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First hobby shop you remember visiting?


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4 hours ago, Specter1075 said:

 

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!

 

Nice.  Bill's place is my go to now.  He has a build night every second Thursday and a bunch of us get together there often.  I go to Hobby House on occasion (it's closer as I live in Orleans) but Hobby Center has a greater selection of just about everything.  BTW, part of Manotick was in my patrol area.  Were you on the east or west side of the river?  I was mostly on the east side but every once in a while went over to West Division to help out when things got busy over there.

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7 minutes ago, Specter1075 said:

I was on the island, right in the middle. Not sure if that fell into East or West. What years were you working the area? 

Long Island was West Division (old OPP Manotick jurisdiction prior to amalgamation in 1995).  I started with Gloucester in 1984.  We patrolled Nicolls Island and the east side of the river, north of Mitch Owens Rd.  With the exception of about seven years (cumulatively in different sections), I spent my entire career in that area, east of the river.  I retired in 2016.

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44 minutes ago, AX 365 said:

Long Island was West Division (old OPP Manotick jurisdiction prior to amalgamation in 1995).  I started with Gloucester in 1984.  We patrolled Nicolls Island and the east side of the river, north of Mitch Owens Rd.  With the exception of about seven years (cumulatively in different sections), I spent my entire career in that area, east of the river.  I retired in 2016.

 

Well, I managed to collect a few speeding tickets along Mitch Owens as a new driver, including two in a three (bad) day span. That would have been back in 2002. Was that you? haha

 

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10 hours ago, DONG said:

Mine was Leisure World here in London, They had a wall of kits about 40 feet long and 12 feet high.

 

Mike are you making it to Hamilton in March ?

 

Don

 

 

Hi Don.  Unfortunately I won't be there.  Have a great day.

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10 hours ago, Specter1075 said:

 

Well, I managed to collect a few speeding tickets along Mitch Owens as a new driver, including two in a three (bad) day span. That would have been back in 2002. Was that you? haha

 

 

Ouch.  Not me.  In 2002 I was in Collision Investigations.  Chances of me giving anyone a ticket was pretty slim.  I always got crap from my supervisors saying I needed to give out more tickets.  I was never a big ticket guy.  Almost everyone got off with a warning.

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22 hours ago, Pete Beck said:

National Hobby in Parma, Ohio...dad took me in there and a guy was looking at the newly released Tamiya New Jersey...I was hooked. Same day, we went to Wing's Hobbies in Lakewood, Ohio and I got a Monogram 1/48 F-14. Oh the memories!!!

Went to both those when I moved into the area with wife 1.0. There was also a Squadron Shop for awhile too, mid 70's time frame.

My first hobby shop was Franklin's five and  dime where I got some wood aircraft kits and saw my first plastic kit (Starfix I believe) can't remember exact one but it was a bi-plane.

Cheers :cheers:

Itch

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On 1/19/2023 at 1:31 PM, Drifterdon said:

AirCraft Hobbies in Bellevue, Nebraska.   Was amazed at all the different kits and supplies available.   

Hey that's the first hobby shop I went to in the 70's. Loved that place.

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15 hours ago, Cajun21 said:

Went to both those when I moved into the area with wife 1.0. There was also a Squadron Shop for awhile too, mid 70's time frame.

My first hobby shop was Franklin's five and  dime where I got some wood aircraft kits and saw my first plastic kit (Starfix I believe) can't remember exact one but it was a bi-plane.

Cheers :cheers:

Itch

I remember Wings very well! I went there many times as a kid and later as an adult. I was sad when they finally closed. Maybe not the first hobby shop that I went to, but definitely one that holds a special place with me. 

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Arlington Hobby Crafters, in Arlington, VA in the very early 80s. I do not remember much, but it was pretty old looking inside at the time. I know they had  Models, trains, and Tyco Slot cars.  I  must have been  6 or 7  the first time we went there. The location was close to what was then known as the Parkington  Mall. The Mall was heavily renovated into Ballston Common Mall, which I think meant the building the store was in was demolished to make room for the mall.   Arlington Hobby Crafters moved to a new location, on Wilson Boulevard. This store was in a strip mall, and was bigger, and well lit. I clearly remember they had Radio Control Cars, an amazing selection of plastic models, paint,  and anything you needed. I bought my first Model Rocket starter set there.  

 

Our family moved away from Arlington and we did not visit again. But I did stumble across the same store in a new location, in Falls Church in 2000. By that time it was a cramped, old disorganized store but they had neat stuff. I think it closed not soon after, but it was my first hobby store. 

