Model Forum / General / Models / September 2005

Every rare, once in a while ours will get in gems like this. It seems
like over the past year or two, they will occasionally get in those AMT
sets with three or four different car models in them. Usually one that
I want and the others I could care less about. lol

Don McIntyre
Clarksville, TN

Wow.  Pick 'n Save is how I got my start modeling.  ALOT of Linberg line,
including some German tanks and the motorized Bizmarck!  They had the PT-109
but I never got that.   This was back in the very early '80s in Albuquerque.
That's some memories.  Cheap enough that mom didn't even blink to buy one
for me.

I even remember once there was the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders van.....
This was before I even had the concept of scale.

I saw or bought (mostly bought) most all of the kits you listed above at Big
Lots back in the early-mid 90s. The only one I don't recall right off is the
YF-22 kit - but than again it was possible to miss a kit or two as they
moved them quickly.  I stepped up my Big Lots patrols when I started missing
out on kits that were popping up at the local flea market with traces of Big
Lots stickers on them. I kept pace for a while and scored some decent kits
that I actually wanted in my collection, many more that were good for
salvaging parts and kit bashing and still more that made for good guinea
pigs on which to practice new building and finishing techniques.

In addition to the ones you listed, off the top of my head I remember
picking up these kits around 10 yrs ago or more at Big Lots:

Batman Returns/B-Forever/B&Robin batmobiles, batmissiles, batwings and vinyl
figures
Kits from the short lived Seaquest series
Vinyl Trek figure kits - I picked up Scotty & Kirk
Amt car kits of 90s era muscle cars - Vettes, Camaro, Firebirds, pickups,
etc
Testor car kits - mostly Jap. or euro subject in 1/24, some oddball scales
like a 1/20 Lamborghini.
Cases and cases of the Mk II GT-40 kits (#2 and #98) - Fujimis I think
ARII kits or something like that of WWII 1/48 fighters - Zeros, Mustangs,
TBolts come to mind
Cases and cases of AMT 1/25th Nascar kits - Elliott Coors/Coors Lt, Wallace
Genuine Draft, Kodak Olds and Chevys, Citgo Tbirds - early 90s teams
Esci armor kits (red boxes) - M60 tanks, BMPs, LAV-25, T-55s, maybe a T-62
Testors A-6, F-4S, the infamous non existent stealth models F-19, F-35 I
think
Testors Navy deck crew figures
Monogram 1/48, 1/72 aircraft - Blue Angels F-18, F-8 Crusader, F-14 Tomcat,
SR-71, etc
AMT planes - add the 1/48th A-20 to the pile.
Jurassic Park Explorer, Flintstone mobile, Magnum's Ferrari - junk like
that.
Some snap tite Nascar kits from AMT for a buck or two

WmB

    They should pay you to take them out of the store...

The Testors kits in those big flat yellow boxes ranged from poor (the
BMW "M325is" - a curbside that is actually the only E30 M3 mold
available in 1/24, the Volvo, probably the Isuzu and maybe the Mazda
RX-7 and Porsche 944) to spectacular (BMW M635CSi; the high-parts-count
Porsches including the 356B/C coupe & cabrio, some 911 variants, and
the 928; the '46-'48 Ford coupe/conv. kits).

Even the original manufacturer (Fujimi, for both BMW kits mentioned,
although I don't think it shows up on the former one) isn't a reliable
indicator, since those kits came from different 'series'.  Some appear
to have been originally Heller, ESCI, Italeri, and even IMC (!) kits.
Like Entex in the late '70s-early '80s, Testors apparently didn't make
any original kits for this series.  They were all repackaged kits from
known manufacturers.  I don't know about *all* of them, but I can
hazard a pretty good guess as to their origins for most.  I have the
old Porsches, a Benz 300SL, a few later/racing Porsches,  both BMWs and
a Ford, if you have questions about particular ones.
--
C.R. Krieger
(BT, DT)

those revell cars are at the BLs store in stow,ohio,almost,but not