I'm 70. This gave me heartache. I so miss those days of modeling.

Holy Moly that may be the best collection of vintage kit models I have ever seen. I did not even know that many original sets still existed in that condition. Mike this may be your best video ever and thanks for the shout out, Max

In this world full of chaos, it sure is nice to have a presentation like this available. I sure hope Mike enjoyed filming it at least as much as I enjoyed viewing it. Thanks, Mr. Machat

We were basking in plastic those days...The closest I got to those "multi-sets" was when I once collected a shopping basket's worth of deposit bottles and spent the "loot" on 5 separate small Lindbergh kits for 94 cents

I can’t even imagine how much excitement it must of been to hold, admire, and build these beauty’s back in the day. I grew up on Monogram white box kits, and that was exciting enough! Thanks for sharing. 👍🏻

A very nice collection of some great model kits in sets. Great stuff.

What a stunning trip in your time machine! The box art drew is in just like a hard cover book's dust cover or the cover of a paperback book. As grade schooler in the mid to late 1950s, my parents gifted me with plastic models. I could never build and finish them as nicely as the planes on the box covers, but boy oh boy, did I try! What a treat it was just to open the box! A model kit was done in a single evening with parental help. Dad would help me build them and my mother would do the detail painting. It took me several years to master the technique of applying tube glue. At age 71, I am still building plastic model kits. I switched from aircraft to automobiles in the late 1980s. What a fun ride it has been. Thank you Mike for bringing back such wonderful memories!

As a kid I had three reasons to buy and build model assembly kits: 1) the dramatic box art. They were truly one-picture graphic adventure novels 2) the technical and operational specs in the manual, sometimes also on the side of the box. We had no Wikipedia in those days and aviation books in the library were rare and dated. 3) assembling the contents. Due to having younger brothers who refused to understand that the models I had painfully assembled and painted were not supposed to be able to actually fly, float, crash or withstand fire, I had many years more fun of the boxes and the instruction sheets than of any the assemblies themselves.

Thanks, Mike, for the trip down memory lane. I built a few of these kits indivdually, but never had the gift sets.

What a fantastic sight to see all those rare gift sets together! This video gave me goosebumps! Really fun video to watch. Super cool!

Wow, what an episode! I don't remember ever seeing these sets in any store, if I had as a kid I would have lost my mind at an earlier age. Must have had all these kits separately with maybe two or three exceptions. I noticed the F-102 kit has the earlier short vertical tail. Thanks and I can't wait for more...MODEL ON!

I've often thought, and it's reinforced by this video, that I was born too late. I was born in '67, a generation too late. I sure enjoy your reminisces of the model kits you had available when you were young, as well as all of your excellent videos. Thanks for all you do!

What an absolutely beautiful video! Yes, by the way thanks to you I am a dedicated Max's Models glue trooper! I never got to build one of those gift sets. Growing up they were just out of our price range. I did get to build many of the kits one at a time in the same scale. I built in the early to mid 60's, so glue and paint were separate. I know the feeling of sitting at the kitchen table at my grandparents house all weekend with glue, kit, and newspaper! What wonderful days those were! Box art, as was in my childhood, off the charts! Love your work as well! As always God bless you and yours and thanks again for all you do! Take care always!

Great video Mike! A collectable does not have to be perfect. I often buy broken, incomplete, modified, or worn collectables. I am just as happy as if they were "mint".

WOW, WOW, WOW. Thank you for a look back. As a kid back then I would have gone bonkers over those sets. I do not remember ever seeing one in Canada. Probably not stocked by the small stores because of price. US hobby kit prices here were higher than the exchange rate because of import duties and taxes. I remember 2 dollar U.S. kits costing $ 3.20 Canadian when the USD was worth $ 1.10 to us. Prices would have been way outside of my parents budget and my allowance. I remember building a few of the smaller planes contained in those sets. I do remember seeing a few Lindberg 2 aircraft lots.

Excellent presentation Mike! Thank you for sharing the history of these incredible kits.

Great video. Thanks for showing some love for vintage model gift sets. Keep 'em coming.

Thanks Mike. I wasn’t a model maker but my brother was. He was a bit of a ‘Wild Child’ but those models really settled him down. Ford Mustangs with working steering and suspension. I remember a set of three different plastic files he used, each with a somewhat different use. Modelling really brought out a side of him we didn’t often see and it did him a world of good. Thanks again.

