niteowl7710

Well barring any further nonsense with Covid (mass uptick of infections, more restrictions on gatherings, etc) we've been given the green light from our venue to hold our show this year.

HLJ landed...

FWIW even Tamiya's 962C is a curbside devoid of any detail. Possibly worse since it's a repurposed R/C body and comes with the window glass and headlight covers glued in from the factory. If you have questions about a model kit, there are literally hundreds of people who can answer them before you purchase something, the Hasegawa 962 is 32 years at this point, it's a known commodity.

More awesomesauce from Alpha Models...

Fresh off the plane from HobbyEasy in Hong Kong...

You'd have to prove they're competing with each other. It's not like Atlantis is gonna start making new tool Muscle Cars or something. This tooling is in fact things Revell disposed of, so it's hardly like that's a competitive situation. If Blitz wants to license the name, and Atlantis wants to pay to license it, then it'll be there...or not.

Newest decal sheets from LB Production.

This is something that Mike and Salvinos JR have done for the past 2 kits that had newly tooled bodies in them. Both of the Grand Prix 2+2 and Le Mans were sold by Mike in plain "blank" boxings that you could pair with various decal choices to finish them out livery-wise. This arrangement seems to involve a couple of other retailers on a larger run (the Mike's kits were 500 pcs per if I recall right). The idea of them paying up front allow them to sell the kit as an exclusive, then next month Salvinos will distribute their Petty 1973 Charger kit, and later versions of the 71 will be released by the company themselves as well. If you look at the Coming Soon! part of Mike's site (http://mikesdecals.com/) you will see there are four sets of decals coming in around the same time as both kits will be, so there are options for the blank kit.

LHS says their getting a shipment in Monday the 15th, presuming the weather here in SWPA allows for it.

No model company is going to base their kit decisions on whether or not there's a resin kit available, it's two entirely separate market unless MCW starts getting carried at HobbyLobby.

Two latest decal sheets from RacingDecals 43...

Not trying to be pedantic, but that's really "any more kits out", because hobby shops here in the U.S. that wanted to carry it already received shipments of the Germany boxing of the kit. The shop on eBay in the UK who's sold 46 of them is still listing the kit, and my auto correct ate my attempt at saying Japan just received and are selling the kit this week. There's a decent chunk of them floating in the wild and I wonder how they're going to deal with that, particularly if they're addressing the windshield/frame. That's going to require fixing the body, the frame height and the windshield glass unless they plan to chop the roof to fit the frame/glass. But Megahobby's announcement (they're the retail arm of Stevens International) was specifically addressing a delay on pre-orders of our U.S. sized box (and priced) reissue of the kit that was due this month. They were not carrying the German boxing of the kit.

This would be specific to the U.S. rebox of the kit. The initial Germany boxing of the kits already shipped a month or so ago. Couple of vendors in Japan just got them in this week.

Squadron's problems were the same that befell Hobbico. At some point they lost vision of what their core business(es) were and became all about leveraged acquisitions of other companies to attempt to be a jack of all hobby trades and a master of none. Did investment capital come in and sell off everything of value, sure, but Squadron had been slowly imploding for a decade and outright dying for the past several years. I know they hold a certain nostalgia feels for a lot of people back when they were THE mail order and brick and mortar place to be, but that ended quite awhile ago. They never pivoted in a meaningful way to eCommerce, their website was a hot mess more than it wasn't, they never had anything in stock and when they did it was almost always Hobby Lobby levels of MSRP over priced. Even the last weekend fire sale before they closed, the 70% off wasn't enough to pull some Tamiya kits down below the price you could buy them for in Japan.

More embarrassing than the fact that RevellAG actually paid to license and release it shortly thereafter? ?

GTM Models of Hong Kong, the same anonymous company that ran an unlicensed copy of the Sunny Cobra (which is also tooling that belongs to Academy) is doing a run of the Corvettes as "American Sports Car"...

