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General control line discussion => AS TIME GOES BYE => Topic started by: Shultzie on September 16, 2008, 10:42:51 AM

Title: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Shultzie on September 16, 2008, 10:42:51 AM
So maaaaaaaaaaaaany shops!!!
First addiction, perhaps like so maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaany of us that help feed our first addictions.....had to be AHC advertising in every major model mag-rag.

But my first real addiction was fed by a little hobby shop that was located across from the Iowa State Fairgounds in DesMoines Iowa. It was located just a short distance from my Woodrow Wilson grade and jr. high school.
Even more addicting...it was located on the sidewalk on my way home from school. My twin sister Mary Jo and I would stop in every day to spend our school lunch money change to buy candy or peanuts or a bottle of coke-aaaah-cola from their machines just inside the shop door.
Hummm?
Not only did they feed my habit for cola n candy...BUT FAR AND WAY WORSE!!! MY LIFE LONG ADDICTION TO MODELING!!!
For example...right next to the candy machines...were those little "GOOD TO GO" balsa wood gliders & rubber powered models that were priced almost as cheaply as those sweet toothed snacks.
It wasn't long before my sister Mary was walking the rest of the way home...and tattle-talin' to my grandmother about how I would often save and then spend my lunch money...ON MY NEW ADDICTION TO MODELING!!!

I KNOW ANYONE LURKING..MUST HAVE THEIR OWN "HOBBY ADDICTION STORY?"
Trust me...YOU WILL FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLL! SO MUCH BETTA...if you just...
"STOP!"
Lay down on Sparky's website internet COUCH and SHARE YOUR OWN ADDICTION STORY WITH US?
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Just One-eye on September 16, 2008, 11:42:04 AM
I was in a town of 5,000 when I started building model planes.  I didn't know that enough people were interested in models to have a store just for hobby stuff until I was almost 11, I think.  All of my early supplies were purchased at a variety store that didn't offer much selection.  Then, a couple of teenagers began bringing their CL glow planes to the football practice field below the Junior High, that was just across some vacant lots from where I lived, and before they decided to ignore me any time I didn't have money in hand for their castoffs, I learned that their hardware came from one or another of two stores some 30 miles away in the nearest city. 

I further never realized that model building was of interest to adults as well as to kids, or that entire monthly magazines about the hobby were being published until I actually was inside my first hobby shop, Jefferson Hobbies, after we moved to Texas. 
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Joe Gilbert on September 16, 2008, 04:04:59 PM
Mays Hobby shop in Sapulpa Oklahoma, she had lots of stuff. We raced Slot Cars there also. Trains, airplanes and lots of stuff she had a Fire Baby left over from the old days and dad got it to play with. Every body that flew control lint in Sapulpa flew it for fun. This was in 1966.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Dave Nyce on September 16, 2008, 04:15:10 PM
I don't like to use the word addiction, but I knew I had to fly more, right after my first flight on my cousin's Li'l Jumpin' Bean. I crashed the plane after about 3 turns, but was thrilled by the experience. We went to the local hobby shop later that day. My family was visiting my cousin's family in Florida, so I don't remember the name of that hobby shop. I built the wing while we were still in Florida, and finished the plane when I got back home in Pennsylvania. After that, I flew a lot, and also started a local club. Believe it or not, the best palce I found to buy plane kits and engines in my area was at the local J.C. Penney's store. Babe Bee engines were $2.99.

The first hobby shop that I really liked, a few years later, was the Penn Valley Hobby Center in Lansdale, PA. It is still in business.

Dave
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Dave Nyce on September 17, 2008, 12:30:47 PM
I forgot to mention that the Babe Bee engines for $2.99 at J.C. Penney's was around 1961.

Dave
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Bill Heher on September 17, 2008, 05:28:58 PM
The 1st place I remember was a SS Kresge's in Beloit WI, the box display of 5, 10, 15, and 25 cent gliders and rubber powered planes, kites and plastic kits.

Then a few shops in the Wilmington NC area my dad took me to but they were too far to ride my bike, so mostly it was plastic kits from the 7-11 ( imagine a 7-11 with models!).

My first Hobby Store hangout was a little place on Main St in Roswell NM. I went there 3-5 time a week to thumb the magazines, drool over the kits and wait until I had a $1.95 for a Sterling 1/2 A profile warbird.

Finally- Benners Bike and Hobby, downtown Grand Forks ND. They had it all, bikes, model kits of all types, science stuff, a huge  slot car track and rental cars, plus a whole annex just for balsa kits FF / CL / RC, engines of all types, Aero - Gloss Dope, Ambroid, Sig-ment, Silk-Span you name it. The guys working the annex would let me open kits and look at the plans, put props on engines and flip them over, read the magazines, pretty much anything to keep me from asking them another 20 questions. It was a sad day when I saw the Gong out of Business Sale sign.

Good times back then- but good times are still around , just gotta look a bit harder.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: john e. holliday on September 18, 2008, 09:14:26 AM
The White Church Hardware Store was where I would go to get my Scientific kits.  My Guillows Rat Racer and 35 size engine that I have been told didn't exist at that time came from Charley's Hobby Shop down at 18th and Chelsea in KCK.  That is where I learned about the flying circle at City Park.  Mr Brooks is the one who put the initial flights on the plane and told me about the Flying Eagle Model Airplane Club.  Even after I moved to southern Missouri it was Charley's Shop when I needed something.  When he didn't have it was Americas Hobby Center in New York.  When I moved back to KC it was to Charley's to let him know I was back in town.  A young man with a shotgun put him out of business for ever.  We have not had a decent shop since.  Hobby Haven in Overland Park was close.  Now I am afraid to go to new shops I hear about as they don't stay in business very long.  Oh, I almost forgot Jim's Key & Hobby on Central Avenue in KCK.  Still Having fun,  DOC Holliday
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Michael Brooks on September 19, 2008, 08:24:57 AM
Ah yes, Charley's. I remember his shop well. Not been in one I liked half as much since I moved from KCK to Arkansas. Hey, Doc. Do you remember Mr. Brooks's first name? I wondered if might have been my dad?

Mike
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Bootlegger on September 19, 2008, 02:41:47 PM
      H^^  Ulmer's hobby shop in Baton Rouge, La. it was just about 4-5 block's from my Aunt's home, and I would walk when we visited her, the time was about 1955-56 and he had several Barnstormer's with Fox 29's and 35's. Man, I would sit and "daydream" about flying one of these model's !!
  All the "older" guy's flew the Barnstormer, so I had top have one also, never got to fly it though as a girl cousin of mine managed to get it off the freezer.... it never was the same after that.
  Shoultzie, you sure do have a nack for trips "down memory lane".  Thanks,    y1
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Steve Helmick on September 21, 2008, 09:46:43 PM
Hmmmm. I was thoroughly addicted to model airplanes long before I ever saw a real hobby shop. Many hobby visits were to the base PX, wherever we were. Many others to the hobby department of some local store, the last of those I recall being "The Empire Dept. Store" in Pullman, WA. Didn't have much except the basics, but they were pretty good about getting what you wanted. Can't say that for our LHS, these days. Last week, I was in the LHS, and the guy (that flat lied to me before) was busy flying an electric toy helicopter up & down the aisles. I was looking for all the hardware twirly display thingys, and they're gone. But I digress.

The first really astounding hobby shop I encountered was Barney Snyder's Model Craft, somewhere in LA. We got by there once every month or two, while we lived at Edwards AFB. There were some good ones in the Seattle area, but none of them lasted all that long. Easy to understand why, if you have any business schoolin' at all. Too much inventory, expensive to display twiddly stuff that sells for pennies, persnickety customers, high rent, inventory taxes...  R%%%% Steve
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: john e. holliday on September 22, 2008, 08:27:09 AM
Ah yes, Charley's. I remember his shop well. Not been in one I liked half as much since I moved from KCK to Arkansas. Hey, Doc. Do you remember Mr. Brooks's first name? I wondered if might have been my dad?

Mike

Can't recall first name as that period in time we always addressed adults as Mr or Mrs.  He did have a new born that grew up to be Dennis Brooks a young man that I helped get really started in control line competition.  Then he went the route of RC and the giant scale planes.  He said his dad was killed in a plane accident.  DOC Holliday
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Leo Mehl on September 26, 2008, 09:07:54 AM
It was during ww2 and there were a lot of military planes at Gieger field in Spokane. One day I went into town and ended up at the hobby shop there. There was a beatiful New Ruler free flight hanging there with a Motor on it. Boy was I a watent person then. But alas, I could not afford such a plane so I bought a stick Model. I built a lot of them during the war with thier pressed paper formers and basswood stringers, but I learned how to build them and I used to set them on fire and toss them off the Garage roof. I been sort of goofy every since. HB~> HB~> HB~> HB~>
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Scott B. Riese on September 26, 2008, 10:22:48 AM
Art Mays Camera and Hobby ...Bismark N.D.
Ed's Camera Corner.... Portland Or
Strictly RC...Portland Or
RC and More... Portland Or
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Ralph Wenzel (d) on September 26, 2008, 09:15:38 PM
Originally enough, it was The Hobby Shop in Lexington, KY. On Main Street down near Broadway. Of course, 8 or 10 years later, I discovered Joyner's Bike Shop, which was 10x as good!

Ralph
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Richard Grogan on October 01, 2008, 02:27:03 AM
Zempter's Hobby Shop in old downtown Lake Charles. It was next to the Paramount movie theater. Just a hole in the wall but twas the place that did it for me. They got ALL of my lawn mowing money! They were also a Bell Hearing Aid dealer and I guess thats how they really kept the doors open. All gone now like the rest...sighh
Later on my brother opened up Jim's Hobby shop for about 5 years.I worked there a few summers.He had too many "good buddies" that all got discounts and helped him close the doors too.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: walter weatherford on October 01, 2008, 03:07:00 PM

State Line Hobby Shop, Kansas City Mo. 1955.  I got a Ringmaster, K & B 35 Greenhead, lines, weird handle, dope,etc.

I built the plane and the owner took me to Swope Park and taught me to fly.  Bought  a McCoy 36, and more

Rings.

Hothandle

Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Don Curry AMA 267060 on October 01, 2008, 10:33:27 PM
Jim Easton's Hobby Shop s.e. 92nd and Division in Portland Or. There is a freeway exit there now.

Don
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Leo Mehl on October 03, 2008, 10:09:52 AM
Jim Easton's Hobby Shop s.e. 92nd and Division in Portland Or. There is a freeway exit there now.

Don
Arn't you retired now? Have you flown your Actic Fox Yet? Welcome aboard! H^^ H^^ H^^ H^^
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Don Curry AMA 267060 on October 03, 2008, 09:55:30 PM
Hi Leo: Yep I am finally retired. That last month was a killer. The Fos is still on the bench.I am still fighting the dizzies so I will save it for later.

