How are the mighty fallen

Dr. Tilley ,

I think it's the old bottom line.What will make the most profit for invested funds? The answer is evident with a visit to Hobby Lobby and my LHS. When the young folks select a model , what would you guess to be the choice? If your answer is cars ( lots of rice burners) and jet ac you would be correct. When I spoke to the manager of the local Hobby Lobby about the prospect of ordering a greater selection of ship models , I was informed the selection at hand was all that was approved. I was also informed that, due to lack of demand, the entire ship line may be deleted from inventory. They have added several "Easy" Revell car models to the very large display of car models.

The price of ship models could be a factor. Car models tend to be much less expensive. Lack of interest in the subject of History and the patience to build a " difficult " looking model could also be factors. Custom painting a car model also could be a big draw to a young builder.

I think in the next 20 years plastic sailing ships will be classified with Passenger Pigeons and DODO Birds.

Do think the models we build a younger folks influences our selection of kits as more mature ( older ) builders?

 

 

 

 

Of course profit is the biggest driving consideration - for Revell and for every other model kit manufacturer.  But others seem to be able to reconcile the making of a reasonable profit with the production of new, high-quality merchandise.

The plastic sailing ship kit is, to all intents and purposes, already dead.  There have been, to all intents and purposes, no genuinely new scale plastic sailing ship kit releases in at least twenty years.  Certainly there have been none from any American company; the most recent one I can think of is the Hanseatic cog from the Russian firm Zvezda.  (Revell's first sailing ship, the 1/192 Constitution, was initially released in 1956; the last new sailing ship, the excellent Viking ship, in 1977.  The company was in the sailing ship business for 21 years and has now been out of it for 31 - more than half of its corporate existence.  Caveat:  I'm talking here only about the American segment of the company.  Revell Germany has issued a few sailing ships that haven't made it into the U.S. catalog.)  This phase of the hobby is surviving, to the extent that it's surviving at all, on the basis of reissues, with a little help from swap meets and e-bay.

That does not, however, account for the fact that Revell keeps foisting that fossilized, 1954-vintage WWII battleship kit on each new generation of unknowing customers - when the company vaults contain the molds for several superior versions of the same ship.  Part of the problem, I suspect, is that few, if any, of the current decision makers actually know (or care) anything about scale models.  But it certainly looks like somebody on the corporate level has made the decision that ship kits of any sort - sailing, powered, or otherwise - simply aren't worth bothering with. 

It seems that when the company gets some evidence (e.g., the success of Revell Germany's 1/72 U-boat), it still has the ability to respond (e.g., with the 1/72 Gato - which, as I understand it, actually did originate with U.S. Revell and is an excellent kit).  But the evidence apparently has to hit the executives like a 2x4 to the mouth. 

The competition gives us a WWII French battleship in two scales, 1/700 aircraft carriers with airplanes molded in clear plastic and photo-etched elevator framework, and boxes that advertise what new, high-tech molding techniques have been used to make the kit.  Some of the Dragon 1/700 kits have duplicate 5" gunhouses, because the designers figured out how to improve on the initial design before the kits were released.  Hasegawa releases a state-of-the-art 1/350 battleship from the Russo-Japanese War - in two versions.  Revell Germany plans a 1/144 destroyer.  And U.S. Revell gives us a 54-year-old battleship in a pretty new box - at the highest price yet.

Maybe the executives are indeed thinking about the kid market - but for their sakes I certainly hope not.  Just about every other manufacturer has figured out that kids don't build plastic models any more.  Survey after survey reveals that, with the exceptions of snap-together kits, the various Japanese "monster" series, and some (but by no means all) car kits, virtually all the purchasers of scale model kits in any medium today are adults.  The competition has figured that out and made adjustments - in terms of its product lines, the nature and quality of the merchandise, marketing strategies, and, unfortunately, pricing.  (Few, if any, plastic kits nowadays fit into the "pocket money" category - even for today's generation of kids.)  And those other companies certainly give the impression that they're making money.  Revell just doesn't seem to be making much of an effort to keep up.

The problem isn't confined to ships.  One of the "new releases" currently advertised on the U.S. Revell website is a 1/48 SBD Dauntless.  A look at the accompanying photo makes it obvious that this is the old Monogram kit from the fifties.  One wonders if the people in charge of the company are even aware of the difference between this product and the ones being sold by Hasegawa and Accurate Miniatures.

