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?

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.

I forgot to mention that the Babe Bee engines for $2.99 at J.C. Penney's was around 1961.

Dave

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

        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,   

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

Art Mays Camera and Hobby ...Bismark N.D.
Ed's Camera Corner.... Portland Or
Strictly RC...Portland Or
RC and More... Portland Or

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.

Jim Easton's Hobby Shop s.e. 92nd and Division in Portland Or. There is a freeway exit there now.

Don

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

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.

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. 

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.

 

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...

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!

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.

Bob!!
DOES SHE STILL HAVE THE ONE THAT YOU WANTED TO HAVE PUBLISHED...or another one showing you and the FLYING HUNT CLAN???

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

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. 

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.

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

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.

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!!

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/