The Little World

They’re riding shetlands.

The magazines that are published monthly, and bought yearly, all seem to praise extraordinary efforts put into scale kit building. It often involves extraordinary expense as well as inordinate time. The model engineer hobby is the prime example of this; years spent making a workshop – to spend more years making specialized tools – to make their one 0-4-0 steam locomotive. Many locomotive’s lives have not commenced before their builder’s has finished…

There are kits that are the ne plus ultra. They have prices that are the insani sumptus. Someone buys them for the same reason that they might climb Mt. Everest. And with the same approach – pain, fear, bottled oxygen, and the sight of dead bodies beside the trail. Whether the kit is ever finished is not important – and for some people it is not even important that it be started. It just has to be in the stash.

Others come onto the scene at more modest price and excite less lust and envy. They have a chance of making it from the hobby shop shelf through to the workbench and eventually onto the display plinth. They are the legitimate blessings of the hobby.

And some are just such sad dogs that they deserve to be bought and built out of pity. We can see their lurid box art, clumsy packaging, and obscure provenance but still take them home. I mean, there are times when there is nothing at all new on the shelves or we’ve wasted the kit money on foolishness like food or rent. That’s when these orphans get out of the pound and come home.

Do not despise them. Do not shunt them immediately into the stash sale pile. Open the box or bag and start building. You may well be surprised at the pleasure and accomplishment to be had. I have a dozen of these types in my collection and have have far more pleasure from them than from the occasional big-ticket item that has come my way.

Some kits will never be accurate. Some will never be good – or good looking. But they can all be finished – and if you build them to their limit, you have done all that art and duty can ask.

Note: The kit you see was a drawer-find by a friend who remembered me and kindly sent it along. It will be small but splendid.