Don
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Dave Adamisin on October 06, 2008, 11:38:10 AM
I remember a lot of places but the one that was always a treat because it was close enough to ride my bike to was Sumner's Trading Post. It was a nice old fashioned hardware store that also did model airplanes. I can still see the firebaby hanging in the front window and especially the Fox Black head Combat Special sitting in the display case. I bought a lot of Fox Super Fuel and Testor's 39 there. We burned it up 2oz at a time in Fox 15's and TD Baby Bees. Dawn to dusk.......
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: David Shad on October 08, 2008, 01:53:51 PM
My grandad (mom's dad) had one of those little drug store...sundries type
places that they now call a convenience store in Jacksonville Fla. in 1960.
We lived in Valdosta Ga. then about two hours away but would visit every couple of months and even more often in the summers. He started my younger
brother Steve and I out on rubber powered models then gave me my first cox PT-19 shortly thereafter and I never looked back. I just got my brother Steve back into it when we met at the KOI contest in Jacksonville after more than 30 years off into the darkside. I brought an ARF Flitestreak with a LA.25 on it and he smiled from the moment he picked up the handle till he lawndarted it trying..I fixed it in one evening with a new prop and i'll bet he is still smiling.  We had a blast together 45 years ago and we still love it.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: EddyR on October 09, 2008, 06:00:05 AM
 I grew up in hobby shops.
Ed
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Jerry Eichten on October 13, 2008, 09:11:09 PM
Don's Hobbies on Front Street in Mankato, Minnesota.  The airplane kits were leaning on one end up high on the left wall as you'd walk in.  I still remember how HUGE those kit boxes looked after all the 1/2As I had built. 
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Leo Mehl on October 15, 2008, 10:46:18 AM
Don's Hobbies on Front Street in Mankato, Minnesota.  The airplane kits were leaning on one end up high on the left wall as you'd walk in.  I still remember how HUGE those kit boxes looked after all the 1/2As I had built. 
That is probably why you don't build half "a'S now.That's a good thing. My moto, Nothin smaller than a 15.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Randy Ryan on October 17, 2008, 09:17:51 PM
Joe's Hobby Shop on Wyoming in Detroit. What a great place. Dope and fuel smells and walls and shelves stacked to the ceiling with kits. I would go down on Saturday's with my Dad and while he'd shoot the s--- with the hangers out, I'd explore. I could never see it enough, and walking past the engine case, I couldn't wait to get one of those big engines that the exhaust came out the stack instead of the OK Cubs I had. I saved my money and bought my first kit there, a Jetco Trooper glider, it was $1.19 and that's exactly what I had. When I went to pay for it the guy said I had to pay sales tax, 5 more cents. I was crushed, and told him I didn't have it. He looked at me and made me promise to bring it the next time I came in and I got a nichol and held it for just that time. When it finally came and I tried to pay my "taxes" , he swore he didn't remember, so I added a nichol and bought a tube of Comet cement. Joe's is still around by name, but far from the mecca it was in the '30s-'60s, and no longer in Detroit but ironically in the suburb where I grew up.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: john e. holliday on October 18, 2008, 07:40:27 AM
You can't find a shop like that now, but, now we have the big credit card people to help us out when we don't have the cash.   Charley at Charley's Hobby Shop would let me make payments on an engine I really wanted.  Stipulation was that family came first, in other words as he would always state, "Don't rob Peter to pay Paul".  It is still with me and I guess why I worked so much over time when I could get it.  Having fun,  DOC Holliday
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: bob werle on October 21, 2008, 10:48:35 AM
 AP^
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: bob werle on October 21, 2008, 10:51:24 AM
My first was Stantons in Chicago.  The entire ceiling was covered with hanging models both FF and C/L
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Chris McMillin on October 22, 2008, 12:42:00 PM
We moved to Chicago when I was 5 years old. Dad bought a bunch of PDQ and Veco kits from a mail order wholesaler under his company name of BAC, Best Air Craft. BAC owned all of our family airplanes too. Dad would go to the hobby shops with guys his age, I was in school or something.
I do remember going to Stanton's and Lee's. I don't remember which was which from that time, just the Comet airliner with Dyna Jets hanging from the ceiling.
I think when I was older and we were visiting the Nats in Chicago, Bob Whitely, Al Rabe, Tom Lay, Dad and I went to Lee's and Dad bought me a used Super Tigre 35 or 40 R/C from the used engine bin. It was for a Scale Class I Carrier model I never built, a "Dave Gierke and Jerry Worth finish" inspired Charlie Reeves Airabonita.
I was around 13 when he bought me a Guillows Trainer III and a JRoberts outfit for Christmas so the engine was probably a 35.
I remember riding my bike to Colonel Bob's when they moved to Costa Mesa from Los Angleles. We had settled in Huntington Beach, CA and the store was pretty big, lot's of kits and good hardware for a while. It was gone by second year of High School (1975) as I remember driving there when they were going out of business and bought a Guillows Triplane I converted to C/L with, of all things, a Tee Dee 049.
I still go to Evett's in Santa Monica for stuff now that I live in Pacific Palisades. Christmas presents and stuff too. Colby is still there and building models in the back for Hollywood and modelers. They cemebrated 60 years in business this summer!
Chris...
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Shultzie on October 24, 2008, 05:56:33 PM
Nice story, Chris.....
Hey CHRIS AND GRUNTS...this favorite and great photo of Chris and is Dad....pretty much says it all!!!
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Leo Mehl on October 26, 2008, 09:49:43 AM
Nice story, Chris.....
Hey CHRIS AND GRUNTS...this favorite and great photo of Chris and is Dad....pretty much says it all!!!
Chris's dad has a Grish 3 bladded prop on that smoothy I remember using one of the 9/6's on one of my planes back in the sixties. I had to because most of the flying fields in those days were grass. The prop felt like mush when you did a corner but they didn't have many 3 bladed props in those days.
Nice Picture of Chris and his dad, Boy you used to take a lot of Pictures in those days. I am suprised that you don't have Camera elbow to go along with your Carpul Tunnew or windyyyyy TTTTTunnnnel!
 Keep thos Pictures comming Donnie! H^^ H^^ H^^ H^^
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Douglas Babb on November 01, 2008, 11:27:26 AM
My uncle owned a slot car track in the sixties in National City, Ca. I used to like going to the distributor with him to check out the models and stuff on the shelves, not one or two but cases worth, the smell of the balsa storage was worth the trip. Engines were in another spot stacked by the hundreds or it seemed that way to a young kid at the time and occasionally I would be able to leave with something to build or fly but it was never the ones that I really lusted after. There was another hobby shop in town that catered to model planes and that was where I bought my stuff after the slot car business was closed, still remember the owner telling me not to handle the balsa  :-\, but he did sell 1/2a kits in a deal where you bought the kit and got a babe bee for half or free depending on the sale and/or his mood or you could opt for dope and glue. All gone now but there are still a few stores in San Diego but you have to hit the freeway to get there. I now live in PA and Penn Valley is only a couple miles away so I have a good shop locally.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Paul Taylor on November 02, 2008, 08:16:03 PM
I went with my best friends family up to Boston as a kid. We both bought 1/2a balsa kits. Took them back to Va. Beach and flew them in his back yard with Golden Bees back in the early 70's. When my step dad got transfered to Millington Navy base, my mom would go out to the base once a month to shop. I would asked to get dropped off at the base hobby shop. I would spend hours in the hobby shop. They bought me a Cox RTF Mustang and I flew the paint off of it.
As I got older, I discoverd Action Hobby's owned by Lester Goldsmith in Memphis where I bought my first big plane. Ackromaster with a McCoy .19.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Bob Hunt on November 05, 2008, 06:57:45 AM
There were only two local hobby shops in my area when I was a kid. One was Roscoe's and it was located in Hillside, New Jersey. Roscoe had a limited stock, but for some reason we went there fairly often just to check it out. The better of the two was Clito's, and it was located on Morris Avenue in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Ironically it was situated almost directly across the street from the hospital in which I was born (Might be a connection there...). That hospital, by the way, was nothing more than a large home that was converted. It no longer exists...

Can't remember exactly when my dad started taking me to Clito's, but I know I was very young. The thing I remember most - and what is still vivid in my mind to this day - was the smell of the place, Actually I prefer to think of it as an "aroma." The strong scent of model dope always filled the air, but it was blended with the aroma of acetone, and various other liquids that must have been spilled on the floor of the shop over the years.

The other thing that remains vivid in my mind were the exquisite rubber powered models that were hanging all over the place from the ceiling. These were all made from early stick and tissue kits I'm sure, but they just looked amazingly perfect to me.

This was the hobby shop that all the UMAC (Union Model Airplane Club) members frequented, and that included the legendary Red Reinhardt and Larry Scarinzi. Going there when they were present was a delight, as they would be telling stories about building and flying and everyone in attendance would be hanging on every word. Red eventually was banned from the shop for a few weeks after he pulled a prank. He selected a piece of 1/8 inch diameter music wire from the wire rack and placed it atop the glass-topped main cabinet at the back of the shop. He then placed one finger on the wire to hold it. Only the very end of the wire was actually on the cabinet; the rest of it was hanging off the edge. He "twanged" the wire so that it was moving up and down as it was cantlivered off the edge, and then he began to slowly draw the wire towards the cabinet, still holding it under his finger. As the end hanging over the edge got shorter, the oscillations of the wire became more frequent until, when the wire was almost totally drawn onto the cabinet, the resonance frequency of the glass was reached, and then POW! The wire broke the glass in a clean line from front to back! Clito was enraged and threw Red out of the shop, That didn't last too long, as the story goes, because Red was such a draw. If Red (and Larry) shopped there, then it was the place to buy modeling supplies!

I also remember the bin of balsa behind the main cabinet (which, to my knowledge was never repaired...). Clito carried Testors brand balsa mainly, but I also remember seeing Sig balsa there when it first became available. The prices on the balsa were amazing. I remember a piece of 1.16 x 3 x 36 inch balsa costing 10 cents!

In the mid 1950s my dad was very busy just trying to make ends meet. He didn't have too much time or money to spend on modeling. I was a very lucky young man as my step-grandfather was quite wealthy. He was the owner of E.J. Handler and Sons, a concern that made virtually all of the then used dental office equipment. He was actually retired from daily work, but still kept his hand in the business. He had lots of spare time and he loved me like a son. He would lavish all sorts of attention (and dollars) on my interests. He bought me my first really good drafting tool set (which I still have to this day!) and loads of balsa, modeling tools and glue so that I could practice building. We made very frequent trips to Clito's hobby Shop. Until "Poppy" (as my step-grandfather was known to me) started taking me to that shop, Clito hardly ever acknowledged that I was alive. Funny how increased revenue will change a man's perspective. When Poppy and I came through the door, Clito always had a smile on his face and something good to say! He was normally a very grumpy individual as I recall from my earlier visits without Poppy... 

Clito also sold stamps for collectors and some train stuff as well. I guess that the hobby business started to suffer even then from competition from early mail order houses. America's Hobby Center, or AHC as it became known, was advertising heavily in the model magazines of the time and they offered many attractively priced package deals as well as great pricing on individual items. The President of our Union Model Airplane Club was a man named Vernon Davies, and he worked in New York City - where AHC was located. He arranged a great 40 percent discount deal for the club and began taking weekly (yes, we met weekly in those days!) orders from the members for hobby supplies. He would purchase the merchandise at AHC on his lunch hour and then bring it to the meetings for dispersal. I remember helping him -along with other junior club members - bring in the mountains of Ringmaster kits, Fox .35 engines, and all sorts of other neat stuff week after week after week... I think that is what really killed Clito's business.

Ah memories...

Bob Hunt     

 
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Shultzie on November 05, 2008, 10:26:59 AM
Thanks Bob...
Speaking of memories...I just have to run this all time favorite shot of a model makin' family that shows sooooooooooooooo much LOVE, PRIDE, RESPECT AND DOIN GREAT THINGS TOGETHER.
The quality of my zzzrocks' & scan suckuth that I coped from AAM?...If  you still have that great photo in your collection. It would be great to see if you could grab that ditzitzeee' camera and show the real thing on this Grunt of the Day thangie?'

Thanks for taking the time to share your Hobby shop story with us.

Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Bob Hunt on November 05, 2008, 10:54:07 AM
Ouch! I hate that photo! Not because of the content, but because of the squinty-face that I am displaying. Here's the story on that...

I have very sensitive eyes and will always wear very dark sunglasses at the field. Some might have noticed that I actually wear two pairs of sunglasses when I fly - one normal pair of dark glasses and a pair of "fit-overs" that are also very dark.

The lady who took that cover shot, Ruth Chen, asked me to remove my glasses for the photos she wanted to take. The first one she took was while my eyes were still trying to adjust. I asked her not to submit that one, and she agreed - then she went ahead and  submitted it anyway! Oh well.

At least my son and my father look handsome in that photo! All kidding aside, I was very pleased to have that memory and I'm really not mad at Ruth, who went on to become a good friend.

Later - Bob
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Shultzie on November 05, 2008, 11:24:59 AM
Bob!!
DOES SHE STILL HAVE THE ONE THAT YOU WANTED TO HAVE PUBLISHED...or another one showing you and the FLYING HUNT CLAN??? H^^
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Bob Hunt on November 05, 2008, 09:17:13 PM
Probably, but she is a professional and a lot of film (pixels...?) have been expended by her since that photo was taken. If she is organized - and I'll bet she is... - then she wil have the negs. I'll try to get in touch with her. I haven't talked with her form some time now, and she was getting pretty long in the tooth the last time I saw her. I hope she's still with us. I'll contact Rob Kurek at AMA and find out.

Later - Bob   
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Scott B. Riese on November 06, 2008, 10:19:02 AM
And after all these years I thought you where getting fresh  ~^............It's a great photo.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: nobler on February 07, 2009, 09:05:31 PM
George's Hobby Shop in Alexandria, Va, right on King St. I would work there on the weekends for a 20% discount. Sometimes, maybe I'd get a gratis hamburger from the greasy spoon across the street.

There was a place in Washington, DC, right across the river, called Corr's, I think. It was in a very iffy area of DC, 9th St, home of Berly Q joints, whose luminaries did more than one US Senator in (Lilly St Cyr, Patty (no relation) Waggin, etc.  The hobby shop moved across the street sometime in the 50s. The first store had a large, hand painted freeflight mural in the back. The second store had a beautiful dark blue Smoothie hanging in there, and I lusted after it. These were classic big city hobby shops.

We flew at the Alexandria Sailing Marina (still there), which is only a mile or so south of Reagan National Airport. We would see those Capitol Airlines Viscouts whistling in all the time.

