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(Gotha) Dreams Really Do Come True...

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Davos522:
Being "of an age"—I was born when Eisenhower was king and cars still had lots of chrome and really big fins—I have a lot of fond memories of the second generation of plastic kits. The first model I built was almost certianly one of the Aurora "Famous Fighters" series, somewhere around 1962: the Nieuport, Albatros, or D.VII (this last with the lurid, now-inconceivable close-up box art of some hapless Oberleutnant being flamed by a yellow & red Camel, IIRC). In any event, my local variety store, W.T. Grants, had a small model department at the end of one of the aisles in the toy department, and whether it was a size issue, or some quirk of the distributors, they never had any of the bigger Aurora kits. I used to literally dream, at eight years old, of finding the Gotha—never the D.H.10, it was always the Gotha—on the shelves. But it never happened. When I got older and started hitting bigger stores in more distant towns I kept hoping, but, somewhere around 1972, finally gave up.

Fast forward a half-century. Needing some paint for my current Nieuport 16 project, I made the trek to one of my nearest big hobby shops, outside Hartford, Connecticut, where I hadn't been for several years. After pawing through their stock of Vallejo, Tamiya, and Alclad paints I wandered through the aircraft section, which generally has a few older Eduard kits (most of which I have in my stash) but not much else by way of Great War types. I did a pretty thorough search, and, finding nothing special, turned the corner and glanced at the end of the aisle facing the very back of the store. And I think my heart literally skipped a beat....



There it was, after literally fifty years of searching.

I didn't end up buying it, against my better judgement. It was fifty dollars, and I actually have Eric Hight and Marty Digmayer's Copper State 1:48 Gotha, which is ten times better a kit... but it still gnawed at me.

I told my son Curt, who was a WWI modeler in his earlier days, and who I hope will rediscover it after the seemingly obligatory mid-youth crisis (he's 37), and when he and I went back to the store last month he actually bought it for me as a surprise; it now occupies a place of honor on the mantlepiece (somewhat to She Who Must Be Obeyed's mystification) as a reminder that... Dreams Really Do Come True.

Sorry for rambling, but this was too good not to share.

Dave V.

uncletony:
Love it! I'm an old f#@& but I'm too young to remember this one...

KiwiZac:
What a fantastic story!

macsporran:
Total empathy here. Dave!

Like you I started on kits way, way, back - late fifties. I was about 4 or 5, but my older brother started getting Airfix kits and of, course I had to have the same! However a soon as we found Aurora (or Playcraft as they were here in Scotland in the UK) "1/4 scale", Airfix was forgotten. A spindly silvery grey RE8, whose wings collapsed couldn't compare with a bigger wine red Fokker Triplane - with black wheels and guns and a base, crew figure and nameplate. Be still my beating heart!
The WWI bug was under the skin, never to depart.

For the next few years I foraged all the dept stores, bicycle shops, newsagents and toy shops, finding exotic Pfalz, Fokker, SPAD etc treasures (in poly bags in UK), then glory be, I found the two-seaters in boxes - Halberstadt, Albatros C.III, Breguet....

But through all of this a phantom remained. On the full-colour wrapper on the bagged kits were shown other releases - specifically THE GOTHA, (and also, another Aurora speciality - The Gold Knight, in the figures series)
These were dreamt of but never seen. On holidays I scoured the towns of England but to no avail.
THE GOTHA was a mythic beast, comparable to our beloved Loch Ness Monster.

Years passed, models gave way to girls, school gave way to University and I got serious about a wee Hebridean lassie that I'd met on a holiday job up in the islands, who came down to live with her sister in Glasgow - so I could get the train through from Edinburgh to be together at weekends. (We're mid 1970s by now.)

The point of all this?
One day I got off train in Glasgow and walked into Woolworths in Argyll Street and there in front of me was a large display overflowing with K&B re-releases of the old Aurora quarter-scale kits. All at 99p! Sopwith Triplanes, Fokker E.Vs, Breguets - and - and GOTHAS!!!! 99p!!!

I hadn't made a model in years but I bought about a dozen, including 3 x Gothas. (in the lovely dark blue plastic peculiar to the KB issue.) Joni wondered why I arrived at her flat with a huge shopping bag, which I was more interested in getting into than her clothing!. Next day I went back and bought some more!
I made the Gotha at my uni flat, (hand painting hex lozenge with Humbrol 'Authentic colours, Napoleonic range')

Still have a photo of that, my modelling renaissance, although sadly no longer the kit (see below)

Many years later (late 1990s) I bought all the Aurora range (cheap as chips back then) on the new-fangled eBay platform - and converted a few into decent replicas. That's when I found the Gotha of course really should be in the same wine red plastic as that original Fokker Triplane all those years ago.

Sorry for the ramble, but your story, Dave, struck a hugely resounding chord here. I hope your Gotha still has that fabulous Aurora smell when you open the box! Open box often, smell parts and fondle plastic, then guiltily put back in hiding place until next time!
Sandy

PS As mentioned above I also liked the Aurora Knights but could never find the fable GOLD KNIGHT OF NICE. Recently, only a few years ago, I saw some Revell (Germany) re-issues of the Knights - with the Gold guy, at the time, only 28GBP (Now it is much dearer I fear.) Anyway like your Gotha I had to fulfill the childhood itch and now they all sit on a shelf in the cabinet!)

rhwinter:
Wonderful stories - about US, aren't they?
So here I go: I have a few repeating dreams, one of them finding me in one of the (even back then: few) brick and mortar model-shops of my boyhood (1970ies) in Passau, Bavaria („Kragleder“, located in the vaulted cellar of a medieval house!), where I FINALLY find all those ever hardtofind kits of some esoteric japanese WW2 aircraft of some more esoteric japanese model-companies - surrounded by those kits I am excited, aroused, struck with awe and amazement - and I wake up feeling happy! It's not that I have been a huge fan of japanese Aircraft, but in those days when there were „only“ (*SIGH*) Airfix, Revell or Matchbox kits available, a mate of mine had a Fujimi (or so) catalogue, which we scanned (by eyesight, then) regularely - and I must have been heavily impressed by the depicted box-art… (I have another repeating dream, me finding some esoteric live-LP‘s of WINGS-concerts. But that's a different story…😁)
Thanks for your empathy 😊,
Richard

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