Model Shop Nostalgia.

[Paul Handley]

In the town where I live we’re lucky enough to still have the model shop we had when I was growing up and where I cut my teeth on Tamiya and Italeri tank kits - whilst trying to persuade the owner that stocking Historex kits would be a smart economic move - he didn’t and it wouldn’t have been.

The shops that did stock them tended to major in stamps or coins and sell the kits as a sideline. There was one on Steep Hill in Lincoln, another on Elm Hill in Norwich and one in Haworth called ‘Land of Gondal’ that was always in the shop guide in Military Modelling. Finding a shop that sold those plastic bags with orange header cards was always a good day.

Later, it was bubble packs with the Historex Agents ‘despatched’ stamp on the mat that rang my bell. Nearly fifty years later they’re still dropping on the mat and the thrill of a parcel from Dover hasn’t diminished one iota.

 

[David Spencer]

Later, it was bubble packs with the Historex Agents ‘despatched’ stamp on the mat that rang my bell. Nearly fifty years later they’re still dropping on the mat and the thrill of a parcel from Dover hasn’t diminished one iota.

I know the feeling. I remember queueing up for Historex orders from the UEA Post room.
Probably the only one doing so at the time.

 

[Paul Handley]

I know the feeling. I remember queueing up for Historex orders from the UEA Post room.
Probably the only one doing so at the time.

I was at art school in Norwich but if I’d been at UEA you wouldn’t have been the only one. There was a shop on Elm Hill in the city that sold Historex kits but it didn’t have a great selection so I was still building up my collection of bubble packs, order forms and the catalogue sheets that were part of the deal.

 

[David Spencer]

I was at art school in Norwich but if I’d been at UEA you wouldn’t have been the only one. There was a shop on Elm Hill in the city that sold Historex kits but it didn’t have a great selection so I was still building up my collection of bubble packs, order forms and the catalogue sheets that were part of the deal.

Was that the one inside the precinct off the market place?
Upstairs there was a selection of kits and paints, as I recall.

 

[Paul Handley]

Was that the one inside the precinct off the market place?
Upstairs there was a selection of kits and paints, as I recall.

No, it was in the tourist trail part of the city around the cathedral and (conveniently for me) at the back of the art school on St Georges Street. It’s one of the shops half way up on the left of the photo - I think it mainly sold stamps and gemstones and tourist stuff.

 

[David Spencer]

Ah, OK. Not a shop I saw, so maybe it had gone.
A nice city to live in; if a job had been there I would have stayed.

 

[Paul Handley]

Ah, OK. Not a shop I saw, so maybe it had gone.
A nice city to live in; if a job had been there I would have stayed.

I was very happy there. Someone was paying me to learn to paint and draw and there was a shop that sold Historex kits a minutes walk away - what’s not to like? it was, and remains, a lovely city - happy days.

I noticed further up the thread you mentioned Beatties in Nottingham. For a short while they sold the ‘Hist’ Collection boxed kits and I remember buying a 7th Chasseur trumpeter from there. I still have a tube of viridian oil paint that I bought specifically for that kit. Of all the greens I could have bought to paint a Chasseur, viridian is probably the most useless.

 

[David Spencer]

What Billy Connolly might call "F-ing Green"?
I have something similar. It's on the current project, but usually gets used as a mix for duller tones where green is required.

 

[NigelR]

I still have a tube of viridian oil paint that I bought specifically for that kit. Of all the greens I could have bought to paint a Chasseur, viridian is probably the most useless.

Ah, we've all been there. I too remember trying to get a decent Napoleonic green in the 1970s from a combination of Viridian Green and Sap Green..... didn't work. It's a pity I knew nothing about colour theory as a 14 year old kid!

 

[Paul Handley]

Ah, we've all been there. I too remember trying to get a decent Napoleonic green in the 1970s from a combination of Viridian Green and Sap Green..... didn't work. It's a pity I knew nothing about colour theory as a 14 year old kid!

I’m also guilty - many years ago I might add - of trying to paint a Polish Lancer with cobalt blue and black. Needless to say, that didn’t work either.

 

[Wayneb]

Sorry to flip the dials......Visible Man .......50 cents......9 yrs. old.......Tube of glue
and a new bb gun; made short work of my efforts. ..,,,,boys will be boys,,,,

Wayne

 

[4th Cuirassier]

I relocated to Dunstable and used a lovely little shop in St Albans called Cavaliers.

I remember Cavaliers well. It was somewhere off the main drag to the left as you came in from Watford. I was on pocket money and buying Hinchliffe 25mm. We lived in Rickmansworth. Mail order was costly so ideally you wanted to tag along wherever the parents were going, find a model shop and buy over the counter, so all your pennies went on figures. The Model Shop in Harrow was one possible, first in St Ann's Road then Station Road. It never had enough of the key standby figures though - BN1, FN1 - so it was a godsend when I discovered Cavaliers. It was several streets off the main drag as I recall, so hardly anybody can have gone there who wasn't looking for it. There was also a models-only branch of Hamleys in Wigmore Street. It's a kitchen shop now I think but you could buy really quite obscure stuff there.

In Stafford, there was Bagnalls, a toy shop but which had a good model section upstairs and there was for a while The Stafford Garrison, a bespoke model shop. In the Potteries, there was Brookfields, in Longton, again primarily a toy shop, but which sold models, in Hanley, City Centre Models and Bratt and Dykes, a department store which had a great toy and model section! In Burslem, there was Pleasure Treasures. Further afield, there was a model shop in Lichfield called Imperial Modelling (i think!).