What is it with you people actively willing the American Car section of the hobby into a grave? Frankly at this point, having heard about the demise of the hobby since I was a kid in the 80s, I kinda wish it would happen already so you folks could take your long in coming victory lap and then be left to find some new thing to ceaseless whine about, while also never having any more models to buy. I find some speculation while we wait to be a fun thing...What could an infusion of capital bring in terms of more new tooling? Could Round2 buy Moebius off of Pegasus since that's been an all but useless pairing since that sale? Could Round2 buy Revell US off of Blitz? Ya know fun...at least semi-positive thoughts and hopes. But NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! The type you are peddling isn't even speculation, it is rumor mongering of the worst and most extremely negative kind. P.S. Only 10 of the Hess's were sold to Kauffman's, the rest were distributed to 4 other regional and now also defunct department store chains. The only ones still open are the ones that became Dillard's in the Southern U.S.

Alright I'm puzzled. I get the "appeal" of some of the Revell stuff like the old multi-opened Tri-Fives to a certain subset of builders who value nostalgia over the ability to easily assemble a model kit. But what is the point of these 1/32 SnapTite kits? The majority of the older members here would be too old in 1980-1985 to have had much use for any of them. None of my Gen X friends (granted a small sample size) has shown anything beyond puzzled stares as to the desire to "relive our youth" buying them again. I vaguely remember building the '82 Camaro, and even as a wee lad I knew these were the wrong scale and avoided them.

If it was, it was somewhere upstream of my LHS. He doesn't have that capability, and would sell it open if it were for some reason returned. Nothing is damaged or missing, just parts of it aren't bagged, the decals are also printed in China on a blue backing paper that isn't similar to anything I've seen Round2 use recently - as I thought all their decals were being done by Cartograf. Is what it is, just a heads up to others who might want to check their kits and fish out the tires before they go back to it in 5 years and they've melted into the roof.

Well they've had it at least in partial for the Sponsorship of some of the Drag kits, but now they appear to be expanding a bit into regular kits. This 2010 Camaro (which would be a Showroom Replica base) and the next kit number sequentially which is listed as a "1/25 Hot Wheels Ford Monster Truck".

Breaking News - Models are Collectibles. I give you 87 Coke branded kits, movie tie-ins, Hostess, Nestlé, and now Hot Wheels licensing. Also take a look around where you're about to type your sparky replies from...I bet it looks like a hobby shop. You might think you're all model builders, but you're really model collectors who happen to build a model occasionally. Oh and if Round2 can use that spiffy new Star Wars license to make Mandalorian kits before Bandai can, or at least hold a good chunk of the North American market, that my friends will be a printing press of dollarary doos. One of the most in demand thing for Star Wars collectors are subject matter from the TV Series.

Anybody else get an "AMT" '64 Belvidere packed this way? The body, red taillights, Slant 6 runner, exhaust and Slant 6 transmission runner along with the interior floor pan, door panels and dash were all unbagged with the flippin tires tossed in on top. The chassis, suspension, V-8, and other bits along with the chrome and clear were bagged.

Most of it is still here, only the tooling directly developed once Testors sold it to J. Lloyd was done in China (like the '06 Dodge Chargers). If you look at any of the "merged into AMT" line of 90s Lindberg kits they're all being run up in Michigan. This is - for example - the recent reissue of the '64 Belvidere.

When Lindberg was a division of Craft House in Toledo they did make their kits in the U.S. But then so did everyone else, that era was prior to AMT/Ertl sending the bulk of the tooling to Mexico and then China, and Revell also sending the bulk of their tooling to China as well. There's a twofold problem to re-shoring. First off is the obvious cost. Salvinos JR is doing their tooling/production in the U.S. and their kits are $40 direct and price varies on the retail side, but I've never seen one cost less than $32 that wasn't being blasted out on Clearance. Secondly at this point China is THE place for this type of intricate tooling & machining work. They have nearly 25 years working with U.S. companies, to say nothing of earlier relationships with Asian manufacturers. Both Round2 and Revell US have domestic based tooling lying around and have found facilities that can produce it. But both have obviously concluded it's more cost effective to do their tooling and production in China.

Order directly from SK on FB. Cut out the middle man markup.