I just recieved the Trumpeter Leopold from my online dealer and it was not shrinkwrapped. The box could just be opened. This is my first Trumpeter kit.
Are Trumpeter kits not sealed?
I know that Revell Germany isn’t shrinkwrapped either however there are small round tape tags on the box to insure it hasn’t been opened.
Comments please?
I’ve never seen shrinkwrapped Trumpeter kits. Or Dragon, or Hobby Boss, or Tamiya, or Hasegawa, or Fujimi, or most other kits from Asian manufacturers…in fact, just about all kits available in Japan are non-shrinkwrapped (Italeri, Airfix, Heller, Revell/Monogram usually are taped shut, however). That’s why visiting hobby shops here is so much fun…you can freely rummage around in the boxes, so you know exactly what you’re getting.
Not sure how other countries handle it (my distant recollections of US hobby shops is that EVERYTHING was shrinkwrapped), but if your order was via an Asian dealer, it probably wasn’t shrinkwrapped from the beginning.
My two LHS’ have Trumpeter and they’re just about the only brand that aren’t shrink wrapped.
At a local LHS(the oen that just closed), I saw identical kits, some shrinkwrapped and some not. I actually inquired about this, and the answer I got was interesting and unexpected, but it made sense. Import kits do not come shrinkwrapped. It’s the distributor who does it. Some do and some don’t. The LSH usually got them either shrinked, or with the round tabs. However he always had the round tabs on hand for any that came through without them. He would open them, carefully check the contents, and if everything was there and not broken, then he would close it back up, and then put the round sticky tabs on all four sides, then put it on the shelf for sale. I don’t remember which distributor did which, but he used two. He also ordered from some other sources occasionally, when a customer wanted something his distributor didn’t carry, such as friulmodel tracks, or any indy track sets really. So just kind of a heads up on things. Hope this makes some sense. If anyone has anything else to add or any other observations, I think it would be interesting to share, and learn.
Michael
EDIT
Reminds me, one LHS in particular around here shrinks just about everything except Revell AG Armor kits. The other LHS(on the other side of town in the neighboring city) shrinks about 75% of their stuff. Both do this for various reasons, but the main reason they have shrinkwrappers is so if a customer wants to examine the contents before they buy, and decides they don’t want it, they can reshrink it, and put it back on the shelf. I’ve done this a couplel of times. First time was to decide which one of two kits I wanted. I just wanted to check which one had certain details. The other time I can recall off the top of my head was when I was wanting to see if a kit had vinyl tracks or not. Other then that the only times I can remember asking to remove the shrink before purchase was I had decided to buy already, but only wanted to do one transaction on my debit card, and I wanted to know what the manufacturer recommended for paint colors, so I could purchase those colors if they seemed accurate.
I don’t remember any Trumpeter kit I’ve bought being wrapped, including the Leopold.
I’ve bought many many trumpeter kits, and the only one that ever came shrinkwrapped was their latest Pz.VI based bridgelayer. I’ve got the leopoled and the karl morser ,and they were not shrinkwrapped.
I should have stated that I’m in the US.
all Tamiya are shrinkwrapped in the US .
Anyway thanks for the replies. My inventory shows all parts present.
All of mine have been purchased on-line, and were wrapped.