Guaranteed Original

Unless otherwise specified, old kits are guaranteed to be originals and NOT reissues or reproductions. This applies to all parts, decals, instructions and boxes. Exceptions will be noted in the item details.

NOTE: Many of these kits are up to 50 years old and may have minor flaws although complete. Many kits had slight damage due to shipping or small short shots when they were new.

Are These Kits Complete?

All kits are labeled as either

• Factory sealed (Never opened and obviously not inventoried)
• Open but factory sealed internal bags (parts are still in the internal factory sealed bags and obviously not inventoried)
• Inventoried complete (Open kit with loose parts. A piece-by-piece inventory was done and the kit is complete with all parts, decals, and instructions are present.) If anything has been glued or painted it will be noted
• Inventoried and not complete. (Open kit with loose parts. Inventoried piece-by-piece and the missing parts are noted. If there is any glue or painting that will be noted also.

Original glue, paint, brushes and any other accessories that came with the kits are NOT present unless specifically noted.

NOTE: If you plan on building your older kit or even a kit from the 1980s, please be aware that old decals may NOT work well. Be prepared to scan them and make your own copy or ask you local hobby shop or printer to help you copy them.

Kit Listings

Kit listings have information in this order:

{Manufacturer} {Kit Name} {scale} {Kit number -when available}
{Material} {Box condition code}
{Details}
{Price}

• Add to Cart (means kit is available for purchase)
• Sale Pending (a customer has ordered the kit and oldmodelkits.com is awaiting payment)

Material

This designates what substance the kit is made of. Many are self-explanatory, but here is a simple introduction to injection molding, vacuforming, resin, wood, and stick and tissue. Some kits contain photoetched metal parts and resin details, so please read the full description before purchasing.

Plastic Model Kits:

Plastic model kits are synonymous with injection molded kits. This is the most popular type of model kit. Melted plastic is injected at a certain rate, temperature and pressure into a shaped cavity. The plastic cools and is removed from the mold. The "trees" or "sprue" hold the parts in the original molded configuration. Styrene is the most commonly used plastic for this method and can be easily glued by solvent-type liquid cements like Testors, Tamiya or the old Monoglue, Revell “S” Cement or Pactra. Injection molding is expensive due to the tooling costs of creating a mold. Before a manufacturer cuts the mold, they must be sure that the subject matter is desirable and the mold will have many years of production life before demand dies out. Injection molding is limited not only by cost but the size of the molding press.

Vacuform:

Vacuform models fill a critical gap in the modeling world. Before resin, it stood as the main alternate production method. Vacuform kits can be made in a garage and do not have the same size limitations as injection molding. For example, the 1/72 C-5A Galaxy is simply too large for any profitable injection molding machine, but is ideally suited for vac. The manufacturer creates a master and mounts it on a board with holes. Plastic sheet is heated and drawn over the mold with a vacuum pump. Some vac kits come with metal and/or resin details like landing gear struts, wheels, machine guns, engines and even cockpits. Some vacuform kits from manufacturers such as Esoteric and Dynavector are of higher quality than most injection molded kits. Regardless, most vac kits are much more difficult to build than an injection molded kit. Significant modeling and scratch building skills are needed to build vac kits.

Resin Model Kits:

Resin is now the primary alternative production method. Two-part resin is poured into rubber molds that are made from masters. This can be done in a very small space with little or no specialized equipment. The master limits the detail, but resin is capable of higher detail levels than injection molding. Cyanoacrylate type glues are needed to build resin kits. The cost of the mold rubber and resin have increased greatly in the past decade, making these kits more expensive to produce.

Wooden Kits:

These include classic kits in hardwood and balsa, such as the old Strombecker, Maircraft, Comet and Monogram Speedee-Bilt models. Some include completely preformed hardwood parts and were the premium models in their day. Others include a box with several blocks of wood and some instructions that seem to have one and only one step, "Make Wood Look Like Airplane or Ship". Plank-on-Frame ship models are constructed with a keel and bulkheads (like an actual ship) and are planked with paneling and/or stripwood.

This category also includes stick and tissue. The golden age of these famous flying models was from 1920 until injection molding took over in the mid 1950s. Wings, fuselage and the like are built with wooden spars, ribs and bulkheads via supplied plans. This framework is covered with lightweight tissue. These kits were intended (and did) fly on rubber power and later on gas power. They are very light weight and range from 'Dime Scale' to very large with wingspans several feet long. There is still a national free-flight and regional indoor/outdoor competition where these aircraft can fly on rubber power for 20 to 30+ minutes in no-wind conditions.

Metal or Fiberglass Model Kits:

Assembly kit where the majority of the parts are steel, brass, copper or other metals or glass mat and resin.

Cardstock Paper Model Kits:

Cardstock models are completely pre-colored and are made from thick, heavy weight paper. They are very sturdy once assembled. Some, such as the larger warships have well over a thousand parts. There are modern versions, but I have personally seen cardstock models from the 1920. Many are of amazing subjects such as 1/200 scale German pre-WWI ocean liners, 1/48 scale Convair 440s, 1/50 scale Tu-95 Bear and hundreds if not thousands of others.

Multimedia Model Kits:

This is a model kit that consists of two or more major materials. Common examples are plastic and brass (photoetched), plastic and resin, resin and PE metal, wood and metal and many more.

Box or Header Condition Codes

All older, boxed collectable kits have this code and some newer ones as well. If you have two identical kits, and one has a good box and the other a mint box, the mint one will appreciate in value at a much higher rate. The following code is used:

• MINT: The box is flawless except for traditional small manufacturing imperfections.
• NM (Near Mint): Very minor scuffs, edge wear, creases or tears. There are no serious defects that could detract from the box.
• EXC (Excellent): Minor scuffs, edge wear, creasing/bends, small tears, and corner wear. It may have several smaller flaws but no major ones. Many boxes fall into this classification.
• VG (Very Good): Very collectible, but has more problems like a price tag tear, a few split corners, some fading, staining, over-spray, creasing from smaller boxes being placed on top, pencil point holes, etc.
• Good: Colorful box art but very visible problems like corner splits, tape tears, large creases from stacking, serious edge wear/corner wear, etc. A OK piece, but not likely to rapidly appreciate in value.
• Fair: Serious tears, stains, splits, cuts, creasing, obvious writing, etc. In other words, a good builder kit.
• Poor: Highly worn with many serious flaws. Not collectible but ideal parts kits or builder material.

Questions?

If you have further questions, do not hesitate to email or write us. Our address is:

Oldmodelkits.com
Alan Bussie
524 Amberley Drive
Lexington, KY 40515


Sincerely,

Alan Bussie
OMK