overpriced models

I've always thought that Hasegawa is overpriced, especially their 1/48 and 1/72 winged things. Tamiya's 1/700 ship models are overpriced as well in my humble opinion.

Best deals as of late? I'd say DML's Premium Edition kits. I also think that by and large, Revellogram has some very good kits that don't cost an arm and a leg. Of course, the do have stinkers as well.

Comparing what you get for your hard-earned bucks, Tamiya kits are getting a bit pricey for this guy, and it's been a while since I bought a Hasegawa kit. For value, fit, tooling, and all the extras included in the kit, it's hard to beat Eduard. The Camel I'm building came with 2 extensive PE frets, 5 sprues of superbly engineered plastic parts, masks, extensive well-printed decal sheets with markings for 8 birds, a block of resin parts, comprehensive color prints/optional parts for all 8 mounts, and easy to follow instructions, all for the list price of $24 USD. I know we're not supposed to give specifics here, but the example I gave is pretty standard for many of Eduards releases (I say that because I have a bunch of 'em).

I'll put my two cents down for Trumpeter's 1/35 kits in the underpriced category. Their entire lineup of tanks is under 20€, whereas Dragon kits run the gamut from 30 to 45, and Tamiyas often go even higher if bought new, even for ancient kits not up to snuff, such as their KV-2.

Dollar for dollar, I'd say Tamiya and even AFV Club are on the overpriced side. Yes they deliver nice fitting and detailed kits, but don't give all the goods that Dragon offers.

On the underpriced side, most of the newer Trumpeter kits, but alas, even they are creeping upward as they too try to run stride for stide with Dragon.

Dragon still offers the most bang for the buck IMO.

Since my interests are rather limited - sailing ships, space and WWI planes - I can only say in those limits. Most wooden kits and a lot of resin kits are way overpriced. Not because they are "just expensive", but because quality do not correspond to price.

As for underpriced kits, in the area of WWI planes you can't beat Eduard. Their are truly excellent kits, many of them include ready masks and PE, for a laughable price. I mean, right now I'm building tiny 1/144 Stuka bomber, the kit of the most exquisite quality of plastic (best I've seen yet). It includes masks, decals for 3 variations of Stuka, 10+ PE parts, most excellent manual with colors for 3 variants of painting, and the best-molded tiny windscreen I've ever seen; it cost me $4.

Another underpriced kits are from Ukrainian firm Roded. They are not exquisite as Eduard's kits, their quality is average, although no worse than most other kits, but kits are cheap.

Tamiya has to be. Many chain stores price the kit based on box size, therefore when an ancient kit is reissued, it gets priced the same as a recent issue kit in the same size box. Then some newbie buys the 1970 Panther A kit and promptly announces the lack of quality and they can't understand why Tamiya has such a dog out.

Dragon's 1/72 scale range is well underpriced. The prices are less than the old Esci reissues that Italeri is releasing.

For overpriced kits, I'd say Tamiya and Trumpeter 1/32 kits. It's bothersome to shell out a $100 plus dollars and still need to buy some PE/detail sets to dress it up. On the other end, Revell and DML are good buys for your dollar.

Scott

DURR wrote:

there are quite a few great model companies out there today being as objective as possible  1        in you opinion what company is IN GENERAL the most over-priced not looking for specific models now  2        in your opinion what company is IN GENERAL the most under-priced and again  not looking for specific models

 

In Japan, without a doubt, Revell is grossly overpriced. Obscenely overpriced. Embarassingly overpriced.
Then comes Italeri. Not as ridiculous as Revell, but still pretty shocking.
Then comes any other European, Eastern European, or US maker. All very overpriced...here in Japan!

Converserly, Tamiya and Hasegawa are quite reasonably priced. So is Dragon and Trumpeter, for the most part.

Here in Japan!

So, the point of this reply is that pricing is entirely relative to where you are. What's "overpriced" in one country may be "underpriced" in another.

Tamiya and Hasegawa are generally considered to be "overpriced" on the popular modelling websites because most people posting do not live in Japan, where they are in fact quite cheap. The distributors make them expensive overseas, just like Revell's distributor in Japan (Hasegawa) makes them expensive here.

I guess I would say some of Trumpeter's stuff has been underpriced in the past, but they've since stopped "giving stuff away," and have raised their prices quite a bit in the last year or so.  

J-Hulk wrote:

DURR wrote: there are quite a few great model companies out there today being as objective as possible  1        in you opinion what company is IN GENERAL the most over-priced not looking for specific models now  2        in your opinion what company is IN GENERAL the most under-priced and again  not looking for specific models         In Japan, without a doubt, Revell is grossly overpriced. Obscenely overpriced. Embarassingly overpriced. Then comes Italeri. Not as ridiculous as Revell, but still pretty shocking. Then comes any other European, Eastern European, or US maker. All very overpriced...here in Japan! Converserly, Tamiya and Hasegawa are quite reasonably priced. So is Dragon and Trumpeter, for the most part. Here in Japan! So, the point of this reply is that pricing is entirely relative to where you are. What's "overpriced" in one country may be "underpriced" in another. Tamiya and Hasegawa are generally considered to be "overpriced" on the popular modelling websites because most people posting do not live in Japan, where they are in fact quite cheap. The distributors make them expensive overseas, just like Revell's distributor in Japan (Hasegawa) makes them expensive here. I guess I would say some of Trumpeter's stuff has been underpriced in the past, but they've since stopped "giving stuff away," and have raised their prices quite a bit in the last year or so.

sorry Brian i sometimes forget this forum  is a world class thing and i tend to direct my queries toward people in the US

your right the tarifs ,taxes etc and the country your from all inter-relate to the cost

So Brian, you wouldn't mind direct importing to us hungry modelers then....would ya? 

tigerman wrote:

So Brian, you wouldn't mind direct importing to us hungry modelers then....would ya?

