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What sort of collector are you?

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There are different types of collectors I’m presuming, one kind that collect a very specific type of kit and others that want a large variety of kits.

Being a child in the 80’s, having a King Cab with limited spares and budget made me decide to only collect a very specific type of kit, it’s reassuring to me that I have spares and can keep them going if I stick to the WR-02 / GF-01 platform, a modern kit with lots of spares and parts.

What sort of collector are you and why? 

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I was born in the late 70's and had my first Tamiya (Boomerang) followed by a Midnight Pumpkin a year or so later. Then I started racing 10th 2wd for 15 years and moved away from Tamiya. I came back in 2005 with a Lunchbox. Like most people on here I have fond memories of thumbing through the Tamiya catalogue looking at all the kits I couldn't afford. These days, I have a vintage Boomerang runner for nostalgia, and the rest of my dozen or so Tamiyas are all runners. I'm not a fan of shelf queens. I think even if parts for a particular car are scarce, they should still be run. If they get broken and no spares are available, then it should go on the shelf.

So, I now enjoy the new Tamiya releases. Particularly the wheelies. And like yourself, I try to stick the vehicles with the most spares back up.

For me the enjoyment comes from running them.

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I think my collection is complete and its modest compared to most. Its made up of some bashers (TT02Bs) for anyone to have a go, some rere's which cover off the ones I wanted as a kid and then the race cars, which aren't really a collection as they can be replaced.

I just have 1 from each type, so a Top Force covers off the Manta Ray and Dirt Thrasher as well, and a Super Astute for the Madcap and Saint Dragon, Boomerang for the hitshot series etc. All are runners, or if they don't run its usually because I haven't got around to fixing them rather than they will never run. Except the Boomerang, that is always the donor and never seems to have all the electrics.

The race cars feel replacable, except the TA07 and TRF102, I don't want to sell those. I had no problem selling the Kyosho buggies though. I probably won't want to sell the HB D418 ever though, that car is amazing.

Now I would like to build some more cars, but probably onroad and modern, a TB05, TRF420 etc. One day...

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My mates had Tamiyas in the mid 80’s as teenagers, but I couldn’t afford them. As soon as I was able to I started buying and building, mostly on-road. I have an electic collection of NIBs from Porsche 956 though various re-res and more modern on roads. I’ve got more into off road of late and have built more of anything in the last 3 months that in the last 20 years! 

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Even though I wasn't born in the golden era of Tamiya and R/C in general, I still enjoy buying and running all of my cars. I started with a Traxxas Slash that I still have, and my first Tamiya was a lunchbox followed by a CC-01, TT-02 and a Bigwig. I also have some boats and aircraft, but the cars get used the most. I pretty much just buy what kits look fun to have and have a decent amount of parts support and hop-ups. 

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One of the things that fascinates me about the hobby in general and Tamiya specifically is how the designs have developed over the years, so I like the idea of collecting series of chassis. For example, my M-fleet consists of an M-03, M-04, M-05, M-06, M-07 and the first few parts for an M-08. I have the DT-01, DT-02 and DT-03 buggies, and so forth.

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Erm, a bit of everything, the chassis list goes something like:

DF01 (Manta Ray)

DF02 (Plasma Edge)

Falcon (Blitzer Beetle)

M06 (Lowride Pumpkin)

ORV (Monster Beetle)

CW01 (Lunch Box & Pumpkin)

TA03F (Subaru Impreza)

TA05IFS (Willcon Advan Vemac)

TL01 (Alfa Romeo 155 Bosch)

TT01E (Nissan GTR, but getting a Subaru NBR shell)

WR-01 (Double Blaze)

All bar the Manta Ray (had it as a kid) and the Lowride Pumpkin (bought recently) have been ebay fodder. Especially with the older cars I've enjoyed fixing them up.

I think I'm done now.. well.. maybe. I'd lke an original Blackfoot. I have a few shells I'd like to do for the on road cars (almost all need one..). I guess I don't have a high end buggy, but Egress/Avante are silly money, I'd probably go buy a Schumacher cat or similar instead.

