"Looking back at the pre-internet hobby" Topic

I recently bought a 1990 issue of Wargames Illustrated for an article it contained related to a new project I'm starting. The article was great (worth the couple of quid the issue cost me on eBay) but it was the advertisements inside that I have enjoyed more. Looking back for Inspiration

Pages of little black and white adverts, not a single website between them and all with variations of the sentence "Send an s.e.a. for a catalogue". What a nostalgia rush.

BigLee
blmablog.com

Yes, sometimes I look at old issues and think about where we are now.

I remember buying them from issue 1. I would quickly read the articles, but what I really wanted was to see the adverts to see if they contained anything that I wanted to buy.

You would be surprised how inexpensive the hobby was then, but I suppose that it is all in perspective for the time as wages and the cost of living were lower.

I have not bought a magazine for years. I went off them when the main one went from Wargames (Foundry) Illustrated to Wargames (Flames of War) Illustrated.

Send S.A.E for the catalogue…I remember that :-)

Looking through the ads and articles that gave inspiration for a new project was part of the fun back then. A lot of gamers poured their hearts and souls into the hobby back then as you had to do a lot of work for some periods. Today, you can move from period of interest to another period in a matter of clicks, which probably explains why everyone has stacks and stacks of things, but rarely finishes a project.

I can remember sending off for examples of figures and catalogues. It was quite exciting waiting for the mysterious packets to arrive ;)

I remember paying with an international reply coupon.

Yes I miss those days, especially compared to the present.

Used to love Colours at the Hexagon Reading.

One complaint I had about the otherwise very useful MagWeb was the lack of ads from the magazines that were archived. I recall studying the Foundry ads, among others, for painting info

I prefer today's system of commerce.

The era of waiting and wondering 6 months of will your order ever arrive or what they will look like lacks that nostalgic appeal for me.

Now I can see what I want on the internet, often know if it is in stock, order it, and then get a tracking number of my shipment. The order usually arrives in a week or so. I can have it painted up and on the table by the time orders used to arrive in the "old" days.

I do miss going to shows and seeing items first hand. With the ease of e-commerce fewer vendors go to the shows so there is not as much to look at.

Er that pile of WI and MW sitting in the garage are worth 2 quid each?

I look through my collection of 90's WGI's so often, all that still looks perfectly familiar.

My biggest problem was with so many of the cover photos being God's-eye views of battles, it could make them very hard to tell apart. It didn't help that the background was spot-on the same for nearly two hundred issues!

I don't have that one. That "Portugal in Asia" article sounds interesting…

That was a two-parter by Chris Peers, TBR. It's worth a read if you're looking for something exotic that you might just already have some suitable figures for.