Travis -

Good for you. Now if I could just find my Cracker Jack harmonica and VW Beetle that easily.

mnem
WHONNNNNNNNNNNK!

How were the prices on planes back then? Heard they were kind of expensive

Arf kits were expensive and regular balsa kits were not bad at all. Pica kits were running around 100 bucks on sale. Tons of manufacturers also. All the harder to find kits now are double or triple what they sold for. I would like to go back to those prices for some things.

Things weren't "cheap" back then, because we all made a whole lot less money. I started my first job in '86 at $3.27/hr, slinging fish at the local supermarket. I made $7/hr at the LHS doing r/c car repairs.

A $100 item back in '88 would be $194 in 2012 money, so that is about even for say, a Top Flite 60 size kit.

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

Radios I'm sure are a whole different ball of wax, they are incredibly cheaper today. IIRC, a basic 4ch or 6ch Futaba Conquest was about $150 ~ $200. Compare that to what you get today...

I was making tons of money in Germany at that time. I bought every Pica Kit and GP's and other off the wall brands. Crap I had so much stuff I fronted most to a buddy to started a new Hobby Shop when I got stationed back in the states

Shipping was cheap to a APO address.

50 to 75.00 dollar kits were plentiful. 100.00 4 channel AM Radios with servos. Remember the World 7 channel Expert Radios for about $175.00. Engines, supertiger, fox, Fp's were to be had for about 50 bucks. Asp motors were top quality, Os made in Japan. Supertiger in Italy.
Had to use the tower talks for deals and wait for specials. There were a lot of other companies that offered better deals than Tower also. Sheldon's, Hobby Shack, Circus Circus. Mta hobbies, Helicopter World, World Engines, Sig, Morris Hobbies, and many others. Even all the Hobby Shops were descent and matching prices.

Tower Hobbies is slowiy going away kind of like what Great Planes did to the kit manufacturers when they bought them up, gained the rights and shut them down when they didn't want there products anymore. Look at topflte, Carl Goldberg products, Orline, Ben Buckle, Coverite, Even the best GP kits, Midwest, Pica, Geebee, Dynaflite, Sureflite. Kyosho, Airtronics, Ace, Duracraft, Cox, Royal, and many others most never heard off. Gone.

Everything was not made in China and you could trust what you bought to work. Oh tower catalogs and everyone elses were free .