I’m torn on this one. I just saw the new Italeri Arado 196 floatplane in 1/48 scale-for $50.00. Is it worth it? Depends how bad you want one, I guess. I suppose we’re lucky we have the selection of kits that we have, and their quality. I have a huge collection of vintage kits, & sigh when I look at them today-the stock number on the end of the box usually had the suggested retail price at the end of it. The Revell 1/32nd Flying Tiger P-40’s SRP was $2.00. Today the Hasegawa 1/32 P-40s are priced between $58.00 & $72.00 at squadron.com. Then look at the price of some of the resin & photoetch detail sets-the Eduard Big Ed set is $85.00-more than the kit. The Revell P-40 was one of my favorite kits as a kid, and even today the sight of one of these, with its beautiful box artwork and descriptions of its “operating features” ignites my passions for modeling and history. I feel absolutely nothing like this when I look at one of the new Hasegawa kits…
I originally was not going to get this kit as I deemed it too expensive and had read some negative reviews, and Revell re-released the old Monogram C-47 coupled with picking up an actual original Monogram release from eBay, both for far less than Trumpeter wants for their own kit. But Sprue Brothers had the Trumpeter kit available for $68 so I decided what the heck, what’s one more C-47?
To the original point, I’ve noticed that some of the newer Hobby Boss releases are going for lots of $$$. Such as the F-111. I picked up their F-105 and A-7D from www.ericyymodel.com recently for a whole lot less than MSRP.
Yes we’re been lied to and sucker in on many fronts. The foods we eat are a prime example. The food industry has lied to us in the name of pure profit…we feed corn to everything and corn is in nearly everything we eat. No wonder we have the health issues we face today. A food substance that has no value except to stretch one resource with another to increase profit.
Back to rule one…we believe everything we’re told so the market continues to influence us. The largest influence these days is done by the pharmaceutical companies as they spend the most to fill the airways with their ads…basically no matter what our troubles or problems are “There’s a pill for that!”
Our gov’t is controlled by the same entities that lie to us. The gov’t creates watchdog organizations to protect us from the evils such as drug and food companies. But these agencies are staffed by persons from the corporations we are hoping to be protected from…the fox is in the hen house to protect us chickens.
Breakfast cereal, put it in a box and you can call it Healthy, compress it and place it in a wrapper and its called a candy bar…same ingredients just different packaging. The chickens getting fed and plucked by the fox.
I can remember my grandmother using Lard for cooking and baking. Then someone figured out how to make oils out of things we don’t normally eat. Lard was now taboo, listed as BAD for you. Now we find that the stuff we were told was better for us by the food giants and echoed by the gov’t has been killing us slowly Now naturally lard has been proved safe all along and we’re seeing all of the cooks on the Food Channel touting its health benefits…albeit very carefully so as not to upset their sponsors.
Raw milk is outlawed in many states, and if consumers want to purchase it its considered worst than bootlegging liquor. Farmers have had their property seized all in the name of food safety by the feds. Yet the feds continue to license and permit the sale of substances that are know to kill us in far greater numbers and contribute to the high costs of health care, because the industry that produces them has money and influence. They get a warning label, raw milk gets banned. Maybe if the Marlboro Man had drank raw milk instead of smoking cigs he’d be alive today.
Yep we can change things, but it takes getting off our collective butts before they become too oversized, cholesterol laden, leaking and disfunctional.
Until we return to the basics the kids today are doomed. They don’t teach the essentials in school anymore. Home Economics…cooking, sewing…did I mention cooking. Kids today depend on convenience foods far too much! They can’t hardly boil water and they only know how to do it in a microwave!
Kids today can operate a computer but they can’t read, write, use a tape measure or make change for a dollar bill.
I think I better step away from this…
Complain here! Send the importer a note!! Don’t buy!!!
Price is NOT everything. IF they include enough resin and PE part and the mold has good enough detail to allow me to build OOB, I can justify the price. It is a case by case decision.
Well said Gerald! I teach my kids home economics, carpentry and auto mechanics at home.
My solution to pricing is to have a modeling fund. I save my change at the end of the week and put it into a jar, it builds into a tidy sum surprisingly quickly. That money is what I have available for modeling purchases. When I see something model related, I have to consider what it will do to the fund. I really makes me weigh the value of more expensive kits. There are a few times where I decide that I can’t wait and buy an 'overpriced, kit. In many cases, I decide to wait and watch. I usually end up getting a kit that I have had my eye on for a much lower price than I first saw it at. Sometimes I strike out on some of the limited run stuff but I am ok with that. Sometimes I get an unexpected bonus like the R/M B-58 that my LHS offered to me for $25.
My usual solution is to stick with some of the good old standbys and build those good old classic kits and try to do a better job on the current kit than I did on it the last time that I built it (I have built the R/M P-38 at least 10 times).
I am also trying to improve my scratch building skills to avoid the cost of aftermarket details. I am finding that I am getting more satisfaction out of my work now as well.
In the end, I am sending my own small message to the industry by buying at what is a good price for me. That is a decision that we all make on our own. I bought the MRC 1/35 Blackhawk for $60 when it first came out and it was a good buy for me. I will not buy the 1/32 Trump P-38, sticking with the R/M offering because it is a better value to me. I actually enjoy building more since I have been buying this way because I am not as worried about ruining that precious kit that I paid $$$$$ for.
