What is your oldest unbuilt kit?

[Walter Clot]

I have two Bowser kits that someone gave me five years ago. They had them about 15 years. That might not count. I have 6 or 7 Yardmaster kits that I've had for 8 to 10 months. I also have an Ulrich track cleaning car about 15 years old.
I started this without reading the previous posts, but just read them. I now feel like I'm really on top of things!

[Anonymous]

I have a lot of the Trains Miniture box cars from the late 60's that are still in the box as new.

Boy, I really needed those cars!!

[decoy706]

Really old Athearn metal kits for assorted cars in orginal boxes(25-30) from the 50's I think and my favorite the Athearn "cereal" give-away passenger cars in the boxes and the Black Widow GP9 in the Black Widow boxes
just waiting for a train show to haul this stuff too I'll never get to it.......

[pedromorgan]

i have a kitmaster stirling single from the 60's. i got it because the stirling single is my favorate loco of all time. but when i eventually payed collectors prices for the kit i cant bring myself to make it. i even have the gibson wheels for it and a mashina motor ready. but i just cant.

Peter

[canazar]

No rolling stock, but I have some Campbell wood strucre kits that go back to the late 50's I believe. I have thought about putting them together, but.... I gues i cant now.. Mean too much to me the way they are.

[Anonymous]

Hey, i think you are wasting your kits not using them, go on put em' together.

alexander

p.s. the only kits i have are lifelike building kits, and i am lucky to have them.

[umtrr-author]

I have some Intermountain N Scale freight car kits that moved to my present house ten years ago, so they are at least that old. I have structure kits that are perhaps older than that.

I purchased a couple of Athearn blue box kits from an LHS that are in the 1.99 price range, so they might count also.

[GAPPLEG]

Got an old Suydam metal factory kit, still in origional box. Don't know if I'll ever build it, soldering all the joints together is such a bother.[B)]

[fwright]

Unbuilt - does that include started but never finished?

In the old haven't started yet (but bought new by me):

Ulrich Overton passenger coach
Central Valley box car

In the started but not finished (still bought new by me):

Silver Streak drovers caboose
Ulrich Overton combine

My first kit - completed for the Boy Scout Railroading merit badge - was a Silver Streak 50ft mechanical reefer (plastic). Since disappeared in my many moves along with my Kadee logging caboose (no plastic version).

modeling with way too much accuracy the OF&S (Old, Fat and Slow)
Fred W

[rolleiman]

It's been so long since I bought it, I don't remember [:D]..

Probably the oldest kit I have is the model masterpieces colorado roundhouse (with additional stalls). Probably won't get built either (hint hint)..

[Walter Clot]

[:)]We need to get together and have a swap meet. [;)] Then in 10 or 20 years we can have another and get all our own unbuilt stuff back again![:o)]

[Bill54]

I have a Heljan building and a Vollmer building in original boxes with instructions (in German), that were found by my brother in law while emptying a office building he was about to paint. There are 4 buildings in all, two from another manufacturer. They were amongst several original boxes of Marklin track, power packs, turnouts and other peripherals. I have no clue how old they are, probably 10 years or more. I just got these 2 weeks ago.

When I get to the point where I’m constructing buildings I’ll try to put them together. Should be fun with the German instructions!

Bill

[n2mopac]

I have a MoPac HO scale flatcar kit that is 10 years old. I bought it just before making the jump from HO to N scale. I've been thinking about putting it and a couple dozen other HO scale items, mostly MoPac stuff, on Ebay--keeping only what HO stuff I run around the Christmas tree--but I haven't gotten around to it. Maybe in another 10 years. [:)]

Ron

[jeffrey-wimberly]

An Atlas signal bridge and interlocking tower combination I bought in '83, and no, it's not for sale.

[loathar]

It was a Tyco Mantua heavy Mike from the mid 70's. I bought it a year ago and built it this past winter. It was my first kit loco and I'm very happy with how it turned out.
I recently won some Accurail car hauler kits off E-Bay from the mid 80's. Hope they turn out as well....

[nyc4me]

ambroid gn caboose kit, monogram hudson, monogram miller t6.

[radio2]

Lets see, A Magnuson merchants row kit in N given to me as a Christmas gift back in the 70's ( its going to be built soon for the new layout ) and a few more I'd have to dig out of storage to identify.[:D]

[StillGrande]

I have a Star Hobbies wooden oil derrick set, still in the box with the templates and stamped metal ladders. Picked it up in the bottom of a box at a live auction. Came with some old wood car kits (with paper sides) which I later sold on ebay. Paid for the whole box. The derrick dates back to the 50's on the instructions.

