Yep, the hobby can be strange, but saving the box art ain't that strange.
Some of the paintings on the older Hasegawa and ESCI jet kits (Jaguar, RF-101, F-100D come to mind) are beautiful, and unavailable in any other format.
One of the big drawbacks in recent kits, I think, is the trend toward photos of the finished model or the real airplane on the box top. A good painting is a powerful sales draw, and they could still use the box sides for truth-in-marketing.
Frank
FWIW I suggested to Hasegawa that they do a book of their box art but got no response. I guess they are going by the business axiom that your core business is what you do best.
Bill Shuey
I have one landscape format soft cover book of Koike's art work as well as a calendar. I believe there is a deluxe hard cover book as well. His website is:
Some box art is stunning. Especially when you are talking old 1960's art from Revell, Aurora, Airfix. etc. There is some nice stuff today from Hasegawa, Pro-Modeler, Revellogram, etc. Afterall the artwork is the draw that gets you to buy the kit.
I have saved some art with the intentions of cutting a matt for it putting it in a frame and displaying it in gallery style on the hobby room wall. I may not be able to afford an original Stan Stokes or Robert Taylor lithograph but that box art is a nice low cost alternative.
Cheers, Max Bryant
When my workshop was in the garage, I cut out the top of the kit box & thumb-tacked it to the wall. I have since moved into a modeling area in the house but still save some of the more interesting box art. I also saved the kit instructions & filed them away. I still have almost all the instructions to every kit I built in the last 30-35 years. Kind of like leaving a legacy, I think.
Thank you Mister Young!
Bill Shuey
Does anyone else remember Revell's oil painting covers in the 60s. The box tops were textured to give the effect of an oil painting you could frame. I was buying my kits in a store called "Great Eastern Mills" they sold just about everything at reduced cost. I saved all the covers and eventually threw them out after college when I got married and moved into an apartment. They were mostly ships - Coral Sea, John Paul Jones (Destroyer),Thermopalae etc. Must have had a least a dozen.
Some of the 54mm figures intend the box art as a guide - I paste these in a standard lab book along with comments of paint colors etc for future reference.
Val Kraut
Once upon a time I did the same thing. I eventually filled a Monogram B-52 box with them. I gave them away to a friend to sell before I have to move them again. Now I scan the boxart if it's worthy and store it electronically. I've got 3 sitting atop my scanner as I write this.
Bill Banaszak, MFE
I too keep the box tops (and sides, if I deem them worthy). I also file away the instructions.
Don't know what I'm going to do with them.
"Craig" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news: snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net...
No, why strange ?
We are hobby modellers, that is what non-modellers may consider strange and childish ... they (especially the women) call us "old playing kids" ... so be it. So are we.
I started as a child and saved many box covers from that time on, they were too beatiful to throw them away. I still have them, after 30 years, not all, but some 30.
Especially the sailing ship box covers are great. And isn´t it a nice historic remembering, looking at a cover of a kit that is unavailable since loooong ago ?
I think it is just fun !
greetings, Jan
I've kept a few favorite box tops,but not many. And since I like to be different,I save only the painting guide portion of the instructions,in case I want to do any alternate choices in future,on a cheaper kit.
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