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In my early days in the hobby I wanted to try a wide variety of chassis and bought kits accordingly.  Then I went through a phase of bargain hunting watching for deep discounts or closeout specials.  Now I'm more selective and pull the trigger only if the kit has a body I like.  My collection is skewed more towards on-road touring and pan cars with a small variety of off-road thrown in.

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Like many I was a Tamiya kid in the 80s, with a little bit of Kyosho thrown in.  I had a Blackfoot, astute, and fire dragon, my brother had a hornet and a turbo optima mid se.  Now, I have rebought a blackfoot, soon to buy a super astute, and I have a plasma edge II as a basher, and for others I am just going to buy what interests me.  I bought a tt-02 subaru 99 WRC because I was/is a huge Subaru rally fan and thought having an RC model of my favorite Subaru design would be fun.  I bought a racing fighter for my son and a manta ray for my daughter.  I am building a Top Force now to run with them.  A Novafox from Tamico just arrived yesterday and if I build it, it won't be for quite a while.  I am all over the place as far as chassis and none are or will be shelf queens.  My body work isn't good enough to justify that and I do enjoy running them occasionally and with the kids.

In the next year or so I'd like to get a Boomerang, Super Hotshot, an SRB chassis car, and possibly an Egress.  For some reason I have absolutely no interest in Hornets, Grasshoppers, or Frogs, although I love the blackfoot.  I could be talked into a Brat because of the Subaru ties.

I love building them more than running them, so I will need a steady stream of kits to keep itching that scratch.   

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I’m a buy what I like the look of and can afford to lose kinda person. This is a pastime for me. It’s the Super Champ that got my attention as a kid in the 80’s unfortunately never owned one and missed the 2014 reres. But just thoroughly enjoying what I’m picking up now. Would still love a Super Champ or later Fighting  Buggy in time. I don’t buy with the intention investing or selling down the track, just enjoying what I have and what’s to come. 

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Buggies buggies buggies - it’s what I had as a kid

i can’t cope with road cars as the roads are too lumpy 

however all of mine stay on the shelf 

JJ

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5 minutes ago, Problemchild said:

Buggies buggies buggies - it’s what I had as a kid

i can’t cope with road cars as the roads are too lumpy 

however all of mine stay on the shelf 

JJ

Not a fan of road cars either.  I want to streak up and down the road and then around my yard and over a pile of dirt.  

You don't run any of your cars?  Do they all have electronics and stuff?

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I started "collecting" in the mid 80's. I was in love with what Tamiya was currently producing at the time but also was fascinated with searching for anything on their older, discontinued models. Before the internet, many times I had no idea what some of these vehicles, like the Blazing Blazer for instance, even looked like. I was always the weird little kid digging around in hobby shop back-rooms. While other kids were debating the merits of sticking a Trinity Nuclear Assault motor in their RC10, I was searching for parts/pictures/images of Sand Scorchers or Holiday Buggies. Back then, nobody cared about that stuff. When things got rolling on Ebay in the early 2000s and the re-re program started picking up, my collection grew. I was interested in what Tamiya was currently doing then too. I bought the likes of a DF03 and High Lift along with a Fire Dragon re-re etc.

The collection got too unwieldy. I thought hard about what I truly enjoyed and found more often than not, the new releases left me cold. A good chunk of that was the joy of seeing the cars from the 70's and 80's come to life as I collected them. Watching a Bigwig racing around my backyard last week was a dream come true. A GF01, despite being a clever, fun little vehicle, didn't have then same effect. So I sold off the newer stuff and concentrated on off-road vehicles from the first 100. These are what I studied in the catalogs, drew pictures of constantly and generally obsessed over as a kid. My runners are broken down into various chassis types which I keep a good deal of spares on hand for like Hotshot series, Lunch Boxes, ORV monsters and Clods. I've branched out over the years and have some RC10s and Kyoshos in the collection too. I could care less about value or rarity. Its all down to what I like.

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TLDR: Middle aged reflective gatherer and compulsive buyer with more cash than his 13 year old self!

The longer read...

Only had a brief time into RC as a teenager in the 80’s, quickly getting bored of my Argos Nikko Black Fox getting thrashed by my mates’ Hotshots, Boomerangs and Bigwigs. I’ve always been more into music, and building a vinyl collection kept me busy for the next 30 years!

