Nashville Hobby Center
06-11-2006, 08:40 AM
#1
Nashville Hobby Center
Any of you who have been in the hobby long enough should remember this shop. I was leafing through several RCM's from the sixties and saw Carl Miller's ad's for used ARF's, used radios, engines, etc. Did any of you ever visit this place while it was open? He had some stuff I'd love to have now. 
06-11-2006, 10:19 AM
#2
RE: Nashville Hobby Center
Mike,
I have quite a few of those ads myself. It was funny in that in 1968 I believe there was a small annoucement on one page that Nashville Hobby was selling out at bottom dollar prices... and they still ran their same ad in the same magazine... and.. two years later they were still in business. It was the only hobby shop I know of that advertised complete, ready to fly planes in their ads....I never was able to go there, but like you would like to hear from folks who did.
Deadstik...
I have quite a few of those ads myself. It was funny in that in 1968 I believe there was a small annoucement on one page that Nashville Hobby was selling out at bottom dollar prices... and they still ran their same ad in the same magazine... and.. two years later they were still in business. It was the only hobby shop I know of that advertised complete, ready to fly planes in their ads....I never was able to go there, but like you would like to hear from folks who did.
Deadstik...
06-11-2006, 03:21 PM
#3
RE: Nashville Hobby Center
never visited the store but in 1971 bought my vk cherokee kit from them for $33 and was put on their mailing list.I remember them selling 12 channel reed sets and alot of bulit up models hanging from their ceiling.
06-11-2006, 08:45 PM
#4
RE: Nashville Hobby Center
I lived in Nashville for over 50 years, and I used ot go to Carl's shop a lot. He has some pretty good stuff, but so did Bob Reuther (shop on highway 100 in West Nashville), and so did Hobbyland in Madison, as well as Burk's Downtown. All these are now gone, as is Skip's hobby shop on Dickerson Road. Danielle's R/C Specialists has been sold, and it has moved out on Old Hickory Boulevard next to I-24, and is mostly ARF and Electric now. Hobby Lobby keeps on banging away out in Brentwood, and I have retired to Sunny Florida. Oh well, there is a real nice Hobby shop over in Wildwood called Noell's hobbies. Frank Schwartz might still have some of the stuff from Carl's shop. It might be worth asking. He posts in this forum quite often.
I can still remember Carl Miller acting as the Contest Director at the State meet out at Edwin Warner Park (that would have been in 59, or 60 I guess.
Bill, AMA 4720
I can still remember Carl Miller acting as the Contest Director at the State meet out at Edwin Warner Park (that would have been in 59, or 60 I guess.
Bill, AMA 4720
06-15-2006, 07:51 PM
#5
Senior Member
My Feedback: (1)
RE: Nashville Hobby Center
Well, I remember Carl Miller (Later to go by the name Vince Miller)(His middle name was Vincent) and the Nashville Hobby Center.
At best he was difficult and when he was in business you never knew how he would behave when you went in his shop. He might act as if you were his long lost brother...or he would throw you out. His mood varied from time to time and often suddenly. I did not know until he died a year or so ago that he had been decorated for bravery in the Army in WW2. I knew he had been in service but not much more.
Many of the locals called him "Crazy Carl". He was a good builder but lacking on people skills. He was somewhat amoral in that he did
not always do the right thing. Such as selling you a pack of 5 Number 11 exacto blades and when you got home there were only four and he would tell you it came from the factory that way. I was an associate VP in the AMA then and more than once I was requested by the AMA to checking into a complaint from an AMA member somewhere that Carl had kept his trade in and said he never received it and such. In all cases he denied any complicity and I would be forced to write to the unfortunate fellow that there was nothing I could do.
Hobby Lobby is probably in business because of him. We locals were so frustrated with him that Jim Martin, who had a so-so Ben Franklin store decided to open a small hobby shop across the street..and went on to grow and grow. Carl Finally moved out west and sold plans and traded planes and old engines. His favorite R/C plane was the Monocoupe, by Sterling, I think. I went out to the field one winter morning and noticed a place with burned balsa wood and wire and covering. Those that had been there told me that Carl's favorite trick in winter was to put fuel on his engine cylinder and light it to warm up the engine (we were hand cranking them in those days) ...in this case the dope and silk caught fire and an alcohol fire is hard to see...but the covering started to crinkle and smoke and Carl literally stomped the plane to bits to put it out.
Wish I had been there. I am sorry he is no longer living. He was not, in my opinion, a very nice man. Frank Schwartz AMA123
At best he was difficult and when he was in business you never knew how he would behave when you went in his shop. He might act as if you were his long lost brother...or he would throw you out. His mood varied from time to time and often suddenly. I did not know until he died a year or so ago that he had been decorated for bravery in the Army in WW2. I knew he had been in service but not much more.
Many of the locals called him "Crazy Carl". He was a good builder but lacking on people skills. He was somewhat amoral in that he did
not always do the right thing. Such as selling you a pack of 5 Number 11 exacto blades and when you got home there were only four and he would tell you it came from the factory that way. I was an associate VP in the AMA then and more than once I was requested by the AMA to checking into a complaint from an AMA member somewhere that Carl had kept his trade in and said he never received it and such. In all cases he denied any complicity and I would be forced to write to the unfortunate fellow that there was nothing I could do.
Hobby Lobby is probably in business because of him. We locals were so frustrated with him that Jim Martin, who had a so-so Ben Franklin store decided to open a small hobby shop across the street..and went on to grow and grow. Carl Finally moved out west and sold plans and traded planes and old engines. His favorite R/C plane was the Monocoupe, by Sterling, I think. I went out to the field one winter morning and noticed a place with burned balsa wood and wire and covering. Those that had been there told me that Carl's favorite trick in winter was to put fuel on his engine cylinder and light it to warm up the engine (we were hand cranking them in those days) ...in this case the dope and silk caught fire and an alcohol fire is hard to see...but the covering started to crinkle and smoke and Carl literally stomped the plane to bits to put it out.
Wish I had been there. I am sorry he is no longer living. He was not, in my opinion, a very nice man. Frank Schwartz AMA123
