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Nostalgia, it's not what it used to be...


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15 minutes ago, Gorby said:

I wasn't aware of any of those three - what on earth were they thinking?

They tried to transpose a huge American phenomenon to Britain but it was a completely different market . I remember them from the time and liked that scene. I didn't have any of the airfix but had some Aurora stuff including the Munsters hot rods.

 

Takes me back!

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42 minutes ago, Neil.C said:

They tried to transpose a huge American phenomenon to Britain but it was a completely different market . I remember them from the time and liked that scene. I didn't have any of the airfix but had some Aurora stuff including the Munsters hot rods.

I had a few of the Aurora 'Horror' kits (Forgotten Prisoner, Hunchback etc..) but I very much doubt that any of these three would have got my pocket-money vote.

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20 hours ago, Gorby said:

I had a few of the Aurora 'Horror' kits (Forgotten Prisoner, Hunchback etc..) but I very much doubt that any of these three would have got my pocket-money vote.

I think it may have to do with whether you enjoyed the counter culture of the time or in fact if you were old enough!

 

The hot rod stuff reminds me of the style of Robert Crumb a great counter culture artist. A lot of his stuff is NSFW but he drew the famous Cheap Thrills album cover by Big Brother and the Holding Company featuring Janis Joplin.

 

rs-112894-d1ec4f9ae1c369e35113e3114260fb

 

 

Regarding the Aurora stuff, I had to be pretty flush at the the time to buy it as they were 8/- compared to Airfix at 2/-.

 

I did in time collect the whole set of the Famous Monsters as I was really into that scene then. 

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I can probably contribute a bit of nostalgia too: at last year's Euro Scale Modeling (IPMS-The Netherlands) we presented a Matchbox display with all kits that Matchbox produced from 1973 to 1989, range by range. The full story of that undertaking can be read here, with many more photos, but you'll have to run it through Google Translate or similar:

 

Matchbox display at ESM 2016

 

rzh-esm2016-16.jpg

 

Rob

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@lasemonkey Renmodels - the first model shop I ever went in. Plastic card, exotic brands, large scale models hung from the roof. Prior to that it was Cambridge Woolies, pocket money and dad to build the spoils, or later to help me. Aircraft have faded, but we had the railway level crossing, dock crane, signal box and Drewery Shunter. Not sure where he bought them, but as a kid he built the Frog Westland Wallace, Fairey Gannet for me. I can literally still smell glue and enamel as he built a Revell P40 or a P38 on the dining table. The P38 was a favourite, simply because his story how they had escorted his ship to France on D Day. When Matchbox started producing plastic kits my mother worked for our local new agents and told the manager to stock them, purely based on my obsession with making kits!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here's both versions of the Series 1 Aircobra.. Built straight out the bag with no extras other than paint.

 

184.jpg

 

Built to sit alongside the header bag as part of a sixties display, they looked a bit too similar in their green suits. The cure was a whitewash winter coat for the Russian version. I've used a load of artistic licence with the Russian stars on the wing tops, but it looked a bit bland just green. Modelling as a ten year old would have done it. You should have seen an F4 I built, complete with three 20mm gun pods underslung!! No pictures, thankfully.

 

airfix_223.jpg

Edited by TonyW
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 24/01/2018 at 17:24, TonyW said:

With the arrival of the new tool Airfix Phantom I thought it would be nice to remind ourselves where it all started...

 

sellers746.jpg

I remember buying the top left version at woollies in the '60's for three shillings odd.

 

Loved the model because it had really great decals for the time from the USS Forrestal. I remember reading later about the accident on board which caused a missile to be fired into some parked aircraft. It was in service in Vietnam at the time. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

A few more for the thread.

 

The  second issue Airfix Bf109 with a posed up desk scene...

 

harleyford109display1.jpg

 

This one is a bit out of place in the aircraft end of the Forum, but it kind of belongs in a nostalgia thread. I got away with posting Flame Out Freddie a page or two back, so this one might get lucky as well.

 

airfix_2145.jpg

 

The base was knocked up with offcuts of wood used during the model room construction. Pollyfilla provided the muddy road and one or other of the Airfix combat sets supplied the sandbag wall. Looking at it now, the sandbags seem a bit out of scale. I didn't notice that boo boo at the time!

 

It's been said before, but Airfix really missed a trick by not issuing the HP42 in 1.72 scale. It's a good looking kit in the Skyking 1. 144 scale, but imagine the impact a bigger one would have had!

 

airfix2552.jpg

Edited by TonyW
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  • 3 weeks later...

