The strange case of the 'nostalgia stash'...

[Brad Cancian]

Thank you so much gents for sharing your experiences (and a great little Albatros Stephen!).

Some of this also reminds me of some of those 'hens teeth' kits that I remember seeing in stores, pondering over, not buying, and later regretting it. For some reason one of these kits for me was the old Airfix Wellington; it was in my childhood toy store, I fondled the box many times over many visits, but never pulled the trigger. I later went back to find that it had been sold, to my regret... I then never saw the same boxing again. Some 30 years later, I went hunting for the exact boxing I remember fondling, and added it to my collection. It's still sealed, in case I ever want to truly re-live the experience of pulling the plastic seal off an 80s era kit, hah!

There are probably a few other 'white whale' kit's i've chased over the years, but I remember that as the first.

Anyone else have any similar experiences...?

Cheers,

BC

[macsporran]

Hey Brad, exactly the same for me - but it was the Aurora Brisfit F2b (OT as always you see!).

I must have been about nine or ten in the early sixties and my older brother had brought back two Aurora models - a Dr.I for him and an SE5a for me - and my modelling world changed. No more boring Airfix kits in one grey colour - no - black wheels and guns sprue, pilot and crew figure, ground base and name badge and really colourful header/instructions (In UK Aurora were distributed by Playcraft - in bags like Airfix.) I was hooked - 1) on Aurora and 2) on WWI.

I started collecting the single seaters, then found a boxed Albatros C.III My God, they did two-seaters!

The best source for Aurora in 1960s Dundee was a newsagent called Noonans who kept a big deep box in the middle of the toy dept floor that you rummaged in to find the kits you wanted. All sorts of goodies in there. One day I found a Brisfit and excitedly clutched it to my chest. But. It was seven shillings and sixpence. The scouts were three shillings and I could have two of them, including the wine red Dr.I I'd coveted since not getting that first one. Besides I'd built the Airfix F2b and it was a pig - the top wing kept collapsing on the struts before the glue dried.
I bought 2 scouts and went home.

But the memory of the Brisfit wouldn't go away and I begged and borrowed enough to go back for it. But it had been sold!!!! I kept going back week after week but another Brisfit never appeared. Later that year, on holiday visiting my English grandparents I'd scour the model shops in all the towns near them (and found the Halberstadt, Breguet, etc) - but no Brisfit.
I saw a built one in a display case at the Shuttleworth collection and probably realised then that it wasn't actually a very good model, but I still wanted one! But no joy.
Then as a student in the 70s, Woolworths in Edinburgh and Glasgow were loaded with cheap (99p!) K&B reboxings of Aurora WWI kits and I bought a shedload - but they didn't reissue the Brisfit. I gave up.

Then finally ebay appeared in the 90s and - mirabile dictu - I landed an Aurora Brisfit.

Opening the box, it still had that distinctive sweet-plastic Aurora smell. No, it wasn't a very good kit - but I'd got one at last. Of course I built the Aeroclub one for preference but the unbuilt Aurora F2b still meant more to me than any other kit before or since! I still open the box for a sniff occasionally.
Sandy

[KiwiZac]

Has anyone come back to another of the same model kit that they built in their youth, and built it again?

I have a few from my childhood in mind to tackle again with my current skills, but I keep thinking of the already-started kits I have and get disheartened...