I admit I have a guilty pleasure of chasing down kits that I built as a kid. You know, back in those simpler times where slapping glue and paint on a model and calling it done was a weekly occurrence, before getting obsessed with details, colour schemes, and construction techniques. Though the models themselves are long gone, I still have memories and some terrible old photographs of many of my old childhood builds.
A year or so back I stumbled upon an old photo of myself as a kid:
It was Christmas at my Grandparent's house, either 1991 or 1992, judging by the outstanding happy pants and converse LA Lakers basketball shoes being sported by yours truly. I would have been around 10 or 11 years old at the time, and building models for 3 or 4 years. In my hot little hands are kits I received as a present from my uncle (on advice from my parents, no doubt); an Idea 1/48 Mustang and an Idea 1/48 F-16. I am clearly in deep contemplation about the builds to come (or I was simply camera shy)...!
I remember building both, and I even have a very blurry picture of the Mustang once built:
The Mustang would have been in a fictitious scheme, without a doubt! I believe this specific model would have been lost in the "great backyard turkey shoot" circa 1993 / 1994, when my mother told me to "get rid of all of those airplanes around the house" (which I did... quite creatively... but that's another story for another day). I remember painting the F-16 grey, but no idea what happened to it (I have vague recollections of repeated undercarriage breakages leading to a binning at some point).
When I found the photos, naturally I started hunting for the specific boxings of the kits. The F-16 boxing is clearly identifiable, but was still quite tricky to track down, though I have now done so. The Mustang boxing was (and remains) a bit more of a mystery; all I had was the instructions and glimpse of the side of the box to tell me which boxing it was. There are several Idea boxings of this kit, but only one version that I have found with the side art in question. I now have that boxing as well, but... I am not entirely sure as I still spy some very minor differences (font colour in the yellow box is the one that's gotten me)... but I have not found another Idea boxing to match the side panel art... so the one I have will do for now
These kits are not expensive, nor are they up to today's quality standards, but I don't intend on building them.
Going on these little 'treasure hunts' can be fun, and can be often deeply personal. I've gone on other nostalgia treasure hunts before (eg. 1/24 Airfix Bf-109E, 1/32 Hasegawa Spitfire VI and Fw-190A, 1/48 Arii Spitfire VIII, Matchbox 1/72 FW-190A, Hasegawa Bf-109Fs, amongst many many others).
Does anyone else have any childhood treasures that they have hunted down?
Cheers!
Brad
