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Post by Christian on Apr 18, 2021 21:11:38 GMT 1
It's strange. In the end I always find myself writing these. I would never have imagined writing this one. Marc was my friend. I think we first got to know each other around the turn of the millennium, I don't remember exactly. I didn't know anything at the time and was completely impressed by both his professionalism and his approachability - he might as well have worked for a manufacturer (but he always strictly kept it a hobby) and he patiently endured many a stupid question of mine, like when I wanted to know (more than once) why a manufacturer chose to make one model but not another. He was collaborating extensively with Bob Johnson, Bill Cawthon and the 1-87 Vehicle Club then and you can still find his early news reports in their archives. His contributions to wemo87 (mo87's predecessor (Christoph, where are you?)) are probably lost to the ages, but it was there where he took on a role that would shape our hobby for decades. He knew everyone, spoke to everyone. You'd be hard pressed to find someone in the industry who didn't know Marc. And he used those contacts to everyone's benefit when he moderated between collectors and manufacturers, gently steered commercial-minded industry representatives in the right direction and reported what he learned back to us in his own unmistakable matter-of-fact, but enthusiastic way. His toy fair reports, which became more elaborate with each passing year, were among the best scale model journalism out there, words and photos alike. He was protective of his work. And he had to be, because he was a professional. The one or the other might have caught some flak regarding that, but he never, never meant any harm. More than once I had a chat with him about his all too German directness, knowing that he respected everyone anyway. This became most obvious when you got to know him personally, which was easy - and not so easy. I met him about once a year at the mo87 meeting in Fulda (a convention that he basically invented back in 2003) and a precious few times at toy fairs or swap meets. Wherever he went, he was surrounded by collectors who liked to chat with him and, not wanting to intrude, I would often pace the room a few times before it was my turn to talk to him. He was on this forum, too, back in its heyday, because he very much loved the international aspect and for a time, he was an avid contributor. I encourage you to read some of his old posts, because there is a wealth of information there. Marc died last Thursday, aged 44.Writing a few obituaries over the years I have come to realize that they are not written for the person who has passed on, but the author rather writes them for himself, to reminisce and maybe to illustrate to others why that person was important to him. And I have of course managed to make this in large parts about myself again. So, what I am going to do is go out and find one of those early 90s Herpa Mercedes SL models that Marc was so fond of. And maybe also a Mercedes NG truck with the updated chassis, which he liked to point out as a very rare model, since Herpa was already concentrating on the successor. As a child of the 1970s and 1980s, he experienced our hobby when it was mainstream in Germany. He was especially passionate about Herpa's developments during those times and he kind of stuck with that field of interest, i.e. injection molded plastic models - Herpa High Tech, PC, promotional models, Brekina's "PKW offensive", Ricko, Minichamps, and so on. And while he was never big on resin kits - he wasn't a modeller - he was always interested in well-made artisanal products as well.
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Marc
May 8, 2021 2:05:11 GMT 1
Post by culcune on May 8, 2021 2:05:11 GMT 1
I get very nostalgic in general, and while this forum has seen better days, I got nostalgic at the heartfelt post above. If it was 'Marc S', it said his last post was in 2012. I had joined here in 2008 as 'Hemicuda' but was locked out of my account, and since I was already on proboards as 'Culcune' I rejoined in 2018 as this site was going quieter and quieter. I am a member of one of the Facebook groups, '1/87 Scale Vehicle Models', but am not a big fan of Facebook groups in general. But, there is action there, something I miss here. Not even sure what caused this group to decline, but sad overall that it has dramatically declined and we lost a relatively young member, Marc.
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Post by Christian on May 9, 2021 18:46:00 GMT 1
Well put. To expand on that, I don't think that the decline is really anyone's fault so to speak. This was always a small group and when it encountered a phenomenon that is all over the internet it didn't have an answer, i.e. The sad death of the internet message board. I decided to come back here for the nostalgia, posting about once a week in the hope that someone besides myself might find my ramblings useful, and I will continue to do so. It helps me organize my thoughts and I find it beneficial that anyone can follow discussions at their own pace, unlike maybe on Facebook.
