RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

After 33 years Modelmania is closing down, Bryan and Judith who run it are retiring. This is the last of the old world model shops, used to buy model railway goodies there, scenics, plastruct, brass etc. It is quite a famous little place, Noel Edmunds, Jules Holland, Pete Waterman and even the Duke of Gloucester are customers.

We will never see these types of places again.

would like to see some photos of the Place if you/anyone have

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/uv?hl=en& ... oioIkwEwCg

It might not look impressive but it is packed to the rafters inside. The owners travelled all over Europe sourcing rare models etc. Die cast collectors loved it.

I was in there once and an American tourist had caught the train down from London, and a taxi to the shop. He picked up a die cast model and paid for it, then told the owner that this model car was highly sought after, he paid about £50, and then remarked that it was worth hundreds to collectors?? lol

I guess you have to blame the Internet to a degree , where people look for lower prices, rather than pay a bit more for personal service.

It's a vicious circle once the rot sets in; online shopping forces shops out of business, leading to more online shopping and so it goes on. Most of the shops I used to frequent (model shops, camera shops, HiFi, toolshops) have all gone now. There is so little choice for white goods & DIY too, with Currys & B&Q dominating these areas.

I hate going shopping now, the high streets are full of clothes shops, shoe shops, charity shops & not much else

Yup...it's a sad fact that the cost of high street commercial rents and the sheer lack of serious interest is killing off these places.

I had a shop called Jennings up the road from me, which was the same. Shleves piled high with dusty old kits lurking since hte dawn of time. Could spend hours just looking. The guy who ran it knew what I liked ot build, and would show me new releases, and order in stuff on request. Finding old Airfix kits I remembered from childhood....ahhh....

The internet just doesn't have the same feel.

But....how many kids these days are interested in model kits? They lack the patience and the understanding in this instant age where people spend hundreds on a mobile phone to be in constant contact with everything, and then spend hundreds more to buy another device to strap to their wrist to avoid the horrid inconvenience of having to wait while you take the phone out of your pocket to stare at it .... explain to them the joy of spending weeks gluing a tiny plastic tank together so you can put it on a shelf and look at it.

Every time we lose a place like this, the world dies a little.

We hear ya Pak36,I’m 74 years old and just shake my head at the need today of young people’s want of instant gratification!!

I think I was until recently as complacent of the denuding of our High streets as most people that is until "MAPLINS" went bust,
They were pretty much the centre of my R/C World,
I could go into the store and ask anyone in there to point me in the right direction r/c wise and anything I should know about it and the advise was always good,
Also their prices were very fair, I could buy a litre of Acrylic Thinners for less than the price of 250mls of Tamiya's finest.
I shall pay a lot more attention to what we still have in our local High Street in future.

rochesb wrote:It's a vicious circle once the rot sets in; online shopping forces shops out of business, leading to more online shopping and so it goes on. Most of the shops I used to frequent (model shops, camera shops, HiFi, toolshops) have all gone now. There is so little choice for white goods & DIY too, with Currys & B&Q dominating these areas.

I hate going shopping now, the high streets are full of clothes shops, shoe shops, charity shops & not much else

Absolutely agree,wife can’t understand why I have no interest in going shopping at the malls anymore,there’s no shops of interest for guys unless your a cloths hog.

DAMN! That's the type place I would have loved to have visited.