimes fantastic sales. White Ensign and Squadron for specialty stuff. Most kits have come from Scale Hobbyist, easily the cheapest site on the net and one of the best. I'll be going to eBay to fill the "required" list of Pacific War aircraft and maybe a Stuka. Ships live in their own world. Now I do heavy research before buying any major ship - maybe one a year. They take two months a pop moving fast, so I don't buy one lightly.

Eric

wbill76

 

1) How many kits (rough estimate) would you say you buy in a year?

Hard to say...  I binge-buy when the mood or subject interest hits me, but the December sales are when I run up the score...

2) Do you buy a kit as soon as it is released or do you wait a while? If you wait, what's the main reason for waiting?

If it's something I want right now, then I'll buy it as it is available.   Waiting means it is pre-ordered.

3) Do you buy online or from a physical LHS or show vendors or combination?

Yes.  I travel several times a year and always try support a LHS whenever I can, but online is where I spend most of my $$.  My LHS is OK for consumables. but not so much for kit selection.  The best brick and mortar LHS I've found were in Pittsburgh, PA and in Columbus, OH.

4) If you buy online, from who? (feel free to list more than one if you have multiple favorites)

Great Models and Squadron get the bulk of my money, but I've also used InternetHobbies, Hannants, Aviapress and god knows who else to find what I'm looking for.

 

Well since you are interested and asking Bill... Here goes:

1) How many kits (rough estimate) would you say you buy in a year?

On average one a month with the odd second... so about 15... It is also about the speed in which i build so my stash is modest and usually consists of the models that turned out not to be that good... In times of financial trials and tribulations i turn to that lot. Maybe some 10-15 kits inthere at the moment

2) Do you buy a kit as soon as it is released or do you wait a while? If you wait, what's the main reason for waiting?

Nu uh... prices usually are way up there with new stuff. I did buy some newer Revell of Germany stuff though. The seem to grasp lately how to produce good quality kits with "normal" pricetags. I love my hobby but simply refuse to pay the prices some brands ask for their stuff...

3) Do you buy online or from a physical LHS or show vendors or combination?

Paints, brushes and stuff like that at my LHS. He also carries anything RoG and a modest section of Tamyia, Trumpeter and Italeri armor. The bulk of my purchases is done online though. 

4) If you buy online, from who? (feel free to list more than one if you have multiple favorites)

A great shop here in holland that has literally anything aviation related is www.aviationmegastore.com Another online vendor i buy from frequently is called Mol (www.plasticmodelbouw.nl) from Belgium. They have nice armor goodies as well as paints and supplies. On occasion i have bought from Hannants in Great Britain.

Lastly i buy from ebay. Theres this vendor in china that has anything the asian brands offer for good prices and low shipping. Cant think of the name though.... something like model supermarket or something... Vetteman42 pointed it out to me once and i do like to shop there since. Just takes about two weeks to arrive thats the only downside i can think of.

Richard

JohanT

I very rarely finish a kit so my stash is growing for that simple reason.
And I really don't mind.
When a kit is finished i usually toss it away anyway.

I know Hans does that. He takes pictures of his finished build and then breaks it down. I just don't quite get that approach.

JohanT

When a kit is finished i usually toss it away anyway.

Ohhhh, I SO could not do that. Ouch.

Hi Bill,
This is my third marriage
I started off as a kid of seven in the 60'ies
Picked it up again when I was starting to earn my own money in the 90'ies 
Now when the kids are older I am back again since 2005.

I very rarely finish a kit so my stash is growing for that simple reason.
And I really don't mind.
When a kit is finished i usually toss it away anyway.

To me the beauty of this hobby is in three very different areas;
A.) I simply love the feeling of opening the box and starting to examine the sprue's, its a kids joy.
B.) The next bit of fun is to figure out what I want to do with the kit and this is where I start researching the internet and my reference books for a good photo reference.
This usually goes the other way around when I think about it and I start of with the photo from somewhere
C.) It is so very inspiring trying to follow you guys in your new achievements trying out your new techniques.
Right now that means dot fading and PE.

1.) Around 15 / year, stash is at 120 right now so that sounds OK'ish.
 
2.) I usually buy the kit when the talk gets around. If it is a Tiger I will preorder

3.) I try to support the LHS, Kempes Hobby, Gothenburg.  It is great and extremly hard on the ball.

4.) Spruebrothers, Cyberhobby, Hannants and JB Models.

Very Best Regards
Johan 

1) How many kits (rough estimate) would you say you buy in a year?

About 5 a year.

2) Do you buy a kit as soon as it is released or do you wait a while? If you wait, what's the main reason for waiting?

I ususally wait. I look at reviews and what other modelers say about it. Occasionally I'll get a kit right away if I think it's gonna be hard to get later (S-3B Viking).

3) Do you buy online or from a physical LHS or show vendors or combination?

Mostly online. I don't have many LHS here anymore. I so get a few kits from show vendors at our IPMS Houston show that's on April 28th!!!

Model Mania 2012!!! (Yes this is a blatant plug!!!) http://www.ipms-houston.org/?page_id=11

4) If you buy online, from who? (feel free to list more than one if you have multiple favorites)

Sprue Bros, Squadron, Royale Resin

1) kits in a year ? .. Varies.. on cash flow.. and what the subject is.. but from 10-30...

2) buying as soon as released ? depends on subject,, usually no.. I did buy the new PV-1.. but got it at an overflow store for $18.95 !

3-4) buy where ?? mostly online.. mostly ebay... then other online stores.. I do try the LHS.. but there prices are high.. I use it mostly for paint.. glue.. supplies..

Hinksy

. I dread thinking od a model kit going through the UK postal service! It would never make it! 

Ben

You would be surprised. I have never had any issue in that regards. And i have had some damn big kits come through the post.