Haul ’em all the way from then to now.
I bought a plastic baggie Airfix Fokker DR.1 in 1959. From a Rexall drug store in Drayton Valley, Alberta, it cost my week’s allowance – 50¢.
The building of it took several more weeks, by which time I had saved up enough for another baggie. Since I only got into town once a month it was a perfect economic regime.
I once went into a shop here in Perth to get a new kit of Vintage Classic Airfix – the Dogfight Double of the Bristol F2.B and the Fokker DR.1. The price was on the box, so I started to calculate on the way home:
a. Inflation makes the price of luxury goods approximately double every decade. Thus 50¢ Canadian in 1959 would amount to approximately $ 48.00 CAD now. In current exchange rates that made it $ 55.00 AUD.
b. I paid $ 28.00 AUD for the double kit. – the Fokker would have been $ 14.00 AUD. Much less than half the price that one might expect in other retail goods.
c. But when the box was opened at home, there was no Fokker. I got two Bristol F2.B kits. I was not displeased, as the Bristol was more plastic for the money. Then I built two Bristols and looked for another maker’s version of the Fokker DR.1.
c. Out of pocket? No. I reckon I’d got $ 41 still left to spend on a triplane and I’d ended up with a free Bristol F2.B.
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