Tag: finances
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Selling The Unsaleable
The heart of a hobby shop owner must be made of leather and whipcord. Or marzipan. Either way, it needs to be tough and resilient. The ultimate test of this comes at the end of the day when the last customer leaves and the till is totalled up. If the last customer is the only…
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Will The Robber Baron Succeed Where The Red Baron Failed?
Will Trump manage to shoot Snoopy down? If the Petulant of the United States succeeds in nailing his tariffs to the fence and/or increases them to an unsustainable level, will he put the nail in the coffin for imported model kits? Will US citizens be restricted to what they can buy from US moulders? Will…
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If A Model Is Priced Out Of Your Range
Quietly ask yourself a few questions: a. Is it beyond saving for? You may have some some change each week that can be put toward the kit, and many sellers will lay something buy on steady payments. b. Is it the only possible model of this prototype? Granted, you’ll not find many kits of Fandiddler…
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Getting Away With It
Note: I did not write ” cleanly ” at the end there. There are always consequences. A friend has speculated that a mathematical formula should be worked out to tell our spouses how much the new kit has cost. I applaud a scientific mind and sense of honesty and will mention it in his eulogy.…
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The Trains Now Arriving…
In my local hobby shop are wonderful. They have digital control, digital sound, and completely realistic motion. Their couplers are tiny and there are a full complement of passengers and crew. The wagons and carriages are lined and decaled and the only thing that deters me from sweeping up an armful of them is the…
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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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Looking For A Good Time, Big Boy?
I’ve seen these advertisements in the back of the newspaper. But they are rarely from hobby shops… I don’t think we need to make our hobby – scale model building – sleazy and profitable to attract the masses. I am not sure how you’d add porn appeal to an M4 Sherman tank in 1:35 scale,…
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Pride Is A Cheap Emotion
Well it is, if you do it right. Scale modelling can be done with pretty nearly any purse…though the hobby shops would like you to browse on the expensive shelves. The prices can rise to pretty nearly any level that you could name. People who purchase and build the expensive kits can generally be assured…
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The Dinner On The Workbench Idea
No, I’m not talking about a plate of stew in the middle of painting a new model. That will not end well. This is a post about prices. We pay varying amounts of money for our models – Some come free and are all the sweeter for that – some cost a lot. Unless we…
The Little World 