I wonder if some great moment in the history of Revell may be at hand.  I got to the website by typing www.revell-monogram.com into my computer, but it got changed automatically to www.revell.com.  On the site itself the Monogram name is nowhere to be seen.  Apparently some big corporate development has taken place, or is in the works. 

I suppose it's possible that the American branch of Revell will go out of business shortly.  If that happens, it will be a blow to the hobby - and nobody who's been building models for any length of time will be happy about it.  But I have to say that, whatever troubles the company may be having at the moment, some, if not all, of them are its own fault.

I doubt Revell USA will be going out of buisness anytime soon. They came under new management last year and at least in the car model segment they have been doing a good job of bringing out new kits and re-issues many with new parts or corrected parts.

 

You may be correct that they are missing the boat when it comes to ships or perhaps they focusing on the areas they do best. Revell car models compete more evenly with Tamiya and Hasegawa, the quality of the kits is slightly lacking compared to the Japanese kits but they are also 1/2 the price, are full detail instead of curbside and many are of American cars, a subject the Japanese kits rarely cover, on the other hand those kit makers have a lot more experince when it comes to ships. 

I believe Revell also did a 1/72 scale German U-boat so perhaps they are cautiously evaluating where they can compete with the Japanese companies best. 1/72 ship models are fairly wide open considering there are only a handful, a couple torpedo boats and a couple of destroyers.  

At least the two new Revell ship models (Gato and U-boat) have received good reviews, Trumpeter really bombed with their first couple of attempts at making car kits.

Aaronw's observations on the Revell car line are most interesting.  I can't claim to know anything about that subject.  It sounds as though the company is making a genuine effort to be competitive there.  (Come to think of it - are any other American mainstream plastic kit firms making genuinely new car kits these days?)  I hope he's right that the new management is at least a little more interested in the scale modeler than its predecessors.

I think the 1/72 U-boat originated with Revell Germany, and the 1/72 Gato with U.S. Revell.  My memory's a little shaky (as usual) though; I'm not sure whether the U-boat ever came out in a U.S. Revell box - or showed up in the Revell-Monogram web catalog.  I'm pretty sure every one I've actually seen has been in a Revell Germany box.  Revell Germany also has released two 1/144 U-boat kits, which (on the basis of photos) appear to be excellent - but they aren't on the U.S. list either.

It's also worth noting that Revell Germany has been doing some excellent aircraft kits in the past few years.  The new 1/72 Lancaster looks like it was designed deliberately to compete with Hasegawa's - and the reviews so far seem to imply that it's doing so successfully.

None of this, though, alters any of the comments I made at the beginning of this thread.  With the sole exception of the big Gato-class sub kit, Revell gives every sign of having lost interest in the American scale ship modeler.  And I firmly believe that promoting that 1954 Missouri as a "new" kit constitutes deceptive marketing.

Yup, it appears the Americans just aren't interested in producing ship kits.  Part of this may be the time, effort and money required to make a satisfactory mold these days.  I mean, when you look at a car kit which may have what, 50-100 parts?  Now compare that with a 1/350 battleship, which might have 800 parts or more, each one of which has to be accurately formed from scratch to begin with, and a whole lot of thought as to how it all will go together.  Seems to me that car models, other than the basic bodies and interiors have a LOT of common parts that can just be swapped out to a different sprue for a different model, which is a lot trickier to do with a ship model. 

It seems to me that the ship modeller, with the possible exception of the armor modellers, are just about the most finicky group out there (I recall a thread not long ago discussing the problems of gun-tub molds, secondary guns, etc. that kind of blew my mind!), and are the first to complain if it is not perfect!  Finally, the simple lack of volume in ship model sales has to account for a lot too, combined with competition from the limited run resin kit manufacturers, all makes producing a highly detailed and accurate ship model a very risky business (and a sailing ship? Fuggedaboudit!)! 

I think the Japanese have an edge on this, in that they have a large number of modellers that are very interested in history and accuracy, and a lot of these kits are really produced with them in mind, with overseas sales a secondary, if still important consideration (i.e., they break even with Japanese sales alone, and the profit comes in from overseas).  In any case, it sure would be interesting for one of the magazines (here's a hint, Finescale!) to conduct a series of interviews of several of the manufacturers to get their views on the subject, if for no other reason than to see just how these guys think, and what their 'vision' is of progress of the hobby business over the next ten years or so!

