discussion I remember when. . .

[Miko]

I'm sure this has been lamented on this and other modeling forums many times, but, I like to wallow in the melancholy of nostalgia occasionally.
I'm between addresses at the moment and don't really have a modelling space, but, needs must when the urge strikes so I've put together a bare minimum modeling set and placed a cutting mat on the coffee table with the solemn promise to missus Miko I'll put it all away when I'm done!
I've decided on Hasegawa's 1/72 F-104J Starfighter JASDF, this is the first American type I've built probably since an F-14 in 1986! (Inspired by Tony Scott's finest hour I'm sure you'll agree!) This means my paint stash doesn't really cover US colors (here's the 'u for those who are missing it) so, an internet search for local stockist of my new preferred paint range MrHobby Aqueous Hobby Color so I don't have to wait for mail order
Here's the thing, the decline of the model shop, here in my neck of the woods there's just one left, mostly RC stuff but a reasonable selection of kits, he carries Humbrol and Tamiya paint but not MrHobby, my nearest shop for the paint I need is two hundred and forty eight thousand million miles away! okay okay I exaggerate a bit, but as a boy I remember a dozen shops that carried model kits within a five mile radius, I remember with fondness nipping out on my bike to the model shop to choose a kit for the weekend! The smell of the shop I rediscovered on opening a big cardboard box full of my modeling stuff brought all those memories back, I'm sure we all have a tale to tell of our local model shops, nice to reminisce and relive those simpler less complicated days!

This is now the shop I got my first model kit from in about 1968? It used to be Yarborough Rd Stores, they were like a DIY shop that had a powerful smell of paraffin on entering, they sold decorating materials and iron mongery and such. Upstairs was a woolshop which was the reason I would go there, and to keep from under my mums feet I was allowed to go to the back of the shop where they had one of those perforated peg boards with Airfix bagged kits suspended for my delight to peruse and imagine! One day after she had bought yards and yards of wool and a new pattern to make yet another scratchy school jumper I was allowed to choose a kit!! Naturally being from North Linconlshire under the flight path into RAF Binbrook I chose an Airfix English Electric Lighting F1a with those 111sqn lightning flashes flanking the roundel! wowowow!

Do you remember your first model shop? does it still exist?

Miko (in another model shop back in the day, the man behind the counter was a dead ringer for David Nixon! now there's a cultural reference nobody under sixty with get!)

 

[peterairfix]

Luckily enough my first model shop does still exist when others have been and gone and it still has the original train in the window that still works

 

[Miko]

Luckily enough my first model shop does still exist when others have been and gone and it still has the original train in the window that still works

Brilliant, still with a wooden door and a pull out awning! Love it!

Miko (nostalgia, not like it used to be!)

 

[Dave Ward]

No longer in existence - Woolworths in Sheffield Haymarket - now a Wilko ( also closed I believe ), and Redgates, on the Moor, Sheffield, demolished
Dave

 

[ColinW]

A toy and sweet shop under Agrotis flats on limassol main street in Cyprus.
I was six I think, and the Phantom was my first model.
I don't know if the flats name is spelled correctly, but it's spoken sound is how I remember it.
I don't know if those flats are still there either.

 

[Nicko]

Anglia Scale Model Centre was the best one where I lived in the seventies. And it was literally over the road from school...

Nick

 

[Guest]

Do you remember your first model shop? does it still exist?

The first shop whereI used to buy models was a local shop that sold just about everything other than food and drink. Whether you wanted a magazine, a swimsuit, a tennis racket, shoes, crockery, toys, clothing, a football, tacky souvenirs, an inflatable boat, or a model kit, this was the place to get it They only really had Matchbox plus some Italeri and Revell, as I recall, as well as Humbrol paints, but hey, walking distance from home, which is rather important when you’re in primary school.

Crappy photo (scanned from a magazine or perhaps even a postcard, by the looks of it), but it was the best I could find just now:

View attachment 507073
(source)

When I went to secondary school in one of the two nearby towns, I somehow discovered an actual model (and crafts) shop in the city centre, named after its owner, one Mr. Quist. He sold mainly Tamiya and Italeri kits, including Tamiya paints, but also carried some Verlinden stuff — what more could you want in the late 80s? I haven’t been able to find pictures of it, but it used to be in the shop with the columns to either side of the door here, where there’s something called “The Tube” now:

View attachment 507074

However, it’s been gone for close to thirty years Not sure when exactly it closed, but I do know that in, IIRC, 1999 a new model shop opened in town, and at that point Quist’s had been closed for several years.

One thing that doesn’t really seem to have changed is that this “The Tube” shop seems to sell skate gear. The shop to the left of Quist’s sold that, plus snowboarding and windsurfing gear — a friend from my last couple of years of secondary school was into skateboarding and windsurfing, and he turned out to frequent the shop next to the one I did.

 

[peterairfix]

I just found another pic when said Watkins was just a bike shop

 

[Ian M]

Our local news agents sold Airfix kits when I was a kid. First really shop I can recall was Beaties. Must have been late 70's?.

 

[Peter Gillson]

I'm really fortunate that we still have a Modelshop:




It has moved twice since my first kit in the 60's but the original proprier, John Cox (pictured), is still there most days, although it is his son Steven who now runs the shop. A modelshop in second generation management - that must be a rareity!

it is nice to nip there to get the odd kit or glue, or since I doa lot of sculpting - Milliput

i guess that it is the amount of Lego they sell which is their main business now - amazing the prices Lego sells for!