Fast forward to 2019 and early middle age, and I found the Black Fox in mum and dads loft and remembered those fancy Tamiya machines that I could never have back then, and decided to have a google and see if it was a thing or not.

Blimey, is it ever still a thing!! Not so many kids though...just big ones with more money! Time to exorcise a childhood ghost.

So I started with a re:re Bigwig, loved it, then a boomerang and more recently a DF03. Love the buggy lines, which I think comes more from what we had as kids, as well as their “go anywhere” fun and flexibility 

Late last year I treated myself to some Far East bargains before the world went wrong. I’ve added a Top Force, Super Astute, Nova Fox, Hot Shot, Monster Beetle and Kyosho Javelin, all still to build. Also have an XV01, TT02RR and TT02D ready to go, and the RR will probably be my next build, just to try something different. I’ve spent the last few week going nuts on body shells, rims and paints for those:

XV01: Audi Quattro Rally, Subaru Impreza Rally

TT02RR: Ferrari 458 Challenge 

TT02D: Porsche 934, HPI Shelby 350 GT

Also picked up Porsche 911 GT3 and HPI Ford GT40 shells. I’m enjoying improving my bodywork skills, making replicas of the race cars I loved as a kid and doing it with steadier hands and more patience than I had as a teenager. 

Still on the lookout for a Turbo Optima, and will probably get a more “serious” road car chassis at some point for the GT40 / 911 shells, which will both get Gulf livery. 

So no real rhyme or reason really, a bit of everything as and when money allows! Mainly fully got the building bug, learning new skills and applying patience while loving the hobby and this community. It is definitely a positive influence on mental health in these weird times. 

In terms of the OP’s question, through a previous job I did some work on the psychology of collecting, and I’m a hunter rather than a completer. I love reading all the build threads, learning from what others have learned over the years in terms of the essential mods or hop ups, writing a list of what I need and then trawling the web looking for the right bits, gathering it all together until I have everything I need to start the best-of-all-worlds build. When that hard to find part finally turns up, it’s an awesome buzz!

First and foremost though this is a hobby, so it’s gotta be fun and you can’t take yourself or it too seriously. But, if you’re gonna do it, you may as well do it right.
Right?

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3 minutes ago, Juhunio said:

TLDR: Middle aged reflective gatherer and compulsive buyer with more cash than his 13 year old self!

Darn you just perfectly described me.  It's amazing that car prices haven't really changed in 30 years.  I swear my Fire Dragon was like $139 for Christmas in 1989.  Although the Avante/Egress still seem just out of my reach.  I certainly CAN afford them, but I really shouldn't.

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At the moment I’m building up various kits for different reasons;

• The ultimate one, all the hop-ups bells and whistles

• The everyday runner, nice bearings and sport tuned motor.

• The daughter special, nice bearings for decent runtimes and a 85t motor reducing speed and allowing a bit more go anywhere feel

• Something lodged deep in my young mind of 4-5 was amphibious vehicles, so putting together a mad testbed that would be able to drive on the beach and also take a paddle in the sea, a little like a Schwimmwagen would be a dream, so getting marine grease and external silicone ready for something a little different in the future.

Driving family mad with bits and bobs everywhere, I feel like I’ve found a safe place in these uncertain times and it keeps me busy, skills are certainly improving I feel, never smelt so much thinners! 🤯

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I could write and write all afternoon about this, which I'd better not do because I'm on a deadline (I'm currently waiting for 15 minutes worth of unit tests to run, let's see if I can do this before they're done...)

Right now I'm mostly an "anything and everything" kinda collector.  I have runners, shelfers, vintage, modern, re-re, standard, modified, custom, crazy, fast, slow, drifters, crawlers, buggies, monster trucks, stadium trucks, rally cars, touring cars.  The only thing I can say for sure I don't have is large-scale, small-scale (I have a 1/16 E-Revo VXL but no micro cars), pan car or F1.  Actually I'd like a vintage F1 chassis for racing but I keep finding other things to buy.