There's a TV commercial that seems to say it all, that starts with an old TV set, acting up, followed by the comment " you're right, we need a new TV, followed by " I want it all.....Iwant it all.... I want it all, and I want it now!". At the great risk of sounding "eliteist", there have always been "kit assemblers", and there have always been "model builders". The hobby industry is currently chasing the "kit assembelers", and seems to have left the model builders out of the race. Model builders are never "out of the race". I say that because model builders have the skills necessary to do what they want, and not be totally dependent on manufacturers whims, to produce models of what the "builders" want to build. So long as there are specifications, measurements, and accurate plans, models will be built. Yes, the newer plastic kits have detail that is difficult at best to reproduce from scratch. Yet, therein lies the challenge, if someone can make a master that detailed, then I should be able to make a scratchbuilt detail that equals it. The hobby industry may go to the lowest common denominator for profit, but the craft of model building, and the skill of the builder will continue to grow. The satisfaction of completing a highly detailed scale model is not dependent on the industry, it is within the skill, and desire of the builder. The mighty have not fallen, only their commercial pretenders.

Sumpter is, of course correct; modelers got along for hundreds of years without plastic kits, and they can certainly do so again if they have to.  My point is simply that there are, at the present time, a number of manufacturers who are setting an extremely impressive pace when it comes to kits (ships, airplanes, automobiles, locomotives, tanks, whatever), and Revell, at least in the realm of ships, isn't one of them. 

I don't agree that the most sophisticated kits are aimed at "kit assemblers."  It's certainly true that such technological developments as photo-etching, the pantograph machine, "slide molding," etc. have put a finer level of detail within reach of people who couldn't contemplate it otherwise.  (I don't think Donald McNarry would be able to make a 1/700 radar screen that could compete with a photo-etched one from GMM.)  But the best kits most emphatically require a great more skill - and knowledge of the subject matter - than their counterparts of twenty or thirty years ago.

The question of the "legitimacy" of building models from kits is another one entirely.  As should be obvious from the amount of time I spend in this Forum, I'm among those who think, for a variety of reasons, that there is an extremely legitimate role in the hobby for kits in general and plastic kits in particular.  I think the disappearance of high-quality kits would be a bad thing for the hobby.  At this point, though, I'm not sure the disappearance of Revell USA from the world of ship modeling would be noticed.  And, in view of the contribution the firm has made to the hobby over the decades, I think that's a shame.

I humbly regret to admit that a 1/700 AS-616/SPS-10 would be 0.1085714" in width, and require the use of material 0.0014285" thick for the heaviest parts of the screen. McNarry just might come closer than you think!, photoetch has its limitations

Auto models have been somewhat stagnant the past 4-5 years, as the major US manufacturers were under the management of bean counters rather than actual modelers who understood what is wanted by us the consumer. Lindberg and Revell both came under new management in 2007 and so far have been doing a great job bringing back old kits, updating old kits and bringing out completely new kits. AMT / Ertl has come under new management this year and is showing the potential to follow Revell and Lindberg.

Whether this new enthusiam will carry over into ships and aircraft who knows. Personally I was not aware any of the US companies had ever been a strong contender in ship models. Granted that is not an area I know well and most of those kits were probably made when I was quite young since several you list sound like they were kitted in the 60's (I was born in '67).

Most of my ship building has been for others, my Dad is big on WW2 ships and he used to buy kits for me to build, so I built what he bought. Others have been for co-workers who are not modelers but wanted a model of the ship they served on in the Navy so again, I built what they provided. My experience with non-Japanese ship kits has been that they are rather toylike (the Iowa class mentioned above being one I did) unlike the very detailed Japanese kits, so it is rather surprising to me, to find Revell at one time was considered a leader in ship models.

As far as Revell vs Revell of Germany, to be honest I have a hard time telling them apart since the boxes frequently just say Revell but reading the fine print I find it is an ROG kit. 

The comment about cars being able to reuse parts from one kit to another, that is not really true. Auto builders can be just as nit picky as any ship or aircraft builder, they just tend to be more open to artistic license due to the popularity of custom cars so haven't acquired as much of a reputation for rivit counting. I have seen people just rip into auto kits for providing generic tires instead of tires marked with a brand, or complaining that a coupe has the roofline of the sedan the kit was based on. One of the changes made when Revell re-issued their '50 Ford Pickup was to redesign the heads on the motor, in the earlier version of the kit the shape of the heads was criticised for being inaccurate. A manufacturer would never get away with putting a Chevy motor in a Ford kit unless it was being sold as a custom car. Putting generic parts in a car kit would go over about as well as putting generic aircraft on an aircraft carrier kit.

