Tag: collections
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The Remnants

Of you. Or me. Not the body. That is something that the system takes care of one way or other. Certificate, funeral director, eulogy, coffee and biscuits. Horribly expensive, but unless you jump off a ferry out at sea and disappear into a shark, someone will have to pay up somewhere. No, what I mean…
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You Are Not Your Collection

Which is a good thing. If you were, we’d have to dust you. I once visited a club that concerned itself with collecting die cast models and toys. The people in it were keen in their pursuits and many had amassed quite large collections. They had many models and had spent a good deal of…
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The Ideal Stash

The ideal stash is just as easy to construct as the ideal house or the ideal marriage. All you need is about ten centuries of unremitting toil to buy, shelve, rearrange, sell, build, discard, and trade your scale model kits and eventually you will have it perfect. I should start now before the summer heat…
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The Transient Model

Some modellers are lucky. They get to keep their models as long as they want…whether in kit form or built-up. They have display space and protection for their work. Others have to watch their results given away, trashed, or lost. Their only consolation is that it makes more space to build again. Yet the impermanence…
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We Can Retro Better than You Can

If you are a collector of mid-century modern furniture, or fashions, or cars you can pay a small fortune for junk. It’ll be up to you to repair and maintain it, and make yourself think you’re doing a good thing. For the scale model builder, we can do the same thing, but with a bit…
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The Toy Makers

Some scale model builders look askance at people who deal with toys – whether these are wooden horses or cast-metal cars or life-like figurines. There is more than a hint of condescension when they are compared to the latest Tamigawafix 1:200 kit of the Prince Of Huddersfield. The one with the 1200 separate parts and…
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Have You Found Your Oeuvre?

Or your œuf? Is your modelling pressing you toward one coherent thing, or are you flailing in all directions? Perhaps flailing is your destiny, and you are fulfilling it. Do not despair. Leonardo Da Vinci was nearly fifty years old before he built his first model of the MISSOURI. And look how he flourished in…
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Styrene Broker – Part Two

The scale market’s answer to Madoff and Ponzi. In case you are wondering what the answer should be, ” No ” is safest. Anyone who has seen a pyramid or junk bond scheme in operation will recognise the game as it develops. We’re after a better class of broker here. I have disposed of many…
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Alphabet Modelling

Or, how to classify your hobby. Nathan Robinson, the schoolteacher on the Flory forum, mentioned an idea several episodes ago that is interesting and valid. He was counselling Flory forum members not to become discouraged in their modelling when they encounter problems that are going to affect the outcome of the build. He said that…
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Problem Solvered

Advice offered in jest to a person in a modelling club has just lit up a lightbulb in my mind. I’ve a perfect solution to the problem of painting. Well, not to ALL the problems – but at least to the business of getting the right colour onto the models. We all spend hours…days…years…acquiring pots…