Currell
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Jim Pollock on February 08, 2009, 08:23:18 PM
My place of addiction was Bob's Bicycles on Yosemite Ave. Modesto CA circa 1956-1972.
I bought lots of Pepsi's from his flat drink container and bought Balsa Wood, Kits - a Chief
A T-Bird, and an Ares.  A few engines a McCoy .35, a Torpedo .35 a Fox .29 and an OS .35S

Jim Pollock  H^^
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Hoss Cain on February 21, 2009, 05:32:19 PM
My first real Hobby Shop mentor was one Mr. Don Still at Don Still's Happy Hobby Haven in Beaumont, Texas. As a kid growing up in the backwoods of east TX just outside Livingston, TX, somehow airplanes fascinated me from almost day 1. While my first model experiences were with the Joe Ott, Comet and such models during the WW II days, available at the "dime' stores, later I received some help from a 4th grade teacher with a donation of Air Trails magazines. That introduced me to real flying magazines.
During the war years every so often we took the train from Votaw TX to Beaumont, TX. There i saw my first H/S. Later just after the War, we went every so often to visit my grandfather, mom's side. i was able to visit Don Still's place. I well remember that Stuka hanging on the wall. At that time it was a G-I-A-N-T model airplane. #^ I loved it.
Now for some next 7-8 years after the war, when I needed anything, even if it was simply a couple yankee dollars, Don always saw that I got whatever I ordered. In the early '50s, several of us school kids played hooky one day and  visited Don. None of us could fly inverted. Don made a phone call, we had models in the car, and before the day was over each of us was doing inverted flight. Don's friend was a drugstore manager and went out with us to a local school ground and the rest is history.

Mr. Don Still is, and always will be a GIANT of a MAN in my mind.  ;D
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Mike Keville on March 25, 2009, 07:23:58 AM
Hi-Way Hobby, Haddonfield, NJ - 1950/1956.  Originally at 20 Tanner St., later moved to the corner of Kings Hwy. & Haddon Avenue.

Honorable Mention:  Al's Hobby Shop, Elmhurst, Illinois / Penn Valley Hobby, Lansdowne, PA
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: 50+AirYears on May 10, 2009, 05:56:13 PM
Boy, thanks to some situations at work and a health situuation, I haven't been on this site for a while.
While I had been going to a couple corner stores for Comet and Guillow kits for a couple years, sometime around 1949 or 50, I took a box of pennies, nickles, dimes, and quarters, even a couple silver dollars, and went with my dad to the Cycle Shop on 28th Street in Lorain, and bought my first CL plane and engine.  An Enterprise Air Racer with an O. K. Cub .099.  Never got that plane finished, but I eventually learned to fly CL with that old engine and an Enterprise profile P-51.  Still have that old engine, and once in a while still put it on something.  Has almost as much power as some of my Babe Bees.
Interestingly, that bike shop was in the same store building my grandfather had his dry goods store in until losing it during the depression.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: John Miller on May 11, 2009, 03:02:58 PM
There were two in the town of Glendora, California. The place I bought my first "large" airplane kit, a Sterling Mustang, and engine, a McCoy .35, was Vincents drug, and 5 and dime, store. It was in the middle of down town at the time. A year or so later, about 1958, Mrs Myers opened her little shop out on Route 66. Locally called Alosta Ave. Her shop was a small free standing buildingon the north side of the highway, just west of the train overpass.

It's no longer there, gone many years now, but I'll always remember Mrs. Myers and her small hobby shop. As far as I know, she didn't build models, but she was enthusiastic and would order anything we wanted, and sold it to us for a discount.

It was a good ride on the bike to get there, but always neat to walk in, until that day when I arrived and found she had been burglarized. It had to be a modelor who did it. A few engines, a couple of kits, fuel and other misc. stuff. I don't think she ever trusted any of us after that. It was too bad, and should not have happened.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Wayne J. Buran on May 11, 2009, 04:04:46 PM
The greatest shop ever when I was a kid was National Hobby at the corner of Brookpark and Ridge Road in Cleveland. It was a great shop and the ownor was Will Pachasa who was the brother of the ownor of Cleveland Models. National was a great shop. Lots of kits, balsa engines and whatever you needed. Will's daughter owns "Hobbies are Us" in North Olmsted. Nice shop to but not what National was to me in the fifties and early sixties. I wasnt around when the business was sold and then eventually went out of business. They had an auction and had I been there I would have bought the balsa rack. Hand made by Will with a whole bunch of slots. I had a real thing for that balsa rack. I rode my bike nearly ten miles from my home. All down hill going and all up hill coming home.
Wayne
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Ron Hopping on May 14, 2009, 07:42:04 PM
one shop brings back many memory's Rays hobby shop in Galesburg IL.Ray was an avid c/l guy and would go out of his way to make sure we were building and finishing our models the right way and always had time on sat morning to help us trim our new dreams.he always had everything in stock,and was always ready to deal us a discount to help us out,i remember my first u/c was a goldberg lil jumpin bean with a cox golden bee .049.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Peter Ferguson on May 18, 2009, 12:26:13 PM
I grew up in the town of River Edge N.J. It about 10 mi outside NYC. It was a good time and place to grow up if you liked model airplanes.
My first CL plane was a Flite Streak which I bought at the local Sweet Shop. I don't remember the name of the place but it was a soda fountain that sold among other things kits and engines. I remember how excited I was going there knowing I had the money to get the plane.  I built the kit in my basement by myself, my parents were desensitized to the smell of Ambroid and dope by my older brother. I put in a Torpedo 35, which my brother gave me, (he is still giving me engines). We took it to Rich's Hobbytown in Parsippany NJ for its first flight. There were flying circles outside of the back of the store. My brother did the honors, It was a fast plane and on the first wingover the nose and engine departed from the wing. That was my first lesson about making sure your fuse is well glued to the wing. My brother, being the good guy he is, consoled me by taking me into the shop and buying me a Sterling P-51 (my choice over the Ringmaster, it had flaps!). We then had lunch which started a tradition of stopping for lunch to discuss future projects after flying!
There were other shops in the area and several department stores had hobby shops in the basements that I would frequent, but the best one was Hi-way Hobby in Ramsey NJ, it was always worth the trip . Upstairs were airplanes boats etc and downstairs was an extensive model railroad shop. When I went on the Jr High school we moved to Ramsey, and I had the hobby shop all to my own. Before I could drive, I biked there so no one would have to wait for me. I had it memorized, and knew what they had on the racks and shelves better than the guys working there. By that time I was transitioning into R/C. I was building boats and planes so the buying was only limited by how many odd jobs I could work.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: FLOYD CARTER on June 30, 2009, 01:22:57 PM
Good Grief!  Al's Hobby Shop in Elmhurst, IL.  Went there at least  weekly for the 2 years we lived in Wood Dale, about 10 miles from Elmhurst--1961-63.

I also played in the Elmhurst symphony Orchestra, and rehearsals every Tues night and concerts 5 or 6 times a year.

Floyd
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Allen Burnham on July 11, 2009, 09:07:03 PM
The fist shop I remember going into was "The Hobby Hole" in Cape Girardeau, MO. It was in the basement of a clothing store on Broadway. You had to go through a hole in the floor where a spiral staircase went into the hobby shop. I guess that was about 1973  or so. My brother Johnny would take me there to buy models and that lead to my balsa addiction. Anyone else remember that place?
The next one would be a hobby shop in downtown Temple Texas. We moved there in 76. I remember the fellow behind the counter whose was Randy Zavodney I think.  His name was unusual and it kind of stuck in my young head.
Then we moved back to Missouri. I would go to the big shops in St. Louis when we visited the relatives in "the City".
Hobby shops still fascinate me. Nothing beats a mom 'n' pop hobby shop!!
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: John Sunderland on October 07, 2009, 05:36:27 PM
Rankin's in Celina Ohio....1965. I was a wee tot but I loved that place. Nickle Gliders, the latest Cox offering, engines in a jewelers case, the ole man sifting thru the latest shipment of balsa, a wall full of kits. Georges Streak Trainer was my first balsa model. Its now a different store in this small mid western town, but it still smells the same. I stop in everey now and then. Nostalgia trip for sure. #^
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Dave Nyce on October 21, 2009, 07:44:47 AM
Believe it or not, the Penneys department store at the local mall had a good selection of kits and the best prices on kits and motors I could find in the early 1960s.  I remember the Babe Bee motor's cost being $2.99.  Then a few years later, I started going to a hobby shop farther away, called Penn Valley Hobby Center, in Lansdale, PA.  They had a tremendous number of kits and supplies crammed into a shop that wasn't really very large.  They always had a discount off from the list price.  The business was founded in 1961, and has had the same owners (a married couple) since 1968.  They are still in business now:   http://www.pennvalleyhobbycenter.com/

Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Russ Danneman on October 23, 2009, 02:26:43 PM
 Decatur ,ga. if you liked building models or racing slot-cars
The Decatur Hobby House/Speedway was the placed to be. electric train layouts set up.
slot car tracks were huge.
Before it was a hobby shop it was a J C Pennys and before that it was The Dekalb Theatre
PLACE WAS HUGE  at least it seemed that way in the 60's. it had it all.

Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: 50+AirYears on November 18, 2009, 02:47:39 PM
Before I went into the USAF, my home town had as many as 8 stores that were either actual hobby shops or had departments where you could buy flyable planes and engines for CL, FF, and even RC, as well as train and boat kits and supplies.  Not just plastics.  The old Cycle Shop I mentioned in an earlier post was never more than 3 blocks away.  In fact, for a lot of years, I could getkits and supplies for only at most a 4 block walk.  In fact, even in high school, there were two hobby shops and 2 hardware stores within a couple blocks walk where I could stop after school.

The last hobbyshop in my home town of around 60000 people pretty much shut down about 2 years ago.  And it was a model railroad shop.  Now, the closest full service shop is about a 20 mile drive in another town.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Mike Lauerman on December 03, 2009, 11:01:02 AM
Sportster Hobby shop, Santa Clara, Calif. Discovered it when I was 8, in 1949.  Mom & Pop store, Ed and Eileen. Ed was a Boy Scoutmaster, and sponsored C/L assembly and flying for a merit badge. Troop 42 was a real flying force!
I started with an A-J Hornet, which was a flyaway when Dad showed me how to wind it up...It was replaced that day!
Really wanted a Firebaby, but Dad said "You'll cut yer finger off!" He was retired Navy, WWII; took me to Moffett Field for a NATS. Ed and Eileen were there, assisting with registration...
There were other hobby shops, (Sheldon's, Ed's of Willow Glen, Boys' Store Basement Hobbies, Huston's Hobbies...) We rode the bus to get there. But my favorite planes came from Ed & Eileen's, starting with the Speedi-Bilt P40.
They closed in '65 (or thereabouts) victims of the reigning Kiely Family's 'Urban Renewal'. The whole town was razed, became a mall-type 2-block walkaround that is devoid of landmarks...(sob)
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Joe Connelly on December 03, 2009, 03:54:52 PM
Paul's Hobby Shop in Chicago. The owner was Paul Van Saant who I considered God at that time, 1945 through 1959. He had a huge Nieuport 17 hanging there with a Spitfire 65 in the nose. It had a metal cowl and was just beautiful. He had other planes hanging but that is the one I remember. Paul was kind of eccentric but was a master craftsman. When Arden came out with the glow plug, I went into his shop and he started an Arden right there in the shop. He was remarking how the clear plastic tank was beginning to melt. Arden came out with bakelite tanks that were fuel proof. Paul said I guess I'll have to get one of those tanks. His shop was a storefront at the street level of an apartment building. I guess Paul figured the people in the building wouldn't mind the noise of the Arden running in his shop. I bought my first engine, an O&R 23 front rotary valve from him.

Joe Connelly
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Robert Schroeder on December 07, 2009, 11:23:50 AM
Kirkwood Hobby Center in Kirkwood, Mo.  I happened to ride by there om my bike one day.  It was about 1.5 miles from my house.  There was an old couple who owned it whose name I have no idea.  I was quite young, but when I started delivering papers, bought models to build.  Then Comet flying models.  In '52 my grandmother sent me a plastic Super Sabre with an OK Cub .049 for power and I was hooked.  I never could get more than 3/4 of a lap out of that plane and have been opposed to plastic plans ever since.  About that time the hobby shop changed hands to a young guy who moved it to Central Kirkwood, about a half block from school and only 1 mile from the house.  My father bought an ABC Trainer and a 1/2A trainer, both Victor Stanzel models.  I built the 1/2A trainer and put my OK Cub on it and flew it all year.  Just about wore it out that first year.  My father built the ABC trainer and put a McCoy "36" Sportsman on it.  After two stalled take-offs and two wing separations I learned to fly big airplanes.  After my father built and crashed a Firecat he quit flying and gave me the engine which I used until it died.  The owner of the hobby shop conducted a contest at Kirkwood Park every year where I was initiated into competition.  There was a club called Schaeffer's Yellow Jackets.  Those kids had lots of practice and cutting edge equipment, much better than I could afford, and had coaching which I didn't.  One day I wen to South St. Louis to Schaeffer's Hobby Shop to see what the competition had.  Art was very affable and didn't treat me like a pain.  Still, I didn't go there on any kind of regular masis because it ias a loooooong bike ride from Kirkwood.  But, his shop was FABULOUS with all the Stunt planes he had made hanging from the ceiling.  I then went into the Military and...
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Howard Rush on December 07, 2009, 08:42:50 PM
There was a shop in KC at about 95th and Holmes run by a one-legged guy, whose name I forgot.  He took me to Swope Park once and let me launch his stunt plane.  I bought my OK .29 from him.  Do any of you KC guys remember him?  I'd like to look him up.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Robert Schroeder on December 08, 2009, 10:45:55 AM
Ty,

The last time I was in St. Louis, I stopped by the Kirkwood Hobby Center to say hi to the owner.  There had been a guy who worked for him who had bought the place a few months before and was running it.  The owner had retired and moved to Phoenix.  It was still open and was selling as was said, mostly trains along with other assorted hobby items, but no airplanes of any kind.  It had taken over two stores with a large opening between them.  This was a few years ago, but I imagine it's still going strong.  I think it had a strong following.

