Sunday, March 27, 2011

A Model Sale

Yesterday morning I headed out on a mission with a friend to acquire a Hyde Park radio.  Hyde Park beer was made here in St. Louis and from what I understand, this radio is a fairly rare promotional item:


My interest in the sale was an old arcade Shuffle Alley bowling game:


Of course, I knew I was dreaming about this.  I figured the price would be too high and where would I put it?  I was right about the price; marked at $800, it was far out of my range.  Alas, the radio was out of my friend's price range as well at $395.  I also believe it was bought by a person in line in front of him, and he was number 4 in line!

This sale reminded me of why I dislike estate sales -- the long lines, the overzealous shoppers, unmarked items, high prices, the rude salespeople.

At any rate, we looked around for quite a while.  My friend ended up taking home a bunch of Missouri license plates dating from 1967 to the 90's for $20.  I found a box of loose model parts.  They were a mixture that screamed 60's -- The Old West and the Space Age.  They had been complete at one time, but had fallen apart over the years.

One of my first garage sale purchases was a model, one of a Navy battleship. I never had the patience to complete a model; I couldn't stand waiting for glue to dry in order to proceed to the next piece. My models generally turned out like this Calvin and Hobbes strip.


 I took them home and reassembled them.  And after all these years, I'm still impatient waiting for glue to dry.




The stagecoach has another horse, but it's currently mending a broken leg.  In real life, they shot horses, in model life, you superglue them.

Friendship 7, piloted by John Glenn



One of the Gemini capsules.  There were 10 missions.  Two of the astronauts from the program, Ed White and Gus Grissom would later die on the Apollo 1 launchpad during a training excercise.


2 comments:

  1. man, you find the best stuff at estate sales. i don't have the patience to put up with them -- they are full of self-entitled pickers, know-it-all antiques dealers, and sellers who claim to have researched it all on "the internet" and it's all worth a jillion, so please pay up and get out of the way of the person behind you.

    BUT... the payout is sometimes oh-so worth it. i mean, those space program models are fantastic! sorry you didn't get the pinball machine (i actually gasped when i first saw the photo, thinking you had scored one, haha), but you're right... where would you put it? the garage? we had to actually convert a closet to what our contractor called "the video game hole" to hold the two uprights we have, and that's not an option most people have...

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  2. Correction, that Hyde Park Beer radio was $495 and it was not bought by anyone by the time we left. The people in line before were indeed interested in it though but I think it was too rich for everyones blood.

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