The Little World

Not a divorce from your spouse. Heaven Forbid. You married, and you have no right to demand happiness now. If you are a scale modeller you have other resources…

No, I mean when do you decide that a kit in the stash is never, ever going to get built, and decide to sell it or give it away? Is it a matter of a cold night of mental turmoil or can you gleefully throw the boxes into the bin from a 12-foot distance? At what point in your modelling life will good sense rear its ugly head?

a. When a kit has been purchased for no particular reason and has no particular appeal, it is ripe for re-consideration.

This might mean the sale table or the bin, but it might also re-establish it in your affections. You may have matured or grown more childish in the interval between the purchase and now and what might have been nothing then may now be something. I have kits that were just pick-ups but have become prizes. And I won a prize once that was a delight. Be hopeful.

b. If you have found other kits by a particular maker to be P’sITA – through bad moulding, inaccuracies, poor design, etc. – then you are justified in putting the current one on mental trial. You can, indeed, make a silk purse out of a sows ear, and every modeller should do it once in their hobby career…but you need not do it twice. You do not need two purses. Leave the pig something to hear with.

If the prospect of the kit is going to be a bad result for a massive effort, think whether it is so vital to your interests as to sap all your happiness.

c. If a kit is suddenly valuable on the S/H market you need to wonder why, and to consider whether it is better as a cash-in than a build-up.

Other people’s tastes are a peculiar mystery, but they can lead to some model kits rising in value above any sensible point. If you have one or more of these sudden gems in your stash, consider whether it is better there or represented by a cash return. You need never sell below your buying price, in any case. You are a scale modeller, and you have the option to build anything you own.

There is a growing division in the hobby of people who buy kits for collection, as such – never intending to build them. Another group buys on speculation and hopes to make their fortune on the rise of prices. Both are legal behaviours, but you may be different – after all, no-one buys an ice lolly just to have it sit in the freezer or to watch it melt…

d. If you have a sentimental attachment to the kit, you must not sell it away. Whether you build it or not – some people think having a cake better than eating it – is your own affair. I have kits that I treasure and will treasure the building even more.