Great video Mike. The gift sets were very special models indeed. Not very common, even when in production, and usually given as gifts from parents or other grown-ups on birthdays or holidays. Due to the higher cost of a gift set, most of us would buy a single kit with our meager allowance or lawn mowing money, so receiving one of these modeling gems was a real treat. I remember getting as a gift, the Revell Sky Squadron set. The unusual olive color of the B-24 Liberator really attracted me to that model, and it was the first one in the set that I built. Wonderful memories.

This was epic!!! Memories flood back about the joy of model making in my youth (although not with these kits especially) I was born in Australia in 1970... and I have a few memories of some of these kits from magazines and such, but I also recall in the early 1980's other kit sets like this from other manufactures suited for Australia. Overall this episode was awesome, and if these kits were available today, I would buy some AND make them all. I am 52 years old, live in Tokyo, Japan, and when time allows, I still make kits. I have a stash of abotu 15 - 20 aircraft and weapon systems... and love looking/watching about model aircraft plastic kits of all eras, but especially pre-1980's.

Thanks for posting your excellent video which you featured all those amazing model kit gift sets from the 1950's! It would really be something if some or even all of these gift sets could be or even would be reissued in the future!

Great job. Helena

Thanks Mike. My very first model (in the 1950s) was a Revell F-104, which started by boyhood love of model building. Later, in my 20’s, a coworker who was a mold maker, had worked for Revell in the 50s and 60s.

Another great trip in your styrene time machine! Although your channel is primarily concerned with aviation topics, I much appreciated your showing some of the naval model gifts sets that were also available during those years. As the son/grandson of US Navy and merchant marine veterans, I was naturally more drawn to those subjects as a child. With a weekly allowance of only 25 cents during the late 1950's, the self control needed to amass the princely sum of $4.98 for one of those combo sets was beyond me. As you correctly noted, for this 10-year old those were attainable only as gifts from loving relatives!

Amazing collection, Mike!

Thank you ever so much. This was another great video!! Take care and God bless.

Where I grew up, never ever saw these kits in any store. Yes I missed a lot back then.

The last one should be called, "Let's Take an Expensive Trip". Nothing but high end on that box top. 😎 Great stuff.

I really enjoyed this video. Brought back a lot of memories. Thanks!

Wow! Somehow missed each of these in my abused early teen life. I did have an Air Power set(each plane in the same scale fromT-33 to B-52) and a set of guided missiles(again all in scale) which contained such as the Dart(AT weapon)up to the SM-65 Atlas ICBM. These may have been from Monogram...terrific all the same. Thanks for another of your superb presentations, Mike!

Great trip down memory lane, Mike! I recall the "collection" boxes and recall building each one of the indivisual kits at $.89 or $.98 ($9.34 and $10.28 today). The box sets would at $3.95 and $4.95 would be $41.44 and $51.93 respectively... Truly a bargain!

I very seldom screen shot KZfaq videos but I find myself doing it constantly with the content on this channel - so many great photos and illustrations that you just otherwise would never have seen.

Holy Cow Mike! You should have an armed security guard with you for that priceless rare collection of gift sets!

Thank you for sharing, that's so awesome!

Here in Australia I never saw these multiple AC kits, man what a present that would've been for Birthday or Christmas.

Love everything in this video

Those were the great days of modeling.

Made some of them as single kits, they ooze charisma , the box art is amazing ,some of the kits we're iffy especially the skyrocket

For me, while it was past the 1950s, I would love to see a focus on the real space kits of the 1960s, which was the era where Revell transitioned from box scale with the Mercury Atlas to the constant scale kits like the Mercury/Gemini set, the big Gemini and even the Apollo stuff in 1/48 and 1/96. The big gift sets were the Apollo CSM,/LM and LEM garage combo, plus the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo set (even if the box art wasn't so hot). And of course no discussion would be complete without the 1/96 Saturn V kit.

These kind of kits need to be brought back.

Mike, AWESOME !

Back around 1972 I had the blue angel's set of four F4 phantoms in one kit...wish I still had it

I remember all of these gift sets. Could not afford them though. Christmas was the only time my brother and I could hope to get these things. I always thought the CBS Air Power box art was one of the best an most memorable box tops from Revell.

