Rob, I've built two of the newer Bandai kits: an A-Wing and an X-Wing. Both superb kits. I have a third on the bench, a TIE Striker, maybe two weeks away from being done. As soon as I can afford one, I'll be getting a B-Wing. A B-Wing kit ain't cheap.

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Rob: Those sound cool. I'd love to see photos of the vintage ones even if they are wrecks. As a guy who's more a Trek fan I missed a lot of those. The only ones I had were the old MPC Star Destroyer and TiE Intercepter.

Frank: Ohhhhh, nice!

Gamera

Rob: Those sound cool. I'd love to see photos of the vintage ones even if they are wrecks. As a guy who's more a Trek fan I missed a lot of those. The only ones I had were the old MPC Star Destroyer and TiE Intercepter.

Frank: Ohhhhh, nice!

Two of the three Falcons are virtually untouched. The one I bought in July 1984 is built to 1984 standards. I briefly considered rebuilding and refinishing it, but it is a snap shot of my skills as a twenty year old. Besides, it would be easier to just build one of the other two, since they are all the same basic kit.

I believe I bought all of the available MPC kits from the first movie. If memory serves me, the Falcon, TIE advanced (Vader's), Luke's X-Wing, R2-D2, C3PO, and Darth Vader.

The Star Destroyer was released during The Empire Strikes Back. I got that kit and the Snow Speeder as well as the AT-AT that came with tiny snow speeders. There was also a Hoth Rebel base with tiny X-Wings, Y-Wings and the big transport.

By the time Return of the Jedi was released, I bought multiple copies of the kits when they were being clearanced at a local department store called Ames.

I'd like to see your first Falcon, too.  I built that one, but by the time the next release came out, I was moving away from models and towards girls.

I only ever built the very first "Star Wars" kits, the X-wing and Darth Vader's TIE fighter.  I was disappointed that they didn't release the regular TIE fighter at that time.  Never got the 'droids, either, though I built the Darth Vader figure.

Rob: Hang on to that build Falcon. I have some kits from about when I was 20 or so but they're kinda beat-up with parts missing. Aka, tanks with missing hatches etc.

Wish I still had some from back when I was a kid but they all ended up beat to pieces and shoved in the spare parts box. So I guess I still have them, they're just smashed all to hell and gone. 

I have no plans on parting with the built Falcon. Wouldn't be worth the cost of shipping it any way. I'll keep the one with interior and build it.

The original one with lights is the one that would be worth the most to sell on eBay.

I also built the MPC Millennium Falcon kit, grain of wheat light bulbs, paper engine light diffuser and all.  Unfortunately, it was a friend's model and before digital photography, so no records survive.

I remember the excitement when the MPC X-Wing and Vader's TIE fighter hit the shelves at the LHS.  All my friends bought the X-Wing kit, and we had epic space battles in the back yard!  I was a little disappointed that Vader's TIE was not to the same scale as the X-Wing, and that it was too many years until a 1/48-ish standard TIE fighter came out.  But it was all good, since it was before the Dark Ages.  Before AMS.

Those were the first two I bought as well. The X-Wing was around 1/48 scale, but Vader was huge, maybe 1/32 or 1/35.

Battlestar Galactica did the same thing with the Colonial Viper and Cylon Raider. The Viper was huge and the Raider a much smaller scale.

Rob Gronovius

Those were the first two I bought as well. The X-Wing was around 1/48 scale, but Vader was huge, maybe 1/32 or 1/35.

Battlestar Galactica did the same thing with the Colonial Viper and Cylon Raider. The Viper was huge and the Raider a much smaller scale. 

And Vader looked like he was sitting on the john, too.

The Cylon Raider ended up as part of the raw material Kow Yokoyama used to kitbash his Fledermaus flying machine.

Remember the "firing torpedo" feature of the Viper and the Cylon Raider?

I cut off the safety tips, shaped the missiles to a proper pointed profile, then painted them orange and green for that laser effect.  Pew-pew!  Lotsa dogfight action in the house!  But the Cylons had two shots versus the Viper’s one.  Darn Cylons.  But they couldn’t hit anything anyway.  

Yes, I still remember my missile getting stuck in the launcher and the glue getting on the rubber band.

I did not know that about the Raider and being part of the fleidermaus. Interesting.