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The R.J. Shop in Hillsdale, MI.  In the County Seat, about 20 miles away.  Might as well have been on the moon for us kids not old enough to drive.  My friends and I could usually talk a parent into taking us once a month or so.  A tiny little shop, part hobbies, part crafts, and part photography supplies, named after owners and operators Bob and Jean Elliott.  That was where we discovered incredibly exotic things like Airfix kits and Pactra paints.  I don't think the place lasted past the mid-80s when the owners retired, but I still have very fond memories.  I recall how honored I was when they agreed to allow me to display one of my finished models in the window as a teenager.

 

SN

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42 minutes ago, admiralcag said:

Hatch's Hobbies in Aurora, CO. They've been gone for at least 30 years now. The second one was Coplar Hobbies. They are still going strong.

 

So many stores have gone out of business in the Denver metro area. Very, very sad.

 

Vern

I lived in the Denver/Boulder area back in the early 80s.  I recall tons of great hobby shops..Colpar being the Gold Standard.  We visited the area on vacation in 2017, my first return in over 30 years.  I was shocked to discover the first hobby shop I had visited when I lived there was still a going concern: Thompson's Hobbies in Lakewood.  I have no idea if it's still open or not.  Their bread and butter seemed to be primarily craft stuff, so hopefully they're still afloat.  I made it a point to buy a couple things when we were there, just for old time's sake.

 

SN

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Back in the mid 1970’s in the small city I lived in had three small hobby shops. 
 

The first was named Stu’s Hobbies and was run buy a father and son. The father was a Vietnam veteran and was the coolest person I knew at that time.
 

I was just getting into the hobby on my own. Stu would point out what tools & paints I would need on whatever Monogram kit I could afford at the time as a kid…..Ahhhh that ol Pactra paint smell. It amazes me how much mileage I managed to get out of those little square bottles. One kit I remember I bought was  the 1/24 Huey Chopper with a little bit of help from Mom and my Grandmother’s birthday money. What a beautiful big beast of a kit for a kid of 10 years old. Stu told me about how his unit would attach spotlights onboard of some of the slicks and go hunting for the VC hamlets. Great stories from the guys that were there. 

 

If you could get to the shop at the right time you could listen in on some of the other veterans from W.W. II, Korea and Vietnam share stories that would frequent the shop. As a kid It was the best historical reference a young kid could ever have on some of the greatest battles in our countries history.

 

Sadly by the early 1990’s Stu’s shop had been broken into one to many times and he had enough. 

 

The other two shops I regret can’t seem to recall their names. 

 

The second was a camera and doll shop that carried a good selection of plastic models in the old downtown. Unfortunately it wasn’t around for very long as there was some sort of legal fight amongst the family that owned it. It closed its doors by 1979. The shop remained closed with all of the cameras, dolls, models, and collectibles in it for twenty plus years. It was a time capsule of old kits in their original packaging due to the long drawn out family fight. Finally I happened by the part of town that it was in and had noticed a new model train store had opened up. I decided to check it out and Lo and behold there was the remaining old kits for sale if you could get to them. It was a mad rush on old  nostalgic kits!

 

The third hobby shop was not too far from my home. When I got permission from Mom I could walk through empty lots and get across the street to this small hole in the wall  hobby shop. This little shop was run by a nice retired couple and it was there I came across my first Tamiya kit. It was the 1/25 Tiger I. WOW ! I thought this was such a great kit! The fit, the detail, the markings, and I got on sale. The great thing about this shop was they had sales every once in awhile, so on my allowance from chores and cutting the lawn I would save up and maybe have a chance at the next kit on sale or find that hard to find color from Pactra for whatever I was working on at the time. 
 

All good things come to end.

 

 

The take away is, one small portion of my formative years was the joy and anticipation of visiting these shops and  of seeing the new kits for sale and being inspired by the ones on display by the other customers. It fueled the imagination and inspired me to seek knowledge about historical events, figures, and places. 
 

Yeah it sad that they have gone but I still will have great memories 

 

 

 

 

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My first was Boscos Hobby Shop in the Shreve City shopping center in Shreveport right directly across the Red River from the the main gate to Barksdale AFB in Bossier City (Louisiana).  It lasted long enough for me to take my son there when he was 3-4 years old.  It was like walking into hobby heaven.  But now it has been gone for about 35 years or so.

 

Steve Sliger

Greenwell Springs, LA

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My memory is fuzzy, but I remember  from the late '70's early '80's Walt's hobby store on the ground level at Century III mall in the South Hills of Pittsburgh PA.  

 

Walt even displayed my Tamiya A-10 in his window!  I was so proud.....

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25 minutes ago, ytsejam87 said:

My memory is fuzzy, but I remember  from the late '70's early '80's Walt's hobby store on the ground level at Century III mall in the South Hills of Pittsburgh PA.  

 

Walt even displayed my Tamiya A-10 in his window!  I was so proud.....

I remember that one, too.  I think I got my first Hasegawa F4U-1D kit there, c. summer of 1983.  

