What Do You With Olk Kit Boxes

[224 Peter]

OK, you have rescued a kit from the "shelves of shame", worked on it and produced a reasonably satisfactory model. 

You left with some unused bits, transfers, the instructions and the box. 

 

OK, the unused bits are easy, bag, label and put in the "Conversion" store. 

Transfers likewise. 

Instructions? Worth keeping?

The Box: remember this might be 30 years old and looking shabby. Do you just recycle it, or cut the box front away and keep, or frame, or what? 

 

As I start to work through my stash that goes back to the late 1970s this is a real issue as I've completed 2 kits so far this year!! 

 

Ideas?

Suggestions?

 

[Black Knight]

Usually, until recently,  I keep the bottom half of Airfix red boxes and the occasional other stout box. Mostly they go into the recycling bin.

I kept one largish box to store old instructions in. I cull that every so often and send them to the IPMS instructions library.

I have the stout bottom half of another largish box which I use as a sorting tray for spare parts or decals from the files.

As soon as a kit has been 1/4 started I bin the box, sometimes keeping the picture front if the instructions are poor.

Only one box have I kept complete, for display.

[Mike]

Having never bought an Olk kit in any scale, I can't comment 😇. However all my old kit boxes go in t'bin for recycling.

31 minutes ago, Black Knight said:

I have the stout bottom

I see...

[Black Knight]

ooh, cheeky!

 

They don't call me Hugh Jarse for nowt

[Gorby]

In the last four years I've had to clear both my mum's and my dad's house after they died – although they weren't really hoarders, both houses were full of stuff they thought might come in useful or they kept for no apparent reason. I seem to have inherited this gene, but I fight valiantly against, so there is a part of my brain which says “Isn't that a nice picture, I could keep that and make lovely….” and there is part that screams “NOOOOOOOOOO!!!”.

 

They get recycled.

 

(I think the 'using 88 words when 3 will do' thing, came from my mum's side as well).

[Paul J]

I used to save all my boxes years ago but the other half asked me why I kept them.. I answered that maybe a 2nd hand dealer could use them to box their matching kits but chances of that are slim and so they all got binned, yes all those little Revell 1/72 kits that had 'frameable ' box tops  all but a couple gone! However I have saved all the instructions, disposed duplicates, saved all my Airfix poly bag instructions and series 2 boxed ones. and other.  More recent years all get a home in the recycle collection. I just keep and odd few of the Airfix newer red ones that have good artwork and keep spares from type depicted on the box. Those Revell flat pack type boxes all get binned. In fact I am having a cull on a lot of paper work related stuff, old catalogues(except Airfix ones) and  old WW2 publishd books  that I am seeking caring homes for.

[Ptmvarsityfan]

In an effort to keep my stash to a reasonable size I remove

some of my unbuilt kits from their boxes, especially if the boxes

are flimsy, oversized for the kit or not very attractive then cram the

kits into stronger boxes. Unwanted boxes are then binned.

This requires a careful record is kept of the location of the kits!

Cheers, Paul

[clive_t]

Since my return to the hobby about 3 years ago, I have taken to filing the instructions and the box top in a clear plastic pocket, then placing that in a lever arch file.

 

The unused bits if any get put in the appropriate spares box (I have separate boxes for each scale), the unused decals go in a small folder. The long sprues get put in another box (pending any scenarios requiring stretching them ). The smaller sprue bits I am now saving to make liquid plastic for filling gaps etc (that's half a bottle of Tamiya Thin with these lumps of sprue dissolved in it, a trick I picked up on this very forum!)

 

The rest of the box goes in the recycling bin

 

[Pete in Lincs]

I use the really large ones as open storage for bits of kits. They are easy to sort through and spot what I seek.

Medium sized boxes can be used to store other model bits. Small & modern boxes are usually recycled.

My mancave is lined with wooden slats from pallets. In some of the gaps I have pieces of glass on which I display old vintage kit boxes.

In some areas I've found that I can staple the box inner to the boards then slot the lid over that as a self supported display. (Again, vintage stuff).

 

[Red Dot]

In the bin. Why keep something you are NEVER going to use again? If i want soemthing and don't have it, i buy it - simple

 

Andy

[Giorgio N]

I used to keep my old boxes. Then I started cutting the artwork, keep this and throw the rest in the bin. Now I simply throw the box in the bin (that today is the recyclable cardboard bin), apart from the larger ones I use to store the expanding spares parts stock.

