The Little World

And it turned out to be part of someone else’s stash.

These things come to you. There’ll be a bring and buy sale at a model exhibition or a swap meet at the local club. If you are told of it in time you can prepare yourself by rummaging in the wife’s purse or the children’s piggy banks. This is, of course, perfectly legitimate. If you were buying fancy wines or the attentions of paid women it would be different…but these are kits, for goodness sake.

This one came from the Christmas BBQ at a very advantageous price. In the tradition of stash sales it was not something I consciously knew I needed until I saw it. Then it moved into focus and the deal was done.

As with many stash kits, it has been opened and some of the parts shaken free from the sprue trees…but nearly everything is there and all is well. The age of the decals may be an issue…but you can never tell until you clip one off the sheet and experiment with it. This will be done well before the completion of the kit to make time for acquisition of alternatives.

I must say I admire the moulding crew at Hasegawa. They turn out a clean product – there may be some detail areas left in sketch form, but the models build up well in any case. I do not know enough about the Mirage F.1C to dispute any part of the kit.

I also admire the instruction sheets from Japan. There may be the very faintest touch of Japlish in some of the obscure ones, but their diagrams are superb. As they generally quote colours in Tamiya or GSI Creos the painting is rendered easy.