Lol, for Feb the 14th St. Valentine's Day (when I'm posting this) Sprue Brothers has a bunch of kits and detail parts to the British Valentine infantry tank on sale...

GMorrison

I bought hundreds of kits over a ten year period back in the 2000's. I'm happy to now have a supply of kits bought and paid for that will last me the rest of my life.

 

stikpusher

With these new Meng and Takom kits, sometimes the capitalist competition works in our favor. I want a Jagdpanther and Henschel King Tiger for my 1/35 collection, so I’ll look at those options. 

In the US, we are stuck in the middle nowadays as almost all military model manufacturing is overseas. It nearly all has to be imported, so the associated importer fees boost our domesticly purchased kit prices currently.

 

The UK is the same, most of the armour coming out is from Aisa. But getting stung with customs fees is hit and miss, and i have found that from japan i often get stung with a fee, from China it always seems to get through with no fee.

And the customs fees are never that much, most i have had is £3. Its the Royal mail handling fee that hits the wallet, £8 last time i had a customs charge.

With these new Meng and Takom kits, sometimes the capitalist competition works in our favor. I want a Jagdpanther and Henschel King Tiger for my 1/35 collection, so I’ll look at those options. 

In the US, we are stuck in the middle nowadays as almost all military model manufacturing is overseas. It nearly all has to be imported, so the associated importer fees boost our domesticly purchased kit prices currently.

Rob Gronovius

With Dragon Tiger, or any common subject, as soon as a new "ultimate" kit is produced by someone, all the other "used to be ultimate" kits drop in price. Tigers, Abrams and Shermans often suffer from this affliction. Great deals on great kits that are not quite as great as the latest great kit.

 

I don't know about that. Dragon prices seem to have gone through the roof for what are really 10+ year old kits just when other companies like Rye Fields, Meng and so on are bringing out new kits for often less money. I picked up the Rye Fields Bergetiger for under 40 quid when at the same time the Dragon kit was around 80.

I look on e-bay now and theres the 2002 Dragon Panther Ausf A for £60 and for an extra tenner you can get the 2018 Takom with zimm and full interiour or the 2017 Meng kit for £30.

There are a number of armour subjects i had planned on buying the Dragon kits off, now i am planning to buy others.

I get the Squadron sales flyer frequently advertising some huge discounts that I honestly haven’t found or noticed. Often times their “Sales” pricing is more expensive than the same item at Scale Hobbyists. 

You can find some pretty awesome sales now and then like Dragon USAs last one were I grabbed $60 to $70 armor kits for $25 each, some including free figure sets and free shipping.

Another great source are the vendor tables at model shows. Sometimes one can find incredible deals there.

Rob Gronovius

With Dragon Tiger, or any common subject, as soon as a new "ultimate" kit is produced by someone, all the other "used to be ultimate" kits drop in price. Tigers, Abrams and Shermans often suffer from this affliction. Great deals on great kits that are not quite as great as the latest great kit.

 

Yup.... the guys who have to have the best kit of whatever, dump off the last  release of whatever.... 

As I grow older, it it often seems like everything is too expensive! Especially stuff I haven't priced in a long time.

With Dragon Tiger, or any common subject, as soon as a new "ultimate" kit is produced by someone, all the other "used to be ultimate" kits drop in price. Tigers, Abrams and Shermans often suffer from this affliction. Great deals on great kits that are not quite as great as the latest great kit.

I would humbly submit that there are still good deals out there albeit for older kits.  I just got the old Revell  1/48 Big Beautiful Doll p-51D kit purchased online from a local craft store for 9.57 shipped.  You just have to scrounge 

I agree,i'm probably to the point where I probably cant finish my stash,so unless its a must have,I wont be jumping in 

GMorrison

I bought hundreds of kits over a ten year period back in the 2000's. I'm happy to now have a supply of kits bought and paid for that will last me the rest of my life.

 

Likewise. Unless it is a new release of a subject that I want that has not been kitted before or only long ago, I am not looking at new purchases. And then, it’s bargain hunting time. Another 1/48 Me-109G, no thanks. A new 1/48 AH-1G or 1/48 AH-56, time to look for the best price.

I bought hundreds of kits over a ten year period back in the 2000's. I'm happy to now have a supply of kits bought and paid for that will last me the rest of my life.

I think we are seeing the normal inflation that follows a recovery from recession.  Wages and prices have been level or gently rising in the past few years.  Now that the economy is picking up world-wide, we are seeing the pressure on wages and prices.  As a retired person I just hope it does not go extreme.

modelmaker66

It is charging the maximum a market will bear. If it is a new tool, large or a unique subject they will jack up the price as high as they will still be able to sell a kit for. If nobody bought the $300.00 1/32 lancaster, they would drop the price. Still, people pay way too much for literally a few cents of extruded plastic, some paper and a buck of decal paper and ink.

 

It is charging the maximum a market will bear. If it is a new tool, large or a unique subject they will jack up the price as high as they will still be able to sell a kit for. If nobody bought the $300.00 1/32 lancaster, they would drop the price. Still, people pay way too much for literally a few cents of extruded plastic, some paper and a buck of decal paper and ink.

Even back in the day, the extremely large aircraft kits were a whole lot more than smaller kits. When airfix 1/72 kits were a buck and change on those blister packs, every once in a while I'd see a 1/32 scale aircraft kit that was 10-20 times more expensive. Whereas 1/76 scale armor was a similar price to 1/72 scale aircraft but 1/32 scale armor was between $5-10.

Cadet Chuck

Plastic is expensive, and the bigger the kit, the higher the price, across the board.  In the case of top-notch manufacturers like Tamiya, the price also goes up because of the quality from new state-of-the-art tooling, and extras like resin parts and photo-etch.

 

The resin and photo etch aspect I don’t buy so much. PE, especially in bulk, is not expensive to produce. Resin... not many companies aside from Eduard include Resin in their kits as standard. Aside from from some companies who offer other folks molds with extra goodies. Just looking at basic kits, I would say that there is some exonomics involved. Japan is a resource poor island nation. Anything related to modeling pretty much has to be imported, so higher costs ensue. China does not have such constraints, nor any western economy labor costs due to the peculiarities of their economy. Nor do companies from Europe, although their labor costs are higher.

When you look at basic kits, say a new tool, Airfix or Eduard Weekend Edition, and compare it to similar kits from Asia, strictly plastic wise, I think that the better bargains are coming from Europe.

Thanks both,it just seemed to me a big jump all at once.

templar1099

Perusing the Squadron catalog and the prices for,in particular, 1:32 aircraft were kind of surprising to me. Don't want to start a verbotten topic here but is it a reflection of quality,or contemporary trade policies ?

 

I think the two biggest issues on pricing are the companies themselves, their MSRP, and the importers of their kits. The importers tend to cause the greatest mark up in pricing. Trade policies tend to rate a distant third place. Tamiya recently instituted a policy of companies having to see at their base price or they would face some sort of action by Tamiya. Companies that are imported and distributed in the USA by MRC tend to see a price mark up compared to immediately before MRC took that role for that company. I really have yet to see any major change to Trumpeter or Dragon pricing yet, though  the USA and PRC are in something of a trade war currently. Then of course, there is the final factor of the equation, the seller, and how much or little of a mark up that they will charge from their wholesale price in order to make a profit and stay in business. Online only shops have an advantage over brick and mortar stores due to the differing overhead costs....

Plastic is expensive, and the bigger the kit, the higher the price, across the board.  In the case of top-notch manufacturers like Tamiya, the price also goes up because of the quality from new state-of-the-art tooling, and extras like resin parts and photo-etch.