Bob
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: 50+AirYears on December 08, 2009, 01:59:04 PM
A couple local hobby shops have pretty much done the same thing.  Because of a decline in the number of areas to fly, to stay in business, they have slowed down or shut off the model airplane business, and increased the model train RC car, and even wargaming stock.  (Have to say that for me, LHS means nothing closer than 10 miles.  Most are at least 18 miles.)To stay in busines, they have to adapt to the customer base.  One hobby shop just moved to our county from Cleveland, and they are in the process of feeling out the customer wants and needs.  A different clientele.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Robert Schroeder on December 09, 2009, 10:30:45 AM
St. Louis County has a great flying field for both CL and RC.  I remember when it opened, a bit after Double Cola closed and we lost our field behind the bottling plant.  That's when we changed our name from The Double Cola MAC to The Lafayette Escadrille.  I'ts still there although there are many more rules, I've heard than there were in '59 or '60.  But still, I guess a lot of the intrest waned and only the hardcore people are left.  Or maybe a lot kinda moved away like I did when I went into the military for 20 years and then after retiring and starting a divorce, was transfered to Ohio.
There are 2 hobby shops in the Toledo area, one catering to rc, mostly foamies and arfs and one with a few arfs, a lot of cars, trains and other stuff.  Can't get fuel, dope or CL pieces parts.

Bob
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: david beazley on December 14, 2009, 02:10:36 PM
George's Model Shop on King Street in Alexandria, VA.  Classic shop of the 50's-60's.  Planes, boats, slot cars, plastic and wood kits.  I remember seeing Jim Warker kits, before I knew what CL was.  He had an M-5 5 cylinder radial in the show case.  The real big deal hobby shop was Corr's Hobby in Washington DC.  I didn't get there much but that was a real treat when I did.  I could then and still can spend hours looking at stuff in a "real" hobby shop.  My wife would rather have a root canal than acompany me to an LHS.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Bill Little on January 03, 2010, 02:26:53 AM
There was a Hobby Shop that I went to in Charlotte when I was very young, but the one that got me hooked is still around and the original owners still regularly work there!  It is Hayes Hobby Shop in Fayetteville, NC.  They had just opened when I first went there in 1963.  The store expanded and moved to another section of the Shopping Center, but it is still going strong.   Alan Hayes (a member here!) is the son of the owners and I am sure he will carry on the tradition of great service and friendly manners that his Mother, and Father, Gentry, have established.  A great thing is that the staff is knowledgeable in everything they carry!  You don't see that everywhere.........

Big Bear
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: 50+AirYears on January 03, 2010, 11:35:04 AM
Nowhere near my first, but I still remember MR. Barts in a mall in Topeka, Ks back in the 1967-68 time frame  when the USAF gave me room and board localy.  Also still remember visiting Ace back when Paul Runge was still running it when I was TDY down the road at Whiteman AFB.  I could only drool.  That's back when as a Sgt, I ws drawing a whole $326/mo, including seperate rats, before taxes.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: john e. holliday on January 03, 2010, 06:51:41 PM
Boy you do bring up memories.  I remember driving all over Topeka when the company had me working at the Toll Office(long distance phone service).  Bart's was was one of my favorites.  I do not know what ever happened to him.  Then there was the bait shop out on 21st, that the lady carried some control line stuff. 
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Robert Organ on February 01, 2010, 06:59:45 PM
In the early Fifties, my friend Steve and myself would walk or ride our bikes to Hobbyland, a small shop on South Beckley in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. A man named Joe was the owner and he would actually run your new Fox, K&B, Mccoy etc. engine for you in the back room of the shop before you left with it. Later we frequented Bernies Hobby House on Jefferson in Oak Cliff owned by Bernie Haire, a really nice person who was always willing to give good advice or help with any thing hobby related, even if you didnt buy it from him,those were the days!
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Chad Hill on February 02, 2010, 03:39:49 PM
Gene's Hobby Shop, Tulsa, mid-late 1960s. He even had a workshop in the back for kids to build their planes in!

Joe's Hobby Shop in Detroit, early 1970s. Everything for a CL-er and plenty of combat stuff, too.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Will Hinton on February 03, 2010, 01:48:45 PM
This will sound crazy, (most of what I say/do does) but my addiction actually started in a Rexall Drug store!  They sold the ten cent Comet models and that got the juices going!  Years later when I could drive and earn enough for an engine the good old AHC was first in line for my purchases until I found Elliot's Sporting Good store in Marietta, Ohio.  They had quite a hoby shop in conjunction with their regular store.  The guy doing the counter for the hobby section was none other than Steve Wooley!  I had many conversations with Steve during the next few years, then went USN.  Later, after I was located in the Toledo area, we ran into each other at the Toledo r/c conference.  We risked our lives standing in the aisle and talking for who-knows-how-long.  That was the year of Steve's tragic accident.  I look back at our time at the Toledo show as so very special.  He was good guy. :'(
Blessing,
Will
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: John Desrosiers on May 16, 2010, 01:39:24 PM
The modelers haven in Lawrence ma. I hung there from 1958 to he closed around 1980. I met lots of nice people there. Jim Carpenter and Jay Leno. Yes that same guy on the late show. He still owes me five bucks, I dont think I,ll ever see it   Bob Lambert was the owner and one of the best guys I have ever met
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: FLOYD CARTER on May 24, 2010, 03:55:58 PM
There were a couple hobby shops in mny area (south Los Angeles).  Before I was old enough to drive a car, I took the bus into a place called Huntington Park.  After walking several more blocks, there was the Seville Ave. Hobby Store.  It was run by an old couple, but they knew the best things to stock.  In 1944, I went in and filled out the papers to get on the waiting list for a brand new Ohlsson & Rice 23 engine.  These were still being made during the war, although in limited numbers, and by employees working after-hours (being paid by O&R, and not their government contracts).  Later, and just in time for Xmas 1944, the engine arrived.  And that was my main present for Christmas.

Floyd

addition July 15.  In 1948, in South Gate, CA (south L.A.), Morgan's Model Supply opened.  They were primarily wholesale, but would sell OTC from their stock.  I believe they later moved.  In the meantime, West Coast Model Shop opened in my hometown of South Gate CA, and operated by Walter Hallberg.  I left the area briefly in '52, but later found Walter running another hobby shop in nearby Downey, CA.

Another model shop opened in the area about 1954.  It was run by Bob Dunham (owner of Orbit Radio R/C).  I worked with Bob in designing their Orbit 10 channel R/C receiver and transmitter, using the popular Medco or Bonner tuned reed banks. (I still have the first hand-wired receiver)

F.C.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Jim Pollock on May 24, 2010, 05:51:28 PM
Most unfortunately, just about everyone that could remember "Bob's Cyclery" on Yousemity Ave in Modesto are now Dead and gone.  I think the one last person who could remember it is Dan Cockrum.  However, I don't know if he even remembers when he flew model planes?

Jim Pollock,  The Modesto Flying Circus (MFC) used to be such a magnificent model airplane club......in the 50's 60's and at least the early 70's.  H^^
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: 50+AirYears on May 24, 2010, 10:04:27 PM
Boy, this just released a couple old and almost forgotten names from my early exposure to this addiction.

First kits, Comet Struct-O-Speed, and some Guillows and Walker gliders and rubber FF, were purchased by walking ( when my mom was distracted, I started doing this at sometime between ages 4 and 5) about 2 blocks to a corner store named Yurcheck's.  The building is still there, has been through several itterations including a store front church, a private bar/club, and now appears to be a private residence.  Then there was Karnack's, about 4 blocks away, where I bought the usual Comet and Guillows, as well as Strombecker kits, Revell kits, Lindberg kits,Flying models and MAN mags.  They went through a similar fate as Yurcheck's, but the building was torn down last fall.  The bicycle shop has been empty for years, although for a while, it was a small high quality butcher shop.

Of course, right around the corner from my High School, was the old Lorain Hobby Shop (imaginative name) which was mostly CL planes and model railroading.  I remember buying many older MRR and MA magazines, used from racks on the back wall.  They are now a gap between a Jewler and an empty store.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Peter Nevai on June 16, 2010, 01:56:32 PM
Wilsons Hobby shop Jamaica Queens N.Y. Run by Pete Wilson.
Forest Park MAC held it's meetings down in the basement.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Fred Vander Hoek on June 21, 2010, 09:15:58 AM
 Western Hobbies early 50s Compton CA. It was owned by my parents and grand parents. Later in the 60s was Robbie's Hobbies in Cudahy CA. Robbie would always give me a job there during Xmas season when I was in junior/ High School. Worked for hobby supplies and model kits.
Cheers!
~VanCam
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: don Burke on July 09, 2010, 09:59:36 AM
Believe or not, my parents led to my addiction.  When we were just kids they started giving us Strombeker solid models to build. This led to them showing us the hobby department at the Montgomery Wards store in Manhattan Kansas where I bought my first 10¢ Comet model.

Encouraged by our parents, my brother and I managed to find hobby shops near wherever my Dad was stationed in the Army.  This included Germany from 1950-53.  At that time the "good stuff" came from America's Hobby Center by slow boat from the US.  Balsa wood did not exist in Germany at the time.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: 50+AirYears on July 09, 2010, 10:58:54 PM
Oh how I remember drooling over the AHC adds, planning what I'd eventualy buy.  Actualy put in 2 orders:  First was after getting my first job out of high school.  Bought a Super Aerotrol radio kit.  Never worked right.  Then, geting ready to rotate stateside from Wheelus AFB, I placed a large order.  It was waiting for me when I got home on leave.  Actually more than I'd ordered.  They'd combined my order with that of anoter Sergeant stationed there.  Contacted them several times, hoping they'd at least reimburse me for forwarding the order.  Got total denial, their shipping papers showed I'd recieved my order, and that the other order had been properly sent to Tripoli.  I imagine the extra order finally found the proper home.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: john e. holliday on July 10, 2010, 10:18:18 AM

Encouraged by our parents, my brother and I managed to find hobby shops near wherever my Dad was stationed in the Army.  This included Germany from 1950-53.  At that time the "good stuff" came from America's Hobby Center by slow boat from the US.  Balsa wood did not exist in Germany at the time.
[/quote]

 
It was not a slow boat.  It was the ship of the plains, called "Conastoga" wagon.  Pony express kept saying package was too large.  But those of us out in the remote areas relied a lot on AHC.   LL~ LL~
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: FLOYD CARTER on July 14, 2010, 06:46:02 PM
More dull stuff added to my previous.....

There were a couple hobby shops in mny area (south Los Angeles).  Before I was old enough to drive a car, I took the bus into a place called Huntington Park.  After walking several more blocks, there was the Seville Ave. Hobby Store.  It was run by an old couple, but they knew the best things to stock.  In 1944, I went in and filled out the papers to get on the waiting list for a brand new Ohlsson & Rice 23 engine.  These were still being made during the war, although in limited numbers, and by employees working after-hours (being paid by O&R, and not their government contracts).  Later, and just in time for Xmas 1944, the engine arrived.  And that was my main present for Christmas.

Floyd

addition July 15.  In 1948, in South Gate, CA (south L.A.), Morgan's Model Supply opened.  They were primarily wholesale, but would sell OTC from their stock.  I believe they later moved.  In the meantime, West Coast Model Shop opened in my hometown of South Gate CA, and operated by Walter Hallberg.  I left the area briefly in '52, but later found Walter running another hobby shop in nearby Downey, CA.