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 There weren't any proper hobby shops near where I grew up in the 1970s but Portage Wisconsin was the closest town of significance and department stores back then carried plastic kits. Mom hit the laundromat there every Saturday and turned the three of us kids loose in town with our allowances (the premise was for doing our chores but as I get older I believe she was just buying us off for some quiet time). Woolworths five & dime was still a thing back then and Portage had one, complete with a lunch counter and a selection of kits (I remember getting the AMT 1/48 B-26 there, and they had a Macaw that "hung out"). Schultz Bros. was another department store that carried kits as well as small selections at a couple of drug stores there. And all were on Main St. so I could start at one end of town (Schultz Bros.) and work my way down the three blocks to the laundromat, looking at what everyone had on hand that day and then going back to get the kit I wanted at the store that had it. Schultz Bros. carried the best selection and the cashiers got to know me pretty well over those years. Madison was rumored to have a proper hobby shop but the parents didn't think it worthy enough to take me there and I kept myself pretty busy without it anyway. There was always something to be had in Portage. By the 1980s it was over-Woolworths went first, Schultz Bros. last but that was the rhythm of my life as a kid.

 

 My first proper hobby shop was outside MCRD San Diego and I briefly visited on my way to the airport after boot camp in 1981. No idea what the name of the place was but I got Tamiya's 1/48 Lancaster there.

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MY first "hobby shop" was on a Highway between BARODA(Indian name is VADODARA) and BHARUCH(British Raj called the place BROACH ) in Indian Gujarat State .

..I was 4 years old and MY late Father took Me there and bought a tiny scale Hawker Hunter.

The "hobby shop" was a grocers, sweet shop and a general store but every so often  he would get a model kit and MY Dad bought it for 5 Annas.

with his help I built it and was crudely painted as a 4 year old would. And later gave it away to our servants son  who until 2017 still had it ... but it was falling apart !!

MY earliest Memory. 

 

 

 

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On 1/21/2023 at 7:59 AM, Steve N said:

I lived in the Denver/Boulder area back in the early 80s.  I recall tons of great hobby shops..Colpar being the Gold Standard.  We visited the area on vacation in 2017, my first return in over 30 years.  I was shocked to discover the first hobby shop I had visited when I lived there was still a going concern: Thompson's Hobbies in Lakewood.  I have no idea if it's still open or not.  Their bread and butter seemed to be primarily craft stuff, so hopefully they're still afloat.  I made it a point to buy a couple things when we were there, just for old time's sake.

 

SN

Thompson's Hobbies in Lakewood is closed now.  The property is up for sale.  We'll probably end up with another car wash or self storage.  Really was surprised how long they lasted.  80% of the store was focused on crafting...it was Hobby Lobby long before there were any Hobby Lobby's around.

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Don't know if you would consider Toys R Us as a hobby shop, but back in the day, the stores would have 3 full aisles of plastic kits. This was when Testors still sold kits (in the yellow boxes, great marketing). Still remember getting a Testors-labelled 1/48 U-2R, 1/48 SR-71, 1/720 USS Nimitz, 1/350 Ohio class SSBN, and a Revell Space Shuttle with SRBs (with a free poster) and Space Shuttle with 747 carrier. It was my default hobby supply store as well. I bought many Testors drop cloths and knives. 

 

I even remember getting Revell's box scale USS Eisenhower, USS Wasp, and USS Forrestal from a People's Drug store (which later became CVS drug store).

 

Then there was Corr's Hooby in Maryland where I bought the Hasegawa 1/72 Blue Angel jet anthology (F9F thru A-4)... dang, someone is cutting onions near me  : )

 

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Back in the day (early 80s-ish), Kay-Bee Toys that were in a lot of malls had a pretty good model selection.  Of course, in that era, most places did - the Sears in the mall where I grew up sold kit and had a good selection that included Minicraft boxing of Hasegawa kits, as did JC Penney; KMart had a huge model aisle also.

 

There used to be a really good hobby shop just off the Diamond on the main drag in Mt Pleasant, PA, also; I recall getting my first 1/32 Mustang there (a Hasegawa kit in the Minicraft box with "Man O'War" markings).

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5 hours ago, Joe Hegedus said:

Back in the day (early 80s-ish), Kay-Bee Toys that were in a lot of malls had a pretty good model selection.  Of course, in that era, most places did - the Sears in the mall where I grew up sold kit and had a good selection that included Minicraft boxing of Hasegawa kits, as did JC Penney; KMart had a huge model aisle also.

 

There used to be a really good hobby shop just off the Diamond on the main drag in Mt Pleasant, PA, also; I recall getting my first 1/32 Mustang there (a Hasegawa kit in the Minicraft box with "Man O'War" markings).

AB Charles & Son on West Liberty Ave. in Dormont during the 1970's was the best in the area.  I think his son still operates after a few moves around the area.  They had the best selection of kits & model railroad supplies.  

 

John

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