It must have been an amazing time to grow up. The artwork alone would make them worthy of acquiring to a collector. Me being Born in 79, growing up in the 80s the “Big, Bad and Beautiful” lineup from Monogram were my most memorable of childhood model builds. And they could be had at my local Raleys supermarket in Sacramento of all places! My father built the B-36 for me and I struggled to assemble the B-52 when I was around 8 or 9, using brown packing tape to hold everything together as the glue set. I built no less than 3 of those BUFFs and still have one from my childhood that survived. Other behemoths like Revell’s 1:48 B-29 and 1:48 B-1 also made their ways onto my bedroom ceiling as a kid. Lastly there was Testors w their 1:48 AC-130 and SR-71 which I also built as a kid. Of course I’ve got all the kits now in my stash waiting for a rainy day to build them again. Finding a place to display them, well that’s something I’ve yet to figure out!

I remember building the Comet "Squadron Of Six" box set when I was a kid. It was a birthday present from my grandparent's, if I remember correctly. It was a fun build for a seven-year old, but I do remember that I only put them together without painting them, (can you imagine how accurate a seven-year old's skill would be?), and then put them on my book shelves to look pretty. They lasted a week or so before I just HAD to play with them. (I'm pretty sure that I invented "Death Ray" beams for my fighters as I was into science fiction at the time, (and still am, in fact), and these were the days before actual "Lasers" had been created. I watched all of those Buck Rogers serials on our Zenith Black & White TV, as well as any other films on Saturday afternoons until they changed to late Saturday nights, after the late-night news.

Great show Mike! Those kits are older than I am. Barely.

Thanks for the great presentation, Mike !! As a kid, I could never afford those big, beautiful gift sets, but I sure bought my share of individual kits. I was a Revelle man (or should I say 'boy'?), but built a few kits from other brands, as well.

Loved this style of video Mike! I hope to see more in the future. I find the fact that there were all sorts of exotic scales funny, considering the uniformity of models nowadays.

As a kid in the 80's I found a whole collection of completed models at a yard sale. Fighters and bombers of the Navy and Air Force, and even some foreign aircraft. I added a Phantom and a few others I had completed. Using fishing line they hung from my bedroom ceiling for a very long time, in various states of flight. Fun Stuff. Thanks for sharing and sparking those memories!

Another great presentation Mike. Thank you for highlighting Revell’s habit of making everything in their “One to fit the box” scale. We should recognise that these kits were produced primarily as toys. As such, they weren’t meant to last. That these kits and sets have lasted for nearly 70 years is a great testament to the restraint of their owners. I’m sure I would have built everything - it might have taken me longer than a weekend - but I would have enjoyed them too. Obviously, a few folk enjoyed looking at the parts in their boxes. Thanks to them (and you) we can ALL enjoy them again on KZfaq.

Amazing grouping of kit sets to say the least! How did you manage to source so many exceptional examples?

This brings back some great memories! - yes would have been more accurate for the SAC kit to have a B-50 instead of B-29 but the B-29 was the main SAC bomber in the early days from 1946-1948.

B 47,my first model with the help of my Dad in the early 60's.

I built some of the first revell kits in the late fifties, here in south africa, the very first i completed was the p39. I still have all my koshady box tops, only recently i noticed that the aircobra carried my birthdate 2207!, one aspect of all the modern kits i miss was the ring and ball stand, even today i regret not having bought the b57,f89 and thef94

I remember my parents bought everyone attending my 9th birthday party a model as a gift and they came from the hobby shop shrink wrapped 5 or 6 models all together in a stack. Somewhere there is a photo of my dad holding up two stacks of models. I believe they were all airplanes and all different.

Well I don't go back to the 1950s. But I did spend a good part of the 1980s working on model kits. Have not touched the glue tube in years.

Other model companies even did gift sets. Bachmann did one on birds that included 5 different bird models. They also did one on dogs that had 5 different dog models. Heller did one that had 3 different insects. Superior did one on the 5 senses. Polar Lights had one on the Universal Monsters. I think Revell or Monogram did one on missiles. Gift set were great. Loved getting one when I was a kid. Atlantis has a land-sea-air kit coming out. Don’t know if that counts. Great video.

I don't think I'll watch anymore of your videos featuring model kits. I get too many fond memories watching these vid's, plus I get a bit jealous, ha ha. So many kits featured are either ones I had, or wanted to have. I've never seen the Merchant Fleet kit, looks purty cool

Mike, what a great watch. Believe it or not, but I found the "let's take a trip" at a garage sale years back. I built the set but the box was in really bad shape. Thanks for another fine watch.......

