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Mark Housley
23 articles

Spitfire Mk22 and the curse of eBay

March 5, 2014 · in Aviation · · 16 · 2K

Hi All,
This is my Mk22 New Tooling.

This model was a Dream to build absolutely no problems at all i didn't add anything but paint its straight OOB i built it as bit of a experiment really to firstly see how quickly i could throw one of these together and secondly to see if i could sell it for a descent profit on eVilBay or iDiotBay which ever you prefer the reason being i was getting a bit carried away with my buying kits and other bit and pieces on line and to be honest i was spending to much, but i kept going back just to peruse and see if there was the odd must have bargain or rare old Classic Airframes kit i haven't got ( i collect them god knows why half of them are unbuildable apparently ) anyway one of the things i would see a lot was built up models being sold sometimes fetching quite a good price some of them were very good and some not so good with bits missing and or broken off, so i hit on the idea of if i could build something half descent and looks ok and build it pretty quickly i might be able to make my expensive hobby help to pay for its self so i thought the first one to try would be a Spitfire everybody pretty much loves a spit! dont they so the one in the photos was built and painted and listed on ebay all within two days the photos are the ones used to list the model and you can see where i have been experimenting with the white balance for the best results.

As i mentioned the build was easy not much filler painted with a Tamiya rattle can the paint decanted into the airbrush a couple of coats that dried pretty glossy so on with decals a wash of dark dirt from Flory Models then sprayed with Citadel's Purity Seal great stuff gives a very slight sheen in my opinion just enough to give the impression of a slightly glossy finish i think its quite difficult to emulate a glossy scale finnish especially in 1/72,and so for me less is better.

The Spitfire was listed on a five day auction i listed it at the price i paid for it about £7.00ish
i think sat back and waited for the bids to come thick and fast and sure enough within ten minuets the first bid was on which meant i'd sold it! "YES WHAT A RESULT" but wait then the first guy got outbid within a couple of minuets, bloody hell this is great, and so at the end of the auction it sold for just over four times what i paid for it so my next thought was whats next this is great i get to enjoy doing what i like to do best then pop it on FleaBay and let somebody else enjoy it and i get some my money back with profit to buy the next kit using the money in my PayPal account instead of the Bank account Fantastic.

So the first thing i did was spend my newly gained wealth on a few of the Hobby Boss 1/72 scale kits to see if i could do it all over again and i found i could for the first few then the old die hard habit reared its head i was spending to much time painting and weathering and trying to do a reasonable job and the more i did and as the results were pretty good i found it quite difficult to part with them until i stopped doing it altogether, so i started to sell the kits unbuilt to try to reduce the ridiculously large stash of kits i have the trouble with that is they dont sell for much, a lot less than i expected and a lot less than when built so i may revisit my old idea of building some up and selling them on i just wish i had another one hundred years left in me to try to build what iv stashed all over the house the garage the three different roof spaces i have and a 8'x 10' foot garden shed that i have to pull boxes of models out of the way just to get in and not last but not least the man cave has a few stashed in there for good measure oh and my wardrobes on top and inside under the bed.
one day if i get time i will post some photos of the monster stash if you got this far

Thanks For Reading

Reader reactions:
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14 additional images. Click to enlarge.


16 responses

  1. Very nice work on this Spitfire.

  2. Another good example that a good model doesn't need to be expensive.
    Wait till you sell one & see it at a show under someone else's name.

  3. Some nice work there...especially in that scale. Excellent craftsmanship.

  4. Nice job Mark.
    N.

  5. Like it! Is this the Airfix 1/72 Mark? Looks great in the aged silver finish.

  6. love the panel lines

  7. Good work! New Airfix kits are awesome.

  8. Great build there Mark.
    Nice to see a Spitfire in something other than standard camoflage.
    Well done.

  9. Nice clean build, first photo looks 1:48, great job.

  10. I've seen Marks stash and trust me 100 years isn't enough !.
    N.

  11. Cheers Neil, and ever expanding just ordered HK 1/32 Meteor going up to your favourite shop on sunday if you feel like a trip over to Halifax let me know.

    Regards
    Mark

    • Cheers Mark,but my Sundays usually go like this: Prep the Sunday roast,6-10 mile run,Shower ,Roast chicken dinner- 1/2 bottle of wine, snooze on sofa ,Pub ,Bed, it's a system that works for me, sometimes manage to slip in a bit of "ows yer father" but not so often nowadays.
      I would love to come over sometime for a painting masterclass though, I have a lot to learn.
      N.

      • are you MAD only half a bottle! i wish my sunday went like that mine goes like this open eyes around 10 ish a quick game of hide the sausage,( If Lucky) jump in the shower usually the full English breakfast is waiting at the table with a fresh Coffee mmMMmm dont you just love the smell of freshly ground Coffee in the mid morning! then to the man Cave check my eBay an emails get some modelling done while watching something on the History Chanel dont move till around 5.30/6.00 ish or until the missis shouts me down for Tea a Nice Sunday Roast with all the trimmings a nice bottle of red (luckily the wife doesn't like it,) with the meal followed by a Jam Rolly Polly with lovely thick Custard then help the her load the dishwasher then usually drop of on the sofa and bloody miss the Antiques Road Show again you know she never wakes me up for that i think she does it on purpose and thats my Sunday and days like that my son kinda explain why im 4 stone over weight

        M

  12. toooooooo much info...smile

  13. I Know Bob, But i do enjoy my Sundays 😉

  14. I have to work Sundays! Anyway, it's amazing how you manage to create interesting models from prototypes that have often been modelled all too often.

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