A thought if anybody is planning on visiting Guernsey -it may be worth contacting them to see if they can get you any kits - we have no VAT so there is a 20% saving to be made!

Peter

 

[Miko]

The first shop whereI used to buy models was a local shop that sold just about everything other than food and drink. Whether you wanted a magazine, a swimsuit, a tennis racket, shoes, crockery, toys, clothing, a football, tacky souvenirs, an inflatable boat, or a model kit, this was the place to get it :smiling3: They only really had Matchbox plus some Italeri and Revell, as I recall, as well as Humbrol paints, but hey, walking distance from home, which is rather important when you’re in primary
school.

Sounds a bit like Woolworths!

John Cox (pictured), is still there most days, although it is his son Steven who now runs the shop. A modelshop in second generation management - that must be a rareity!

He kinda looks like a model shop owner, long gone is the brown shop coat of yesteryear!

it is nice to nip there to get the odd kit or glue, or since I doa lot of sculpting - Milliput

Sculpting eh, what kinda thing?

i guess that it is the amount of Lego they sell which is their main business now - amazing the prices Lego sells for!

Crazy aren't they, just come as a kit, no imagination required!

A thought if anybody is planning on visiting Guernsey -it may be worth contacting them to see if they can get you any kits - we have no VAT so there is a 20% saving to be made!

Peter

Hmmmm, 20% you say!!

First really shop I can recall was Beaties. Must have been late 70's?.

There's a name I haven't heard in a while!

Miko (sigh I dunno!)

 

[Guest]

Sounds a bit like Woolworths!

This, though, was a village shop built into a total of what were originally three (IIRC) terraced houses plus another former house on the opposite corner of the side street it stood next to (to the right of the picture I posted). A large part of what it sold was aimed at tourists — the beach is literally about a minute’s walk from where the photographer stood, assuming you have no problems going up and down stairs — plus miscellaneous stuff that locals would also buy in winter.

The best part of the store was its storage areas, though. I had a summer job there in 1993, and so got a very close-up look at that. Some of the things that stand out in my memory are tennis-ball holders (clipping onto the waistband of your tennis shorts) with mid-1970s pictures on the box — in 1993! — and the whole loft being full of all kinds of beach toys, many of them almost as old. The store owner was also the greatest reorganiser of shelves I have ever met. He once gave two of us the task of making room on a bunch of shelves in a store room, and we thought we did a pretty good job. Then he came in, looked at our work, and made about the same amount of extra room again in a quarter the time it had taken us

 

[Dave Ward]

Sounds a bit like Woolworths!



He kinda looks like a model shop owner, long gone is the brown shop coat of yesteryear!




Sculpting eh, what kinda thing?


Crazy aren't they, just come as a kit, no imagination required!


Hmmmm, 20% you say!!



There's a name I haven't heard in a while!

Miko (sigh I dunno!)

Beatties went bust in 2001, with a peak of 60 shops the previous decade, having tried to break into the video games market. Some of the shops reopened as Modelzone, but they went bust in 2013!
One Model Shop I remember well was ED Models in Solihull, Birmingham - run by father, Eddie and son, Andy Deeley - a very dangerous shop! You'd go in for a tin of Humbrol, and leave with an empty wallet, clutching various boxes. They always had a kettle on the go for tea! Closed in 2004..........
Dave

 

[Lee Drennen]

All my favorite and the ones I went to as a kid are long gone. The saddest was in 2018 when a long time friend over 30 years closed his hobby shop for good. He was great in the Millitary Modeling field of the hobby.

 

[Geoffers]

Two main ones for me as a lad.

Carters Electrics in Blackheath High Street. This as its name suggests dealt mainly in electrical stuff but had a reasonably large model section, now long gone I believe :sleeping2:

The other shop I used to love going to was Oakes of Rood End in Oldbury.
This was one of those small department stores that a lot of towns seemed to have. They had a good toy section upstairs with a good selection of models. They also had a railway layout which I used to love looking at. I believe this shop is still going as it has evolved to be one of the areas main school uniform supplier, they also specialise in model railway supplies :smiling4:

Geoff.

 

[Mickc1440]

Woolworths was my go to for models

 

[Ian M]

Woolworths was my go to for models

Yep, Bought a few from there as well.

 

[Andy the Sheep]

My first model was bought in a shop selling plastic stuff of any kind. It was 3 minutes walk from my grandparents flat in Turin. My first kit was an Airfix bag kit, the Fiat G50, a present from my granddad.
My first real model shop was Amati and it's still there under a (not so) different name. Unfortunately, it's 600 km away from my current home.
For the most curious: LINK to Google maps.

 

[Tim Marlow]

First one I remember was the really originally named Salisbury model Center. It opened in the mid to late ninteen sixties when I was about eight, and stayed open until I was in my late twenties. It was my go to shop right through my formative years. Weird place though. I’m sure the owner hated kids. He used to regularly shout at youngsters in front of thier parents. He wouldn’t stock model railway stuff either and used to get angry with punters that asked about them. Funnily enough, the original site of that shop was in exactly the same place as the current Salisbury model shop (opened about ten years ago) is now……

 

[peterairfix]

I do still remember two more one was called Kingston models on bridge Street and Taunton toys here in Taunton in High Street both sadly gone but fondly remembered.