Hi everyone, i was at the Atlanta show this weekend and something really caught my eye. A vendor had a FINE MODELS 1/48 SCALE , FA-9 Ki-43ii K6 “OSCAR” for sale for $70.00. I asked him why was this model priced so “out of line”. He replied it was a “collectors item”. Anyone know what he is talking about or is it just BS trying to fake a buck. Any info will be greatly appreciated. doc bailey
Fine Molds kits tend to be pricey. But it sounds like this guy was taking it pretty bad on the gouging side. They are currently OOP, but I will bet they are the same as the Hasegawa kits. I picked one up at a LHS for less than half that price on sale. They were running around $40 at that time.
I like to pin vendors down at shows… When they tell me something like that, I ask them, “Why is it collectable?” If they can’t come up with an answer PDQ that I’ll buy, they get someone else’s money… One vendor thought he’d rool up some quick cash at a show I attended back in the 90s… He had about dozen Monogram “Blue Box” armor and air craft kits from the 60s… The kits were stupidly priced at like 40.00 for the 1/48th Monogram F4U-4, F6F, and 1/32 Weasel and Sherman Caliope kits… I looked at them briefly and saw the copyright date was indeed, the right era, but then, looking at the OTHER side panel, saw the copyright date was current…
Guess he didn’t do his homework on those kits and didn’t know that Monogram had released the kits in the “replica” boxes… He probably fleeced a few people that day…
Just because a kit is currently OOP doesn’t make it a collectable. The Fine Molds Oscar is a decent kit, but not worth the vendors’ asking price. It will very likely be reissued at some point in time. If you want an Oscar. the Hasegawa Oscar (not the same tooling as the FineMolds kit) is actually a better kit, IMHO, & can be readily found for substantially less.
Regards, Rick
The guys are right!
Just for the heck of it I looked at HobbyLink Japan and they have several versions of the kit for $27.10 US.
And yeah, the Hasegawa kit is newer, more detailed, better fit, and pretty much superior in every way. The only way I could see picking up the FineMolds kit is if you want a Mk III which Hasegawa doesn’t make.
The old FineMolds kits from the '80s had a bunch of ‘high-tech’ features like white metal landing gear, engines, etc that the new kits don’t have. But the plastic parts in the newer kits are better detailed and easier to work with. So if you want the model to collect it maybe it’s worth it but I intend to build my kits so I can’t see spending the extra money for the kit even if it is an old one.
Yep, here is the Hasegawa offering with a little AM and decals from an Aeromaster sheet:
