Apparently Verlinden is closing, Mr. Verlinden is retiring and has decided not to sell his business. This Facebook post was shared over in Hyperscale’s Plane Talking forum:
It’s an album depicting closing out the facilities.
I saw no word of this on the Verlinden Productions website, at www.verlindenonline.com, but when I first accessed it now, I got a security certificate error, and saw a note that the certificate had expired in August. That suggests that the site is being allowed to expire and is a step away from being taken down.
If it’s true, it’s certainly the end of an era in modeling, the end of perhaps the first, biggest, aftermarket maker.
Major bummer. I’ve only recently started using aftermarket bits, and used a verlinden figure kit. It was amazing quality. I DO know fracois verlinden is a legend and true pioneer in the industry. This is a loss to us for sure…
As soon as I read the post I figured that. When Ross Gibson (who made the most awsome resin automotive engines around) died a couple of years back, the prices for his products hit the roof.!!!
It is, or was. It was located in Missouri. But he still ran the company.
I read in that Facebook thread a post to clarify that the existing molds were destroyed, or more specifically, recycled, since they’re rubber. But the masters exist. That suggests a possibility that some other manufacturer can make an offer to buy them and revive the catalog.
To be honest, i am not sure why anyone would anat to take on those molds. While i do like their stuff and we certainly have a lot to thank them for, they have now been very surpassed. And much of their stuff does have issues. 35th figures that are to big, AM sets that don’t fit properly and plaster buildings with poor moldings.
I happen to know Bob Letterman of VLS (Verlinden, Letterman & Stok) from the early 90’s and others (Verlinden, Lewis Pruneau, etc…) associated with the company. I also attended their first Convention in 1991. Verlinden and VLS went their separate ways years ago and I believe the two are separate companies. Many consider the initial Verlinden affter-market products as the beginning of the Golden Age of Modeling. I certainly do. However, as early as the mid-90s other after-market companies soon became more specialized, innovative and more flexible than Verlinden and soon the company was out-classed in many areas. Most of their PE and resin upgrades were notoriously difficult to work with, and their resin figs soon fell by the wayside as companies like Alpine came along…although sad, my modeling efforts will not suffer as I haven’t bought a Verlinden product in years. But I do recognize their groundbreaking efforts that forever changed the way we all approach and build models…