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Marc
May 10, 2021 5:49:06 GMT 1
Post by culcune on May 10, 2021 5:49:06 GMT 1
I don't want to get too off topic, but member Swampdaddy became frustrated at the lack of action here and quit posting a couple months ago. The sad thing is, I will never know where some of the members have gone. In fact, Swampdaddy and another who was posting up to a couple months ago or so, both said the Facebook groups are no good. I much prefer a forum over Facebook because posts seem to come in all kinds of order. Here, you post, and then someone else posts and even answers you, and you know the timeline. Not to mention, other topics get posted, and you can contribute to those. I will make it an effort to check every 2 or 3 days here, and possibly get people from the Facebook group to join. I didn't realize someone had posted in July from the northwestern US, and I just answered him, but did tell him to join the Facebook group, as well.
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Post by Coppas on Apr 8, 2023 18:25:57 GMT 1
This is indeed an old thread and I don’t know if anyone is ever going to read my entry. It is also quite off topic considering the initial post. Nevertheless, since I recently entered and discovered that my password was still valid, I thought that I could chip in my two [euro]cents worth… even if it's never read. For my part, born and raised in Sweden but with some roots in Serbia, I have my focus mainly on European 1:87 scale models from the 1950s up to the early 1990s. Albeit that also other models from other time periods and scales occasionally slip by the gate guard. E.g. I have a soft spot for German police cars and taxis in 1:43 scale. This is altogether due to the fact that those cars were around during my youth and into later years.
Furthermore, I can easily say that I much prefer a message board to the various Facebook groups. The latter are in my personal opinion mostly places where one participates in order to feel appreciated. Hence, the eternal quest seems to be to get more likes. On my part I much prefer to have a proper discussion as well that a forums archive is also a goldmine of information that, in comparison to Facebook groups, can be easily obtained. It’s sad though that this forum is almost dead nowadays, since there are almost no other model car forums out there, regardless of scale. Moreover, there are sometimes brief discussions regarding 1:87 scale vehicle models on some of the railway forums that exist. Those discussions are however usually quite insipid, mostly because the majority of the participants don’t have an interest in the car models per se but rather sees them only as accessories.
There was two main reasons that I quite rapidly drifted away from this forum (my last post was almost ten years ago). The first was the lack of participation, due to the fact that the activity already back then was quite low. The other reason was that I (personally) felt that the forum listed rather much to the Anglo-Saxon side while the German-speaking modelers preferred sites on their own language. However, as many of us other Europeans do have a better grasp of English than German it often came to a Catch-22 moment… should I participate on a forum that emphasized on American vehicles or choose German forums where one had to sit and translate every page… which is tiresome if only for reading, but are even more troublesome if one wants to write.
To conclude, neither option was that appealing, hence I (and probably many others) just left quietly. I sometime discuss this with likeminded friends and we all concur that there ought to be a great potential for an English-speaking forum that focuses on European vehicle models (e.g. both cars, lorries, buses, farm equipment) in smaller scales as 1:43, 1:76, 1:87 and so on and so forth. As it stands now, the American forums that exist are very streamlined and many American modelers can’t tell the difference between a Citroën Ami and a Phänomobil or a Zastava 1100. On the other hand, many Finns, Spaniards, Greeks, Swedes et cetera don’t know how to speak, read or write in German. Hence, German-speaking forums are of little interest to most modelers of non German-speaking nationalities.
// Niclas
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Post by Christian on Apr 9, 2023 23:50:35 GMT 1
Be assured that it is. Thank you for your thoughts, Niclas. You make some very good points and I feel compelled to answer in detail later on.
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Post by swampdaddy on Apr 20, 2023 18:21:03 GMT 1
An interesting post for sure. Facebook groups have no coherent threads and many must like the ability to throw up a random photo once in awhile and then move on to another subject. Personally, I like threads where various people post on the same subject. I have little interest in participating on Facebook groups though I belong to several for viewing the occasional random photo of interest. When some of the better modelers moved on to other things the group declined (as far as participation goes) quickly and I often found I was posting to myself. So my own participation has declined a lot. I still drop in once and awhile to see if anything interesting is going on.
Via this site, I became a friend and some time rarely a trading partner with COR. Sadly he passed away awhile back too. Message board groups have also come and gone quickly at times too. And, I am still using Windows XP which is quite obsolete now and I've been cut off from participation because some groups have updated site software which always seems to exclude users of XP.
And, model railroaders (of which I am one too) are often the tail that wags the dog as having autos and trucks as accessories to trains means you have many manufacturers making the same items because they sell to railroaders in quantity enough to make these companies profits. One of those catch 22 type situations. No easy answers but until some modelers start using the message boards again it will probably stay the same.
