The Little World

Or is it all just numbers?

When you see scale model kits offered for sale at different prices, is there a correlation in those figures with the size of the scale and the degree of happiness that will be generated? Can we do the maths?

a. If you never build the model, there is no happiness – unless you are a trader who lives for profit and dies with loss. This is not too perverse – but it does remove you from the rest of the equation. If you buy to sell and then do so successfully, you have all the happiness Heaven will grant you.

Beware if you try to re-sell an bargain Aldi kit at a swingeing price. We go to Aldi, too…and not just for the cheese.

b. If you buy models that fit your purse and then build them to suit your skill and taste, you win – big! The green colour you use may be wrong according to the club ‘rak, but then it was never going to be right anyway.

If you buy one model a year – and build that one model a year – make it a corker. Buy the big scale with all the after-market resin and brass and work away as busy as a beaver. You will have the problem of housing the beast, but you’ll have had value for your money.

If your year sees multiple builds, you’ll pay less for each one, but have just as much fun. Don’t imagine housing the models will be any easier than the big oncer your friend has built. Your collection will collect you.

c. If someone has a theme, or a niche, or a kink, or whatever you call it, they may concentrate very narrowly on one thing. Some people have 21 separate models of the same plane, but with different liveries. Bless them – they are doing the right thing for the right reason.

d. if someone just builds whatever they stumble across, they also win. They are as likely as any of us to encounter stash sales, box scale kits, and home garage kits. If they grin and start building rather than make a face and back off, they get the fun of the business. Their collections are eclectic, but delightful.