Interesting discussion, I build a little bit of everything but I find it quite interesting to see how people focused on one particular part of modeling think and want they want from their kits.

The tipoff to whether a Revell kit is American or European is usually the box.  Revell Europe (I think that's what they call it now - rather than "Revell Germany") kits are (with some exceptions) packaged in blue or grey end-opening boxes with either paintings or photos of the prototype (aircraft, ship, auto, or whatever) on top, small photos of the model on the sides, and color ads on the bottom.  The European boxes also have text in about a dozen languages on the sides.  Revell USA boxes, at least until recently, had the "Revell-Monogram" logo, fewer foreign languages, lift-off lids (usually) and (usually) blank bottoms; the main illustration on the top usually (though not always) is a photo of the finished model.  I guess the Monogram connection is a thing of the past now; I imagine we'll start seeing a new form of U.S. Revell box.

The question of interchangeable parts is interesting.  Aaronw's remark about how car modelers wouldn't tolerate a Chevy engine in a model of a Ford strikes a familiar chord. 

Theoretically some parts should be interchangeable between ship models.  American warships of WWII, for instance, shared many mass-produced components - guns, radar screens, liferafts, boats, catapults, cranes, rail stanchions, hatch covers, etc., etc.  And warship classes, by definition, share basic hull and superstructure configurations.  (Though I'm sure no two Fletcher-class destroyers were absolutely identical, some of them came pretty close.)People who know their way around the subject know which generic parts are applicable to which ships.  So do competent, conscientious, and ethical kit designers.

On the other hand, Revell has become notorious over the years for recycling pieces that most emphatically should not be interchangeable.  Contrary to what the company would have its naive customers believe, the Cutty Sark and the Thermopylae did not have identical hulls.  Neither did the Stag Hound and the Flying Cloud.  Or the U.S.C.G.C. Eagle and S.M.S. Seeadler.  Perhaps Revell's most notorious merchandising stunt ever was its "H.M.S. Beagle" kit, which we've talked about many times here in the Forum.  It's a modified reissue of the company's H.M.S. Bounty.  (The real Beagle and Bounty resembled each other only in that each of them had a hull, a deck, and three masts.)  Stunts like that have, I suspect, been largely responsible for the snobbish attitudes that so many wood ship modelers take toward plastic kits. 

To be fair, Revell was no worse in this regard than Heller, some of whose modified reissues were utterly preposterous caricatures that, if enlarged to full size, wouldn't have floated.  And some of the wood HECEPOB (that's Hideously Expensive Continental European Plank-On-Bulkhead)manufacturers (the likes of Mamoli, Mantua, Artesania Latina, etc.) have perpetrated horrors that, arguably, are just as bad.

In several other Forum threads I've asked the rhetorical question:  If a manufacturer slapped a couple of jet engines on its B-17 kit and called it a B-52, how would the modeling public react?  Or how about that Ford with the Chevy engine?  That's the magnitude of what Revell did with its "Beagle."  Ship modelers, it seems, are expected to take such things (and worse) in stride.

Aaronw obviously knows what he's talking about.  I hope the trend toward reissuing decent old kits that he notes in the realm of the automotive extends into the ship model world.  Some of those old Revell sailing ship kits really did represent the state of the art when they were originally released - and could stand up pretty well against the competition today.  (I'm thinking of the Flying Cloud, Charles W. Morgan, Golden Hind, Mayflower, and Viking ship - all excellent potential bases for serious scale models.  There were several others.)  Yes - Revell was indeed one of the leaders if not the leader, in plastic ship models (both sail and power) for several decades.  And I repeat:  If the company simply doesn't care about ship models any more, maybe it should sell (or lease) the molds to somebody who has what it takes to appreciate them.

Are any of these the kits you are talking about? Lindberg has quite a history of buying molds from other companies and these ships are some you mentioned although I don't know if they are the same molds.

http://www.lindberg-models.com/models-in_the_water4.html

 

I think I can identify all of them - though I'm not 100% certain.  I don't think any of them originated with Revell, but most originated somewhere other than with Lindberg.  Here goes.

The shrimp boat, Coast Guard patrol boat, "Captain Kidd," "Jolly Roger," and "Flying Dutchman" are original Linberg kits, all of them dating originally from the fifties and sixties.  The "Captain Kidd" was originally the German convoy ship Wappen von Hamburg.  The "Jolly Roger" and "Flying Dutchman" are the same kit, except (I think) for the color of the plastic.  Both of them are reboxings of the French eighteenth-century frigate La Flore.  Both La Flore and the Wappen von Hamburg have gotten quite a bit of attention here in the Forum; a search on either name will turn up some interesting posts.