Another model shop opened in the area about 1954.  It was run by Bob Dunham (owner of Orbit Radio R/C).  I worked with Bob in designing their Orbit 10 channel R/C receiver and transmitter, using the popular Medco or Bonner tuned reed banks. (I still have the first hand-wired receiver)

F.C.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Gary Wallace on March 31, 2011, 12:15:47 AM
I  was around airplane all my life, even before I was born! The full scale J-3 Cub I fly now, my mom was flying in when she was pregnant with me! My dad was a flight instructor, so  airplane models  came naturally. The first hobby shop I remember was the Toy Box in Springfield, Mo. I was about 6 years old and started with 1/2a stuff. My dad worked for the Federal Prison Service, so we moved around the country like the military. Ohio, Florida, and then back to Springfield around 1968, worked part time at the Bike Shop, the best hobby shop in town. In 1970 the owner move the hobby shop to a different location and I managed that for 5 years, then I bought it and carried lots of airplanes, boats,and cars. I flew and raced C/L and cars for 22 years until 1994 when I sold it and had to go to work at a real job.
Gary
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Dennis Coleman on April 23, 2011, 09:18:19 AM
The first Hobby Shop that I can really remember is Covina Hobby Center in Covina California.  I started going in there in 1958.  Ed and Marge Bzovy owned it and it is now being run by their son Eddie after Ed's passing last November.  They had one Employee at the time named Roger Wildman (does that name ring a bell).  He was always working on something from bending up fuel tanks to helping novices (me) with their problems.  Covina Hobby has always been a control line mecca.  I would crack Ed up when I would walk in the door after he just got a supply of fresh balsa and take a deep breath and immediately head for the balsa rack.  Nothing like the smell of fresh balsa.  Al Heinrich and I would head down there on Friday evening after we got our allowances and buy a new plane, usually a Flight Streak or Ringmaster.  we would then head to one of the houses to start building and have them flying by Sunday morning.   Ed was instrumental  in starting a Control Line Club called the Flightmasters.  I think the sign is still in the shop somewhere.   Covina Hobby is truly one of the mainstays of the hobby in So Cal.     
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: 50+AirYears on April 23, 2011, 05:52:35 PM
Just had a memory of one of the old-time hobby shops awakened last month.  The old Clearview Hobby Shop in Lorain, Ohio.  Family owned from mid 1950's till around 1990.  Started by the father, it was run by his wife after he passed away  in the early 60's,taken over a few years later by one of the sons when her health started going bad, then after he passed away (also a fireman, heart problems) the other son ran it.  He moved the store sometime in the late 70's to a larger area in a local mall.  He finally closed the store when the mall decided to reduce the number of units for tax purposes.  Seems Bob did better with insurance and real estate sales, so he closed out.
I remember the last time I stopped in the store, just a day or two before it finally closed.  I noticed a $2.00 bill in a frame over the counter.  Asked him if he remembered that I was his first customer in the new store, and paid for the first purchase with that bill.  He looked at it for a couple minutes, added up the bill, and when he made change, he hesitated, then reached up, pulled the bill down and out of the frame, and used it for my change.  I think we both had somewhat wet eyes.  He died about 8 months later.  Neither he nor his brother or father had made it past 50.
The thing that brought back these memories.  Early March this year, the local paper had an obit.  The mother just this year passed away at 104 years of age.
I miss the old style hobby shop, the kind where the proprietor and the hired help know their products, where the store not only stocks the traditional supplies and products, but also stays up to date with the newest and can and does give the customers knowledgeable and quality advice.  Not too many left.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Dennis Holler on May 10, 2011, 07:16:33 PM
I remember The Craft House Hobby shop on Military Trail in WPB Fla from the middle 70's as ell as Mickinley's hobby Shop, also in WPB.  We used to drive over to the coast from Clewiston when I was a little kid to shop or have fun, what ever, but Mom and Dad used to always take me by those hobby shops and they got a lot of my "kid" money whether it was airplanes, plastic models, or ho scale trains.  Later on, in the early 80's i discovered the Depot in Lantana and spent a bunch of money there on Lionel trains...
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Andy Whitam on May 11, 2011, 06:00:08 AM
Mid 1950's. Tillman's records and Hobbies in Natchez Ms. What could be better than talking model airplanes and listening to rock and roll in the 50's.
they carried mostly scientific and sterling kits, cox and McCoy engines. Those were great days in my life.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: johnt4051 on May 16, 2011, 11:25:23 PM
My earliest memories of a hobby shop were of a hobby and bicycle shop called Em's, in downtown Port Angeles, Wash., early  and mid 1960s.  Can't remember the exact name, something like Em's Cycle Shop.  Anyway, I would ride the nine blocks my bike from our home on Ninth St. to the hobby shop on Front Street, and shop for what i could afford.  Thinking of that shop reminds me of a model-airplane-kids story:
  A buddy and I went to the schoolyard with my reliable Sterling Navion to put up a few flights, but we couldn't get the McCoy .35 to run right.  It would seem to run OK backwards (odd!) but would only sputter forward.  It took us about an hour to figure out that the new 10x6 nylon Top Flite prop the nice lady at Em's had just sold me was a pusher.   HB~>
  Well, it only cost a quarter, so I wasn't out much, but it ruined a flying day.
  --jt
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: john e. holliday on May 17, 2011, 08:35:17 AM
That is almost as good as the guy who put his prop on backwards and wondered why he had no speed. LL~ LL~
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: donald raab on July 03, 2011, 10:19:56 AM
Ed Guth's hobbies in Syracuse NY.  About 8 years old and my parents bought me a Strombecker Piper Cub.  Never looked back.  CL/RC and now OTS when I can.  A real diversion from E3D electric but all are fun.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: John Sunderland on July 21, 2011, 10:49:26 PM
Rankins in Celina, Ohio 1966. D>K
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Rick Henry on August 09, 2011, 11:38:48 PM
Dont remember the name but it was a hobby shop/sporting goods store in Portland Indiana.  They had all kinds of kits and engines and a bunch of planes hanging from the ceiling.  Later on I made a hundred trips to Indy to Jack Sheeks shop.  If memory serves me it was at 5454 E. 21St Street. 

Rick
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: 50+AirYears on August 10, 2011, 11:49:40 PM
Not the first hobby shop for me, but the first one while in the USAF.  Technical Bookstore at Chanute AFB, Rantoul Il. in 1965.  Bought a Merco .29 RC engine there, my first RC engine with an actual throttled carb.  Really overheated with Missle Mist, got a couple short  flights with a thingy I built up with a J. Roberts 3 wire system, sold it cheap, then found out a year or two later I should probably have been using something with low nitro, like maybe Superfuel.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Robert Redmon on September 04, 2011, 04:36:05 PM
I don't remember the name of the hobby shop, but it was in Ft. Worth a couple blocks away from Leonard Brothers Department Store in the mid 1950s. It had a model of a B-36 over the door. I think the only thing I ever bought from that shop was a .25 roll of 1/2 A flying lines, but I recall drooling over the stuff in the glass cabinets that lined the walls and being awestruck by the models hanging from the ceiling. I was about 8 years old at the time (1954).

Bob Redmon
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Mike Keville on September 04, 2011, 07:41:25 PM
Just saw Floyd Carter's reply (#1) - yes, Al's in Elmhurst (Chicago suburb) was a winner.  Last shopped there c.1966.  My best  memories, however, are of Haddonfield, NJ's "Highway Hobby", 20 Tanner St. - the best CL shop I've ever seen.  That was c.1950-1956...and of course it's long-gone too <sigh>.

And then there was Rich's Hobbytowne in Parsippany, NJ.....not to mention Lakewood Village Hobby, CA (killed-off by "Hobby Warehouse" in the 1980s).

Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Butch Hopping on October 12, 2011, 02:23:05 PM
ahhhh my first hobby shop,it was located in a jewelry store in davenport IA.in the back corner they had free flight and c/l kits and supply,s.my first kit was a carl Goldberg swordsman with a cox 020.the shop owners son helped me build it and taught me to fly on it,it was the first of many to come.i had 16 good yrs in c/l before crossing over into rc,dam know looking back i should have run the other way when i seen that first rc model fly,but i am back and look forward to many great years in c/l,Butch
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Tim Wescott on October 12, 2011, 02:34:37 PM
There wasn't any shop -- I think I was born with this.  We lived out in a sub-rural area outside of Portland, Oregon, that somehow acquired a shopping center.  It had a Benjamin Franklin store that stocked a whole bunch of Comet kits, which I built regularly.

Then one Christmas someone gave me a "Whole Kid's Catalog", which included a promotional poster for all sorts of aeromodeling tips from Sig.  I sent off for the poster, and then for years I mail-ordered most of my hobby supplies from Sig.  Eventually I got a driver's license and could buy stuff at the closest hobby shop (Aero-Sports in SE Portland -- Leon even offered me a job one spring), but I still got the bulk of my building supplies from Sig.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: john e. holliday on October 14, 2011, 09:08:25 AM
I know in this thread is wwhere I posted about the first hobby shop, but the old 10cent Comet kits came from a Drug Store that was on State Avenue in KCK. H^^
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Joseph Patterson on October 21, 2011, 10:17:54 AM
    Broome's Hobby shop on Plank Rd., Baton Rouge, La. for me. First visit about 1958. Mr. Broom sold Dad a used K&B Torpedo 19 to put on an old 40's airplane that had an O&R 23 glow. The store itself was a small "A" frame bldg. about 20 x 40 ,if that large, situated in the far corner of OURSO Dept. store parking lot. It was jam packed with C/L stuff. Mr. Broom always helped us out by reducing the price or pulling some parts out of his scrap parts and giving them to us. His wife was always in the store working with him, but you always wanted him to help because he new more and was more inclined to help with the prices.  We usually bought Goldberg Shoestrings, Flight Streaks, Ringmasters, McCoy 35RH, Cox .049, Perfect tanks and wheels,  and Misslemist fuel/Fox. Also had to have the White Tornado nylon props. Not very efficient, but very unbreakable. Broome's was in business over (3) decades. He shut it down and worked part time for several years at Hobby Towne before he passed away. When the slot car craze hit in the early to mid-60's he put up a track for drag racing behind the store. The motors we used in our drag cars were unbelievely powerful. Kids would rush over there after school and race until dark, or whenever Mr. Broom would shut us down, then home to the dreaded home work. 
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Jim Kraft on December 07, 2011, 04:23:22 PM
We lived in Kansas City in my early years, and I remember buying Guillows rubber powered slip together jobs when I was about 5 years old, at the drug store on the corner. Later, we moved to the Roeland Park area, and I use to ride my bike out to Hobby Haven in Mission to buy stick jobs. I remember a Dakota Biplane hanging in that shop that I thought was the coolest thing I had ever seen, but a little above my modeling skills. This was all in the 40's. Swope Park was the modeling mecca back then when all the military guys came home and flew there. My family would take us kids on picknics there on weekends, and I watched as many modelers cranked on ignition jobs.

Oddly enough, my first control line planes were bought at Charlies Hobby shop in down town KC after we had moved away to a small town in north central Ks. We use to go back to KC to visit my grandparents, and I always went to Charlies and bought a Scientific Hollow Log to take home to build. Modeling was magic back then. I was 10 years old when we moved from KC, but there were a couple of older guys that flew control line on the school yard a 1/2 block away. Several of us younger kids were flying 1/2 stuff.

