Remember when AMT Model Car Kit was $1.50

When I was a kid, model car kits were $1.25 at Wayne Hobby or Nankin Hardware,... But only .97 cents at S.S. Kresge five & dime, Glue was .10 cents, Testors paint was a nickle,.. ... This was not my local S.S.Kresge's,.. But I was in this one a number of times. this picture is from the 30's (decades before I was there).

 

Gotta love that old box art.. Thanks for posting those!!

 

Shit, I'll do you one better....remember when you could buy one at the store? They don't even sell them at K Mart or Wal Mart or anywhere I've seen around here.

 

Looks like the corner of Michigan Ave and Scheafer Rd. Right across the street was the Montgomery Wards store... I know that area very well.....

 

I bought the Revell-Monogram BIG TUB kit at Nankin Hardware just last year... They're still open.

 

I resurrected one of those I found trashed, this was before black with red wheels was a no-no.


Doc.

 

up until about a 1 year ago, they sold models and paint at the Walmart here in Chino,CA. It has been a long time since I have seen them at K-mart. I used to buy alot of my models from K-mart before. Now, there are a handful of places that sell models. I am thankful that I grew up in the late 60s and 70s. It was a great time. The worlds all gone to hell now.

 

Ain't that the truth??

 

I started with those models in the late 50's.
Allowance for me then was $1.50 per week. I raked yards, shoveled snow, sold off my old toys.......whatever it took to buy those JoHann, Monogram, MPC, AMT and Revell models.

My very first one was a '56 Cadillac Eldorado convertible I made similar to one my uncle pulled up in front of our house with one summer weekend morning.

The phone rang and Uncle Gus called to tell me he wanted to show me his latest surprise.

I asked Gus "Where are you at and when are you coming over?"
"Jimmy, I'm right out front, I'm right in your driveway"
I threw down the phone and ripped out front to see him sitting in a new silver '56 Eldorado convertible, top down with a CAR PHONE as big as the transmission hump.

I had never seen anything so beautiful or as elaborate as a that in my life especially a Caddy with a big-ass telephone! This was in 1956!

Uncle Gus drove me downtown to the hobby shop and bought me a model of his convertible.
Gus, my best friend then, Mark and I spent the rest of the day sitting at the picnic bench in our backyard getting addicted to model cars.
Mark and I were only 12 years old then. We got quite good at painting, gluing and customizing those things pretty quickly.

It's been a nice ride!

 

I ran across some old pics that were taken of some of my brother's builds from the early 70's. Since they are old AMT kits, I thought they'd be appreciated here!

 

Guess you wont see them in Walmart or Kmart if it isnt made in china.....Im buyin stuff off ebay and modelcar roundup now days,and swapmeets......Im lookin for a pick-up style straight axle to put under my 56 chevy build if anybody has one Im buildin a replica of my 56 like in my avaitor..............

 

Warning, Warning.......This is a shameless plug..........Models??........ain't they those little cars an' such?........lol.........I've been building model cars since about 1965, chopped up enough of the suckers that I decided to get a real car to chop up in 1970..........and opened my own model shop, Scale Automobilia here in sunny Sth Grafton NSW Australia in 1996.........I specialise in plastic car,truck & aircraft kits, resin conversions & some diecast........no barbie dolls, toys,radio control, trains or other crap........... check out www.scaleautomobilia.com.au and don't forget to check the "About Us" & "Models We Have Made" pages........... thank you & you can now return to normal programming.........Andyd....and if asked nicely HAMB discounts apply.

 

Im a big fan of the inflation calculator, so I decided to punch these numbers in. It said that $1.50 in 1965 dollars should be $10.09 in todays money.

 

I have this one from the late 80's. I imagine its a re-issue? Anyone want to build a gasser?

 

One thing i did was get the dodge promo models from the dealer which were molded in color then find the matching assembly kit and put on the detailed chassis ,add mag wheels and engines ,interiors,window tints the promos did not have

i still have a few ..i suppose the promo hemi cars are worth more today ..

I do have a dealer/salesman promo 63 pontiac that the body is chrome and is mounted on a award plaque

i had model boxes full of wheels , tire, engines, extra chrome stuff , sprues ..
I thought i was the only one buying kits for wheels or for engine acc. Funny huh...
I even asked friends for thier left over parts /decals and any stuff they were gonna throw out when they "moved on to other things "

i even went to the local dump and found model parts dig and dig for the missng hood or wheels ..
I stll buy boxes of old models when i see em i have found the entire set of amt deuces this way over the last 4 years
3 windo, 5 windo, 2 dr sedan , vicky , roadster, pheaton

i recently found the big deuce at garage sale partially assembled ... 8 bucks

hoarding .. I.ll be the guy whose stuff will amaze people when i croak...

What a dope why didn't he do something with all this stuff...
Saved it for youse guys ...

 

I have a few I tried getting $8.00 for and no luck.

 

I remember my first car model was a (then new) 53' Corvette that I got for Christmas. My dad assembled that one for me. They were pretty basic kits back then. No engines, opening hoods or doors. I think the AMT 32' Ford roadster with the hemi engine was the first one I did myself. Still have some parts in a box from that one. I still have most of my models boxed up and a few have been converted to slot car drag cars.

 

I already have that one.....

 

When I was a kid, I would cut my grandmas lawn for $4, it was a little over 1/2 an acre, fair bit of work for an 8-9 yr old kid. I would buy a kit for $3.20-$3.30 including tax(I am Canada, in those days kits cost aprox. double what they did in the US!) and have enough left for a car mag. Screw the hockey/baseball cards, I had pics of the Winged Express and Smirnoff digger on my wall!

 

Goes to show how big the gap now is between the cost of living and take home pay. The rich get richer!

 

Holy Crap!!!!

 

When My Brother and I were Kids,... we each had a shelf in our room and it would hold about 4 finished model cars each,... as we built new ones,... the old ones had to go in the basement,....

Well, You know how kids can be,... We also had a "Buz Barton" and a "Red Ryder" BB Gun,.. ( You can see where this is going ,...huh ?) Well,.. as parts started falling off one or another model,... we would start robbing the parts off of them for other model cars,.... and the rest of the car made it to the back yard,.... where we stood, sat, laid,... about 50 feet away,.. and kept taking turns shooting until there wasn't much left. And what was left we blew up with firecrackers !

Rick (my brother) and I usually cut the grass, but one time Dad was cutting it, and he went over the "kill zone" ,... Rick and I knew to go over it from west to east,.. (Throwing any missed parts into the bushes... Dad however hit it from east to west,...
Well,.. apparently we missed quite a few parts,.... they went flying from under the lawn mower, hitting the house and window, with rather impressive velocity!

Nothing was broken, But we did loose our BB Guns for a month,... The rest of the models I had left as a kid, I gave to a young kid down the street in my mid teen years,.. Any of you guys still have models from the good old days?,.. Or did you have BB Guns and firecrackers too ?

 

'"Any of you guys still have models from the good old days?,..
Or did you have BB Guns and firecrackers too ? "

yes ,,, yes and all my fingers but have lost a eye to a bungee cord not a bb gun

 

I was big into them as well had a small model car junk yard!!! I used to buy as meny at yard salls as I could find... its amazing how a few minutes in the oven at 400 degrees and to old encyclopedias can make a model car look like its been threw a crusher... I would spend hours down in the basement making them look like they had ben in accidents... Kinda weird... now I'm a collision tech and spend hours fixing cars after they had been in a wreck!!

 

As I remember, in those days $1.50 was a lot of money. Managed to build a lot of them.