Tucker's Hobbies 1981 - 2014 Tucker's Hardware 1945 - 1981 A. S. Tucker 1919 - 1945 Tucker & Perkins 1906 - 1919

To our many loyal customers and friends:

After Saturday May 17, 2014, Tucker's Hobbies is closed. Thank you for your many years of business, support, and friendship.

Please see below for contact information and business transition notices.

Click here to see a photo album of store pictures.

Also see a closing tribute by Brian Solomon on his photo blog Tracking the Light

For 108 years, the Tucker family name has stood in front of a Warren store. In 1906, Arthur S. Tucker and a business partner opened a Main Street hardware store in Warren, Massachusetts. After Arthur died suddenly in 1945, his grandson Robert A. "Bob" Buck ran the store with help from his parents starting at the age of 15, working on weekends and in the afternoons after school. He took over full time after graduating high school in 1947 and then in 1955, he purchased the business from his parents and continued to operate Tucker's Hardware, later with help from his wife and eventually his children. Over the years, Bob's deep interest in railroads led to an increasing amount of store space devoted to trains. Finally in 1981, the hardware business was sold, and he decided to try making a living exclusively on the railroad hobby.

In 1981, Tucker's Hobbies was born, located in the house where Bob grew up watching trains as a child. His goal was to provide good service and a wide range of quality products focused primarily on railroading in the New England area. It also served as one more excuse for Bob to continue to eat, drink, and breathe trains during every waking moment. His 30-year service as Show Director for the Amherst Railway Society's annual Big Railroad Hobby Show gave him more opportunities to spread his enthusiasm about the hobby to new generations of young people. Over the years, many customers have become good friends and shared model railroad operating sessions, photographs and conversation, slide shows and movie nights, dinners and trackside visits, good stories and bad jokes.

A chapter closed when Bob passed away on his birthday, October 12, 2011, at the age of 82. Since then many people have continued to visit the store, sharing old memories and expressing new hopes that it could continue to live on. Unfortunately, that is not practical in the current place at the current time. Bob was a one-man band; his family have their own commitments, and his estate needs to be settled. What began as one man's dream 33 years ago must now come to an end.

As one chapter closes, a new opportunity opens. The phone number (413)-436-5318 has been transferred to a new business and will still lead to railroad gratification. Please welcome a new railroad hobby center in our area, named Palmer Hobbies, LLC (www.palmerhobbies.com), located by the traffic lights at 1428 Main St., Palmer, Massachusetts. Refer to their web site for additional information and announcements.

Operated by a longtime friend and knowledgeable modeler, this new business aims to fill the continued need for a full service hobby shop, specializing in high quality HO and N scale model trains, books and magazines, DVDs, tools, track, parts and accessories, quality consignment items, and much more. We encourage you to support this new local hobby store that hopes to carry on the traditions started by Bob Buck over 30 years ago.

Transition notices:

Consignment sale items left with Tucker's have been passed along to the new Palmer Hobbies store and will be sold under the same terms. Anyone that prefers to take back their items can contact the new store to arrange transfer. Any items left for repair have also been passed along to the new store.

The new store will try to maintain any existing advance merchandise reservations, but it is recommended to contact them to verify that no orders are lost.

Palmer Hobbies, LLC is a new business that is not associated with Tucker's Hobbies or the Robert A. Buck Estate. Please contact Tucker's Hobbies with any questions related to past business issues.

Contacting Tucker's Hobbies:

The Tucker's phone number (413)-436-5318 has been transferred over to the new hobby store in Palmer. The new store is not able or authorized to handle any business or estate issues related to Tucker's Hobbies or the Robert A. Buck Estate. If you have any remaining business issues, personal correspondence, or questions related to Tucker's Hobbies or the Robert A. Buck Estate, please contact us by email at support@tuckershobbies.com, or by USPS at P.O. Box 1090, Warren, MA 01083.

Copyright © 2014 Tucker's Hobbies, All Rights Reserved.