The Sea Witch is (I think) a reissue of an extremely old, but not bad, kit originally produced by the Marx toy company in the early or mid-fifties.  It's gotten quite a bit of Forum attention recently too.

The others are, I think, all old Pyro kits from the fifties.  At least two, the tug and the "North Atlantic Fishing Trawler," are copies of Model Shipways solid-hull wood kits.  (The two gentlemen who founded Model Shipways referred to Pyro as "Pirate Plastics.") The tug's original name was Dispatch No. 9, and the trawler's name was Hildina.

That little Golden Hind (it's about six inches long) brings back particularly pleasant memories; my mother bought me one at the local drugstore for 50 cents when I was in grade school.  It bears scarcely any resemblance to a real ship, of course, but it was great fun to build and paint.  Pyro made a series of sailing ships that cost 50 cents apiece.

By the standards of the modern scale modeler, they range from pretty good (the shrimp boat, CG patrol boat, trawler, tug, lightship, Flore, Wappen von Hamburg, Sea Witch, and "Tuna Clipper") to the awful (the little ex-50-cent Pyro kits.)  In any case, a fun trip down memory lane.

Aaronw wrote:

The comment about cars being able to reuse parts from one kit to another, that is not really true. Auto builders can be just as nit picky as any ship or aircraft builder, they just tend to be more open to artistic license due to the popularity of custom cars so haven't acquired as much of a reputation for rivit counting. I have seen people just rip into auto kits for providing generic tires instead of tires marked with a brand, or complaining that a coupe has the roofline of the sedan the kit was based on. One of the changes made when Revell re-issued their '50 Ford Pickup was to redesign the heads on the motor, in the earlier version of the kit the shape of the heads was criticised for being inaccurate. A manufacturer would never get away with putting a Chevy motor in a Ford kit unless it was being sold as a custom car. Putting generic parts in a car kit would go over about as well as putting generic aircraft on an aircraft carrier kit. Interesting discussion, I build a little bit of everything but I find it quite interesting to see how people focused on one particular part of modeling think and want they want from their kits.

Actually, I was not attempting to denigrate the car modellers by any means!  I was thinking more along the lines of a good mold for a Chevy engine block is going to work for just about any Chevy in the same scale, same goes for tires, shocks, trannies, etc. And the same for Porsche parts, Ford parts, and so on.  Thus, if I am a model manufacturer, if I want to come out with say, a model of the latest Corvette, I can reuse about 80% of the subordinate mold elements that were sculpted for last years' version, and only really need to tweak the body panels, interior bits, etc..... 

That doesn't really work with individual, more or less 'one of a kind' ships too well (IJN Akagi is a perfect example), and this is why you will often see manufacturers come out with models that have a variety of sisterships in very short order (and on the same basis that I have described above).   To some extent, this can even be done with some sailing ships.  Heller came closest to this with their quite good 1/150 French 74's before they sloped off into lethargy and sloth, producing some real dogs, and of course, Revell tried to do the same thing with the USS Constitution/USS United States, and Cutty Sark/Thermopylae, but with a lot less success.

Finally, I would just like to say that I have the highest admiration for the plank on frame scratch-builder, but like most people, have neither the time, nor patience to achieve that level of sophistication (it would be nice though, to just tell all the model manufacturers to go to Hell and do it for yourself!).

I didn't think you were putting down car models, just possibly over simplifying. Your point about recycling common parts actually makes sense but that doesn't seem to happen as much as you would think for some reason. I know for example Revell has a couple of different Ford flat head V8's and while its the same motor they are not the same, some are more desirable to kit bashers than others due to the details. I do get what you are saying though, the model companies really can not just crank out 6 battleship kits with different decals for the different ships in the class since each one may have minor or even fairly major differences even though they are "the same ship". There can be enough difference in one ship to be worthy of a new kit based on what part of its service life is being modeled. 

Since I build a little of everything I just find it kind of interesting to see some of the misconceptions between the various parts of the hobby. Cars and ships tend to get a reputation of being rather basic builds, cars are toylike and ships are well, grey and all kind of look the same. Armor guys weather their builds to hide their mistakes and aircraft guys are the ultimate rivit counters. Space builders are well, lets just say both of the guys that build space models must buy a lot of kits. 

