The Little World

There are lots of different sorts of streets and roads out in the Big World – so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that there can also be a variety in the Little World. And amongst that variety is the dead-end street – the no through road or cul de sac of modelling. I have been looking over my hobby map and I think I’ve been able to see one looming in the distance.

The warning came in an issue of Diecast magazine – the Australian-produced glossy publication for the collector. It’s a sometimes-quarterly publication that showcases scale models that are pre-made and presents the newest models for your slavering anticipation. I don’t mind the odd session of unspeakable desires when it comes to scale models, and I’ve generally enjoyed the issues as they come out.

Lately, however, the articles in it that cover anything I am interested in – the 1940’s,50’s, and 60’s – are thin on the ground. There is no report and no review of my interests. As a result of this, I will probably read the magazine in the newsagency and save my money for a plastic kit mag or a restored cars publication. No offence, DM, but you’re dancing for someone else. But you did say something important; the hobby is changing.

I don’t think that I can reasonably expect the Chinese manufacturers to send out any more new moulds of  1:18 cars from the 1950’s – or at least no standard stock models from North America. They have saturated that market and are now catering for younger collectors ( while the hobby is getting older…) and more specialised racing cars. The workers are getting paid more, the profit margin of the models is down and the economics will not support the same level of production as before. I may see the occasional special production but no big supply of Mopar and other cars. And few trucks.

Well, bummer. I might just have all the 40’s-60’s models that I am going to get. In a way this may be a help – I have spent about as much spare cash on models as I can afford – and it will mean that if I am going to continue in such a large scale I will be concentrating on structure and diorama construction. That’s a fine prospect, but the problem will be to find a way to store and display these dioramas and structures – remembering that I use them for photographic props.

I’m going to have to consider whether the place where the models are cased and housed should be turned into a large layout room with a purpose-built display area…something like the model railway layout that North Americans build in their basements. It is entirely my structure to do with as I like, but figuring out what it might become is the question. 1:18 is far too big for model trains and they are not really something I can take that much interest in – I’ve never completed an operating layout in 70 years.

Yet, I have derived great pleasure from model villages and layouts that others have done – I even spent a fascinated afternoon watching the operation of a model coal mine in a London toy museum. The Little World calls, even though a 1:18th version might be problematical.