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First hobby shop you remember visiting?


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I was poking around the inter webs last night and I came across a thread about the old “Eric Fuchs Hobbies” shops that were scattered across New England in the 60’s through 80’s. It really got the nostalgia juices flowing.
I remember driving with my parents to the Fox Run mall in Newington NH and spending hours looking through the rows of models and paints. I was hooked on the hobby, I swear I spent every penny of my paper route money at that place every week thereafter!

As a bonus, we’d drive past Pease AFB heading up route 16 just so I could see the B-52D and KC-97 gate guards.

Really great memories.
So I was wondering how others first joined the hobby and what hobby shops really set the hook?

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Started building models at 5 years old in 1960s.

First hobby retailer memory is of a hardware store in Rhode Island which had a shelf of Aurora and other model kits.

 

First true hobby shop remembered was Macon, Georgia, 1970s, Jimmy McKay's Macon Toy and Hobby which at one point was reached through JC Penny back by the Boy Scouts section.

 

A bit about the fellow, https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/macon/name/james-mckay-obituary?id=17431941

Quote

For 40 years, he operated the Macon Toy and Hobby Shop. Mr. McKay was a U. S. Army Captain, Retired, serving in the 2nd Infantry Division during World War II. He was one of the first five Macon men drafted in January 1941, some 11 months before the war started. He was captured on June 12, 1944 and was held prisoner for more than seven months. He and other POWs had walked 573 miles in 74 days before they were trapped in the U. S. bombing raid at Nuremberg, Germany, on April 5, 1945. ....
Published by The Telegraph on Apr. 30, 2004.

 

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I remember going into the "Eric Fuchs" on Tremont St. in downtown Boston in the 80s, it was like two blocks up from my high school.

 

But the first shop I remember going to was "Hobbytown" with my dad in the 70s (not to be confused with the HobbytownUSA franchise of today). It was located in the South Shore Plaza shopping mall in Braintree MA. I think it closed in the early 90s? I was away in the Navy by then.

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Patchcraft Hobby in Sioux City, Iowa.  It's still there and I've known the owner for over 50 years.  It likely won't be there too much longer, though, unless he sells it when he retires.  I still go once or twice a year and have a great time with him.

 

Tom

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First one I remember visiting here in Ottawa is Hobby House when they were located on Rideau St in the early 70s.  I also used to frequent Hobbyland, Simpson-Sears and K-Mart.  There was also a book store (Coles, I think) in one of our major malls and they had a large selection of models and supplies on the lower level.  Sadly, all but Hobby House are gone.

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I grew up in Farnborough, and in my early to mid-teens used to spend hours in what I believe was a totally unique set-up - half hobby shop, half launderette!

The counter for 'Farnborough Models & Toys' ran full-length down one side of the shop, with floor-to-ceiling shelves packed full of kits filling the wall behind - whilst all along the opposite wall was a bank of washing machines and dryers!

 

Ron, the owner, always wore a grey 'shop coat', and inbetween model shop customers would be dealing with 'service washes' for the launderette - one of the great things about the place was that it was open until 8.00pm most evenings, because of that side of the business (which I always had the impression his wife was ostensibly in charge of - though I never once saw her!)...

....as a dedicated model shop, Ron stocked what were then 'exotic' kits from Fujimi, Hasegawa and Tamiya, some of which carried the importer's branding, such as Hales - back then (mid-70's), Airfix and Frog kits could easily be found in numerous places, including newsagents, bicycle and hardware shops, and Woolworths...

 

Edited by andyf117
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I grew up Queens, NY very close to Long Island. Back in the 1970's there was a place my dad took me to; I believe it was called "Big Daddy's Hobby Shop." I was about 5 or 6 years old, but the first one that I remember going to and actually browsing the aisles was a place in Ramsey NJ, called Hi-Way Hobby House. The ones near me in South Florida closed quite a number of years ago now, Warrick Custom Hobbies and RC Hobbies. Both were excellent. 

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1 hour ago, andyf117 said:

I grew up in Farnborough, and in my early to mid-teens used to spend hours in what I believe was a totally unique set-up - half hobby shop, half launderette!

The counter for 'Farnborough Models & Toys' ran full-length down one side of the shop, with floor-to-ceiling shelves packed full of kits filling the wall behind - whilst all along the opposite wall was a bank of washing machines and dryers!