Anyway off on a tangent, I just found it odd to see the opinion that Revell is headed down the tubes since in other parts of modelling people are raving about their return.

jtilley, thanks for you comments on the Lindberg kits, I was looking at some of them so its nice to see the ones I'm considering are fairly decent.

may I just add that there are 2 1/72 german U-boot VII C, 2 different german WW II schnellboote in 1/72, all exzellent? and a lot of other stuff in different sales......................

is it that You are talking about revell USA? 

Rabapla - Welcome to the Forum! 

The answer to your question is yes.  I don't completely understand the corporate intricasies of the Revell brands, but I have the impression that the American and European companies are virtually independent of each other.  Revell Germany (or Revell Europe, as it seems to be calling itself now) offers a much bigger range of ship kits - including some really outstanding ones, as well as reissues of some good (and not-so-good) old American Revell kits.  But the current U.S. Revell list only includes the ten ships that I listed in the first post of this thread.

 

When I moved to Sarasota 22 years ago there were eight hobby shops within 20 miles of my house, including one exclusive train shop and one wooden ship shop (that held Saturday morning group building classes).

They're all long gone except for the train shop and a new place that is 99% RC stuff. 

The local IPMS chapter just folded due to lack of interest.

Not good signs if you're looking to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in research, design, tooling and distribution of new plastic ship models. 

You can't ignore the economics.  There's got to be a well-defined market opportunity for the kit manufacturers to justify the financial expenditure, even if it's just re-releasing older kits.  While I suspect there still may be a strong niche market (populated by folks like us on this forum), my guess is that any significant new plastic sailing ship kit would have to be offered at plank-on-frame kit prices (read multi $100's) to make it economically viable for the manufacturer. 

I can't fault Revell or any other kit manufacturers for the path they have taken - especially in uncertain economic times.  At the end of the day the kit manufacturers are responsible to their owners/stockholders, not to us.  You can lament the changes in our society/interests/hobbies, etc., but don't blame the model companies for reacting as responsible businesses to the lack of demand and/or profit opportunity.

Mark 

 

I'm glad I don't work for a kit manufacturer - or, for that matter, a hobby shop - today.  The business is indeed undergoing a "sea change," and there have been lots of casualties.  There undoubtedly will be more.

I worked as a clerk in a hobby shop from about 1973 to 1980.  (My memory of when I started is getting a little hazy.)  Even in those days it was a tough business.  The boss bought almost all the merchandise on credit, with the bills coming due at the end of every January.  In early January, after the Christmas rush (such as it was), he'd do the books and find out whether he was still in business or not.

About half of our customers in those days were either kids or adults buying stuff for kids.  A friend of mine owns an excellent hobby shop in Newport News, Virginia.  A year or so ago he and I got into a conversation about how few kids seemed to be building models nowadays.  I commented that the younger set seemed to be deserting the hobby shops in favor of video games, etc.  My friend said, "Where have you been?  That happened twenty years ago."  I asked him how many of his regular customers were under 18 years old.  He laughed bitterly and said "Zero."  Model building, for better or worse, has become almost exclusively an adult hobby.

The whole distribution has changed fundamentally as well.  The plethora of kits, detail parts, decal sheets, etc. for experienced ship, aircraft, AFV, and car modelers - to say nothing of the model railroaders - has reached that point where, I suspect, the only sort of hobby shop that can afford to stock even a reasonable percentage of it is one in a big city, with a huge clientele.  The old-fashioned "mom and pop" hobby shop can't afford the investment it takes to keep up.  So the traditional customers on whom the old hobby shops used to rely now do business over the web.  (I'd be interested to see a statistic about the percentage of plastic kit sales that take place in hobby shops - or any other traditional "face-to-face" retail outlets.  My guess is that if web sales aren't in the majority already, they will be pretty soon.)

But some firms have, one way or another, adjusted their ways of doing business so they can compete in the "new" world of model building.  Hasegawa, Tamiya, Dragon, Trumpeter, etc. seem to be doing remarkably well.  So, for that matter, does Revell Europe.  Maybe Revell U.S.A. can, indeed, simply not compete with them.

I don't blame anybody who wants to get out of the model business.  If Revell's management wants to abandon ship modeling for financial reasons, I can't argue. 

I repeat the point with which I started this thread:  if Revell's executives want to drop out of the ship model game, they ought to sell or lease those nice old molds to somebody else.  The world of modeling is the worse off for the absence of such kits as the Revell 1/96 Constitution and Cutty Sark - among others.  If Revell U.S.A. can't make money off them, maybe somebody else can.  And nothing is going to convince me that putting that poor old 1954 Missouri a new box and promoting it as a "new release" constitutes anything other than deceptive merchandising.

