Tag: prices
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Well, The Maths Works Out
Dang it… As a kid in 1965 I could buy a 1:25th scale AMT car kit of a standard North American convertible for $2.50 from any drug store or hobby shop. A 3-In-1 kit with some custom parts and a fancy decal sheet. Today I saw a retro AMT kit looking precisely the same for…
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I’m From Missouri
Show me. If you recognise that phrase, you’ll know it embodies the scepticism and practicality of the Missourian. It must be hard to sell used cars in Kansas City… But the miniature builder can satisfy even the hardest prairie mind – because the miniature builder need not be restricted to where they are or when…
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Selective Ordering
A recent Youtube post by a Canadian hobby shop owner pointed out the selective nature of the current tariff brouhaha. He gets supplies in from US distributors and recently had a shipment stopped by Canadian Customs, with a 25% tariff fee slapped on it. When he was notified of this he took his ordering invoices…
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The Profiteer’s Stash
The very word ” profiteer ” is a red rag for certain political minds, and has been used to justify no end of malice in the past. It has been heard to crop up in the scale model world, as well. Yet, every one who buys and builds kits has to recognise that there is…
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When The Model Price Is Measured In Hundreds Of Dollars
Something happens to the hobby. It becomes a serious business. Good thing? You might think so if you are a devotee of contest modelling and the pursuit of prizes. Newer and bigger can get you closer to the awards. Complexity figures in this as well – if you can overwhelm a judge with extra after-market…
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Lemme See That Invoice
Suppose you were a person who imports scale model kits from Ruritania to sell in Australia. Suppose you have been selling them for years at Price A. Then suppose that a great national tragedy strikes Ruritania – war with neighbouring Latveria. Factories are deserted and stocks of Ruritanian scale model kits are threatened. Fortunately you…
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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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” Slice Me Off About $ 5.00 Worth, Love…”
” And is the polony fresh…? “ A reader of this column who lives in my same town has raised an interesting question re. the dearly-remembered Antonov AN 225 cargo jet. Apparently there is a 1:72 kit of it from the Ukrainian maker ” Modelsvit “. A massive thing, of course, and one of those…
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You Can Be Sensible But No Good Will Come Of It
Not if you build scale models, it won’t. Sensible buys only the best kits at the cheapest prices and only ever builds one example of any prototype. Indeed sensible people do not build scale models at all – reserving their time for money making and hiding their sins. For the rest of us…drifting down the…
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Fourteen Little People
I approach the exercise of painting figures with trepidation. There are so many better painters that I feel I am a fraud. Yet I need pilots for my aircraft and spectators for my air museum. So it is either paint the inexpensive figures or pay for the ready-mades…and these are very often at a price…
The Little World 