I lived in Stafford from 1986 to 1988 and my sales patch included all these places - sadly I think all these shops were gone even by then.

It is is extraordinary what a golden age for modelling the 1960s to 1970s were.

 

[Babelfish]

It is is extraordinary what a golden age for modelling the 1960s to 1970s were.

It still is a golden age. Arguably more so. It's just a different golden age!

We have more and better kits - with even more coming out pretty much on a weekly basis - and the standard of modelling is incredible now, things have moved on so much (techniques as well).

What has changed is the absence of bricks-and-mortar shops, and that is a great loss. That golden age has sadly passed.

- Steve

 

[Babelfish]

I originally come from Dudley (West Midlands). We moved north with my dad's job when I was 7 but I returned for regular family visits for many years afterwards and when I was a nipper my grandad often used to take me into a shop called the Criterion, which had a large model section on the first floor. He used to treat me to something every time and I'd often choose an Aurora horror movie character or a Pyro dinosaur model, both early modelling loves of mine and I think I ended up building them all.

Eventually it went the way of most independent model and toy shops and the only photo I could find of it on the interweb is this one, taken many years after it had shut and the building been repurposed but with the original name still down the side of the building just as I remember it. AFAIK the building is still there (it was the last time I drove through in 2016) but I'm not 100% sure.



Dudley also boasted Ace Models in the Fountain Arcade, a proper modellers' Aladdin's Cave that was a fabulous place and sold all sorts of kits including figures. A few years back I came across a photo of it online but unfortunately I can't find it any more. I last visited in 2002 and it closed in 2006, the owner lamenting in a local newspaper article that "no-one comes in any more, the kids are all sat at home with their PlayStations". Just across from Ace was The Arcade Toyshop, a separate business that sold model railways, cars etc. That struggled on until as recently as 2022 when it finally closed, the covid lockdowns dealing the final blow.

Anyone from that neck of the woods might remember these places.

- Steve

 

[NigelR]

It still is a golden age. Arguably more so. It's just a different golden age!
What has changed is the absence of bricks-and-mortar shops, and that is a great loss. That golden age has sadly passed.

The bricks and mortar shops are still there, it's just that they have also changed. Instead of being located in town centres, they tend to be on industrial estates where rents are cheaper and they can also run online side by side with bricks and mortar.

I retired to sleepy Somerset, yet there are at least four model shops within a 30 minute drive - Jadlam, Mann's Model Moments, Frome Model Centre and Scale Model Shed. All stock a pretty wide range of kits, paints and accessories. Jadlam in particular is amazing. Jadlam and Scale Model Shed are both on industrial estates so you need to drive to them, although Mann's and Frome Model Centre are in town centres.

However, few of them stock historical figures (apart from ICM/Masterbox plastic ones). Jadlam carries a wide range of Warhammer and sci-fi kits, Frome Model Centre has a few Pegaso, so unless you make things other than figures there's less reason to search out these shops.

 

[Babelfish]

The bricks and mortar shops are still there, it's just that they have also changed. Instead of being located in town centres, they tend to be on industrial estates where rents are cheaper and they can also run online side by side with bricks and mortar.

Yes you're right there are still some, but they're much thinner on the ground than they used to be. Time was that almost every town and certainly every city would have at least one model shop.

I know two in York, one in Halifax and one in Chester (all in town centre locations) that I try to visit whenever I get the chance because I also dabble in armour and aircraft. And if they happen to have a kit I fancy that costs a few quid more than I could get it for online I'll buy it anyway because I like to support the independent shops (use 'em or lose 'em).

All offer very meagre pickings in terms of figures though, you'll be lucky to find anything apart from Tamiya and ICM.

- Steve

 

[4th Cuirassier]

when I was a nipper my grandad often used to take me into a shop called the Criterion, which had a large model section on the first floor. He used to treat me to something every time and I'd often choose an Aurora horror movie character or a Pyro dinosaur model, both early modelling loves of mine and I think I ended up building them all.

Have you checked it out on Google Streetview?

 

[Colin_Fraser]

I got my first figure overload at Soldiers in Lambeth near the Imperial War Museum c. 1971.



https://manoftinblogtwo.wordpress.c...rs-figures-and-revisiting-44-kennington-road/

Other London must visits included Under Two Flags, Seagull, Tradition, Willy, as well as Foyles and Hatchards for books. And Hay on Wye where I got a complete Kinglake, Nolan’s Russian War, Napiers Peninsula and a lot of vintage one offs for well under £50 all in. There was also a little kiosk store under one of the London bridges at the city end but I don’t think I ever learned its name.

My grand parents lived in Stafford so Bagnalls was a great place for me to drop in for Historex.

We had very little brick and mortar figure resources in Canada back then but the attic of Coy Brothers’ hardware store in St Catherines Ontario was pretty appealing.

colin

 

[David Spencer]

Not knowing, but I wonder whether the distances between towns/cities/model shops is large in Canada ...?

That said, on a smaller scale, the same applies in the UK.

 

[Richard Baxter]

Yes, Canada's a huge place. There's the famous story about a company from London who opened a Canadian office in Vancouver. One day, the London office had a call from a potential client in Toronto and they referred it to Vancouver to make contact and arrange a meeting. Vancouver referred it back and suggested that someone from London should go to Torornto. On asking why, London was told "You're nearer".