I noticed HLJ is taking pre-orders for an Aoshima 1/150 Korofune. I don't know anything about this particular ship and at this time there is no box pictured. It's about $88 American. I had just finished reading the thread on Tamiya ship models and prices, etc., and J Tilley's post about the Hanseatic Cog from Zvezda, and just wanted to put in my 2 cents worth about the lack of new sailing ship kit releases and pricing.
There are about 14 sailing ship kits, all Aoshima, at the Hobby Link Japan site, but 11 of them show "out of stock" status. Aoshima has the old Imai molds so there is potentially a good selection of subjects. They are the very common ones like the Santa Maria, Golden Hind, Mayflower, and a few more. The difference is they are in decent scales, some are 1/60 and 1/70, and supposedly good quality ex-Imai tooling. It doesn't do us sail powered fans any good if they are perpetually out of stock.
I was interested in either the Nippon Maru or Kaiwo Maru, larger versions, but they went out of stock quickly. I can't second guess the management at Aoshima, but it could be that they don't expect volume sales on sailing ship kits. On the other hand, they keep releasing kits in this category. It's like you read about a new one and two weeks later it's out of stock. Either the dealers are ordering low quantities to minimize their inventories or Aoshima is not making many kits available. Either way, it drives the pricing up.
My other cent worth is a whine about lack of competition. I searched on-line vendors for hours to see if I could find the Aoshima Golden Hind from somewhere other than Mega-Hobby. It's the only place I found it so it's no surprise the price is about $160 and I've never seen them put it on sale. Squadron does have a few: 1/150 Nippon Maru and Kaiwo Maru, 1/120 Cutty Sark, and the Napoleon. So there's Squadron and HLJ and that's about it.
It would be nice to be able to get a large scale sailing ship kit, even if it is a very overdone subject. It seems the only way I'll be able to do this is to bite the bullet and pay $100 plus and do it as soon as a kit is available. If the strategy is to keep prices high by limiting quantities and available vendors then I guess that is just shrewd business management. It seems to be working on me.
Ron