The Little World

And highly detailed. And highly priced. And highly unavailable.

Hi-lee-hi-low. Hi-lup-a-pup. And that’s another magazine down the drain. I used to buy modelling magazines when I was a kid. For cars to begin with and later for scale models or military models. Model boats kept me going for years.

I would read the how-to-do it articles even though I rarely tried to copy them. I would order plans from MAP. I would copy paint schemes. The magazines were read to death and the better ones re-bound for the library.

Now I am building scale kits again and might be thought to be just as interested in the new crop of magazines. There are several on offer at any one time in my local Lucky Charm news agency. Yet I rarely lift them from the rack…why the change of heart?

Well, one factor is the large reading rack of magazines available at my model club. They are rarely new, but the information in them is historical anyway and doesn’t suffer from being 5 – 7 years old. Then again the club magazines are free to read…a real issue for a retired person who doesn’t have the spare $ 15 that the news seller demands.

The real factor is the disparity between what is advertised in the magazines and what is actually on the shelves of the local hobby shops. It is no good desiring something that everyone in Hemel Hempstead can buy but that never has been nor ever will be imported to Australia. And reading an article that is centred about both the kit and an equivalent cost of after-market parts that will never be seen is just pointless.

It may be restrictive to shop only locally, and to accept what appears on the shelves as your only resource…but it does mean that you have an exciting shopping trip and can start a project as soon as you get home. And the local shop gets a profit that helps them stay open.