Stash versus Collection

One of the running themes of this blog -- if I can call it a running theme since I am bad about posting -- is the fact that I rarely get anything finished. I continue to purchase more kits, photo-etched sheets, conversion sets, decals, and odds-and-ends at an unknown rate (probably 10 times faster than I build). So I have what I call a stash (of 2,500 plus kits.) The closet is full and I have had to rent space at a storage facility to house overflow. But this is NOT a kit collection. That has a connotation to me of something bought and hoarded for it's monetary worth. No, mine is a stash. A stash is just an overage of kits that a modeler plans on building. And I plan on building them all.

The July issue of FineScale Modeler has a "Guest" Editorial on this subject. The point the author makes that I liked was his use of the term "mind-modeling". This is what separates a stash from a collection. Mind-modeling is where one takes a kit, opens it up, and looks through it. This is where one looks at the instructions and starts planning what they are going to do with the kit. How one is going to build it. How one is going to paint it. Sound familiar? I know I do that a lot. That's why the cellophane is off most of my kits. So I can fondle the styrene and dream.

If you haven't read the editorial buy or borrow the July issue.

Remember, it is better to have entered a model contest and lost than to have collected stamps.