As for how it started - well back in the 80s I was (and still am) a car-obsessed nut.  I also loved electronics and mechanics, so RC cars were a dream for me.  Mostly they were just that - I never had a big collection, what I mostly had was second-hand wrecks that spent more time waiting for parts on the 6-week delivery time from Japan than actually being driven around.  My first car (a very much used and abused King Cab) only came with a slow charger and one mistreated NiCd battery, so (allowing for school, homework and dinner) I got in one drive per day.

At the very end of my childhood (arguably my young adulthood, as I was 16), I bought a Kyosho nitro buggy (Sand Master II), which I expected to be streets ahead of the few Tamiyas I'd owned.  In fact is was a bargain-basement parts bin build, and wasn't much better than slapping a nitro motor into a Bear Hawk chassis.  Actually the chassis plate still had the recess in it for a NiCd stick pack.

Anyway, I digress (I said I could write all afternoon about this).

I was away from RC completely until sometime in the mid 00s when I was walking past the same local hobby shop that I used to go in to drool at the cars I couldn't afford, and I saw a Lunchbox in the window.  I remembered it from the box liners in the Mini-4wd truck series.  I didn't have many RC cars but I had a few Mini 4WDs as they were good birthday present fodder.  The box liners always had pictures of the other models, and it was my cousin who told me you could also get bigger ones that there RC.  I remember thinking the Lunchbox was the most epic thing I'd seen and one day I had to have one.

However (I digress) it wasn't the Lunchbox that I bought first, it was the Dark Impact.  In fact if I'd bought the Lunchbox that probably would have been it for me - sold as a high-performance monster truck, but too plasticky, too floppy, very basic and mostly dull build and no fun to drive because it keeps falling over.  In fact a lot like the Mud Blaster I'd bought as my only childhood NIB - I could have and should have bought a buggy, but I was lured in by the low price tag and the big wheels and I bought that lame duck truck with the fragile body, which self-destructed within a few weeks of me finishing it.  I digress.

The Dark Impact was fab.  That early Tamiya floppiness wasn't there.  It had oil shocks, bearings, adjustable suspension arms, an aluminium propshaft, ball diffs...  And it was indestructible.  For completeness (and for that childhood dream experience) I bought a Midnight Pumpkin, which I didn't like, and then I experimented with shortening an M04 to make a Pumpkin Lowrider.  Then I joined Tamiyaclub, met some other like-minded Tamiya enthusiasts, went to some local meets and made some life-long friends.  I realised I wanted a bit of a taste of everything.

In all honesty, in the 15 or so years that have followed since then, not that much has changed.  I am a confirmed RC-obsessed nut.  As a single young adult with rent, high debts and a shared home, I looked on others' collections with envy.  Now my collection is far bigger than it needs to be, but I can never find anything I want to let go of because it all serves a purpose or can be repurposed until it does, I have plenty of disposable income but as a husband, father and full-time employee I have very little disposable time (even now in lockdown, I have one day per week and a couple of evenings to fit in my hobbies and exercise).

I often find myself asking what I like best about the RC lifestyle.  Is it club racing?  Not really.  Sometimes I enjoy going to weekly races but after a couple of months I realise it takes me away from the other things I enjoy, like tinkering in the workshop, or writing music, or writing fiction.  Is it tinkering?  Making custom things?  Building kits from boxes?  Buying hop-ups?  To be honest that's what I love, although usually my calendar doesn't allow time for that.  I have less overall spare time during lockdown, but since I can't go to events, I have more time to sit in the workshop tinkering and coming up with more stuff to make.  I said last year that I should really push myself to learn new things and make more cool stuff, and lockdown is giving me the opportunity to do just that.

To be honest, what I really live for, above all else, is going away to events.  There's nothing I love more than loading up my camper with all the runners I can lay my hands on and driving 4-5 hours across the country to spend a weekend in a field with some other RC nuts.  That might be a general bash, like Tamiya Junkies, it might be vintage buggy or touring racing with Iconic, it might be a Friday night drifting session followed by a Saturday on the lorry layout.  Often these events have no campsite and often it can be cheaper to hole up in a budget hotel than to book one night at a campsite, set up my awning, unload all my stuff so I can fold out the bed in the van, then have to get up early and pack it all away again next morning.  Over the last couple of years I've become something of a frequent hotel stayer.  This is what I'm missing most under lockdown, although the Iconic Revival (2 days of vintage buggy racing) has been moved from the end of July to the beginning of September, so as long as things continue to improve and we don't have any major setbacks on the road to recovery, I hope to get one more long drive and one more weekend in a field full of crazies - even if we can't share spirit bottles and give each other drunken man-hugs like we usually do.

