An even more outrageous example comes to mind. The current Revell/Monogram online catalog (the American version - excluding Revell Germany) contains precisely seven ships. One of them is the ancient U.S.S. Missouri, the very first kit Revell produced back in 1953.
My memory doesn’t quite stretch back to the kit’s earliest appearances. (According to the bible on the subject, Dr. Thomas Graham’s Remembering Revell Model Kits, its second incarnation included an electric motor.) I do remember buying one a few years later for $2.00 - quite a bit of money in those days. The current price, according to the website, is over $15.00.
The historical importance of this kit is obvious. By some definitions it was the first plastic ship model kit (though the Strombecker/Lindberg Gato-class submarine makes a similar claim). When Revell designed this kit the underwater hull lines of the Iowa class were still classified. The lower half of the hull has a chunky, rectangular cross-section that has nothing to do with reality. The level of detail can most gently be described as primitive. (20mm guns cast in with the decks, turrets with long mounting pins that are supposed to be flattened with a hot knife, nondescript blobs where radar screens ought to be, etc.) This kit is, by modern standards, about as crude, inaccurate, and generally awful as a ship model can be. It’s also, by all accounts, one of Revell’s all-time best-sellers. The company has long since made back whatever it invested in design, moldmaking, tooling, and everything else. I’m no expert on such things, but my guess is that, beyond the minimal actual cost of the plastic, the paper (for the box and instructions), and the decals, every nickel anybody has paid for a Revell *Iowa-*class battleship during the past twenty years has gone directly into profit for the company.
What’s particularly irksome about this is that so many other - and better - *Iowa-*class kits have appeared under the Revell and Monogram labels over the years. Revell did a 1/720 version just a few years ago; it wasn’t up to Tamiya standard, but at least it had individual 20mm guns. Monogram did a couple of Iowa-class ships during the 70s. (I don’t remember the scale.) Revell/Monogram supposedly has all the old Aurora molds; even the Aurora 1/600 Iowa-class kits were better than this old fossil. And, if I remember correctly, for a while the big Otaki 1/350 kit was being sold under the Monogram label.
When I look at the state of the Revell ship catalog I wonder whether the people responsible for it know anything whatever about ship models. I wonder if any of the people making decisions for the corporation are capable of discerning the difference between that ancient kit and the Tamiya ones - beyond the fact that one is bigger than the other.
If we look at the subject objectively, though, maybe we ought to give these manufacturers some slack. I’m horrified at the pricing structure of plastic kits these days. (I was looking last night at the Minicraft web page, which contains a fascinating series of 1/144 airliners. They cost almost $20 each.) On the other hand, we’re talking about a hobby that’s fundamentally different than it was when that old Revell Missouri first appeared. It’s no longer a hobby for kids. (If the pricing trend continues, the few kids left in the hobby won’t be there long.) During the past twenty years or so adult hobbyists have gotten reconciled to the idea that $20 is not a high price to pay for a decent plastic kit. (There was a time not so long ago when $20 would buy any kit on the market - including the big Revell Cutty Sark.) The prices of plastic kits have risen far more rapidly than the inflation rate.
There’s got to be a fundamental relationship between the price of the kit and the number of units the public will buy. I don’t buy kits nearly as often as I used to; I can’t afford them. I’m not going to pay $100 for a plastic kit unless (a) I’m absolutely certain that I’m going to build it - starting tonight; and (b) it’s going to take me several years to finish it. I don’t think I’m the only modeler whose buying habits have been altered by the increases in prices.
I assume the great brains in charge of companies like Tamiya, Hasegawa, and Revell are trying hard to figure out just where to set their prices in order to achieve an ideal balance of quality, market appeal, and profit. It behooves us to watch them carefully during the next few years. We all hope they won’t seriously compromise quality in order to keep prices down. But if the prices go up much further, customers will stop buying the products in sufficient numbers and the hobby will die.
I’m not competent to make such business decisions. But when I look at the current state of the hobby I really do worry about what it’s going to look like in twenty years. I can see it now: “The latest release from Tamiya: 1/72 scale P-51D Mustang. Features include Merlin engine with moving pistons and functioning carburetor, instrument panel with movable needles on all dials, pilot with fully-functioning relief tube, and 750 individually-molded .50 cal. machine gun cartridges. Kit includes miniature air pump to inflate tires. Parts - 2,468. Price - $1,250.00.”