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What is the oldest thing you are saving?


Dakimbrell

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I bet everyone has some stuff they have been saving for that “perfect” project. What are they and how long have you had them. Mind is the Heller Chebec. I got it in 1979. 

Dak

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I've got some "old" stuff that I've had for decades, though not through any plan for anything special. I know most of the 1/48 Hawk/Testor's race planes in the stash have been there for 30yrs or more....

 

Gil :cool:

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I started building models when I was in junior high school (1952-1955) and seemed to acquire kits faster than I could build them.  Those unbuilt kits went into the stash, and they have followed me around through schools and marriage and life in general.  Mentally, I've built every one of them, but in reality they are old pieces of plastic in cardboard boxes wrapped in colorful artwork, mostly from early Revell.  Unfortunately, my plans to build my earliest kits, like the Gowland & Gowland cars, were set aside when I lost interest in them in favor of working on newer, more accurate kits from the explosion of new subjects that became available after 1955.  Are there collectors who still want any of them?  Stupid question; I know there are.

Great topic!  I hope many chime in here with their responses and stories.

Ed

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I have a Monogram F-106 that I purchased in the mid-80's when I was stationed at Langley AFB, VA with the 48th Fighter Interceptor Squadron.  About the same time, Bert Kinzey came out with the F-106 Colors & Markings book with a painting of 1 of our birds on the cover.  The pilots name on the plane was Capt. Malcolm Emerson.  He was our Assistant Director of Operations & had been promoted to Major at the time.  I wrote to Bert & he sent me several copies of the decal sheet with 48FIS markings.  Built 1 for Major Emerson & put 1 in my stash which is still there.  Got to meet Bert at the 2015 Nationals when they were held here in Columbus & had him autograph the book.

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When I was a kid, I received Revell's Space Station and not one, but two XSL-01 moon rockets the same Christmas!. Those were scrapped long ago, but I was able to acquire one each on ebay and have them set aside. I also have a Design-a-Plane set. Remember that?

 

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I've got the old Revell B-29 kit that I'm wanting to turn into the Soviet Tu-4 complete with motorized props.

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I write the date I acquired something on whatever it is. This is great incentive to use stuff. "What ? I can't have had this 15 years!" I still have parts from the Aurora Mummy kit (I built it when I was 10) which I've been saving for a special scifi or fantasy project.

Dak

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I sold off my built and unbuilt models in 1973, during a divorce. I was wise enough to keeps all my documentation. paints and decals.  I still have some tins of Humbrol paint and some decals from the 1971-1972 range, including some great old Stoppel silk-screened decals that I used a few of this week!

 

Ed

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When Star Wars came out, I found the R2-D2 and C3PO kits at the local JC Penney. I built both very poorly, and while 3PO vanished, the pieces parts of R2 still remain awaiting my rebuild.

When Star Trek The Motion Picture came out, I bought the new USS Enterprise. It was a more involved kit that required knowledge of dry rub decals (which I had no clue) and the kit required a little more than just Testors tube glue. I made quite a mess of it, but always saved it to try to finish it better.

I think both kits were from 1978.

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  • 1 month later...

Lessee...Have got an Italeri F-104C that's been in the stash since at least c1988, long enough to gain a bagged-kit box-mate. Oldest thing in the entire stash may be a small portion of the nose from the first, or second of those old 1/72 Revell B-17s I built as a kid in the early 1970s. No special plans for that, other than the occasional, nostalgic encounter in the bottom of the spare parts box.

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  • 1 month later...

I have an old 1980s edition of the Tamiya 1/35 M-10, the motorized version.   I built it in the mid 80s, painted with a spray can of hobby Olive Drab, but never decalled it. 

I have been keeping it all these years, with the idea that I would use it in an RC Landing Craft, with some sort of Rube Goldberg linkage — sail the model to the beach, lower the ramp by RC, which pulls a lanyard or pin to activate the tank’s motor and the tank then runs free, up onto the beach.  All of this “contraption engineering” is unnecessary now, given the state of micro RC units, and the off the shelf availability of 1/35 scale RC tanks!

-Bill

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On 1/7/2019 at 5:22 PM, Dakimbrell said:

I write the date I acquired something on whatever it is. This is great incentive to use stuff. "What ? I can't have had this 15 years!" I still have parts from the Aurora Mummy kit (I built it when I was 10) which I've been saving for a special scifi or fantasy project.

Dak

 

That is a good idea. Most of my kits are garage kits, and are bubble wrapped  parts  in a box.  I rely on the post mark on the box, to tell how old it is.

As far as saving, I really don't have any. I was nervous about ruining some of the more elaborate and expensive garage kits. But a bunch of years ago I remember someone writing (in The Clubhouse), that it's only a thin layer of paint. Get half way thru it and don't like it? It's just another thin layer of primer and start over...  Since then I've always just dived right in.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Revell released the "Space Station" kit in the late 50's/early 60's. I bought the kit in the gift shop of the Seattle Space Needle in the summer of 1962 and finished it that same year. The kit survived several relocations, from Great Falls, Montana, to Taylor, Tx, then Austin, Tx, and then to several apartments/dwellings in San Antonio.
By 2004 the model was in a very poor state, so I chose to restore it. Many parts had gone missing and they were replaced with scratchbuilt duplicates. I do not remember where I manufactured my own decals (after many hours on the computer) and away I went.
Having completed the restoration in 2004, the Space Station has occupied a prominent location, in its own custom-built display case, and is NEVER moved without extreme caution and care.

Space Station Revell H-1804 Completed.JPG

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  • 2 weeks later...

Beyond trying to keep  myself breathing and functioning. I have a number of the old, square Testors paints that I brought with me when I moved to Fort Worth from El Paso in 1961.  So they have to go back into the mid-50s.  Believe it or not, the paint's still good!

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