An unbagged early Airfix Zero got assembled and painted over the weekend. The green is as close as I could get to the bag artwork. The camera flash has made the spinner appear a bit orange. I quite like it! Likewise the shiny finish. It was intended to seal in the rather old transfers as a precaution against flaking, but now it's dry I quite like the look, very period.

The fuselage has rather deep panel line trenches but the wings are very finely detailed with faint raised lines.

At some point I'll get myself an Aurora 1.48 scale kit, the bright yellow finish called for on that one would raise a few eyebrows these days. :o

 

IMG_3770.jpg

 

The Zero bag above is a Type 2 one, so are these Gift Sets...

 

IMG_3771.jpg

IMG_3773.jpg

 

There's another three sets in these generic boxes known, a Trackside set, Lancaster, Wellington and Spitfire one and the set shown in Arthur Wards first book. That one shows a P47 included so the sets ran into the mid sixties at least. There might be more out there, who knows? 

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The first issue of G for George!

Cutting edge 1950's moulding with a stunner of a box. The biggest kit yet attempted by a young Airfix. The Roy Cross type 3 boxart is probably the most memorable, but I like this one a lot. The artist is unknown.

The model is a period build and very well finished it is too. It's been built straight out the box by an unknown modeller many years ago. The transfers have started to lift in places, a coat of clear in the near future will take care of that.

 

IMG_3778.jpg

Edited by TonyW
additional text.
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On 24 January 2018 at 17:24, TonyW said:

With the arrival of the new tool Airfix Phantom I thought it would be nice to remind ourselves where it all started...

 

sellers746.jpg

I remember the bottom right one, purchased at a local dept store and built in a day. I was taken in by the artwork and the F4 still remains a favourite to this day

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The SAM 3: if I remember correctly, it had Tzade plates on it (short for Tva Haganah L'Yisrael) - after a captured example.

 

I loved the Phantom; I've always felt that primo brewski warplanes should be properly attired for serious damage, and that kit had a huge load.  I never saw one in IAF markings, though.

Edited by Chillidragon
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I definitely got a collection set one Christmas must have been I think very late sixties possibly into the seventies,I remember the bag's

and those little glass tubes of paint,Me109 and Spitfire ix were definitely included I think Stuka too.

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3 hours ago, TonyW said:

Airfix had the Middle East covered from both sides with these two...

 

IMG_3792.jpg

I remember building  the SAM  kit too.spent most of the time flying the missile round the house:P

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This thread continues to be a real tonic.

 

With life being a bit of a trial at present, it's really quite wonderful to revel in a bit of modeling nostalgia. Nothing evokes boyhood memories more than those old Airfix boxes! 

 

Keep 'em coming Tony..

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Fair enough, have a couple of Dakota's then...

 

IMG_3791.jpg

 

Followed by a quartet of rather rare T2 boxed kits, sitting on an Airfix shop poster.  All early sixties. At some point the poster will get used as a topper to a rack for displaying some of my kits.

 

IMG_5844.jpg

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On 08/03/2018 at 13:20, TonyW said:

An unbagged early Airfix Zero got assembled and painted over the weekend. The green is as close as I could get to the bag artwork. The camera flash has made the spinner appear a bit orange. I quite like it! Likewise the shiny finish. It was intended to seal in the rather old transfers as a precaution against flaking, but now it's dry I quite like the look, very period.

The fuselage has rather deep panel line trenches but the wings are very finely detailed with faint raised lines.

At some point I'll get myself an Aurora 1.48 scale kit, the bright yellow finish called for on that one would raise a few eyebrows these days. :o

 

IMG_3770.jpg

 

The Zero bag above is a Type 2 one, so are these Gift Sets...

 

IMG_3771.jpg

 

 

There's another three sets in these generic boxes known, a Trackside set, Lancaster, Wellington and Spitfire one and the set shown in Arthur Wards first book. That one shows a P47 included so the sets ran into the mid sixties at least. There might be more out there, who knows? 

Great post Tony. 

 

Regarding the Airfix box sets, the one I had in the early '60's contained a Hunter and Spitfire, can't remember the rest unfortunately.

 

Re the Zero, I had exactly the same one that came in a Christmas stocking (I guess straight from the shop) along with a Hunting Jet Provost, again in the '60's. 

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5 hours ago, TonyW said:

Airfix had the Middle East covered from both sides with these two...

 

IMG_3792.jpg

Had the Dogfight doubles, Israeli Mirage v Egyptian Mig 15.

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