I have been a modeler all my life except for a few years in my late teens when cars, motorcycles, and a special girl took most of my time. Started flying control line again in 1960 when I was 19 and married to that special girl.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: 50+AirYears on December 07, 2011, 04:31:02 PM
Anybody here remember the old Comet and other solids?  They came with a block or three, a couple pieces of 3/32" or 1/8" sheet, and some 1/16" sheet.  The idea was to trace the outlines on the blocks and sheets, and carve the pieces to shape before glueing things together and painting.  My trouble with them, I couldn't control a single edged razor blade enough to do a good job, didn't have a pocket knife sharp enough, and by the time I got my first Xacto, they were no longer available.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Jim Kraft on December 07, 2011, 05:26:44 PM
I did a few Stromberg solids in the late 40's. I also did some of my own out of balsa blocks that I got from a friend. This thread is sure bringing back a lot of great memories. Great to read how others got started also. We were very fortunate to have grown up when we did. Those years we picked up many virtues from modeling that carried us all through our lives. Now days there are very few that know what it is like to create something with your hands that actually works.
 I remember building a brass fuel tank out of a sheet of brass for a 1/2 Pint racecar. I did not have a soldering gun, so I used a woodburning tool to melt plastic to "weld" up the tank. It worked very well and never leaked. We just made due with what we had in those days. I use to flatten nails and sharpen them with a file to use in one of those hand crank drills.
  When the rod broke in the OK Cub .074 in my race car, I made one out of steel in highschool shop class. It ran just fine and never broke again. I think I still have that engine somewhere in my stuff.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: 50+AirYears on December 08, 2011, 12:52:56 PM
Boy, the memories.  Not just my first LHS, but so many others that I went to and got advise, help, and encouragement.  Like ACE RC in Higgensville, Mo, where I visited the first time in 1967, found Paul Runge Sr, alone in the office.  Introducung myself as TDY down the road at Whiteman, he told me everybody else was out to lunch, took me back to the, I can only say warehouse area, and turned me loose.
I've already mentioned the original bicycle shop, Yurcheck's, Karnack's, Clearview Hobby, Mr. Bart's, Lorain Hobby Shop, and maybe a few others.  Another that I can't forget, that was a fantastic aid when I got started in RC was run by the fire chief at the time, Al Nickley.  Gentleman not only was conversant in all aspects of model airplanes and boats, but had a 2nd degree commercial FCC ticket, and was able to do legal repairs and tuning on transmitters. His van was not only carrying his planes abd support equipment when he got to the local flying field, but it was also equipped to do light field repairs on radios.
The exposure to the early models, before ARFs, die cut balsa, radios fully functional, plug n' play right out of the box, gave me so much challenge, inspiration and encouragement, that has helped me in every job I ever held, right from picking pop bottles off the street for the deposit, right up to instilling the patience that led me to be a problem solver, whether I was working on the auto assembly line, troubleshooting ground support equipment in the AF, getting stuck with the troublesome intermittent problems as an auto mechanic, or solving some really exotic problems in product development engineering for the last 28 years of my working career.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: thomas farmer on December 27, 2011, 06:11:45 PM
Mrs Cooper, Coopers hobby shop, Independence Missouri. My uncle Glen went with me to her shop to get a one$ size stick and tissue model.We came out with the stick and tissue model and a ready to fly plastick controle model called the Aero Mite,with a spitzy .045 and the rest is history. I was about 10 years old. Glen is the only uncle still alive. I visit him every time I go to Kansas City Mo. Great memories. Forerunner
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Garf on February 09, 2012, 02:07:02 PM
There were quite a few hobby shops in the early days. For me it was the Hobby Center, a medium sized shop that had most of what was needed. AND THEN there was the grand daddy of them all, Orange Blossom Hobbies. It was the largest hobby shop in this section of the country with a wholesale operation in the back. It had airplane, car, boat, and railroad departments. The owner died, then his son ran the business into the ground. It is now a drug store.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Clare Bottorff on February 13, 2012, 11:15:51 AM
My addiction came from watching an old man fly a Kenhi Chief with a rockin' Fox 35 for power. He used to come to my hometown to fly on a vacant lot and after several million questions by the kids that would come at the sound of the old Fox he told us about his model shop, but it was in Fremont, Michigan which was about 15 miles away. AS I remember it none of us kids could get a parent to take us to Fremont to look at the models in Fremont. Eventually another guy that lived in our town, joined him, and then set up a tiny shop in his house, using a front window to display "Gasp", an S1 Ringmaster with a Fox 35 on it, for sale for $10.50! I flew the wings off that Ringmaster, but the Fox ended up pulling a Kenhi Panther around and around in circles for me. It went on from there.
Clare
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: ron testa on March 20, 2012, 12:51:04 PM

if your from NJ who doesn't remember Rich's Hobby Town. Fond memories getting my parents to drive us there, and flying on their 2 or 3 flying circles. Also had a boat pond. The nhobby shop was 99% control line. Being there was better than a kid in a candy shop back in the 50's.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Guy B Jr on April 03, 2012, 10:58:31 PM
My earliest model airplanes were Comet stick and tissue kits from a dime store in Danville, VA during WWII. For control line it was the Hobby House in Ft. Lauderdale, FL (1950). It was a camera shop with a counter across the back that dealt with models. The guy behind the counter had a Stuntwagon. The Hobby House also sponsored my Little League baseball team. I feel so blessed that I was able to grow up in Ft. Lauderdale during the 50's and 60's. In those days you could still have beach parties with bonfires on the beach. Ha! Try that now.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Cliff Henke on September 27, 2012, 10:50:21 PM
 Being a Military Brat and never living anywhere for more than 9 months, I can't remember the names of the early hobby shops from Chicago to the North Jersey Shore ( 61 - 74 ). Sorry.  ???
I returned back to North Carolina in 1978 and started a great relationship with Hayes Hobby House in Fayetteville, N.C.. Been with them ever since and going back in 12 hours................

Great Site Y'all,
Cliff Henke
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Bob Heywood on September 30, 2012, 09:58:22 AM
Baker's Modelcraft @ Patterson & Smithville in Dayton, OH.

A classic shop run by the Jennings family by the time I got there as an 8 year old. It was a short bike ride from home. The shop and the nearby public library offering up Model Airplane News got me...hook, line, and sinker.

And...The ride took me right past the Moler's Dairy store. Fresh ice cream and the best malts ever.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Steve Helmick on October 16, 2012, 03:28:32 PM
When I was a kid, mostly just the PX, wherever. Oh, there was a real hobby shop in Chattanooga, Clover Dale Hobby in Montgomery, and Hobby Craft (?) somewhere in Los Angeles. I used to know the name of the owner (Rudy ?), but no more. They had a Borgward, and drove it up the AL-Can to Alaska! They made a few kits...a 1/2a Delta R/C, "The Ghost" A-1, and Tosh Matsuda's "Zero" 1/2a gas free flight...they had good taste!

We used to have some good hobby shops here in the Seattle area, but they're all gone now. I sometimes go to Hobby Town in Parkland (they are not part of the chain, and got sued for the use of the name, but they had it first). On occasion, I'll stop into R/C Hobbies in Covington, but it's mostly an R/C car shop. Been to Tim's Hobbies in Everett once, but they didn't have anything I wanted (decent fuel being #1 priority). Been to Tammie's in Beaverton, OR, twice. Not terrible, but didn't buy anything. Best hobby shop I get to now is Eugene Toy & Hobby, but I only get there in May, for the NW CL Regionals. They only carry SIG fuel, which is ok, but not my usual stuff. It does run different. Most everything comes by USPS or UPS now, after buying online. It's convenient, but it's just not the same. I'm cleaning up the shop and finding unopened boxes...!  LL~ Steve
 
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Sonny Williams on October 27, 2012, 05:33:03 PM
I just had to get in on this thread. I saw my first G-line model airplane in 1944. Then I saw my first engine powered model airplane in 1945 being flown at the fairgrounds in Reidsville, NC and I was hooked from that moment on. We had a small but pretty well equipped model shop that was started by a returning veteran of WWII. I started buying balsa wood there in early 45 and at the same time I got a job at the grocery store next door selling pop corn from a street side popping machine. Every penny I got was spent at the model shop. I purchased my first engine there which was a Rogers at the tender age of 12. I just about smoked my parents out of the house breaking the engine in down in the basement. That was a great little hobby shop that specialized in nothing but model airplane stuff. The veteran who opened the shop was a returning veteran highly decorated for his heroics. Not only did he run the hobby shop, but was my Scout Master as well. Life did not serve him well as he carried many scars from the war and his life ended at an early age, but he and his model hobby shop is still remembered to this day by many I'm sure including myself. God bless our veterans.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Shultzie on October 28, 2012, 03:06:57 PM
I just had to get in on this thread. I saw my first G-line model airplane in 1944. Then I saw my first engine powered model airplane in 1945 being flown at the fairgrounds in Reidsville, NC and I was hooked from that moment on.  We had a small but pretty well equipped model shop that was started by a returning veteran of WWII. I started buying balsa wood there in early 45 and at the same time I got a job at the grocery store next door selling pop corn from a street side popping machine. Every penny I got was spent at the model shop. I purchased my first engine there which was a Rogers at the tender age of 12. I just about smoked my parents out of the house breaking the engine in down in the basement. That was a great little hobby shop that specialized in nothing but model airplane stuff. The veteran who opened the shop was a returning veteran highly decorated for his heroics. Not only did he run the hobby shop, but was my Scout Master as well. Life did not serve him well as he carried many scars from the war and his life ended at an early age, but he and his model hobby shop is still remembered to this day by many I'm sure including myself. God bless our veterans.
Thanks for sharing your story....WOW! "G LINE MODELS IN 44!"
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Steve Fitton on November 09, 2012, 07:23:45 AM
Nassau Hobby and Crafts, Princeton, NJ.  What an awesome place!
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: tom brightbill on December 10, 2012, 08:48:31 PM
Has anyone mentioned City Cycle in Paducah, Ky.? About the same time as the Humbler (Shark 45) came out....
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Norm Furutani on September 18, 2013, 02:32:05 PM
1950ish. I have fond memories of Model Craft in SW Los Angeles. This was the usual destination of the family outing, proprietors, Barney and Peggy Snyder would tell great stories of back in the day. The trip was always good for at least a TF Jigtime kit and Barney would toss in a 5 or 10 cent glider. Afterwards, we would go next door for an ice cream at Curries! On the way home, Dad would yell at us to not open the little packet with the nose button and washers- we would yell back- "we will, Dad".

Later, in the 70's, Barney taught me how to fly RC gliders. One day at Dockweiler beach (we could park the cars along the ridge) Barney said he had to leave and would make one more flight. His plane slipped behind him and flew into the back of his open station wagon, clipping the wing tips. He said with a grin, he had to leave but not that big a hurry!

NormF
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: donchandler on November 27, 2013, 06:03:50 PM
The first one was Don's Hobby Shop in Menlo Park, CA. Then graduated to J&M Hobby shop in San Carlos. They had everything a guy could want and if by chance they didn't, the owner , Joe White would get it quick. 
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: don boka on January 04, 2014, 12:50:43 PM
This brings back memories of REAL hobby shops which are going away sad to say! Joes in Detroit was originally owned by the Dallaires who also had a wholesale outlet. The retail shop was bought out in later years by Don and Jack Josaitis and stocked just about everything and they even had a few additional hobby shops which sadly closed a few years ago. The other was Temples' in West Dearborn and they closed many years ago. If I recall the names from many years ago it was owned by Al and Doris Temple. There were others but none like these in my estimation. Would love to find something like this around here these days.

Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Mike Keville on January 04, 2014, 06:22:58 PM
Good old fashioned hobby shops have gone the way of the model airplane hobby in general:

Mail-order...foam...electrics...and Chinese RC imports.

<sigh>...I miss the Old Days.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: afml on February 12, 2014, 05:43:42 AM
My first 'eye popping' Hobby shop was ABC Hobbies in Dormont, PA. in the mid 60's. My C/L mentor, Don Mohr, packed us in his station wagon to visit his favorite shop. I was stunned at all the planes hanging from the ceiling & walls. They were EVERYWHERE! Don had to literately pick me up and set me aside so the rest of us could enter the store.
ABC also has ships, trains, everything you could imagine. Including a HUGH slot car track in the basement!!
This introduction eventually led to a BIG Region Contest held in '69 that sent the overall points winner to the NATS in Willow Grove. Dat be me... LL~
But that's another story...
The shop that led to my 'addiction' was located on Euclid Ave in Lexington, KY. X-CELL MODELS! My Family & I were at UK for a scholarship audition. The first day I entered the store there was Lew McFarland talking to Randy Hancock. I needed a couple of props for my OS MAX 35S.
Lew was out of the ones I needed, but Randy had a few extra in his stash at home. He lived the block behind the shop. He ran home to get them for me. Super Glue was coming 'on the scene' and Lew had glued a quarter to the floor. It was always interesting to see how many customers tried to kick that quarter or attempt to pick it up.
MANY more stories...
Ralph Wenzel lived a few blocks away....
Working for Lew at X-CELL....
Lending Kenny Stevens that same OS Max 35s....
Painting the floor at one of the early Mid-Am Distributors Lew owned...
Selling planes during a tornado at X-CELL...
Making Akromaster kits...
Sorry to run on.....  Memory flood.....
"Tight Lines!" H^^
Wes
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: John Park on March 11, 2014, 12:35:41 PM
Here's one from England: back in the early 1950s in Aldershot ('Home of the British Army'), in a little side street that linked the two main shopping streets of the town, was a TINY place that my father called 'Jean Standing's', which was mysterious because the name painted on the fascia was E STANDING: it wasn't until I was about nine that I heard the name Eugene, and the mystery was solved.  Gene Standing's model shop was a classic: there was hardly room for more than a couple of people in front of the counter, because the whole place was crammed with every kind of modelling merchandise you could imagine - aircraft and boat kits, a huge rack of balsa, another of dopes and enamels, shelves of accessories like wheels, props (including the only example I've ever seen of an 'Elmer' constant-speed feathering prop.) and, under the glass top of the counter, an array of English diesel engines, both aero and marine - ED, Mills, Amco, Elfin, Allbon, FROG - all diesels, of course, except the FROG 500.
There was a back room, and it was in there that second-hand engines would be test-run by prospective purchasers to see if they were worth buying.  Enter that place on a Saturday afternoon, as I usually did, and you found it thick with diesel exhaust fumes - the shop may have been tiny, but you could hardly see across it, let alone breathe: and of course, when an engine was running, even a little Mills .75 - the most civilised model aero engine in the known universe - you couldn't make yourself heard, either.  For an aeromodelling-mad kid in the '50s, it was Paradise, pure and simple.

All the best.
John
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: FLOYD CARTER on March 30, 2014, 01:42:18 PM
deleted
looks like a repeat (short memory)
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Steve Scott on April 06, 2014, 11:54:13 AM
I had never seen anything other than a plastic RTF Cox offering.  Most of my friends early '60s had one but never knew anyone who ever flew one.