My own auto modeling has declined along with my age and the need to take care of other things in life (including finally starting a 5th and "final" train layout in the basement).
I'll try to be a bit more active, Swamp Daddy
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Post by Coppas on Apr 23, 2023 14:49:21 GMT 1
Thank you both for your response. It’s nice to see that there are some members that are still participating. For my part I will try to get more active from my neck of the wood. As I stated before, I have no interest whatsoever in Facebook forums, so the 87th scale forum is indeed of interest. I will try to promote this forum/message board on some other forums, where I’m a more energetic contributor. Problem with technology is also a factor to be considered. Although that I for my part use both a up to date PC and a Mac as well, there always appears to be some flies in the ointment regarding the platforms on different forums.
As Swampdaddy, I’m also a model train afficionado of sort. Albeit that my interest in that hobby have steadily declined during the years, mostly due to both the increased costs as well as lack of sufficient space. Our personal space in Europe is often quite cramped. Instead, I keep track of the model train hobby as well by some forums. I’m very active on one of the two bigger Swedish forums that exist as well as one (of several) forums in the Balkans that caters to members from mainly the states of the former Yugoslavian federation. Since the Scandinavian languages are mutually intelligible, I also lurk on both Danish and Norwegian forums occasionally. Tragically, regardless of country and language, many of these forums are often like a gathering around the parish-pump.
The late (sadly) Cor van der Meijde was also a member on both two general Swedish model railway forums. Unfortunately, the Swedish forums are often more about trashing each other and Cor choose to partake on only one of them. A forum then that (in my opinion as I’m biased as well) has a smaller impact and range regarding model railways in Sweden and the Nordic countries on the whole. The problem then, when talking about 1:87 scale road vehicles, is that their significance is low from the beginning and with all the fuss going on at the forums the car model queries almost vanish. Even amongst avid fans.
It’s also true that many model manufacturers, of road vehicles and railway items alike, mostly aim on what they perceive as vendable. That mean a lot of prestigious big models, for an instance, they rather make a model of a high-end car like a Mercedes Maybach instead of something more common like a Mazda 929, Opel Ascona, or a Volvo 240… cars that were very common throughout Europe in their heydays. I personally do believe that the producers make a mistake on their part, since the demand of more ordinary models ought to be higher than they think. On can only have a few Ferraris and Lamborghinis, as is the fact in the real world, but VW Beetles can on the same time occur in an abundance.
// Niclas
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Marc
Jun 12, 2023 2:49:24 GMT 1
Post by culcune on Jun 12, 2023 2:49:24 GMT 1
These posts remind me to pop on more often. I am part of a Facebook group, but there is no rhyme or reason to FB posts, so get to see random vehicles posted from time to time. FB doesn't always have the group pop up in my feed. Hopefully this forum will have more and more members, and more and more products will be posted. I do look over the 1/87 Vehicle Group from time to time, but there are limited topics and more limited places to post, but I do enjoy the photo galleries that are kept up to date.
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Post by Coppas on Jun 12, 2023 16:48:57 GMT 1
Well, when I posted my views earlier this year, I hoped that there were still some activities here. But this forum is unfortunately void of almost any life. When months and more passes between each posting, then one has to accept that the inevitable which in this case means that this forum is truly dead and forgotten. One big problem is perhaps also due to the fact that the forum nowadays is unknown to many modellers and collectors of 1/87-models.
Yet another issue is perhaps also the forum itself. ProBoards is a free message board, but that also has its disadvantages compared to other forums, since it means a lot of advertising instead. It also lacks some features like the possibility to upload pictures, different themes (black backgrounds isn’t appreciated by everyone) etc. As it is now, the forum feels a tad dated. Furthermore, as I understand ProBoards has also been in a quite steady decline (in comparison with e.g. PHP-based forums) the last nine or ten years or so, and updates occurs only sparsely. This is also issues that could have a negative impact on the participation.
If this forum is going to get a revival, it probably must advertise itself. Mainly then on forums where other modellers already partakes, but perhaps lack something. For an instance, many model railroaders are usually interested in models of road vehicles as well, but those forums only cover this topic halfheartedly so there’s one potential opening. Possibly also a change to another host, rather than to remain with ProBoards, should be considered.
// Niclas
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