[Closed] Here's a question for you.

And we're enjoying your renewed passion for model building and rejuvenating, David!.

I used to dabble in almost everything.

I spent years trying to maintain a kind of "representative sample" of the latest offerings from the major car makers and my favourite model producers, but if I went to a swapmeet and there weren't many cars I wanted, I would come home laden with buses, lorries (trucks!) ambulances, mobile cranes, construction equipment you name it.

I was eventually forced to (mainly) restrict myself to cars, but "restrict" was a relative term. If there was a new model of a "Yank Tank", however crappy, then I had to have it, no questions asked. So they kept mounting up.

The sheer amount of new stuff being turned out eventually convinced me it was a never-ending treadmill and I needed to be more selective. And once you start applying "filters" it's surprising how many "must haves" you can look at and think "well, I've survived without a model of that for over 40 years. It's nice to see it's been done at last, but I think I'll pass".

So like several other Forum members I am now restricting myself to particularly attractive "specials" or filling really, REALLY important gaps in the collection. Just as well really, because again like many other folk I am fast running out of space. My lady wife has vetoed any attempt to erect display cabinets in the bathroom or kitchen, and the garden shed is a bit damp, so I'm kind of stuck.

Unfortunately, although I have bitten the bullet on resisting new purchases, I haven't got around to the hassle of trying to sell anything - probably daunted by the knowledge that the only people who might be interested are, ahem, mature collectors liike myself who probably have all the same stuff sitting on shelves and are wondering whether the Grim Reaper might want to take them off their hands for a small consideration (like, say, granting them another 20 years to carry on collecting like a mad old fool).

There is no cure, It is just a long-term survivable disease. But there I go, telling you what you already know. Just tell me to shut up.

Cabinet space dictates max collection size. If I buy one item, I sell one. Filters...

1934 to 1969, primarily North American cars one would see on the street. No exotics or race cars, very few emergency vehicles. Having said this, I have some 50s to 60s VW, Opel, Toyota, Mercedes and BMW. I look for cars in this range.

Oh, always 1:43. For a short while I collected some 1:24 and 1:25 but feared that I was on slippery slope to madness and so, sold them quickly.

In 2019 I have added only a few items to my collection. The last ….

purchase was a Dinky Toys 915 AEC articulated lorry with flat trailer which I bought in the summer.

Chris

Um....yeah, that's right...that was it.

What I wonder is....

where are all the 1:18 guys displaying there stuff. Taken as a rectangular box, a 1:18 consumes the volume of roughly 13.6 1:43 boxes. And almost every manufacturer is cranking those big ones out, sometimes with higher rates of release than the 1:43 offerings from the same company. Talk about a glut - where will all these end up someday?

Looking for best proportions accuracy possible. That's what dictate my disease !

I am only interested in a scale model that really looks like the real car, or as close as possible.

😉

I have started collecting because of my father finding and bringing me my very first Cadillac JoHan promos and kits, back when I was an early teenager. My exclusive devotion and passion for the brand had started around seven years old, before collecting models per say, but these promos had, and still have, the same "power" , the same emotion in me nowadays.

And to this day, even with no specific details with chromes and photo-etched nor modern techniques, Jo-Han Cadillacs ( and other brands ) are still the "creme de la creme" when it's about respect of proportions and overall accuracy. They just look like the real ones.

So, as my 1/25 Cadillac collection is quite big now, still growing up with my own made conversions, the same values are translated in 1/43rd scale.

No matter the manufacturer, nor the year, nor the fact it's plastic, white metal, resin...Accuracy's what drives me.

The colour proposition could be also a factor now, since manufacturers are offering options.

One scale I am not collecting though... 1/18th.
Way too big !.

😉

David:I've been working on a special project this past year and have put aside my 1/43 modifications while working on this project. The project is a scratch built 1/8 scale 1903 Rambler approximately 14 inches in length. It has functioning steering using a tiller, working brass hand made headlights, stitched real leather padded seats and custom parts made on a 3D printer.. I hope to have it complete at the end of December or early January. While it is not 1/43 scale, I think that many of you will find it interesting. I will post pictures upon completion.

I lack discipline, therefore I buy whatever, whenever. I do however.........

tend to buy models that I want to change or hot rod, or both. I waste a lot of money to fulfill my visions lol. But not everything I buy I mess with, that saves me money lol. So no real rhyme or reason for me. But it is all fun !

Good news, Ken! I'm already looking forward to this one. Great!

+1:)

I'm going the other way and downsizing.....

I've collected Rootes Group cars for years and these are staying, and my collection of cheap partwork French cars are safe. My pre-war Lansdowne cars are also staying but most of the rest will be finding new homes...if there are any new homes as like Graeme's post, who apart from us regulars wants them now? I'm not building anything new over the winter, taking a semi-enforced break, and in the spring will decide what to do next. I do wonder if there are simply too many new models for the market to take and if the bubble will burst? Anybody else have thoughts on this?

Here's my take on the market

As the makers move into the sixties, those who are smart enough to see the shift that's occurring will remain healthy. Sergio's attention to detail and his genius at discerning the market have proven that the market is changing. It was just a few short years ago we were hearing, "Cars of the sixties don't sell."

The next wave, IMO, will be the performance and muscle cars of the late sixties. This will be a bit of a challenge as most of them were identified by stripes and graphics. But some manufacturer will figure out how to do it and be able to add the right tires and wheels thereby setting the pace for other modelers.

At some point, some other maker will begin to offer cars of the early seventies and make a killing. And so the patterns will continue.

There will always be a market for some of the older cars from the thirties, forties and fifties if they are well made and highly detailed. But the future of the hobby lies in the hands of those who are upcoming and will have discretionary income to spend on their nostalgia for their youth. At heart, there will always be grown men who want to play with the cars they admired as children.

Man oh man John....I sure hope you are right! I cautiously agree.....

In reading the above comments, there are two common threads - Age and Space. We are mostly older collectors and are mostly running out of the space to display our collections! I ran into the second problem over 20 years ago, when we downsized to a much smaller home, and I no longer had the space to display my collection. Have been cleaning out items since that time as there is no family interest. Have sold off many over past years, and only purchased a very few.