One Hobby Shop Less (1/35)

You probably know the story: The local hobby shop you used to go to as a kid or young is closing. Sometimes it can make your modelling life a lot more complicated even though you can have everything you need from online shops. Copenhagen's oldest hobby shop 'Model & Hobby' closed this summer and now leaves the centre of Copenhagen without a proper hobby shop. (There is a War Hammer shop just around the corner from my office, but that is not the same...)

I know that many live far from a hobby shop and will probably find me sort of spoiled when I think it's hard that the nearest hobby shop from where I work is now not 5 minutes away but 15. But now I cannot visit a hobby shop in a lunch break - something I will miss. In the future I will be visiting Stoppel Hobby a lot more on my way home from work.

An image from the now closed hobby shop - a long time before I visited it for the first time. Beside minor details and the kit boxes the shop looked the same when it closed. I even believe the lady behind the counter was the same - just some 40 years older. Scan from 'Danske model- og jernbaneklubber, 1970'.

The shop supplied me with plasticard, wooden profiles, knife blades, landscaping materials and paint for almost 20 years since I began studying (my old department being just a short walk away). The shop was in existence for more than 65 years and closed because the owners wanted to retire - not because me and many other Danish modellers spent too little money there. But the shop hasn´t left without a trace. On the internet there is still a memorial site - and my shelves are full of models that owe their origin to the little shop in central Copenhagen.

Two French army wagons from the first World War built on Pechot bogies. The bodies are home built from wooden profiles from 'Model & Hobby' in Copenhagen and painted with Vallejo paints bought from the same shop.