Hello all,

I'm Jon and recently inherited all of my late fathers model kits, I don't intend to build any of the kits, as I have more fun looking at them. I have just over 600 kits in their boxes.

I prefer racing 1/8 & 1/5 nitro,petrol and brushless rc's. A friend recently helped me out with the kits and told me that some of the Airfix kits I have were the early models before they changed their logo, this went over my head as I didn't have a clue what he was on about.

I've written a few of the makers that are on the boxes, but know nothing more and here they are -

Life-Like Hobby Kits
Airfix (Black writing on a white banner with either end folded behind the banner)
Revell (from 1947 onwards)
Pyro (These seem to be all plastic cowboy guns)
Betta Bilda

Their are also a lot of Bi/Tri wing planes, American hotrods, Full size cowboy guns and deringers, Locomotives, Medievil siege weapons, Steam powered cars, boats and traction engines, warships, galleons.

Hope this helps as I'm clueless to it all.

Thanks

Jon

The best way is to calculate the market value. As some of them may be a real rarities not seen on the market any more you can ask your insurer about the policy for "collectors goods". I'm affraid this will require an individual calculation of the each model value. Anyway you will have to give them the market value (value of the average of the buy-sell transactions).

With models there are many variables. Value is determined by original investment and the current demand for certain items by collectors. You can go to e-bay and see what unbuilt kits have sold for what price. For 600 kits this will take a considerable time investment on your part. You could contract with a reputatble e-bay seller or specialized website owner to give you a written estimate or handle sales for you (usually they take 25% - 35% of the final sales for their creating and posting the ad.)

For insurance or tax purposes they will usually take an estimated cost of the collection but it has to be based on original prices not collector prices. If there is a catastrophic disaster that destroys the collection you will need inventory & photo evidence of its undamaged existence. That means generally that each kit contents will have to be inventoried and cataloged. It will be easier if your dad kept a record of his exenditures. By the way many of the companies you listed are out of business.

To get a general idea of the original costs take a look at the end panel of the box. usually you will see a set of numbers like H278 - 100. The first set of letters & numbers is the company catalog identity after the hyphen the njumbers represent the MSRP . So in this case it was a dollar. This is generally acceptable for kits up through the mid- 1970's. I buy and sell kits all the time on my website so I feel like I have given you the best info on a subject I am familar with.

Good Luck.