P.S.  As of a few minutes ago, Squadron Mail Order still listed the 1/96 Constitution - in both Revell-Monogram and Revell Germany boxes (for different prices).  Anybody who wants one of those grand old kits may want to snap it up now.  It looks like the time may be coming - soon - when the only place to find it will be on e-bay. (The 1/96 Cutty Sark seems to be gone already.)

I wonder what the price of those molds would be to purchase, if they were for sale.

my local LHS still has the 1/96 cutty. I just don't know if my wife would be ok with the price.....

Well, I think it is as much that the business model has changed, as much as the clientele.  The idea of having a shoppe for people to come in, browse, chat and buy things is probably dead.  The price of business overhead (building rental, employees, medical, etc, etc, etc,) is so prohibitive that the in my opinion, it is unlikely that any new shoppes will be established, or succeed.  That said, the online business world is another story altogether, and it appears that there is plenty of money to be made with the right strategy (Squadron is probably one of the founders of this sort of strategy).  Fancy models cost big bucks, with a big profit margin.  Crappy cheap models sold as a sideline in Woolworths (where I used to buy MY crappy cheap little models when I was kid; thank God for Pyro!) have an extremely SMALL profit margin, and can only depend upon high volume sales to be worthwhile. 

On this basis, it would seem to me that there IS room in the market for some high-end styrene sailing ship models, and to me, it seems INCREDIBLE that somebody like Revell, or whoever, missed the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' gravy train so badly!!!   For God's sake, here are at LEAST three, maybe as many as SIX sailing ship models that could be produced from those movies that have an ALREADY ESTABLISHED fan base, but all that is available is some stupid 'action figures' from some crappy outfit in China. 

THAT is the sort of thing that really pisses me off as a modeller, and THAT is the sort of market STUPIDITY that makes me say to dying companys like Revell of America, 'So long, and thanks for all the fish!' 

RALPH G WILLIAMS wrote:

The price of ship models could be a factor.

No lie.  Did you see the MSRP for the 1/700 Repulse in this month's FSM?   If you haven't, it's US$51, as in half a c-note for a waterline only 1/700 kit.  Ok, it's brand new, you get 200 parts for that, and it's a long-awaited, but middling narrow-focus kit, but sheesh, isn't that a resin kit sort of price?

It's sad. I very fondly remember the Charles W. Morgan and the Oriana, gone forever I assume.

If I remember correctly (an increasingly dubious proposition), the Oriana was one of the "special anniversary" reissues from Revell Europe a year or so ago.  Others included the "cutaway" Boeing 747, the Jupiter C missile, and the "Guided Missile Fleet Gift Set" (with the Norton Sound replaced by the seaplane tender Currituck). I imagine some of those kits are still floating around - though I can't recall seeing any of them here in the U.S.

The Morgan surely was one of the nicest of the Revell sailing ships - and, by any reasonable standard, the best whaler in plastic.  That's precisely the sort of kit I wish the company would make available again, either by reissuing it or putting the molds in the hands of somebody else.

A couple of things probably ought to be said in defense of the astronomical prices referred to earlier.  One - the reorientation of the model business from kids' pastime to adult hobby has completely changed the demographic picture.  In the good olde dayes it could be taken for granted that a new kit would sell tens of thousands of units.  (I don't have any special insights into this, but when I was working in a hobby shop, back in the seventies, it was said that an American manufacturer's first production run on a new kit would routinely be 100,000 copies.  I have no idea what the modern figure is, but I suspect it's tiny by comparison.  So the manufacturer has to get back its initial investment by means of far fewer sales.  Hence the temptation to reissue 54-year-old kits, the investment in which has long since be recouped.) 

Two - the phenomenon isn't unique to ship models.  Take a look at the prices of the latest aircraft or armor kit.  The Revell 1/40-scale Sherman tank, if I remember correctly, cost a dollar and a half in its first release.  The latest 1/35 Sherman from Dragon costs more than fifty dollars.  The improvement in quality is mind-blowing - but the prices of all plastic kits (not just ships) have risen far faster than inflation.  (We took up that point in another thread recently.)  Whether your favorite area is ships, aircraft, AFVs, cars, or any other phase of the hobby, the days of spending your pocket money in the hobby shop and bringing home a stack of new kits are long gone.