If the box is particularly old and rare, I may keep it as I realised that there is indeed a market for these. However there's a ethical problem here for me....

 

I respect collectors although I find them sometimes "guilty" of the crazy increase of prices on certain kits. Still, I enjoy building kits, they enjoy collecting them, we all have our hobby. The increased interest in old "collectible" kits however has resulted in a number of very dodgy "operations", and the fact that old boxes now have a market is related to this as there are people who take the old box, throw in the sprues from a reissue with lower value and then sell the lot as "rare 1960's kit". This is IMHO totally wrong and I'm not too comfortable in helping such people... at the same time the person interested in buying an old box may just be a collector of old boxes, and of course I see nothing wrong in this. How can I tell who's buying my old box ?

 

[tempestfan]

On ‎5‎/‎30‎/‎2018 at 10:28 AM, Giorgio N said:

I respect collectors although I find them sometimes "guilty" of the crazy increase of prices on certain kits. Still, I enjoy building kits, they enjoy collecting them, we all have our hobby. The increased interest in old "collectible" kits however has resulted in a number of very dodgy "operations", and the fact that old boxes now have a market is related to this as there are people who take the old box, throw in the sprues from a reissue with lower value and then sell the lot as "rare 1960's kit". This is IMHO totally wrong and I'm not too comfortable in helping such people... at the same time the person interested in buying an old box may just be a collector of old boxes, and of course I see nothing wrong in this. How can I tell who's buying my old box ?

 

That's regrettably true - however, at least with Airfix, reboxing in most cases is easy to detect, at least for someone with a bit of experience. And indeed there are quite a lot of old kits on the market without box, either because kits were repacked three-in-one for space reasons, or because they got damaged/soiled/whatever, without affecting the contents. I know, I have accumulated quite a stock of such kits from estates of mostly older men that had passed away. For kits like that, I could do with empty boxes, and I'd be careful of only putting plastic in a corresponding box (because I am a "serious" collector and can't stand new wine in old bottles...).

[Army_Air_Force]

I've used the box in a few builds recently, framed for wall hanging, but there's no reason why you couldn't incorporate the box art into a display base.

 

 

 

 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

I tend to label and box whats leftover, that goes into a massive plastic tub which is my spares bin. I file instructions J.I.C. I need them for future use, or someone else does. Decals if i used A/M or spares go into my decal files. Boxes then go into recycle tub with empty sprues and what have you thats left. Though there isn't much left in the way of sprues. I have a tendency to cut away empty sections and toss them as i build. Its easier to find things in a box if there are less things to look through. 

 

Dennis

[Vulcanicity]

I rarely make very old boxings - for kits with more recent reissues I tend to buy the reissue, assuming that the decals are noticeably better I am usually happy to put up with mould wear. In which case I happily recycle the boxes.

Of course there are exceptions (always buy Frog not Novo!), and sometimes I have to buy an old mould because the kit has not been reissued. However I feel like life is too short and space too precious to keep even old boxes, so they  get recycled too without too much guilt.

 

I do have a personal tradition of taking the first completed model photo with the model posed on top of the box.

 

As for sprues I also "cut and chuck" as I build, and sling spare parts into a large plastic box. This latter approach used to be fine although increasingly I'm finding my spares box is too full to find stuff easily.

Edited June 7, 2018 by Vulcanicity

[upnorth]

I have no large stash to speak of, but I rarely take the boxes home from the shop with me anymore when I buy a kit.

 

I only take a box home if it has important painting/decaling guides on the back. If it doesn't, I leave it at the shop so they can use it in their store front display when the sun has faded the boxes currently in the window. I find both my local shops appreciate the gesture very much.

[Roman Schilhart]

I do keep the box top arts of most kits, I cut them out and store them.

Instructions that have paint schemes on them are stored as well (you never know).

 

 

Edited June 20, 2018 by Roman Schilhart

[Ed Russell]

I have a large collection flattened out which are going to recycling. I used to think they were valueless until someone bought a number of mint but empty 1960s boxes from me  for a good amount of money quite some time ago. I have since realised why they wanted them.!

[hacker]

l build them then if the boxes are good and old style( talking like Monogram blue boxes ) l keep them for decorating my next workshop when we move

 

Hacker 

[Albeback52]

Instructions? Bin them

Spare parts/decals - store and keep

Boxes? I bin them the minute I get the kit home. They just take up space. The kits themselves I store in large plastic crates. That way I can get a lot more into my available space.

 

Allan