Are Hobby Companies Duping You Out of Your Money? 

Sure. But what if the kit goes together easier?

That would be fair

Have you built a Tamiya kit?

@@WasatchModeler I've been building since 1982. I know I have a few various makes of the Japanese manufacturers spread around my collection and a few Tamyia kits in the basement i started on years ago that need to be finished, so I know what they are about. Back in the 1990's AMT, Revell and Monogram kits were losing sales to the Japanese manufacturers because the domestic kit molds were getting too old, or they were very simple, like the Monogram cars. Still good kits, but they were not really keeping up with the times. Therefore, the domestic manufacturers decided to go into competition and make their kits as good, if not better than, the Japanese companies. From that challenge, we got some pretty excellent kits. For example, AMT gave us the 1962 Ford Thunderbird kit, the 1958 Edsel, the 1958 Plymouth Belvedere and a reeingineered 1957 Chevy with an opening trunk lid to replace the Trophy Series 1957 Chevy designed in 1962. Monogram gave us the 1959 Chevy Impala and 1959 Cadillac. Revell gave us the 1937 Ford Panel Van and Pickup Trucks and even Lindberg got in on the game with the 1964 Plymouth Belvedere and Dodge 330 kits, to name a few. However, as these companies changed hands in the 2000's, the new owners decided to stop creating new toolings and went back to reusing the old molds...for the most part. We still get new offerings which are remarkable, but it's not the same "energy" as it was in the 1990's. The thing is that you can't really fault the mold makers for the kits they produced. Today the model manufacturers have sophisticated computers and CNC machines as well as data files to manufacture model kits with...but prior to that, the model kit manufacturers had to make all the pieces by hand out of wood in 1:10th scale and then use a special machining tool that was basically a grinder on one end that would grind out the metal mold, and a pointer at the other that the engineer "Drew" all over the model car with, thus moving the grinder to cut the steel for the mold. (I forget the name of that machine now, but it had all these cross arms on it like a folding baby gate to transfer the movements to the grinder and reduce the scale of it in the metal mold to 1/25th scale.) So trying to compare the two technologies to one another is not going to be a good comparison because things improve. I can understand the frustration though. Every kit of the same subject made by different manufacturers over different periods of time shouldn't really be priced at the same price point, but then it also doesn't factor in that the MIG fighter from company 1 might have been the only Mig fighter kit on the market for decades...the second Mig kit from another company was produced to get sales from the first MIG kit and the new kit is built with advanced machining to try and replace the earlier two kits, yet the manufacturers of the previous kits still want to sell their mig model.

Yup

Fp041

Agreed, Case 3 is the point of the vid. A complete fail and very Revell. If Case 1 is obvious to consumer, great, completely agree. However, it’s often not, as a means for the vendor to maximise profit without adding value. Case 2 is, from my viewpoint, the trustworthy vendor’s approach. One cannot criticise a vendor for adding value and bringing old product up to contemporary quality expectations. It’s good business sense. A win-win approach. Pick your vendors according to the value they offer, and remember value is not equal to price. Price is one variable component in the total value equation.

I would like to see some more new tool kits of vintage cars like a '68 Plymouth Road Runner. No kit exists of this iconic 60's musclecar other years but not 1968.

I bought it from spruebrothers.com for 38. So under $40 technically

Keep in mind that Revell went through being sold in that time as well, that tends to stop all production on new tooled kits while the new owners figure out what they are going to do with the company. Heck as a hobby shop owner, I couldn't even get Revell or Revell Germany kits for about a year. In this day and age, to create a new tooling from the ground up from starting the research to being able to run plastic through the tooling, costs about $250000-$350000(depending on the complexity and parts count of the kit) for a basic car kit. Manufacturers might make $10 per kit that comes out of that tooling, (the rest is mark up between various importers, distributors, retailers), sometimes less. So out of that initial investment, you have to end up selling 25000 (at the low end) kits before that tooling is paid off. Gone are the days that manufacturers made runs of 50000 kits. Many would be lucky to see 5000 kits in a run. This is why some subjects are rarely made these days, if they can't get multiple different kits from the same tooling. Take for example the '30 & '31 Ford Coupe and Roadster from Revell. They never would have made that tooling if it was just '30 Roadster. As such while we have seen 4 kits so far from that tooling, I am told by Revell that there are parts on that tooling that have never been seen yet. Good reason why no one did a new C8 Corvette when it was first released, as they would never have sold enough of them to make any money on the tooling. They had to wait until the ZR1 model, convertible and racecar came out, so they could design the tooling to get at least 3-4 different models out of it to justify the cost of the tooling. Ditto for Moebius. Lots of different Ford Pickups, but it all comes from the same tooling. And is really the only way to go as there is no way to justify the cost if say it could only produce a 1970 short bed

@@viper29ca Thank you for taking the time to so thoroughly correct me. I appreciate it. As I stated, I was likely speaking out of ignorance, I think this confirms it and is the primary reason I continually hesitate to share observations and opinions. Discretion would have been the better part of valor once again.

@@scaleffect Nothing wrong with asking questions. My answer is not meant to "correct" you, just to bring a different aspect as to why some things happen the way they do.

The plastic is a Petroleum product, so when oil prices go up, so does the cost of everything made from it.

@@frederickhettesheimer2698 Yes, I understand that, I'm not a nincompoop. I understand that some rise in price is inevitable and perfectly reasonable. What I'd like to know is if it justifies the steep prices we see for some models. I'm not entirely sure that it does.

@@Randall1001 It does.

Why?

Not necessarily. Companies like AMT/MPC have been passed around from company to company for years. The tooling is only paid off if the original owners never sell the company. Once they sell it to someone else, that new company has invested their money in that tooling, and it is no longer "paid off"

Is still a relatively cheap hobby

This is more of a warning for those new to the hobby

Exactly

Why not recommend Tamiya?

​@@WasatchModelerpretty expensive for a beginner. Some of their kits are real pigs too and they release some of their kits from the 70s with new markings and box art and charge new kit prices- the "desert" M113 from Iraq is the same as the '70s (and '89 ACAV) version - but without an interior; the SDKFZ 232 Africa Corps version is pretty much the same as the '70s kit, with a metal gun barrel. Same with the SDKFZ 222. They also rebox Italeri, ICM and Fine Molds, though it's usually marked on the box.