Well here's some interesting Italeri news

Having just built an Italeri aircraft kit (new tool), I can say they are over priced, the only perks they have over other Manf. is Cartograph printed decals and a small pe fret included. The plastic moulding quality is fairly poor and fit is nothing what a new tool kit now days should be. This $ 45 kit should've been around $35 max. And this kit wasn't a rare subject no one else does either...

I expect the prices to go back down, to something more in line with what Italeri themselves expected the prices to be.

Everyone that ever "escaped" from MRC had the prices get better afterward. (with the possible exception of the original MRC model aircraft kits, I think those just ceased production outright) Even the classic example of Fujimi's kits were lower priced after the Marco Polo and MRC days, when they were sold by Dragon for a while.

(I realize that there are probably thousands of modelers that didn't ever see an original MRC model kit,,,,,,but, they were around in the early days of US models,,,,,,,,cheesy working features and all on a 1/72 aircraft)

Rex

I guess we can hope. But it's probably the case that the cat is out of the bag now.... I agree that Italeri used to be a good 'value' brand. You knew the kit was not in quite the same class as the big guys, but you were paying a lot less, and could work it up yourself. Now they are asking big boy prices when even their newer releases are still not top shelf, let alone the high prices on their reissues of old stuff.

Don't get me wrong, Italeri's latest releases are very good kits. But they are asking top of the line money for them. And I still don't think they are quite that good.

Well that and the fact that Italeri has released some old ESCI kits with nothing more than a new box, instruction sheet and decals, and again asking Tamiya like prices for those kits. No thanks. Years ago, Itleri was the affordable alternative to Tamiya in 1/35 armor and to all the other Far Eastern companies in 1/48 aircraft. Nowadays they are not. Hopefully they will return to that status.

That would be the hope. But to compare it to something else, once they have you used to $4 a gallon gas, you'll be singing to the gods in praise when it's only $3.80. One of the the things that bothered me about skyrocketing Italeri prices was they were asking top tier prices, for typical Italeri quality. To put it more bluntly, they were asking Tamiya prices for Italeri quality. And to me, they are not near enough to that to be worth the $$$s they were asking.

There probably would never have been a Tamiya America had not MRC so mismanaged the brand. I don't think Fujimi has ever recovered from their stint with MRC. I well remember them asking in the $40 range for the then new 1/48 109 G/K kits in the early 90s. That's still expensive now...to all you young'uns out there, imagine the horror at a single engine 1/48 WW2 kit selling at that price...20 years ago!

I hope this means that there will be a price adjustment. MRC tends to charge higher fees than certain other distributors/importers.