I have seen that the importers of kits seem to gouge on the prices more then the manufacturer. Take the Italeri reboxings of the AMT kits. Some of them are almost triple the price. Also in response to the new 48th jets coming out. How about the suggested retail for the Trumpeter Su-24 Fencer $149.99 this is 48th scale. NO WAY!!!
JOHN
Hey Hawkeye, we’ve got the beginings of a radical modeling party here. Three members, Hans, Hawkeye and Pordoi. We need a secret handshake. [:)]
Don
I’m afraid I’d step on too many toes if’n I said all of what I believe the main problem is… But it has a lot to do with too many assemblers and not enough modelers in the hobby… Plus, the Moderators have warned me about rants, lol… Politely phrased, but a warning nonetheless…
[whstl]
Mums the word, but you can include me in these sentiments, and make that a party of four.[;)]
I used to run a food plant so I’m not going to get started!! Smart consumers and happy consumers. Bottom line is that many of us will go out and buy aftermarket resin and PE for our kits and if you factor those prices into the basic kit then many of the new offerings are worth the $$ for some. It’s a to each his own situation and if Hans thinks doing PE correctly along with resin then he’s simply not built enough of the stuff. There are plenty of modelers out here how put a lot of time and energy into our aftermarket details. The point is to build historically accurate details. Most people won’t settle for the rudder on a model being the wrong shape but there are others who would like our cockpits to look like the cockpit photos. Heck I went on a rant two years ago on Eduard because they used English on the Oil Cooler placard on their Fw-190 A-8 Profipack kit.
When the details matter scratchbuilding isn’t the only solution and in fact we can get more accurate results by putting in the time and energy into the aftermarket stuff. It’s still modeling and in fact given the large amount of scratchbuilding I’ve done in my modeling career I can tell you it’s often much much more difficult modelling. Take a look at this month’s FSM. You don’t have to take it from me.
Two Revell C-47s…[t$t]
I disagree, and I’ll tell you why… When someone goes out and buys the after-market stuff, it’s fine with me because they have a choice in the matter… If I want to build the same kit, but sans the expense of AM stuff, I don’t get a choice… It’s as simple as that…
I know, I know, I don’t HAVE to buy that kit, and but I DO have to pay the ridiculous price being asked for it if I want the kit but don’t need the brass & resin fiddly-bits because I make my own if they’re needed… Eduard’s “Weekend Edition” kits are a prime example (In fact, I think you’re the one who turned me on to 'em, DC)… Eduard got it right, I think…
Yep, I do in fact have 2 of the Monogram/Revell issues in my stash. I got an original Monogram release via ebay + the recently re-released AC-47. Now I 3 C-47s with the Trumpeter.
I always look for bargain buy and will never buy a kit if the price is ridiculous even I like the kit so much.
Internet is your great sources for some bargain buy. I can get a 1/72 Italeri Bf110 as cheap as USD3.00 from ebay.
Luckymodel has a huge range of model brand kits. You can easily get a much cheaper price there.
You just need to look for more venue and resources to get more bargain kit. I usually go to physcial hobby shop only for paint. 75% of my kit are from internet. The remaining 20% are bought from special discount or year end offer from hobby shop. Only 5% are reserved for special meaningful kit which I need to use more money than my standard to get it.
Another thing to consider is the prices of crude oil! Less that 50% of each barrel of crude finds it’s way into our gas tanks and oil pans. The rest of the compounds extracted are made into various products, such as fertilizers, aspirin, and yes, PLASTICS such as polystyrene! This may also be a contributer to the rising prices.
Someone mentioned corn-now being made in even greater quantities to satisfy this drive to less dependence on foreign oil. But did you know that the production process takes about 1.1 gallons of “other fuels” such as gasoline and diesel, to produce 1 gallon of alcohol? Will someone explain the “economics” of that one to me?
Ain’t buying it… Not when Revell can put out a 1/48th B-29 for 30-35 bucks and others want 70 bucks for a frackin’ Me-109…
BINGO!!!
One thing to consider regarding the old Monogram B-29 is the age of the mold. Monogram (Revell) has certainly recouped their initial investment in that kit in terms of the cost of producing the mold. It is like an economy of scale in that they’ve been using that mold for years, are well experienced with it and are now using that mold purely for profit. Whereas a new mold is at the beginning of its useful life, the manufacturer has not reached the same economy of scale in its use, etc.
I don’t know how much plastic goes into the production of any kit, but I’d guess there’s not $70 worth of plastic in any new kit. Most of that cost is going toward other factors involoved in producing that kit.
That has nothing to do with oil prices and the cost of styene… That was my point… I only used the B-29 as an example of the amount of styrene used vs a '109…
Also, Revell has refurbished their older Monogram molds in most cases… There’s a number of small but significant differences in the kit parts made in the last few years vs. say, 1968 or even 1988…
That does IT! I’m loading up on my ebay “steals”, building the stash to an obscene level, and “hole en” up! I’m going to beat this inflation thing… Do you guys think paint and glue will remain reasonable in price?
Rick.