Hello all ,
I'd like to compile a list here of our favorite -- and even our not-so-favorite -- choices to supply us .

This query is answered over and over all over here at Armorama and our similar modeling sites when someone brings it up looking for what's motivating them at the time ... but , I think we need a list ( again , there may be one or 50 going as I type , , but they disappear over time )

I just learned of " Hobby Search " from seeing their 'watermark' on a doc posted by Easyco69 ( thanks David ! ) in his response to help another's frustration with a kit .

So ,
to start off : oldies but goodies .. . and a quick note reflecting my personal experience with the company

Hobby Link Japan - Excellent service .( Fast getting Tamiya , Hasegawa & Fine Molds stuff that might show as out-of-stock )
* They will order all items that are out of stock / back-ordered with NO money from you till it is ready to ship to you .

Hobby Easy : - Fantastic ! -- Though I strongly recommend shipping Everything with a tracking # ,,, the one time I did not ,, well - who knows where it went ?!
....what do I expect for 90 cents postage ?

Lucky Model : ---- awaiting my first delivery ( tracked ) - so ? .( lotta cool inventory , but a lot shows "out-of-stock" ... don't know if they are quick to get stuff )

-- NOTE -- I do understand that some stuff just isn't available when you're looking no matter the vendor , but anecdotal evidence is appreciated here

Scalehobbyist.com -- ordered about 7 times with zero problems and nominal to faster than nominal delivery speed

Hobby Linc ( with a C ) --- in Atlanta , and a great source for scratch supplies and figures ... but I haven't ordered from them yet !

GOTTA get The Small Shop ( .com) in there for all your PE tooling needs . AWESOME tools and great people !

Airbrush Outlet : Paasche airbrush and parts .
I can't find better / faster ( only Paasche )
........ man , I miss Chicago ..

Cheers ,
Keith

If you're in eastern/central Canada, or northern US, I would recommend Old Dog Models, and The Barrel Store. I have ordered from both with no problems. R&J Enterprises in the Seattle area is very good, but unfortunately are retiring from the business soon. Then there is Sprue Brothers and Freetime Hobbies, both with large inventories (Sprue Brothers seem to be faster on the delivery). And if you like figures, The Red Lancer, in Pennsylvania is my favorite, with Colorado Miniatures coming in second.

Thanks Biggles !
Again - more new sources for me .

I really lament the brick & mortar stores basically disappearing . Bit sad ... but , ya gotta admit - there is now Way more available ,

I live south of Houston ( not near Canada , LOL ) .. but the only hobby shops still around are all about radio control .

If this query drags up enough input I'll make a list we can stick somewhere here with a bit of help from the Admin .
I'd like it to be succinct and give the .com and notes to the strength ( or/and experienced weakness ) of the vendor .

Oh -- ha Ha .. and , humorously , that lost Hobby Easy air-mail showed up yesterday evening !
It had been in-route less time than I thought - 4 weeks - but that means they mailed the " in-stock " item more than a week after I ordered it .
All the tracked air - small pack , made it here in a week . So there's that

Thanks again ,
Cheers ,
Keith

www.Spruebrothers.com

Ridiculously fast shipping and a great selection

In Europe, dersockelshop.de
free shipping if enough order, huge choice, shipping to france in 3 days.
Lows : some chinese models are very lately in stock and pricey (in comparaison with HobbyEasy). For any other thing, the top!

Ah ,
Fantastic .

But , Jason ,
It seems Sprue Brothers is a bit expensive , No ?

Certainly I will pay what is required to get hard to get stuff ... but Sprue Brothers , to me , seems to ask a premium for thing I can get elsewhere for less . .. ?

What would you say are Sprue Brothers' strengths ?
... aside from their name LOL !

My favorites

SCALEhobbyists (scalehobbyists.com)--Great website, fast shipping with very reasonable shipping fees, and a large inventory

Sprue Bros (spruebrothers.com)--For the same reasons as Jason

Squadron (squadron.com)--Great sales and large selection

Jac Hobbies (jachobbies.com)--Very friendly and great service. Good inventory and fast shipping

Lucky Model (luckymodels.com)--Good but lately their inventory seems to be less complete than it use to be. Still pretty good though.

Hobbyeasy (hobbyeasy.com-- One of the best Far East sites. Great service, fast shipping, and a large inventory (I think a lot of the items are shipped from the manufacturer themselves)

Micro-mark (micromark.com)--Great place for any tool you can imagine. Aimed at model railroaders, still the place for scenery items as well as tools and material.

I use many more sites but these are my favorite.
John Woodward

Thank you John ,
Yes -- I am a big fan of ScaleHobbyist dot com
I think they are often overlooked --- they stock less but are certainly straight-up .

Have you ever used Hobby Linc ( with that C ) out of Atlanta ?

I was enamored of their Plastruct styrene affinity

I would like to add :
RB for AM barrels - three thumbs up !
Quite impressive in regards to quality .

Accuracy , well I'm not sure ... and I don't know if I ever will know if these AM barrels are dimensionally accurate .

I'm still looking for some period data on the KwK 42 L/70 muzzle brake ....
.... but I am more than satisfied with what RB offers .
--- I've purchased 4 different barrels to check them out --- and I can only give you all a big thumbs up .

