Who Has all the molds ?

[Greg Myers]

Atlantis has a bunch from just about every manufacture. But who has the bulk of the major kit makers from the past ?

AMT

MPC

Revell

Monogram

Johan

 

[Mark]

Most of Jo-Han, and a good deal of AMT and MPC, got scrapped over the years.  Not many people in the industry back then thought anything about any of this stuff existing fifty or sixty years into the future.  

[Danno]

I don't have them.

?

[Dave Van]

AMT - Round2 has all the AMT tooling that still exists. 

MPC - See above

Revell- Tooling that was not wanted or thought to be useful by the Revell owners in Germany were sold off tp Atlantis. All this tooling was in stroage in ILL

Monogram- See above

Johan- This one could fill a book. NO one answer. At one time when I did some work with Accurate Miniatures we looked at some JoHan tooling that was in storage. It was incomplete, clear parts IIRC, so AM passed. Moebius took a look at some other JoHan tooling back around 2017....it too was incomplete so they passed. There is a good amount of JoHan tooling out there, I understand Okey Spalding may have some too, but much of it is incomplete and needs to be restored.  After the NEW IMC company announced 4 JoHan kits and then closed their doors I figure we have seen the end of the tooling unless model cars become the number one hobby and it is worth investing in these old tools. 

[niteowl7710]

This thread should be locked and pinned, Dave laid it out nice and succinctly.

[peteski]

1 hour ago, niteowl7710 said:

This thread should be locked and pinned, Dave laid it out nice and succinctly.

. . . and this type of question does pop up here fairly regularly.

[Snake45]

I'm of the impression that there's very little old tooling that's still usable or easily restorable that hasn't already been reissued in the last 20 years. 

But we do occasionally get an unexpected surprise, such as the upcoming AMT '64 Cutlass convertible and '63 Nova wagon. 

[Greg Myers]

14 hours ago, niteowl7710 said:

This thread should be locked and pinned, Dave laid it out nice and succinctly.

Yes. I agree. No need to continually discuss anything we've talked about before. No one could possibly come up with any new information now could they? Anyone new to the board or anyone that hasn't seen any of the older threads locked away in the boards great search engine shouldn't concern themselves. After all we know better, now don't we.?

[Tom Geiger]

Never say never.  There’s still some surprises possible from the tools both Round 2 and Atlantis now have.

[Xingu]

To those that have messaged me and reported this thread - While we would prefer that the existing threads be added to, it isn't against any rule for a poster, even if they are creating an identical thread to one they created a year ago, to bring up previously asked questions. Sometimes we merge the threads and sometimes we leave them separate.

[tbill]

One would think that once all the complete and viable tooling has been used, if the market is still good, the incomplete tools would start to get worked on to complete them, especially if it was a one and done from ages ago.

[SCRWDRVR]

35 minutes ago, tbill said:

One would think that once all the complete and viable tooling has been used, if the market is still good, the incomplete tools would start to get worked on to complete them, especially if it was a one and done from ages ago.

I would have to agree, you would think it would have to be cheaper to make a partial tooling rather than the whole thing....

[niteowl7710]

On 10/1/2020 at 2:55 PM, Greg Myers said:

Yes. I agree. No need to continually discuss anything we've talked about before. No one could possibly come up with any new information now could they? Anyone new to the board or anyone that hasn't seen any of the older threads locked away in the boards great search engine shouldn't concern themselves. After all we know better, now don't we.?

Pinning it would make it a permanent addition to the board at the top of this section, or perhaps in the FAQ section whichever would be considered more appropriate.  Ya know so we wouldn't have to keep asking it over and over again, getting the same answers, and every newbie would see it at the top of page as it would not ever move from there.

[wrenchr]

On 9/30/2020 at 4:33 PM, Dave Van said:

AMT - Round2 has all the AMT tooling that still exists. 

MPC - See above

Revell- Tooling that was not wanted or thought to be useful by the Revell owners in Germany were sold off tp Atlantis. All this tooling was in stroage in ILL

Monogram- See above

Johan- This one could fill a book. NO one answer. At one time when I did some work with Accurate Miniatures we looked at some JoHan tooling that was in storage. It was incomplete, clear parts IIRC, so AM passed. Moebius took a look at some other JoHan tooling back around 2017....it too was incomplete so they passed. There is a good amount of JoHan tooling out there, I understand Okey Spalding may have some too, but much of it is incomplete and needs to be restored.  After the NEW IMC company announced 4 JoHan kits and then closed their doors I figure we have seen the end of the tooling unless model cars become the number one hobby and it is worth investing in these old tools. 

The point you make about Johan sounds interesting, is it as simple of all the sources to figure out what tools they have and see if anything can be made into a complete kit? With the prices of Johan kits those might turn a profit if released right. 

[Xingu]

4 hours ago, niteowl7710 said:

Pinning it would make it a permanent addition to the board at the top of this section, or perhaps in the FAQ section whichever would be considered more appropriate.  Ya know so we wouldn't have to keep asking it over and over again, getting the same answers, and every newbie would see it at the top of page as it would not ever move from there.

