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Related to the motor hoarder thread there was talk about what various shops have. Sheldon's hobbies was located about two miles from my place so you can bet i went there a lot. I was one of the few that had a backstage pass to the place. Believe me that stock room was far more impressive than the showroom. With racks like costco the parts were stacked so high on the shelves they could only be accessed by a scary tall ladder.

Many of the people here have part that came from Sheldon's. I remember Scr8p coming a little bit in his pants when he saw a pic of a bunch of composite craft chassis's I had liberated from their dusty old boxes.

Sadly Ron Sheldon wanted out and started liquidating. In the last days of the sale everything was 60% off of the old 80's price. Another area hobby store magnet bought out what was left and set his son Andy up with a store located not far from the old store.

shodog wrote:Related to the motor hoarder thread there was talk about what various shops have. Sheldon's hobbies was located about two miles from my place so you can bet i went there a lot. I was one of the few that had a backstage pass to the place. Believe me that stock room was far more impressive than the showroom. With racks like costco the parts were stacked so high on the shelves they could only be accessed by a scary tall ladder.

Many of the people here have part that came from Sheldon's. I remember Scr8p coming a little bit in his pants when he saw a pic of a bunch of composite craft chassis's I had liberated from their dusty old boxes.

Sadly Ron Sheldon wanted out and started liquidating. In the last days of the sale everything was 60% off of the old 80's price. Another area hobby store magnet bought out what was left and set his son Andy up with a store located not far from the old store.

you're barely finding this out jim? according to ron's brother i believe they also sold the name of the shop to the new owners. for what they paid, i honestly believe they paid too much for the old shop's inventory. not much of the good stuff was left on those last days at sheldons on old oakland road. i remember seeing pallets of old trinity pushed cells, and pti cells. the new owner has gotten schooled on the popular vintage stuff and holds it close to her. she didn't say what she was going to do with the "good stuff", the last time i talked to her. her son andy i think runs the other shop. i miss the old sheldons.

I knew what the history was all along. I went about a year ago to pick up some hpi parts for scr8p and it was like pulling teethe for them to pull anything from their back stock. I rarely go there now as they don't hardly stock anything of interest to me

Awesome stuff! There's nothing quite like happening across a good bunch of old stock. It feels a bit like unearthing gold nuggets for me.

Back in the later part of the 80's I was fortunate to land a part time job (still at school then) and a small time sponsorship with ABC Models here in Australia. I was doing well in the 'production' class (540) and was on my up to stock. I was still racing my Optima then.
Anyway, the ABC chain was well known around Australia and was primarily Kyosho's biggest (or only) importer. At some stage the company sold up and all its stock (nationwide) went to a wealthy business man up on the Gold Coast. From what I was told he bought everything from ABC due to at one time his son showed 'some' interest in r/c as a youngster. However by this time the son had lost interest and it all became too much of a hassle for him. I know all this because I got a job running the store for a period until I moved on to a higher paying job elsewhere.
The store was packed floor to ceiling and if you had've removed half the stock it wouldn't have made much of an impact. The store room was little a rats nest with seemingly endless pilfered Kyosho kit boxes piled to the ceiling. From what I was told this was but the tip of the very large ice burg. The owner had a horse stud a couple of hours away in the country and a huge barn stored all the stock that wasn't in the shop. Once a week an employee of the stud would drive a van down full of random stock. There was never any room to fit anything so stuff was just piled on top of other piles. It was all very overwhelming and if I had of known then what I know now I would have shown more interest in much off what was there.
I was a much younger man back then. I worked simply to afford the night life and whilst I enjoyed r/c and working there I had little interest in collecting old stuff.

In the end said owner passed away. The store was shut down and the family sold off everything to multiples of parties. I have no idea of what gear might be left but from the sources I've spoken with over the years it was said to all be moved on at a huge loss.

Wow, that name takes me back... my first RC car was a Grasshopper combo deal, mail ordered from Sheldon's in the summer of 1986. I bought it from them because they were $10 cheaper than Tower Hobbies (and the owner of the local shop was a real d...unpleasant fellow, and my dad wouldn't let me do business with him), and I had been mowing lawns and walking dogs all summer and didn't want to wait any longer.

Tales of old shops make me wonder just how much old stock is still out there, forgotten in boxes somewhere.

Just look at all the Thorp parts that were recently unearthed for example.

markbt73 wrote:Wow, that name takes me back... my first RC car was a Grasshopper combo deal, mail ordered from Sheldon's in the summer of 1986. I bought it from them because they were $10 cheaper than Tower Hobbies (and the owner of the local shop was a real d...unpleasant fellow, and my dad wouldn't let me do business with him), and I had been mowing lawns and walking dogs all summer and didn't want to wait any longer.

Tales of old shops make me wonder just how much old stock is still out there, forgotten in boxes somewhere.

Same here, my first real rc was the Tamiya Fox, ordered as a combo deal from Sheldon's Hobbies because they had the best deal in RCCA.

Interesting as there was a woman at Sheldon's who handled their eBay sales and came through for me in a big way a year and a half ago for many of the hard to find factory team B3 parts I needed for my blue B3 build (in my gallery). She seemed to be the one tasked with digging through the old parts in the back and responding to people like me looking for that stuff.

flipwils11 wrote:Interesting as there was a woman at Sheldon's who handled their eBay sales and came through for me in a big way a year and a half ago for many of the hard to find factory team B3 parts I needed for my blue B3 build (in my gallery). She seemed to be the one tasked with digging through the old parts in the back and responding to people like me looking for that stuff.

Was her name Diane? Being from LA and having to place orders over the phone, Diane was the best!! She would take the cordless phone and tell me everything she could find. Around three or so years ago there was still a bunch of worlds car parts i.e. front and rear shock towers, battery hold downs, graphite trans braces and the best was a bunch of all white rear end kits #6530. Diane's gone now and so is all the good stuff as Shodog stated

Didn't Rons wife run the register ? I grew up going to Sheldons as it was halfway between our house and my dads. Working there would have been cool but inside sources told me he was a hard man to work for. Good thing I didn't have a lot of money back then.


Speaking of old shops anyone remember D&J Hobbies or San Antonio Hobbies to name a few?