 

Ron, the owner, always wore a grey 'shop coat', and inbetween model shop customers would be dealing with 'service washes' for the launderette -

 

Andy, I would have loved that! 😁 And it is relevant right here right now today in Missouri because there are a couple baskets of laundry stacked by front door waiting for rain to let up and me to go to laundromat & the freelance and kitbash model spaceship design sketchbook is set with them to take for entertainment while the machines spin.

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2 minutes ago, Raptor01 said:

Bill & Walts Hobby Shop, Downtown Pittsburgh, PA.  Still have my Binks Wren A Airbrush purchased when I was 12 Yrs Old!

John

At the downtown end of the Smithfield Street Bridge?  I remember that place from the mid-80s.  

 

The first one I remember is Peterman’s, in the Eastgate Plaza on US30 just outside of Greensburg, PA. 

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3 minutes ago, southwestforests said:

 

Andy, I would have loved that! 😁 And it is relevant right here right now today in Missouri because there are a couple baskets of laundry stacked by front door waiting for rain to let up and me to go to laundromat & the freelance and kitbash model spaceship design sketchbook is set with them to take for entertainment while the machines spin.

I wasn't one for making friends, so never 'hung out' with any of the guys from school of an evening - but every couple of weeks would jump on my bike to ride into town to visit the shop for a couple of hours...

....I very rarely bought any models from Ron - the 'exotic' imported stuff was too expensive for my pocket-money budget - but would buy paints as needed for the Airfix kits I'd mainly get from Woolies, where they were slightly cheaper...

....even back then, I was quite fastidious about camouflage schemes and the like, and when a customer asked Ron's advice on what else they might need to go with a purchase, he would sometimes ask my opinion - which was highly-flattering, and made me feel valued, rather than a nuisance...

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1 hour ago, andyf117 said:

....even back then, I was quite fastidious about camouflage schemes and the like, and when a customer asked Ron's advice on what else they might need to go with a purchase, he would sometimes ask my opinion - which was highly-flattering, and made me feel valued, rather than a nuisance...

Cool. 

That brings to mind that the hobby was a bit of a community input thing even before the internet.

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33 minutes ago, southwestforests said:

Cool. 

That brings to mind that the hobby was a bit of a community input thing even before the internet.

It's also an indicator - as true now as it was then - that some hobby shop owners are simply shop owners, not necessarily modellers or expert hobbyists...

....I don't think that Ron had ever built a model in his life - he could tell you everything about the newest range of kits coming from whichever manufacturer...

....but that was purely commercial, trade information - ask him if a new kit was accurate, whether version A, B or C could be built from it, he'd have no clue...

 

....a decade later, during the mid and late-80's, I often helped The Aviation Hobby Shop, Celsia Hobbies, and Mil-Slides owners on their airshow stands...

....the TAHS guys and Alec of M-S knew their stuff about civil aircraft and aviation photography respectively - but if customers asked questions about kits...

....when Alec relocated the Mil-Slides shop from Croydon to Mildenhall, where I was working at the time, I ran the shop for him occasionally - a few times a customer would come in and say they'd been told to come back when I was there, because I could answer their questions better!

Edited by andyf117
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Zimpter's Hobby's back in 1974-ish. Nice small shop with a lot of diorama's decorating the front windows. But what I remember more than that was it used to be you could go to JC Penney and they had 3 full aisles of models. And not like the basic stuff you find at Hobby Lobby now days, but huge selections of Tamiya, Hasegawa, Fujimi, etc... as well as your typical Monogram and Revell stuff. Tanks, Planes, Ships, Cars....what would be considered a very well stocked hobby shop today. Heck, you could buy most any Monogram kit at some grocery stores. The golden age in my opinion. 

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4 hours ago, AX 365 said:

First one I remember visiting here in Ottawa is Hobby House when they were located on Rideau St in the early 70s.  I also used to frequent Hobbyland, Simpson-Sears and K-Mart.  There was also a book store (Coles, I think) in one of our major malls and they had a large selection of models and supplies on the lower level.  Sadly, all but Hobby House are gone.

 

Hobby House was my second, but they were on Montreal road at that point in my life. I grew up in Manotick, so Hobby Center off Hunt Club was closer. Spent a fair bit of time in both places though. My first airbrush and compressor came from Hobby House. I try to visit any time I'm back in Ottawa. Both spots are great!

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