We already have issues with too many pinned topics in some areas. We are discussing integrating the main webpage a bit more with the board and have a FAQ/Info area there. It does not matter what we do, someone will still ask the same questions again.

[GMP440]

20 hours ago, Tom Geiger said:

Never say never.  There’s still some surprises possible from the tools both Round 2 and Atlantis now have.

I agree.  I think a lot of more  surprises are on the way.  Round 2 is even fixing and modified old tooling. Lot of people have stated that this tooling and that tooling are gone forever.  Looks like in some instances they have been wrong.

[Dave Van]

4 hours ago, wrenchr said:

The point you make about Johan sounds interesting, is it as simple of all the sources to figure out what tools they have and see if anything can be made into a complete kit? With the prices of Johan kits those might turn a profit if released right. 

I can only speak of the tooling I have first hand info.

The tooling AM looked at was in poor shape and the molds for part of the tooling, clear, tires were missing. These could be cloned but AM figured the ROI was not there. 

The tooling Moebius was looking at was owned by a different company. There were 3 kits chosen. They were originally promos. There was missing parts AND the tooling had flat plate chassis, no interiors and missing parts. Test shots were ran but again the ROI was not there as Moebius had planned to tool a detailed promo style chassis and bucket interior. 

 

I know of some other tooling out there.....but when Model King Dave looked at it he did not see anything that would make money AFTER the repair and investment. Dave has issued some obscure stuff....but sadly what is out there is no better than boat anchors...... 

[ChrisBcritter]

Would there be any harm in telling us what specific Jo-Han tooling was discovered, since it's all a moot point now?

[Bugatti Fan]

Anyone remember the Merit brand set of 1/24th scale racing cars from the 1950's that were produced in the UK?

I learnt back in the 1970's that the moulds were sold on to a toy company in Italy, never to see the light of day again. That is apart from just two, the Alfetta and Talbot Lago kits that went on to be made by SMER. I heard recently that Atlantis may now have the moulds if someone could confirm this?

Anyone know what happened to the Renwall Revivals moulds?   As far as I can recollect they were only issued once during the 1960's. They were 1/25th scale kits of the Virgil Exner concepts of old classics in 1960's styling.

Apart from moulds that have been lost or incomplete, many that have survived are so clapped out that the quality would be unacceptable in the face of modern kits.

Edited October 3, 2020 by Bugatti Fan

[misterNNL]

IIRC at one time molds were considered  taxable assets wether they were being used or not. Many were scrapped as a money saving measure as a result.

[Bugatti Fan]

Tom, that would explain what probably has happened to many moulds of USA origin. Do not know what liabilities old moulds would generate in other countries though.

[GMP440]

36 minutes ago, Dave Van said:

I can only speak of the tooling I have first hand info.

The tooling AM looked at was in poor shape and the molds for part of the tooling, clear, tires were missing. These could be cloned but AM figured the ROI was not there. 

The tooling Moebius was looking at was owned by a different company. There were 3 kits chosen. They were originally promos. There was missing parts AND the tooling had flat plate chassis, no interiors and missing parts. Test shots were ran but again the ROI was not there as Moebius had planned to tool a detailed promo style chassis and bucket interior. 

 

I know of some other tooling out there.....but when Model King Dave looked at it he did not see anything that would make money AFTER the repair and investment. Dave has issued some obscure stuff....but sadly what is out there is no better than boat anchors...... 

What 3 kits were chosen?

[Tom Geiger]

31 minutes ago, Dave Van said:

I know of some other tooling out there.....but when Model King Dave looked at it he did not see anything that would make money AFTER the repair and investment. Dave has issued some obscure stuff....but sadly what is out there is no better than boat anchors...... 

Dave actually announced that he was going to do the 59 Rambler wagon along with Moebius. I believe Moebius was offered the tools that Okey had bought at auction. I believe another of the kits offered was the promo style version of the Chrysler Turbine car.

After Okey released a few kits, he sent out an email to a bunch of people looking for I believe was around $50,000 because someone had his tooling. I can only assume from that he couldn’t pay for either the run of kits or work done on the tools and they were repossessed. That could be the party offering them for sale.

i believe we can quantify which tools Okey had from the first sales flyer he put out. Casey had posted it the last time it was discussed.

So we can theorize that there are at least two lots, maybe three, of Johan tools out there. If in poor condition and missing parts, the party to buy these would be Round 2. 

[Snake45]

2 hours ago, Bugatti Fan said:

Anyone know what happened to the Renwall Revivals moulds?   As far as I can recollect they were only issued once during the 1960's. They were 1/25th scale kits of the Virgil Exner concepts of old classics in 1960's styling.

Revell seemed to end up with quite a few of the Renwall molds (military vehicles and such), so it's possible that these could turn up with Atlantis at some point. There might be some hope, anyway. 

[Greg Myers]

Quote

To those that have messaged and reported this thread 

It seems like there is quite a bit of interest. ?

Maybe the mantra, "if you're not interested, move on. " might apply here?