Internet Hobbies is a fulfillment of the dreams of two avid modelers. Now celebrating their eighth year in business on the Internet, Dale Bruner and Russell Torrisi are happy with their solid position as one of the world’s largest online hobby destinations.

Bruner likes to tell a story of his first exposure to modeling. “I was about eight years old when my stepfather came home one day holding a plain brown paper sack and offered me a rather unusual choice.” He asked me, “Which one do you want, a Camel or Newport?” I said Dad, “You know I don’t smoke so why are you offering me cigarettes.” Well to my surprise he pulled out two small Aurora WWI plastic kits from the bag. One was the Sopwith Camel and the other was a little French Nieuport 17. I chose the Nieuport and he got the Camel. We built those planes together that afternoon in what was truly a life altering experience. From that moment on I was hooked on building plastic models. A few years ago my step dad became a customer of ours. He was surprised when I called him to say hello. I told him the above story and how important that little experience has been to me over the last 50 years.

Russ’ passion for model trains began at an early age but really took hold when he started building a layout for his children. A little known fact is that Russ was one of Dale’s earlier customers when he was selling trains under the name Internet Model Trains. It seems he had a small problem with one of his son’s locomotives. He was impressed by the way Bruner handled the problem in a very professional manner. So impressed that he hired Dale to run his fledgling web development business in Lower Manhattan.

Later when Dale had the idea to expand Internet Model Trains into a full service online hobby shop, Torrisi became his partner and brought his database management skills to the table. The partners compliment each other, Dale does the web development and marketing. Russ’ position as Chief Technology Officer keeps him busy developing new software solutions, which allows Internet Hobbies to stay ahead of their competitors.

In July of 2005 they moved Internet Hobbies to Northeastern Pennsylvania. They have a 3000 square foot retail outlet store and a huge warehouse and state-of-the-art shipping department.

When asked what makes us different from other online merchants, Bruner stated, “Our primary goal at Internet Hobbies is to offer our customers an excellent buying experience by proactively managing our customer’s expectations. We do this by providing them with detailed information under our “About Us” page.” He stressed that this is one of the most important things a new customer can do when doing business with any e-commerce business. Learn their policies before you place their order. Don’t assume anything that’s not in writing. Chances are you’ll be wrong and disappointed with your buying experience.

This philosophy to total dedication to excellent customer service has helped propel Internet Hobbies to become the “leader of the pack” in online hobby sales. Bruner and Torrisi look forward to even greater growth during their tenth year in business.

We’ve just completed a deal to offer our customers an addition 50,000 items though a strategic alignment with one of the largest hobby distributors in the world. This new addition to our core website will allow us to strengthen our position in Radio Controlled products and accessories. It offers Internet Hobbies an unbelievable growth opportunity and will increase our excellency in order fulfillment to our customers.

We've recently made a committment to the hobby of miniature wargaming. We'll be offering a great selection of 28mm plastic miniatures plus accessories and rulebooks.