Your First Hobby Shop

[dazza]

Here in the UK we had a national chain of hobby shops called Beatties. I used to visit it whenever I was in the city in the late 70's.

It had just about everything in there from kids toys, Hornby, Scalextric, trains and just about every kit manufacturer around at the time.

They had a train running around the wall of the shop and planes hanging from the ceiling.

Sadly the entire chain went bust a few years ago, but the building is still there but still empty, and from time to time I will have a walk by it and think of those great days now sadly gone.

[JED]

I remember Beatties, my nearest one was Coventry maybe 8 miles away.

[dazza]

Dec 8, 2021 11:00:23 GMT -6 JED said:

I remember Beatties, my nearest one was Coventry maybe 8 miles away.

Mine was Nottingham about 14 miles from me.

[JCON]

Sad but good memories!!!

[dazza]

My local toy shop was called Maltbys. Most Saturdays when we went into the town to go shopping as we lived about 3 miles away and had just one village shop.

Anyway I used to use my pocket money to buy a matchbox car, or a box of Airfix soldiers. They had an upstairs even though it was quite small, up there they kept all the big stuff ie prams rocking horses etc.

And in the front upstairs window there was a 1st edition Airfix 1/12 Bentley you could see it from outside, that Bentley was up there for years.

My dad said that he would buy it and build it but he never got around to doing it. Sadly the shop closed down in the 80's and is now a woman's cloths shop 😕.

As I write this I can almost smell the new toy smell. My dad's been gone eight years next year and I keep saying that I will get a Bentley and make it in his name and hopefully do him proud 🥺.

[JED]

Airfix made some great large scale kits for those that could afford it. I hope you get to build the Bentley.

[dazza]

I went to see my friend today and look what he gave me 😲

[JCON]

Can't wait to see you tackle that one!!!

[dazza]

Jan 9, 2022 10:46:27 GMT -6 JCON said:

Can't wait to see you tackle that one!!!

Yeah me too ! Not sure when I will get around to it though. I was hoping there would be some after market parts for it but can't seem to find any.

Which is surprising owing to the fact that the kit was originally released back in 1971 !

[Dukemaddog]

Sweet score!!

[Buddho]

The first actual hobby shop I remember going to was when my dad was stationed in Mannheim, Germany in 1973. His best friend, Karl Wald, owned it in a town close by us. Karl was a Stuka and Ju-88 pilot in WW 2, and gave my dad a scratch built R/C Stuka that him and his pilot friends built.

[Tobi]

My first shop was a toy store called "Spielwaren Schmidt" in Bad Reichenhall.
If I recall correctly it was in the building in the link below. Looks as if there is a Telekom shop in the rooms now.
I'm surprised to see there is also still a neighboring barber there, even 30 years after my family did move away! 

goo.gl/maps/1yPyofesodz2nUjR8

Modeling supplies were in the basement. I started off with 1/87 Rocco Minitanks, but soon got caught by the 1/35 Tamiya kits.
They had also Italeri stuff and even Fujimi planes & ships, but only enamel paints. Revell, Humbrol and Model Master, though I already knew about Tamiya acrylics from the catalogue.
That was a bit of a letdown, but understandable. My Tamiya acrylics time would dawn later.

[Buddho]

Jun 8, 2022 4:44:43 GMT -6 Tobi said:

My first shop was a toy store called "Spielwaren Schmidt" in Bad Reichenhall.
If I recall correctly it was in the building in the link below. Looks as if there is a Telekom shop in the rooms now.
I'm surprised to see there is also still a neighboring barber there, even 30 years after my family did move away! 

goo.gl/maps/1yPyofesodz2nUjR8

Modeling supplies were in the basement. I started off with 1/87 Rocco Minitanks, but soon got caught by the 1/35 Tamiya kits.
They had also Italeri stuff and even Fujimi planes & ships, but only enamel paints. Revell, Humbrol and Model Master, though I already knew about Tamiya acrylics from the catalogue.
That was a bit of a letdown, but understandable. My Tamiya acrylics time would dawn later.

Oh yes Humbrol.paints! That is all we had in Germany. The best , but hated the lids. 

[Beekster]

Hillsboro Hobbies in Hillsboro, Oregon was (and to an extent still is) my hometown hobby shop. I've been a customer there for over 50 years, through four successive owners. I made my very first special order there at about age 12, the first Tamiya 1/35 Tiger. The shop has always had a bit of everything; RC stuff both aerial & terrestrial, rockets (and I certainly built and flew my share), model railroads, and of course plastic kits.

Another local shop, Tammie's Hobbies in Beaverton, also drew my patronage from about the same time (early seventies) and still does. Product selection is similar to Hillsboro, but heavier on RC cars and railroad stuff. Tammie's was originally located on Cedar Hills Boulevard, across the street from the then-extant Beaverton Mall and the Elmer's Pancake House restaurant (a regional chain). My grandpa Faber often took the entire family out to breakfast after church (Bethany Presbyterian). Inevitably the wait for a table that seated ten to a dozen people was at least half an hour, so I would dash across the street to look at models until close to the time the table would be ready. Back then, Tammies had an absolutely unique display. Many stores I've been in have had display cases. Hillsboro Hobbies had one that I filled with my work for years under a previous owner. Tammie's Hobbies' display was on a whole other level, and I never learned who contributed to it. Hanging from the ceiling in 1/72 scale was an entire bomb wing (probably three dozen!) of B-17s hung in formation, with Bf-109s and FW-190s slashing through the formation and Mustangs & Jugs in pursuit. Black-painted puffs of flak hung everywhere. One Bf-109 was hung inverted with a black cotton smoke plume touched with orange, the canopy and pilot each hung separately in close proximity in a bail-out sequence. Someone (or several) spent a mint on Airfix kits to do that; this was circa 1970-74. Eventually the store moved to another location (and another where it remains), and the aerial diorama disappeared.

[Tobi]

Sounds like a very cool diorama.
Would be a dream to have a large staircase, so one could see a complete in flight scene from all angles. 😀

[Tim]

It was a place called Ben Franklin. Was kind of a hardware, hobby gardening store mix if I remember right. I remember them having allot of military kits. Mom and Dad bought me a 1/72 Thunderbird set. Had 4 F-4 Phantoms. Saw one on old model kits. Went for a little bit. Wish I could've nabbed it up.

[Beekster]

That would have been an old Revell set, Tim.  I eyeballed it myself when I was a kid, and did build the single-plane F4E kit with the Vietnam paint job.  Relieved me of $2.70 of my allowance money at the time, more than a quarter of my monthly income!  To tell the truth, those old Revell Phantoms weren't all that great; even back in the '70s Hasegawa was much better.