Funny you should mention that...

You do know what company I work for, don'tcha? (Shhhh! It's a secret!)

 

DURR, no problem! The subject of high prices comes up all the time, and when it does, I just like to remind folks that it's all relative to your perspective. Granted, the majority of FSM members are probably North American (anybody got the numbers?), so for those folks Tamiya and Hasegawa are probably the most expensive kits...but there are places where that is not the case.

Overpriced, I'd go with Tamiya, but there are all sorts of valid reasons for this. Underpriced, I'd go with Trumpeter, and boy do I hope that doesn't change. Some fantastic kits are in their release schedule, and I WANT 'EM ALL!!!

Obviously, if you add point of view into the consideration, many armor modelers may think that $50 for a Hasegawa high end airplane model is too much, but not balk at spending that same amount of money on a Tamiya Dragon Wagon.

Additionally, when the DML M4A1(75) early was a rare kit in the late 90s and early 00s, it would go for $75-100 on eBay. A Shermanholic that just had to have it would easily pay that much for the kit, but I remember when it first hit the shelves. It was $36 around 1996-97 and I thought that was way too much for a Sherman tank kit when I could have the Italeri kit for $10 or the Tamiya one for $20. I did end up buying one at half price for $18 when the local craft store went out of business.

J-Hulk wrote:

In Japan, without a doubt, Revell is grossly overpriced. Obscenely overpriced. Embarassingly overpriced. Then comes Italeri. Not as ridiculous as Revell, but still pretty shocking. Then comes any other European, Eastern European, or US maker. All very overpriced...here in Japan!

You are right, prices can vary a lot in different countries. I live in the Netherlands, over here Revell, Academy and Airfix are cheap, Hasegawa, Tamiya and Eduard are expensive.

But I have been on vacation to the Czech Republic and Eduard is extremly cheap over there whilst Revell is expensive (and Tamiya is through the roof!)

I won't normally snatch something up when it comes out, because right off the bat, there is just too much of a rush to get the kit and the price remains at that level for some time. Hasegawa has a wierd pricing strategy, thier SH3D series has gone up and down in price (I have several with varoius standard price tags on them from the same store, where the price actually drops for a time and then comes back up with the next issue or next revision to markings)  import fees to the US (like with Italari kits) puts thier quality (say with the AH1Z, very little new engineering, just a new sprue, with a new pricetag) vs. cost in the expensive range.  Revell reissued the tired old 1/32 AH1G at 28 bux a pop in an enormous box.  I can get it super cheap down at Hobby Lobby when it goes on clearance and they have to make space to get that big box out of the way, but I have several of the original '67 vintage longboxes at home and the plastic sure looks the same to me.   Import duties will always play a hand in non domestic kits...it will be interesting to see how Trumpeters prices change in the future and which trend it will follow long term.

David

Tamiya are really too expensive up here.  Part of it is taxes, and I guess part of it is having a single importer.  I ordered, for example, the Tamiya Red Ball Express 2 1/2 ton on sale from Luckymodel in HK, and all in, it was about half the price the lhs has to charge.  Trumpeter is usually very good value for the dollar, Dragon isn't bad.  The Dragon 1/72 armor kits are a great deal.  13-14 dollars for a nice little kit.

I probably have a different view on the world

Tamiya, Accurate, and Trumpeter - they seem in line to me with the "get what you pay for" cliche.

Hasegawa, I only have one kit (I'm still a little new at this) but after reading good reviews, boy, I was really disappointed. I have a 2nd Hase kit on the shelf but can't comment because I havent even opened it yet.

I think Revell is overpriced. Yeah. I've tried a couple of them and there's so many issues with fit, incomplete directions, etc, to me they're not worth anything at all. Just garbage. Now again, limited experience base there, but thats my perceptions after seeing two of them. But, 20 bucks on crap is 20 bucks you might as well wipe with. I'd rather spend the money on a 70 dollar kit and have good fit, good instructions, decals that dont fight me, a decent attempt at paint callouts, etc.

Never tried an Italieri or Eduard, but would like to for the sake of comparo.

 in the time i've been modelling the prices of models hasn't made what i would consider a dramatic jump in price. distributers and mfgrs work with suplly and demand so as inflation or tarifs have gone up so has the price of our kits,dealers and mfgrs must maintain a profit margin inorder to make a slow moving prdct worth keeping.by slow moving i mean not all of us go out every day and buy 1000 u.s.d. worth of kits,most of us have aquired our colletions over years (why is a cool kit from ten yaers ago not cool now?),and dont usually jump at the fresh tiger or me 109 that come out.  However with the price of crude oil bouncing around and anything made from oil skyrocketing in price it would not be a strech of imagination for our models to become almost unobtainable without a second mortgage. As for getting what you pay for i disagree all models are only as good as the person building them wants them to be.most of mine are stinkers but im happy with them:) happy modelling

armornut wrote:

As for getting what you pay for i disagree all models are only as good as the person building them wants them to be.most of mine are stinkers but im happy with them:) happy modelling

mine are too  

maybe we should form a stinky model forum

i agree with twelvealpha 100 percent you get what u pay for.