Rising price of our hobby

[Greg Myers]

Then what was the point of this thread? Kits are now $29.99? Okay. So what then?

 I'm just tired of people whining about this one subject. 

Who's whining? So what then ? That my friend is the question. 

 

Edited August 5, 2016 by Greg Myers

[Jantrix]

Well if I got more than 25% of my models at retail prices I might be concerned. But the fact is, I buy maybe three kits a year from a retail store. The rest of my model purchases are at the local swap meets. Average price $10 per kit. We have three swap meets a year here in Tampa Bay. You can spend a lot in this hobby, but you don't have to. There are plenty of low buck options for detailing as well. 

As hobbies go, even at $30 a kit, this is still a pretty darn inexpensive hobby. Fishing, bowling, real car building, RC cars - yeesh. Not cheap. 

[GT4494]

Here is a morbid thought.  In the next ten years older modelers with collections of hundreds of models will start dying off.  Eventually all those height priced kits will be sold off for more reasonable prices.  It's a topic most will avoid due to the morbid thought but it is becoming a reality among the real car hobby with owners of 1900-1930's cars dying off faster than museums can handle accepting the flood of cars the younger generation could care less about.  Will this happen with our hobby?  Time will tell.

I've already told my kids that some of the models in my stash are worth $50-$100 on the open market.  Don't give them away. 

[Harry P.]

When I was a kid things were so simple.

My weekly allowance was $2.

A model kit cost $2.

Guess where my friends and I went most Saturday mornings?

The world was perfect.

[Tom Geiger]

I've already told my kids that some of the models in my stash are worth $50-$100 on the open market.  Don't give them away. 

The Modelers Prayer: "Please Lord, don't let my wife sell my model cars for what I told her I paid for them." 

[SfanGoch]

The Modelers Prayer: "Please Lord, don't let my wife sell my model cars for what I told her I paid for them." 

Make a deathbed confession in the presence of a priest and you'll be absolved.

[Snake45]

The Modelers Prayer: "Please Lord, don't let my wife sell my model cars for what I told her I paid for them."

Or my guns!

[Snake45]

By the way, kits being affordable to kids in the past is a bunch of B.S. too. They could buy models with their lunch money? Who were these kids? I sure couldn't. In the late 1960's, in 5th and 6th grade, a hot lunch ticket cost .25 cents. I was allowed two hot lunches per week. The other days I had to brown bagged it. Using the same bag the whole week. An AMT kit cost $2.00.

But AMT cars weren't the only models in town. We're about the same age--I might have just a couple years on you--and the hobby shops and other outlets I mentioned earlier were also full of 50 cent model airplanes by Revell, Airfix, and Hawk (mostly 1/72 scale WWII fighters and things of that nature), $1 would buy a nice 1/48 scale fighter or a "box scale" jet.

Even in cars, not all were $2. There was a good deal of 1/32 stuff available for $1 or less--Aurora, Pyro, Monogram, Revell, even AMT.

I ran $2 though on online inflation calculator today. Two 1966 dollars equals $14.76 in 2015 dollars--call it an even $15 in mid-2016. So a model car kit SHOULD cost about $15. So many of us wonder why the suggested retail is twice that, even being made in China, where supposedly everything is cheaper.

Worse yet, the vast majority of today's "new" model cars are coming from tooling whose costs were fully amortized during the Nixon administration (if not before). Yeah, I know the profits from those old molds helps finance the new tools. Or that's what we like to think....

[RichCostello]

If you buy kits from Tower Hobbies(Plastic Models), and get on their email mailing list, they will email you coupons for $15 off a $50 order. They also will occasionally have weekends with free shipping on all of their kits. If you combine those two things, you can get kits fairly cheap.

I recently bought a Revell 30 Model A, and Mobius 72 Ford pickup, and a can of Tamiya spray paint for about $36.

[AC Norton]

.....prices are geared to a specialty market now, that's us older crowd, and not kids. model companies don't produce near as much product as that 60s thru 90s era, as fewer stores and chains carry kits in general. so, to keep it profitable, they have to hit a home run per item compared to days of old, and the re issues for example by Round2 are comparatively cheap vs. buying an original issue in most cases. ......the Ace...

[StevenGuthmiller]

It's all relative gang.