5:00 The B-29 served in the Korean war too as part of the USAF. SAC had been activated in 1946 prior to the Korean war and there were squadrons of B-29s in SAC. They flew in Korea until 1954. You have great programs, I have seen them all, but my dad and I have a combined 38 years in SAC and I couldn't let this one go.

"Collectability is about the history." Amen! Oh, to have a time machine and roll of cash. :D

What a treasure trove! Are they yours Mike? Almost priceless I imagine.

Great video

Very cool. It’s a shame that plastic modeling has fallen out of favor. There were a lot of great kits back in the day.

Nice video👍. I think if I had those gift box sets, I may never want to build the models. I’d just look at and enjoy the box artwork.

It was Monogram that produced an entire fleet of USAF planes (small but to scale) called Air Power. The planes could be suspended by wires extending from a dark blue, square, base. B-52, B-58, KC-135, the century series fighters of the early 1960s. and more. Alas, my edition has bitten the dust long ago. -- Kurt Burgess

Amazing collection Mike! I have heard of the gift sets, but have never seen any of these. Great modelling history.

I was around in the late 1950s, never a fan of "Box Size" kits and usually stayed away from them, I built Airfix as the early kits were all to a constant scale, 1/600 ships, 1/144 Airliners, 1/72 Military aircraft and 1/76 Military Vehicles. Frog the other big model company in the UK at the time also made constant scale kits, 1/96 Airliners 1/72 Military aircraft and 1/500 Ships. More scales were added in later years with their own range of kits.

Wow. How did James get hold of all these amazing works of industrial art?

Not aviation, but I got the Revell G-527 Army Combat Team gift set as a birthday present. With spectacular box top art by Kishady.

These were the ones you wanted as a kid. But, if you were a kid who was less than wealthy, you got the ones from Comet.

Model Making make me love aviation, and of course willing to be a Pilot, I wonder how many Naval Aviators and USAF Pilots, of my generation was recruited thanks to Revell

Fun fact. In Strategic Air Command, Jimmy Stewart flubs and says B 24, what he flew in Europe as opposed to B 29 his character had flown.

Wow ! Trying to keep my upper lip stiff, but impossible when I stare at such a gold mine.

You are the Walter Conkrite of KZfaq Aviation

I would like to see the history of the visible mustang kit

A saunter down the memory cul-de-sac =) We came to the US in 64 and these werent around that much by then (and those that were were expensive for our family at the time). Then again, there was the treasure of a dumpster full of model kits we found one day. But a few years later I did manage to acquire two of the Monogram sets: the missiles/rockets set, and the airpower set. Though not large or repackaged kits as these were, they were pretty good. I still have remnants of them in my spares box. Your collection of vintage kits is impressive! Are you planning on attending Kit Collector's in March?

The F-102 in the last gift set seems to be the earlier version that was not area-ruled. I wonder whether that would have an impact on the value.

Great information about very rare items. Thanks for the video. Are you familiar with collectors that were part of the Kit Collectors Clearinghouse from late 70's into the 90's? Hosted by a gentleman by the name of John Burns.

As a kid, anything with a Douglas prop airliner would get my attention. I remember seeing some of those gift sets and thinking there is no DC anything. Were the paints by Testor? BTW, a history of Testor would be a cool episode. Also, have you lost weight, or is it just the television creating the allusion ?

Excellent video! Weren't the B-29s that flew in combat during the Korean War assigned to SAC? Thanks, Mike!

I had a ceiling full of them when i was a kid.. they was cheap some under a dollar even. can't afford them now lol...

Atlantis Models to the courtesy phone, I say again, Atlantis Models to the courtesy phone to discuss repops…

Where did you ever find all of those? I am sure the majority are in landfills or incinerators now... From the time when models were the hi tech hobby of choice.

Mike, do you still have any of your models you built as a kid, I still have a few of mine. I'll have to finish this tomorrow--bed time.

Mr. Machat did you attend THUD OUT Feb 25 1984 ? I haven't seen many photos and no video.do you know of any?

$4.95 in 1955 was the equivalent of $55.00 in 2022.

Mate l love you shows ,my wife couldn't drag me away from your shows even in full lingerie

not related to the video, but the only an-225 may have been destroyed due to fighting between russians and ukrainians at antonov airport

first