Fine Scale Collector

I've subscribed to a model magazine called Fine Scale Modeler for over a decade. Maybe over two decades. So long that I don't remember how long. In the last year I've noticed a development in the hobby (only the pretentious would call it an "industry") that finally reached its final form on the back cover of the latest FSM.

For a while now so-called "die cast replicas" have been proliferating. They're sort of like models, only you don't actually build them; you just buy them and put them on a shelf (or store them in dry nitrogen if you think that they, like early Star Wars toys, will appreciate in value). Die-cast replicas used to be limited to cars, farm machinery and things like that, but in the last year there has been a literal explosion in die-cast replicas of tanks, aircraft, and even figures.

Fair enough. Some people like collecting things like that, and I have no problem with that. I personally derive no satisfaction from buying a die-cast replica of anything, and on those rare occasions when I do buy "pre-finished models" I tend to take them apart, repaint them, and reassemble them. But I recognize that for some people, collecting might be more fun than actually building.

Anyway, on the back cover of the latest FSM were a bunch of pictures of various pre-finished models. German soldiers, a KFOR Challenger and whatnot. And the text read "Do these things belong in Fine Scale Modeler? ABSOLUTELY!"

To which I reply, ABSOLUTELY THE HELL NOT!

If you want to collect pre-finished models, do so in good health. If you want to read a magazine about collecting pre-finished models, do so in good health. But at least thus far, the M in FSM stands for Modeler, and I see nothing in collecting pre-finished models (or die-cast replicas) that is in any way related to modeling.

What would a Workbench Review of a pre-finished model read like?

I took the F-86 out of the package. I put it on the shelf. It didn't seem centered so I moved it a little to one side. I turned it slightly. My wife asked me to get it out of the living room so I put it back in the package.

If they change the name of the magazine to Fine Scale Collector, then I'd say such things belong in the magazine. But until they do, I'd prefer that such things not appear in the magazine.

I used to think that the Detail Fetish was the most worrying thing in scale modeling. Put simply, the Detail Fetish argues that the quality of a model, or the enjoyment you derive from building it, is directly proportional to how many aftermarket detail sets you bought for it. Hardly a single model appears in FSM's Reader's Gallery without a listing of the aftermaket stuff that went into it - cockpit detail sets, turned aluminum gun barrels, working metal tracks, whatever.

I don't generally buy aftermarket detail sets. I do occasionally buy conversion parts, and I'm a notorious collector of decal sets, but I rarely buy detail sets. It's not that I'm a tightwad, or that I can't afford them. Nor is it that I'm a purist and think that every improvement should be stratchbuilt. (Or maybe I am! I'm not a great scratchbuilder, but there's very little that I won't attempt with sheet styrene, stretched sprue, bits of wire and a punch-and-die set.) I just derive no satisfaction from sticking detail sets in a model, even though my modeling compadres automatically deduct a full point from my modeling GPA because I don't have aftermarket flattened tires on my Lancaster or didn't put photoetched exhaust shrouds on my Tiger (not that I build many Tigers, but that's a subject for a different day).

This used to bug me, and in a way it still does. Since when is the quality of a model, or the pleasure in building it, related strictly to the quantity of detail sets one put into the model? If you like detail sets, for heaven's sake, buy a lot of them and have fun with them. But don't automatically dismiss any model that doesn't have a Cutting Edge cockpit simply because it doesn't have a Cutting Edge cockpit.

But looking back on it, I see the guys who subscribe to the Detail Fetish as being fellow modelers, albeit a type of modeler that I don't really understand and who don't really understand me. But at least they're modelers.

I don't see collectors of pre-finished models as modelers at all. And I think they're slowly taking over "my" magazine.