I digress.

That's the real reason I have so many cars.  Well, partly it's because I'm a compulsive hoarder and I can never get rid of anything, but mostly it's because I always want something I can take to whatever event happens to be on.  I'll go vintage touring.  No vintage touring?  I'll go to a vintage buggy meet.  No buggy meets?  I'll go to a truck show.  No truck shows?  I'll go up north to a bash.  No bashes?  I'll go down south to a drift club.  Nothing on anywhere?  I'll call a mate and go trailing in the woods.  This is my life, this is what gets me through the hard times.  Right now, trailing in the woods is just about all we can do - in fact tonight is officially my first bash since lockdown began - I'll be meeting a mate at a local woodland spot to test our rigs over the steep, dusty and above all unnaturally dry ground :)

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well for me its just pure and simple

i buy what i like

i know i will never get from num 1 onwards as funds/space/storage will never allow 

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I generally buy what I like the look of, but I guess that equates to a combination of my teenage rc experiences and my interest in rally and buggy’s. 
 

Without making a huge story I’ll just give a chassis number list instead, you can figure it out from there. 
My introductory chassis the DT01 (fighter buggy rx, first Tamiya at 12yrs old)

TA01, TA02, TA02SW, TA02T, TA03F, FF01, FF02,FF03, TL01, TB01, M03, M04, M05, M06, DT01, DT02, DT02MS, DT03,  DT03T, DF01, DF01 Top Force, DF02, DF03, DF03MS, DB01RR, DB02, Super Astute (re re), Dyna Storm, Dyna Blaster, Fox, Wild One, G601, F201, F104, XV01... 

ummm I think that’s it, I’ve got many multiples of those with varying bodys. I’m trying to cut back, but there is so many chassis types I don’t have... yet... :blink:

I have a few handfuls of traxxas vehicles, a couple of the interesting Kyosho models, a few other random models. You know, stuff we don’t talk about here :P

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Touring cars, just touring cars

And nothing front wheel drive! 

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I’m mainly trying to get the cars I had back in the 80’s which had a hard life back into workable condition

these include

Rough Rider

Boomerang

Porsche 959

Nissan King Cab

 

there were others which came and went such as the lunch box and the monster beetle but the ones above have all been in the loft for 30 years and are now slowly being repaired and restored to runnable 

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I got my first Tamiya RC at about 8 years old, which was a Sand Rover. Don't have it now but generally 'collect'  re-re's of the old vintage kits. I also spend a lot of time building models of kits that just aren't available anywhere (e.g. my 1/10 8ft long War Rig )

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Like many others i got into RC in the eighties, but i my collection is based solely in on the early Tamiya stuff from the early end of the first 100. I am impartial to either on or off road, although for some reason a lot of my stuff is on road. All my models are either NIB, restored or original, but never run. They live a happy life on the shelf where they dont get broken or damaged. I also have a large collection of vintage body sets and nip spares.

My collecting isnt just confined to RC stuff though, my house is full of vintage clocks and machinery, and there is a steam locomotive in the kitchen.....

I used to own an antiques shop, and i run classic cars and have a classic boat. I think i was born 20 years too late...:huh:

J

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6 hours ago, A-Baum said:

Not a fan of road cars either.  I want to streak up and down the road and then around my yard and over a pile of dirt.  

You don't run any of your cars?  Do they all have electronics and stuff?

I have about 20

i run 1 x neo scorcher with 3s brushless

i run 1 x monster beetle nimh brushless

the rest mostly have all electrics (Either sport tuned or brushless, ESC and flysky receivers) and bearings 

JJ

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10 minutes ago, junkmunki said:

and there is a steam locomotive in the kitchen.....

You have to post a picture of this. I take it one of those mini versions that kids can ride on? (But hoping you have a giant kitchen and the Flying Scotsman fits in there)

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