Cheers ,
Keith

I've ordered from Hobby Easy, Hobby Linc, Mega Hobbies, Squadron, Sprue Brothers, and Scalehobbyist.

I almost exclusive buy from Scalehobbyist nowdays. They have the best search engine, lowest prices in the US, excellent inventory, fast shipping and superb customer service.

My favorites:
(1)Luckymodel: discounts in several times in year, low prices and new low prices for shipping with small parcels.
(2)Hobbyeasy: great customer service, very good prices and fast shipping. Daniel is a great guy to deal with!
(3)Sogaminiatures: great prices for resin figures and great customer service from Dmitri Baev and always trustful and great deal wirh him!
(4) Modellbau Koenig: low prices for European eshop, same prices with dersockelshop and sometimes lower, FREE shipping in Europe for orders above 150euros and other countries for orders above 200euros. Immediate response to emails.
(5)Dersockelshop: low prices as Modellbau, BUT free shipping in Europe for orders above 250euros and other countries for orders above 300euros. There is of course the ability to place additional orders though if you already have a running order which is not yet shipped without further additional shipping costs if the additional order is above 15euros.

I have. it took about a week & half to get my order. (I'm in Western NYS) They had all the evergreen/plastruct I was going to order in stock, so I took a chance.

As a Canadian Armour fan I will mention Real Models from the Czech republic. Miloslav has lots of conversion kits, and not just Canadian items, and accessories and orders get to my door in Canada in less than 2 weeks

http://www.realmodel.cz/



cheers

A new vendor named "Fox One Hobbies" has been showing up at IPMS Region IV events this spring. They carry Tamiya, Mig Ammo, UMM Tools and stuff that is not normally available at shows. Their prices seem reasonable and look to be targeting the professional market.

They also do in-booth demos during shows, which is a nice change of pace!

www.foxonehobbies.com

Hmmmm....

HLJ is a excellent vendor.

Ditto for both Lucky Model and HobbyEasy in HK.

Here in Europe, BigCat Modelismo in Portugal is superb - good prices, mínimum shipping charges etc.

For those unwise in the ways of the world - careful of those companies such as Squadron who seem to have a large part of their business tied up in excessive shipping charges.

Mnny companies seem to have a somehat parochial view of business. They simply don't like shipping outside of the States or the U.K. (or even within Spain ) and do their level best to dissuade future customers. These companies, IMO, deserve to fail...

Might be easier to mention the ones that have been particularly bad?

While their emphasis is on ship models, I've had excellent service from White Ensign Models - they'in the UK, but they ship faster to my address in the US than other US companies do - I ordered from multiple companies at once one time and WEM got their first. The joke among the ship-building types is that WEM got a surplus SR-71 for cross-Atlantic shipping. They've got their own lines of ships and accessories as well as paints but also sell armor and planes and such.

Hi Keith,
You have read my mind! Due to your post, I see listed several of my favorite vendors and then some. This is very helpful. Thank you and fellow contributors for posting!

Here is my favorite: ScaleHobbyist
Huge inventory, great search engine (product pages generally include images and a brief history reference); Watch List, Notification List, Order and Tracking information and great customer service.

Question #1: Do you know of any vendors that carry the following products?
VoyagerModel PE (their website times-out on me).
Juweela '1/35 500 Light Red Bricks' (in the US, my German is too rusty).

Question #2: Is it just me, or have delivery times slowed to a crawl since the Christmas Holiday rush is over with? Seems like deliveries which took three days, now take up to two weeks or more -- International orders -- a month.
And don't even think about "Next Day Air" in Carbondale CO!!!

Thanks again,
--mike

Hey Mike ,
Very cool

What Voyager PE I've purchased I got thru Hobby Link Japan ... so you can check out what they carry .
It usually takes 2-4 weeks for them to get it if they don't have it in stock .

For ship times ,,, HLJ always ships immediately but I watch it sit in Narita with Fed Ex for sometimes 2-3 days before it gets moving.

My experience with both Hobby Easy and Lucky Model is they take a week before they ever ship " in stock " items ,, so ?

And like Andy mentioned --- don't hesitate to include any bad experiences ... even if you think it's isolated and not the vendors fault - some0ne else might have had a similar problem .

Cheers ,
Keith

Here's another one to add to the 'A' list:

Chicago Airbrush Supply
http://www.chicagoairbrushsupply.com

--mike

Sprue Bros...excellent
Chicago Airbrush Supply....very quick and very helpful
Lucky Model....good prices but lots of items on back order, plus they take your money when you place the order rather than when they despatch it
HLJ...pretty good but not keen on the semi kiddie porn all over their front pages.....should be a separate site for that stuff. Do I really need to know about a model of a 14 y.o. girl with a 'removable magnetic bikini top'?????
Testors...quick service when ordering paints etc direct.
LHS...stupidly pricey and the owner is 'not a very nice person'...(that's the politically correct version)

LOL !
Well ,
You obviously had to click on something that didn't look like an AFV to get that much info .....

Hi,
My latest order was with Free Time Hobbies, I placed the order online Sunday night, Kits were at my door on Thursday morning.

Free Time Hobbies - Great Prices/fast delivery.


mil

It was accidental....honest

Has anyone done business with Hobby Search @ http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/plamo/