It was back in the 70's that the Hobbico family first started putting the stranglehold on the hobby industry by buying up the small manufactuers, then forcing the hobby shops to buy from the Hobbico family (I think it was Great Planes back then) at a pricing structure much higher than they had been paying prior to the take overs. The message was pay it or you don't get it. There were also some other items in play, like forcing hobby shops out of business because they were too close to each other, and imposing minumum dollar amount buy orders. I'm personally familiar with $3,000.00 minimums. Sound familiar?

I wasn't just a kid then and was working part time for Hobby Shack as a second job. The Hobbico family was 100% of the reason Hobby Shack, now called Hobby People, started importing direct from China and Taiwan with products that had before that time not been seen in America. Hobby Shack was one of the larger phone sales/magazine ad sales companies of hobby products in America at the time. So it might be said the Hobbico family could be the root cause of all the China hobby imports today. If it hadn't been for them our small neighborhood hobby shops might have been able to survive and continue to serve the local populations like nobody else could, or can.