[SPFan]

I have some of those metal Athearn kits from the '50s. I have built dozens of craftsman kits, Ambroid, old Walthers, etc but found the Athearns to be the most difficult and I am not new to soldering. So, one built, two yet be.

Pete

[rrebell]

i think i have that derick kit also, also some ayres kits that became campbell and other companys, would like to know full story of that?????

[Tilden]

Funny you should ask, I was just checking the "hobby shop under he layout" the other night for bridges.  Found I have several Campbell kits unbuilt, both single and double track truss bridges as well and a Suydam electronics plant and even a Campbell pine tree kit.  All from at least the seventies.  Funny how time slips by while your busy living.

[Colonial Beach]

I have a pre-WWII Megow tank car kit.  No casting, just wood turnings , strip wood and a printed paper wraper.  The most interesting part is a tiny bottle of black paint with a cork stopper.

[cjcrescent]

I have a Varney Pullman, wooden body, metal detail parts and three layers of paper sides. These are to be glued together, along with the window acetate to form a "flat, warp free, side". The date on the instruction are 1956.

I also have a Megow hopper kit from 1939. The sides in it are simple lithographs with NO impressed detail like rivets, just a total black and white paper print.

[Texas Zepher]

Hey, i think you are wasting your kits not using them, go on put em' together.

The years teach much which the days never knew.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson    Some things are better respected than used.

[CNJ831]

Two late 1940's Laconia Mathieson Dry Ice Reefers...still in the box. Truly unique rolling stock...I really have to get to building them before I pass on!

CNJ831

[Anonymous]

My oldest unbuilt kit - which also happens to be my oldest never-been-opened kit - is a Lobaugh O-Scale reefer kit which dates from the late '50s, early '60s era.  Rollin J. Lobaugh quit the model railroad hobby ABOUT the time I got started in 1962.

I did not buy this - it was given to me by the owners of the funeral home which handled my grandmother's funeral arrangements in December of 1990; the original owner of this particular funeral home (which is in Rigby, Idaho, by the way) had had an O-Scale layout in the basement and I had heard about it from both my grandmother and my in-laws several times so I took the opportunity to inquire of the new owners (the original owner's sons) if it would be possible for me to see the layout if it still existed; it did and they were thrilled to death and to thank me for my interest in their late father's hobby they gave me this unopened kit.

I'm an N-Scaler so its rather unusual for me to have an O-Scale kit in my possession; but this will get built and become a display item in my railroad room.  NOTE: these kits are "less t/c" which is why I've never opened up the box to even look at it.

[jerryl]

This is really not a response to what you asked, but I just completed my oldest kit. It was a LaBelle wooden kit for a refrigerator car.. really have to hand it to those oldtimers that assembled these kits routienly. No wonder they didn't have as much rolling stock as we do. The kit was probably 35 yrs.old.

[bnonut]

I have a few oldies and believe the oldest might be an old Lobaugh or Alexander kit.

The old kits make really nice additions to the rolling stock.

[tatans]

Strange question? ? What could possibly be the reason anyone would buy a kit and NOT assemble it ? ?  This completely baffles me, please, someone out there explain the reason for buying something meant to be assembled and then put it on a shelf, what's the reasoning?   thanks

[IRONROOSTER]

Strange question? ? What could possibly be the reason anyone would buy a kit and NOT assemble it ? ?  This completely baffles me, please, someone out there explain the reason for buying something meant to be assembled and then put it on a shelf, what's the reasoning?   thanks

Well most of mine were bought with the intent of assembling them. Reasons they aren't

1.   Many that I bought when I was in HO didn't get built because the kids started coming which took a lot of my free time.

2.  Then I switched scales to O and then to S.  So I have a lot of HO and O kits that didn't get built. 

3.  Now that the kids are grown, I find that I have some extra money so I have bought ahead so to speak.

4.  A lot of kits are limited edition so you buy when they are available.  Some of my old kits are advertised at 5 to 10 times what I paid for them.

5.  Then there are a couple of Athearn blue box kits I bought just for nostalgia when it looked like they night disappear.

But once I retire in a few years I hope to catch up.

Enjoy
Paul (who's real hobby is collecting kits )