Oldies, But Goodies

While delving in my loft the other week I found a carton in the eaves. On inspection it contained several old model car kit boxes. When I went though it carefully, I found it was the old kits which had been started but never finished. It included several dating from the Sixties, primarily from Monogram, that I’d acquired from friends who’d built them and were going to throw them away. I also found a box full of wheels and tyres, another with miscellaneous optional bits left over from past builds and a third with scale ignition wires for detailing engines.

After checking everything, I took loads of photos and, ensuring I’d described them as accurately as possible, essentially as ‘projects’, advertised them on a well-known auction site as ‘Buy It Now’ items. Within a short time I had sold them all. This confirmed that there’s still plenty of interest in model car building and also that people will buy started kits if they are described correctly and otherwise difficult to find. It got me thinking. I wondered how many of the cars that I’d sold, most still in their original boxes dating back to the Sixties and Seventies, were still currently available.

To aid me in my search I visited Round 2’s and Revell’s American websites and also Scalemates (www.scalemates.com). This is a useful online resource that provides basic details about a wide range of plastic models, each with a photo of the box tops and a timeline of their release dates. It was interesting to discover that several of the vintage part-built kits that I’d kept for all those years were either currently available, or had been re-released not that long ago. Quite remarkable!