Visiting Seattle and the downtown Bon Marche department store had a LARGE hobby shop up on the 4th floor.  Display cases with scale DC-3 (CL) and a large speed model on it's dolly and I think a Dynajet speed model.  Lots of other airplanes, engines, etc. which I never knew existed.  I was 12 and totally mesmerized.  Bought my first model magazine - the 1965 American Modeler featuring the '64 Dallas Nats writeup.  I wore that thing out, reading so much.

We were on our way to join my dad overseas at Clark AB in the Philippines.  They had a hobby shop on base with a few Foxes and many OS and Enya motors.  There was also an area in the rear of the shop for the airmen to build models.  It had only screens in the windows so you got 3-way ventilation year 'round.  Silk and Aerogloss seemed to be the dominant finishing method.

I finally got trained on a Cox PT-19 the built a Ringmaster/McCoy 35; Jr Nobler/Fox 19 and a Minnie Mambo/Cox .049.  Flew them all.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: WLGeorge on August 31, 2014, 09:36:02 PM
Don Stills Hobby Haven in Beaumont Texas 1960.  Still there.  Been all over but Don is Still the best. Pun intended. Still go there. A wellspring of information on how to make my crooked airplanes fly straight.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Phil Krankowski on August 31, 2014, 09:55:17 PM
Wing's Hobby Shop, Lakewood Ohio.  The article on the business closing in Model Aviation was pretty accurate. 

I used to bike down on first my 1-speed, and later my 10-speed (about 1 1/2 miles from home), eventually driving (although parking was always difficult) for whatever suited my interests.  Model airplanes, Lionel trains, D&D... Always good people.

Then college, no time for fun and when I became interested again, and had time and money, the selection dwindled to trains, some books, and building materials with some toys thrown in for good measure.  Now it is 2 hours to visit my parents, so I hadn't been there in years.  I remember there were plywood shelves of model airplanes in the back of the store.  Stacks of kits, materials, and supplies.  The turn over was pretty quick too. 

I only had a couple 1/2a planes to call mine, both built with my parents.  (I still have them too, and don't fly them for fear of breaking them...quite unlike my recent builds) My parents flew cl too, and taught my older brothers and I to fly.  Dad flew combat and sport, Mom sport.  Only Dad ever competed. 

Also Hopkins airport had the flying circles, which are now part of the long runway.

Phil
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: 50+AirYears on December 01, 2014, 10:38:22 PM
I remember Wings well.  Last time I was there, they still had a number of Cleveland kits on display.  They had gotten pretty well away from model airplanes, as their customer base had changed with the local area getting overdeveloped.I used to be just a 15 minute drive from them.  Now, I have moved to South Carolina, where there doesn't seem to be as much in the way of well stocked hobby shops as there was in Northern Ohio.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Mark OConnell on December 22, 2018, 07:58:22 PM
I know it has been years since a post but I just discovered this thread. The first hobby shop I ever went to is Branford Hobbies in Branford Connecticut which I saw and talked my mom into stopping in 1964 when I was 7 years old. I was struck by all the airplane models but also by a large N Scale train layout the owner had in the front. The owners name was Frank and him and my mom started talking while I wandered around checking things out they had the old conversation where the owner Frank said excuse me ma'am you look very familiar. My mom introduced herself and said you also look familiar. After talking for a while it turned out that they both had worked for the A.C. Gilbert company in New Haven CT in the very early 1950's. Frank was a model maker and my mom was a secretary who of course had a different last name after marrying my dad. After that it was always easier to get mom to stop by when I said I have to get something and you can talk to Frank. His store is still open owned now by his son Mark ( Frank left us in 1997 I believe) and I stopped in to see Mark last night. But his store was over 20 miles away and when I was struggling to fly my Cox RTF's a new store opened in my hometown of Clinton, CT. It was a very small store called Dave's Hobbies. It was owned by a local guy who drove a tanker truck for Esso in the evenings. He had kits wood dope and glue and also engines and all the accessories for me to build my first "real" controlline airplane. It was a Sterling Beginers Spitfire with a Cox Babe Bee for power. I flew and busted and rebuilt that plane so many times that it ended up being more glue than wood. Dave also had a group that flew controlline at the local school field and me and my buddy Walt (who I still fly with today) would take our planes on our bicycles and fly with the big guys who all had Fox 35's and even some OS and Enya 35 size planes. But I think the real thing that got me addicted to this hobby was watching a local gentleman named Len Minnick who flew a Sterlin Skylark silk and doped res and black with Fox power do the complete stunt pattern. it was like wow there is way more to this than flying in circles and a loop or 2 thrown in. Branford hobbies is still there and I now live only 5 miles away but Dave's was razed to become a driveway fro the local tavern that was next door. Brings back some very fond memories of my early teen years.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: john e. holliday on December 22, 2018, 08:07:04 PM
Great story and nothing like progress to eliminate some businesses. H^^
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Skip Chernoff on December 22, 2018, 09:18:42 PM
I just found this old thread as well. The closest real hobby shop to me was about a 15 minute bus ride (or an hour walk) from my Philly neighborhood to Upper Darby Pa. (Danny Banjock grew up there BTW) The name of the shop was Todd's Hobbies. Todd's had everything from plastic kits to airplane stuff, trains and model boat gear. Typically I'd buy a Scientific "hollow log" for my BabyBee 049. Naturally you needed "sanding sealer,dope,thinner,brushes and then  a pint of Cox fuel.
 When not building flying models I enjoyed assembling the plastic car kits that we all grew up on. Todd's would have a yearly model car contest for the kids. I was proud to see my car on display in the shop window. Sometime around 1960 at the very beginning of the Go Kart craze my pals and I strolled into the shop to see 3 brand new racing karts for sale. We went totally nuts!!! At $180 dollars each they were way out of a kid's paper route money. Anyway,all of this brings back some great memories.......Skip
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: 50+AirYears on December 22, 2018, 10:21:34 PM
Just thinking that before I joined the USAF in 1964, I had 9 hobby shops within a half hour walk.  (Home Town population around 83,000)   Just before I moved to South Carolina, I had 2 hobby shops within a half hour DRIVE.  Now,  not counting several Hobby Lobbies, I have a 10 minute drive to a Hobbytown USA, a 20 minute drive to a Model RR oriented HS (yes, I am also into that), and about a 25 minute drive to a small local MA oriented shop.  That's in a quarter million or so population metro area.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: 944_Jim on December 22, 2018, 10:44:15 PM
When: early to mid 1970's
Why: Parts for my AFX slot cars and the joy of watching the model train displays.
Where: Eric Fuchs Model Railroad Store, Tremont St, Downtown Boston, MA.
I first took the subway system to get to this shop for my slotcar parts. The model trains pulled me in, so one Christmas or a birthday (early February, so they blur together "in the fog of time"), I got an N scale loop of track with a loco and a couple cars. I had been building AMT/Revell plastic models as a smaller kid. The slotcars came at about the same time, followed by the trains.
Two or three times in the mid to late 70's my mom got me Cox airplanes for Christmas. Fuel was expensive, and hard to get. Fuchs had it! Over time, I'd ride my bicycle downtown for fuel. While the slotcars and trains dominated my attention in my early childhood...the string of Cox airplanes appeared under the tree, or for birthdays in my early teens. I had the Cessna, each of the "Wings" series, and an electric Spitfire. The Spit flat stunk after the internal battery stopped taking a charge!
Anyway, back to Fuch's. He had all sorts of balsa kits too! I took one of my engines down there so one of the counter dudes showed me a CG Stuntman 23. With kit and Ambroid in my backpack, I pedalled home to start my first balsa CL kit. Two more trips yielded dope...clear to seal, bright red for the entire finish. My mom pitted for me. Then a Fuch's-bought Lil Satan hung from the lines. A few years later I joined the Army, and basically left the hobby for the next 30+ years (there was a short period where I tried to stay "in the hobby" while on active duty, but my platoon sergeant didn't like dope in my wall locker).
My mom sees this hobby as a way for me to return to a simpler time in life. When I tried to bring my boys into the field a couple of years ago, she was visiting and got to watch all three of "her boys" fly...that is, me and my sons. I think at one point she was actually crying! Unfortunately, the hobby didn't stick with the boys...but it is keeping me young. I'm having a ball building and flying again. The smell of the fuel and dope snatches me back 40 years, and I'm so dug into the hobby that the storage closet (all 12'x5.75') in the garage is now being converted into my air conditioned hobby room!
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Al Takatsch on December 24, 2018, 05:18:44 PM
My first hobby shop was Tom's Hobby Shop on the corner of Bleeker and Forest Ave in Ridgewood Queens, NY.
Got my first Ringmaster, McCoy .35 and U-Reely from him. I was 15 at the time. He mostly sold trains and dolls to pay the bills.

Wilson's Hobby Shop underneath the El on Jamaica Ave and 105th Street, Queens, NY. This was my favorite hobby shop. Run by the Tallest, biggest man I had ever met. His nickname was Tiny. He sold everything Control Line that I could ever imagine. The Flushing Meadows and Forest Park control liners all shopped there. After Tiny passed away, his son took over and sold lots of radio planes and cars.

Memories....
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Roger Vizioli on March 18, 2019, 04:26:40 PM
Wykagyl Hobby - just outside of New Rochelle, NY heading toward Tuckahoe. 
Worked there in 1951-1953. Always sorted the incoming Firebaby kits (aka ARF's ;-) and noted which engine was included. I bought the ones with the WASP engines.  y1

Westchester Hobbies, White Plains,NY - customer there from 1953 - 1955. then learned about hot rods and full scale airplanes.

Anybody remember these Hobby Shops??? Maybe Bob Zambelli??,  Walter Umland??

Roger Vizioli
 
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Oldenginerod on December 06, 2019, 09:58:01 PM
This will only mean something to those familiar with the Victoria, Australia model scene,'cos that's where I am.  Late sixties, early seventies I'd be a regular visitor to George Amiet's toy shop in Warragul.  Got my first Aeroflyte balsa rubber powered kit there.  Not sure what model it was, but there was a whole series of 12" span models that I tried to collect all of.  Then on our annual pre-Christmas trip to 'the big smoke" (Chadstone shopping centre) I'd have saved up enough to get another kit from Tim the Toyman.  That was my favourite place at Chadstone apart from the Hot Nut bar on the ground floor just as you entered Myers.  Couldn't resist those hot Cashews %^@
When I got a little older and could travel by train to Melbourne myself I'd head straight to the Model Dockyard or Hearn's Hobbies. (Hearn's Hobbies is still there).
I could only drool and imagine having the stuff I saw in those places.  (Still gotta learn to insert pictures.)
After that I discovered The Hobby Hangar in Caulfield which was a lower-key operation and a little more affordable for a poor farm boy.
Once I got into Control line at about 12 years old I frequented Tas Gray's shop in Drouin, about 15 minutes drive from home.  Got my first brand new engine there, an Enya .15.  Also got my beloved Jelly .177 air rifle.  It was an odd shop.  Tas was a locksmith, but also sold sporting goods, guns and model stuff.  He used to mix fuel for customers where you could get your old fuel can refilled.  No-one ever asked what was in it, but it seemed to work ok.
Sadly, every shop I used as a kid is gone apart from Hearn's Hobbies, but they no longer carry anything for builders.  No balsa, no nitro, no building supplies.  Just RTFs, drones and plastic scale kits.
Ah, the memories :-\
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: C.T. Schaefer on December 08, 2019, 01:01:56 PM
I just discovered this thread and it got me going a bit!  My first hobby shop was the Dog House in Livingston , N.J.  Although it was primarily a pet store he had nicely stocked airplane section. It had everything needed to get a 10 year old dreaming of owning a real airplane and drooling on the glass display counters! This place and the library were within easy walking distance. I would go to the library and read all of the M.A.N. magazines and then stop into DH to make sure the plane I wanted was in stock. Of course I wanted the McCoy .60 but decided to ask for the Stuntmaster and OK .074. That got me started on the road to being a flying modeler. Success did not come easily but after trashing a couple of planes I got the hang of it.
  Some time later I discovered Rich's Hobbytown. That place really set the hook! Not only did he have 3 circles, there was a tether car track and a tethered boat pond where guys would run their home made hydroplanes with home made engines in them! Total sensory overload. There was also a hot dog shack right next door! The best part though were the people I met there. I got to witness the possibilities of the models from folks who really knew what they were doing. John D'Ottavio and Larry Scarinzi inspired many of us and still do!  Got more but......      TS
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Dave Moritz on January 01, 2020, 05:08:09 PM
Ah, it was Hoffman Hobby Shop in Iowa Falls, Iowa. The year was 1965. Sensory overload for sure what with the Cox engine displays and the slot car track. Traded some of my paper route money for a few the goodies on hand.

On a related topic, it seems to me that it was about this time that brighter and more radiant colors began to appear in advertising and in commercial production. Hoffman's product lines really showed that trend. It wasn't too much longer when fluorescent colors started to appear, and designers of model paints, planes and cars were among the early adapters. All this seemed so amazing to me.