What did a loaf of bread cost in 1960?

A gallon of milk?

A gallon of gas?

A brand new Buick started at under $3,000.00 in 1960!

Try that one on for size!

My parents bought their first house in 1968 for $9,000.00!

 

Steve

[Snake45]

It's all relative gang.

What did a loaf of bread cost in 1960?

A gallon of milk?

A gallon of gas?

A brand new Buick started at under $3,000.00 in 1960!

Try that one on for size!

My parents bought their first house in 1968 for $9,000.00!

 

Steve

A 1/4 oz bottle of Testor PLA enamel was 10c. What's it now, over $2?

[Rob Hall]

If you buy kits from Tower Hobbies(Plastic Models), and get on their email mailing list, they will email you coupons for $15 off a $50 order. They also will occasionally have weekends with free shipping on all of their kits. If you combine those two things, you can get kits fairly cheap.

I recently bought a Revell 30 Model A, and Mobius 72 Ford pickup, and a can of Tamiya spray paint for about $36.

Yeah, I recently got 3 Revell kits from Tower Hobbies for about $15 each with the free shipping and a $10 off coupon..

[Mike_G]

When I was a kid things were so simple.

My weekly allowance was $2.

A model kit cost $2.

Guess where my friends and I went most Saturday mornings?

The world was perfect.

I only got .50 a week allowance and wasn't good at saving, so if I wanted something I'd wash cars for .50 apiece. A guy down the street had a Porsche and would pay me $1.00 but I had to dry the car with a chamois, which he provided.

 

[kitbash1]

When I was a kid things were so simple.

My weekly allowance was $2.

A model kit cost $2.

Guess where my friends and I went most Saturday mornings?

The world was perfect.

I agree. 

My weekly allowance was 3.00 ( I know, it's an odd amount but that was my old man )

A model kit was between 2 and 5 dollars  ( in  Canadian dollars )

I added to my weekly allowance by returning pop and beer bottles, and cutting lawns in the summer and shoveling snow in the winter.

Saturday afternoons I could be found at the local hobby shop.

And yes, our world was perfect

 

 

 

 

[Joe Handley]

But AMT cars weren't the only models in town. We're about the same age--I might have just a couple years on you--and the hobby shops and other outlets I mentioned earlier were also full of 50 cent model airplanes by Revell, Airfix, and Hawk (mostly 1/72 scale WWII fighters and things of that nature), $1 would buy a nice 1/48 scale fighter or a "box scale" jet.

Even in cars, not all were $2. There was a good deal of 1/32 stuff available for $1 or less--Aurora, Pyro, Monogram, Revell, even AMT.

I ran $2 though on online inflation calculator today. Two 1966 dollars equals $14.76 in 2015 dollars--call it an even $15 in mid-2016. So a model car kit SHOULD cost about $15. So many of us wonder why the suggested retail is twice that, even being made in China, where supposedly everything is cheaper.

Worse yet, the vast majority of today's "new" model cars are coming from tooling whose costs were fully amortized during the Nixon administration (if not before). Yeah, I know the profits from those old molds helps finance the new tools. Or that's what we like to think....

That $15 dollars might be adjusted for inflation, but it doesn't account for licensing (that didn't exist then) or material costs (even with it cheaper now than recent years, oil is more money), probably could add a few more things, but I'm so tired that I'm having trouble spelling tired at the moment.

[maltsr]

That $15 dollars might be adjusted for inflation, but it doesn't account for licensing (that didn't exist then) or material costs (even with it cheaper now than recent years, oil is more money), probably could add a few more things, but I'm so tired that I'm having trouble spelling tired at the moment.

Yeah, such as the fact that they sold tens of thousands more kits back then to generate a healthy bottom line.  Nowadays in the shrinking market, profit margin has to be higher per unit to return a profit which means relatively higher prices.

[SfanGoch]

Licensing rights have been a part of the model kit industry since the the 1940's. All of the model companies had to pay licencing fees to the trademark and intellectual property owners. In the U.S., the actual 1:1 cars, airplanes, etc., as actual industrial objects,  are ineligible for copyright protection. However, under 17 U.S.C. 101, models as pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works; so, royalties must be paid to the originator of the design. Confusing? Yup.   