Dave Mo...
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Shorts,David on March 26, 2020, 09:54:53 AM
STANDARD HOBBIES - Lodi and Stockton, California. The owner was a control line and r/c flier. He opened in 1970 and retired about 2000. I first went in when I was just a baby and would often stare at the kits after kits after kits. There was a stack of 1/2a kits, a stack of profile kits, then a couple built ups kits, like the SIG CHIPMUNK and the GIESEKE NOBLER. The rest of the kits were r/c, but that was okay too.

The ceiling was filled with enough models to spend a week staring at. I'd even get the discard catalogs and pretend I was flying all the planes.  That even became my first job, working at STANDARD HOBBIES till my twenties when Lanny retired and sold it all. Did I mention he was my dad?

During college I ventured into SHELDON HOBBIES in San Jose. My roommate showed up with a box of .049s from his grandpa and we grabbed a little kit at Sheldon's when it was still a true model shop (it's mostly cars and weird stuff now but still has some good hardware). That was my first time grabbing a handle since I was 5 and my first time having no trouble at all flying.

Now I enjoy R/C COUNTRY in Sacramento. R/C Country is a true hobby shop and yes it's still there. His control line section is adequate, but his rows of hardware are fantastic. Great employees who all fly (r/c) and know how to build.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Mike Lauerman on May 07, 2020, 04:42:19 PM
J&M, in San Carlos that Don Chandler mentioned: We went there weekly in '79-'82, recall finding my Japanese kit F8F Bearcat there...
Anyone remember Dr. Ralph Brooke that flew R/C early on, around Chicago area? Dr. Brooke imported many scale C/L Japanese kits cut by Japanese civilians right after WWII, marketed them thru AHC and the brothers' hobby building in NYC. Heavy, but 'scalelike', I first saw a DC 3 with 60" W.S., older gent flew it on 60 ft. lines, two O.K. .29s.

When married to ex wife #2, we moved around a lot. When we'd hit a new town, I'd scan the phone book for ALL the hobby shops. There was one in Oakland, on E.14th., or Telegraph...two older brothers ran it, they were C/L contest fliers, names escape me. But in '68, they had a stock of OLD stuff...Treasure!

Former partner Bonneville Butch used to shop at Reginald Denny's shop in Hollywood. Butch built/flew C/L since '46. Also in L.A., Tony and Addie (his Mom) Naccarado's hobby shop.
Tony's Mom would build balsa planes right in the front floor space of their shop, would converse...wonderful folks! I bought a Sterling Mr. Mulligan kit from them when I was down in Culver City for BMW school.

This has been a GREAT thread, very reassuring that I'm not the ONLY balsa addict! Stay well.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Robert Zambelli on October 18, 2020, 07:00:32 PM
Wykagyl Hobby - just outside of New Rochelle, NY heading toward Tuckahoe. 
Worked there in 1951-1953. Always sorted the incoming Firebaby kits (aka ARF's ;-) and noted which engine was included. I bought the ones with the WASP engines.  y1

Westchester Hobbies, White Plains,NY - customer there from 1953 - 1955. then learned about hot rods and full scale airplanes.

Anybody remember these Hobby Shops??? Maybe Bob Zambelli??,  Walter Umland??

Roger Vizioli

Brown's Hobby Shop, The Bronx!

Bob Z.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Robert Zambelli on October 18, 2020, 07:02:27 PM
There were quite a few hobby shops in the early days. For me it was the Hobby Center, a medium sized shop that had most of what was needed. AND THEN there was the grand daddy of them all, Orange Blossom Hobbies. It was the largest hobby shop in this section of the country with a wholesale operation in the back. It had airplane, car, boat, and railroad departments. The owner died, then his son ran the business into the ground. It is now a drug store.

Who was the owner????
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Walter Hicks on November 26, 2020, 11:39:51 AM
Hobby Haven, Visalia,Ca had a small slot car track also. Had tons of Cox planes hanging on the ceiling. We lived in a very small town Three Rivers,Ca and my Mom would go once a month to Visalia,Ca to shop. She would drop me off at the hobby shop with a bunch of quarters to run my slot cars. Got my first "big" kit a Goldberg Shoestring there. I was given a McCoy 35 red head and flew that plane with the McCoy. Later on in the late 70s it was the best of the best T&A Hobby Shop in North Hollwood,Ca ? Tony And Addie Nacarato, stuff everywhere, and seems they were always building something in the shop. Tons of planes hanging from the ceiling. Later I would drive from Kingsburg,Ca to T&A once in while to get stuff. Fortunate now Medford,Oregon has a hobby shop. Al's' bicycle and hobby. Half Bicycles and half hobby. The local R/C club actually has lots of people that build kits and scratch build so lots of stuff in the local hobby shop. Hardware, fuel, lots of Balsa wood, etc, Brodak ,Sig dope, Props, good people. Also Eugene,Or Toys and Hobbies has lots of stuff.Eugene toy and Hobbies used to bring a U Haul truck to the Northwest Regionals contest and sell C/L Stuff on site.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: GallopingGhostler on November 26, 2020, 07:44:48 PM
1964 at Keesler AFB, Biloxi, MS, was a 4th grader. Remembered the Scientific kits, many of them on the shelves to include other manufacturers. The services squadron sold them below retail basically at cost plus. My 1st CL kit build about a year later was Scientific (Musciano) stand way off scale 18" wingspan built up fuselage and silkspan covered wing Grumman F6F Hellcat. My dad supplied me with a Cox .020 Pee Wee. Also built many rubber powered Comet kits, learned stick and tissue from that. Largest was 32" span Sparky. For a 12 YO, that model was huge.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Mike Krizan on August 09, 2021, 05:11:49 AM
Marshall’s Hobby Shop Austin Tx.  Castor oil and dope fragrance in the air.  Mike Krizan
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: doug coursey on November 11, 2021, 02:16:03 PM
Orange Blossom Hobby shop in Miami....there was a lot of control line flyers in Miami then in the 50's
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Donald Main on January 05, 2022, 02:17:29 PM
Hobby Fair on the northwest side of Indy. Cut grass to earn money to buy airplanes and engines. Then Westside hobbies as Hobby Fair closed
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Bill Gibson on February 02, 2022, 02:29:50 AM
Some time around '67 '68 i went into a hobby Shop in Clearwater Fl......i was 10 years old and i saw things that just opened up a whole new world of FUN for me, and i've never really looked back! My basement is now the model workshop i always dreamed of.......and im  RETIRED! :D :)
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: alfred whitehurst on March 25, 2022, 12:18:03 PM
Geneva and Elinor's Hobby Shop, Los Banos, California--a small farming community in the middle of the Central Valley--1964.  These ladies sold and serviced Schwinn bikes, and stocked a very complete inventory of free flight and control line models and accessories.  But they were much, much more than mere merchants--
When you walked through the door, Geneva would most likely be pulling on a wrench on someone's bent Sting Ray, and Elinor was around back in "The Model Room."  "The Model room" . . . where the ladies had set up level tables covered in cork board where they would help their young customers, patiently and step- by- step, through the building process, from unwrapping the box through mounting the engine, tank and wheels.

Then on Sunday morning, they'd--both of them, driving their '61 Buick the called "Black Beauty," meet the new pilot at the wide open high school field and test fly the new airplane, then teach the cadet to earn his--or her-- wings--sometimes without even the almost obligatory, "what the heck am I doing?" crash.  Geneva, who stood about 4'11," would crank up the redhead McCoy .19 on the front of their all-forest green Ringmaster, get it into the air, and call the trainee out to hold hi--my--hand on the red plastic "hot rock" control handle until trainee had the feel.  Elinor would take pictures on her old Brownie, and I still have pictures of me after my first landing.

But more than the building and flying, the learning to love the smell of castor oil and to tolerate the sharp smell of fresh butyrate--here's what really set these two lovely girls apart:  They taught a bunch of us youngsters about responsible credit.  They'd sell you a model, an engine, finishing and flying products and gear, and they'd allow you the use of their model room, and all their experience and expertise--all at $2.00 down, and $2.00 a week.  You had to make payments by every Friday, and if you missed a week, you couldn't build until you caught up--no interest, no penalties.  But the finished model stayed in the shop until you paid up.

These girls had serious cajones.  They settled in a small, conservative farming community in the 1950's--lived together, drove Harleys in their spare time, and made no excuses for their, let's say "unconventional" lifestyle.

Roll forward to 1980--My brother and I enlisted my wife to launch our Voodo and Spectrum, respectively, out at the high school.  Elinor was not in town that weekend.  Geneva heard the unmuffled Fox .36 x, and came out to watch the (pretty amateur) combat--really more like rat racing . . .

Geneva was pretty impressed with the consistency of the run with the pen bladder setup on my Voodoo.  she lamented her inability to handle the dizziness she expeienced as she'd aged, but speculated that with the way the Voodoo behaved with that engine, why would she need to circle?  So I replaced the 60' lines with my never-before-used 70' "Perfect" .018 seven strands.  My brother cranked up the Voodoo, I got it in the air, and Geneva jogged out, took the handle, and spent the next three minutes on loops, eights, and outside loops.  she only went around three, maybe four times.  When I rolled up the lines, there was only one twist.  Geneva always kept track of her loops vs. outside loops.

These ladies sdeserve a plaque.

Al Whitehurst
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Art Schmitt on June 11, 2022, 10:28:54 AM
STANDARD HOBBIES - Lodi and Stockton, California. The owner was a control line and r/c flier. He opened in 1970 and retired about 2000. I first went in when I was just a baby and would often stare at the kits after kits after kits. There was a stack of 1/2a kits, a stack of profile kits, then a couple built ups kits, like the SIG CHIPMUNK and the GIESEKE NOBLER. The rest of the kits were r/c, but that was okay too.

The ceiling was filled with enough models to spend a week staring at. I'd even get the discard catalogs and pretend I was flying all the planes.  That even became my first job, working at STANDARD HOBBIES till my twenties when Lanny retired and sold it all. Did I mention he was my dad?

During college I ventured into SHELDON HOBBIES in San Jose. My roommate showed up with a box of .049s from his grandpa and we grabbed a little kit at Sheldon's when it was still a true model shop (it's mostly cars and weird stuff now but still has some good hardware). That was my first time grabbing a handle since I was 5 and my first time having no trouble at all flying.

Now I enjoy R/C COUNTRY in Sacramento. R/C Country is a true hobby shop and yes it's still there. His control line section is adequate, but his rows of hardware are fantastic. Great employees who all fly (r/c) and know how to build.

Sheldon's got a LOT of my paycheck in the 90's! It's too bad they couldn't sell OS engines.
How about P.E.C hobbies in (Mountain View?) or San Antonino Hobbies "up the street" in San Antonino?
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: George Fruhling on August 09, 2022, 09:39:21 PM
In the 1970's the hobby shop on base, at Naval Air Station Memphis, "NAS Memphis" in Millington TN always dad a great selection of control line models and engines. Same with balsa and hardware for scratch building.  Great prices AND no sales tax. And right outside was the flying circle. Just don't try flying with 70 foot lines.  A certain tree got a bit too large for that.  But there was a nice, 6 foot diameter concrete pad in the center. 

Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Robert Zambelli on May 29, 2023, 04:49:47 PM
For me, the start was Thompson's Sporting Goods and Hobbies, on North Seventh St in my hometown, Vineland, NJ.
I started going there in the early 50s and got to know the owner, Mrs Thompson, quite well.
A section of the store was dedicated to model aircraft and she had an incredible display of model kits, mostly Sterling (Vineland was around 30 miles south of Philadelphia) and PDQ (in the neighboring town of Millville). She even had some speed kits - Hell Razors and Speedwagons.
One time she made me a special offer: Since glow was "in" and spark was "out", she showed me a shoebox FULL of spark coils and Champion spark plugs, telling me I could have them FOR FREE. No, I didn't take them. Young and stupid, I guess. I was around eight years old.
We moved to the Buffalo area in 1954 and I never saw the hobby shop again   :'(.  I'm sure it's long gone.
But then we found Burd's Hobby shop on Delaware ave, in Tonawanda, NY. But, that's a story for another time.

Bob Z.
Title: Re: MEMORIES OF YOUR FIRST HOBBY SHOP that led to your ADDICTION?
Post by: Robert Whitley on May 29, 2023, 10:41:28 PM
Moro-Craft in Edmonton, Alberta.
1/24&HO slot car tracks and all kinds of model airplane supplies but not much that was really modern for the day. (Early ‘70s)
R&M Hobbies which had awesome quality balsa and locally brewed fuel. They always had a really good selection of modern engines, kits and hardware.
Another really good shop was Northern Hobbies but I never went there very often since it was quite a ways across the city for me to get to.
Later another good hobby shop called Sunflight Hobbies opened. It too was pretty good.
Of course most of the owners and staff in all these shops were model builders themselves.

All are long gone and we now have Great Hobbies and Wholesale Hobbies both of which have helpful staff but not much for controlline. They both are generous with gift card donations for our annual contest.