[Richard Bartrop]

Licensing rights have been a part of the model kit industry since the the 1940's. All of the model companies had to pay licencing fees to the trademark and intellectual property owners. In the U.S., the actual 1:1 cars, airplanes, etc., as actual industrial objects,  are ineligible for copyright protection. However, under 17 U.S.C. 101, models as pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works; so, royalties must be paid to the originator of the design. Confusing? Yup.   

Sorry, but you're wrong there.,  THe models used to be regarded as free advertising, and in the case of car models, while you did have some licensed customs, the car companies were in fact paying the kitmakers to produce promotional models.

Edited August 6, 2016 by Richard Bartrop

[GaryR]

Yes it makes a difference. I have over 600 kits to build now, I'm retired on a fixed income, I'm just not going to blow money on models anymore.

The same stuff is re issued endlessly, I already have it. I MIGHT buy the Revell 48 Ford and the Galaxie Chevy Coupe, but that's it.

Don't want them or need them, priced out of my casual buying range.

[charlie8575]

I buy my new kits from model show dealers and the same ones at club meetings.  Prices are still $16-18 range.  I don't think I've broken the $20 barrier.

I've cut back a bit on what I buy since I already have so much stuff.  Still when I'm at a show or club meeting and people have put out $5 and $10 kits, I'll buy them.  There are kits I'll pick up for specific parts, like 6 cylinder engines,  or chassis and drivetrains.  For instance I recently bought a '41 Plymouth kit.  Someone had taken the V8 engine and custom tires / wheels out of it. I'm happy to pay $5 for the flathead six.  

Kids today work on a different value scale than we do since we're still measuring things against the minimum wage we were paid as kids.  They think nothing of spending $50-100 for a new Lego set or video game.  A while back a friend of mine worked in a hobby shop and he said the average young guy coming in would buy a Tamiya Honda kit,  all the paints and glues he'd need,  some Pegasus accessories and think nothing of dropping $75 or more to build his model.

Charlie, you are in a hobby shop today.  What do you see?  Who are your customers today?

That's a complicated question believe it or not.

Right now, at my shop, I'd say about half the customers are between 35-60, and the other half are over 60 and under 35. Of the younger portion, I'd say roughly college age plus or minus five years in the bulk of them. We do, however, have several customers who are regular and teenagers that do planes and armour. Most of the cars seem to go to the 20-50 year-olds.

As to what's selling, armour is our largest seller by far in dollar volume- we're #1 or #2 for in-stock armour in New England, and there has been an absolute proliferation of product this summer with many new releases.

In terms of out-the-door volume, I think armour and planes are tied for first. We have the largest aircraft selection in New England. This summer, it's been ROCKETS! Rockets in terms of volume are probably #2. Cars are selling okay, but not as fast as you'd think.

What has kids coming into us, though, are snap kits, rockets, science kits, 3 and 4-D puzzles and a decent selection of better-quality play-sets. Older kids and teens enjoy simple glue kits, and they tend to buy a lot of cars.

We don't handle a lot of aftermarket product (owner's prefernce, a combination of space limitations and cost,) but if we can get it, we'll order it for you.

Our problem, though, is drawing new people in. The owner does the "everyone knows where we are" bit. Fact is, I have at least two or three people a week who have been in the area long-term that don't  know where we are, or even knew we existed. If it's going to work, we need to make our presence known.

Charlie Larkin

[charlie8575]

While the licensing agreements might have existed, the royalty payment, at least to the scale it is now, didn't until about 25 years ago.

Charlie Larkin

[Dave Van]

No one likes the cost today.......based on inflation alone a kit today should be about $17.......if we had the same number of buyers.  But still no a costly hobby......

Go to a shop that sells Lionel O scale trains.......a new steam loco like a Union Pacific Big Boy will run $2500.00....

[bobthehobbyguy]

Cost of inflation

Lower sales volumes

Higher price for oil impacts cost for styrene and delivery cost when kits were $2 gas was the 5 cents a gallon

Cost of development for new kits has to be amortized over a smaller volume

For round  2 there costs are refurbishing the tooling for new kits and new tires for most of the new kits along with getting a return on the investment on their purchasing all of the tooling

All of these things contribute to higher prices for model kits

[Mike_G]

I generally spend more on paint than on kits