I agree that, sadly, our hobby is becoming an "old man's game" because of cost alone. Just getting a few bottles of paint and some brushes can set you back $10 or more, and $10 is still $10, and a lot of money to anyone who doesn't have a job.

I know if I didn't subsidize my daughter's modeling activities, i.e., pay for everything, she'd never do it on her own, even though she enjoys it and seems to get some satisfaction from it.

While I don't necessarily believe our hobby is dying, sometimes it does feel like the people who go to college to learn how to do print journalism these days - will that even exist in a few more decades?

Aaronw wrote:

I doubt Revell USA will be going out of buisness anytime soon. They came under new management last year and at least in the car model segment they have been doing a good job of bringing out new kits and re-issues many with new parts or corrected parts.

According to Wikipedia, Monogram was formed in 1945 by two former employees of Comet Kits, Jack Besser and Bob Reder. The company was purchased by Mattel Inc. in the early 1970's, and then by Odyessy Partners of New York in 1986. Later that same summer Odyessy also purchased Revell Models of Venice, California; subsequently Odyessy Partners quietly merged the "unprofitable Revell" with the "highly profitable Monogram", the Revell name being gradually phased into the product lines due to Revell's world wide brand recognition. The Monogram name is currently used exclusively on the company's high end "Pro Modeler Kits".

In May 2007, Hobbico Inc. (Champaign, IL; Home of the Fighting Illini) announced the acquisition of Revell-Monogram LLC.

 

  In my point of view, two other factors explain the current lack of interest in plastic sailing ships:

- difficulty in easily finding reliable sources: as it has been pointed out, most model kit customers nowadays are adults; they want a decent-looking kit in their living room, not a model looking like a "somewhat-elaborate-toy" from the 50s or 60s. What they are after is accuracy and as well as detail.

Now, if somebody decides to build an aircraft or a tank, or even a WWI/II ship, he can usually find tons of reference information on the internet, not to mention nearby public libraries. But if somebody, without any shipbuilding experience whatsoever, wants to build a sailing ship, he will quickly find out that useful sources (for modeling, that is) are not only scarce, but difficult to identify as such. For instance, it's fairly easy to find out how to rig a sailing ship, but finding out what exact colors to use is another story, especially if one builds a relatively unknown or minor ship.

So in my point of view, getting the right books or information to be able to accurately build a sailing ship model is a time-consuming process - especially if one discards internet searches - and it can be intimidating to many. And since the information is usually stored in books, one would have to order them, and they can be quite expensive (one of the costliest being Boudriot's famous book "Le vaisseau de 74 canons", worth 650$)

Also, building a sailing ship model implies mastering some pretty complicated techniques, such as the rigging or the painting of the deck to make it look like wood. Finding information or tutorials explaining these techniques is also a difficult affair, unlike airbrushing or other more commonly used techniques.

- lack of aftermarket parts to enhance the model: most aircraft/vehicle/modern ship kits have their own dedicated PE sets to enhance the model. Even those old Revell cargo ships from the 50s can be greatly enhanced by a few PE sets, which can be easily found on the web. But there is virtually nothing as such for sailing ships. I know that one could get extra parts from the wooden model kits industry, but finding the relevant pieces for a particular kit is still difficult for the unexperienced. In order to get some useful modeling tips, one usually has to dig into forgotten magazine issues, into the rare reviews made by other modelers, or into forums like this one. But I fear few have enough time to do that (and Google doesn't help a lot, given all the commercial sites you get nowadays)

On a more positive note, I believe that internet, and especially forums like this one, can tremendously help to keep the plastic sailing ship industry alive. It lets people share their passion with others, discuss the kits and their historical inaccuracies. But most important of all, people who "dare" to post pictures of their models can be a huge motivation factors for others to build the same kit. For instance, when Donnie posted pictures of his excellent work on the Lindberg's "la Flore" (aka Jolly Rogers), I'm quite sure that a few casual readers decided to give it try themselves, especially given the fact that Donnie's threads were full of useful information! And to those who thought that the Lindberg kit was crap, it offered a perfect opportunity to judge by themselves before buying the kit.

I just wish that more forum members would do the same; after all, even if a model is far from perfection, one almost never gets harsh critics from other modelers, but will likely be praised for his work (accurately building a sailing ship model is never an easy task), with the addition of a few kind suggestions!

After looking at Donnie's build of the 'Capt,.Kidd' aka Wappen Von Hamburg by Lindberg I think it to be the nicer kit.

rg

 mention of the Cutty Sark reminds me of my high school best friend. His father had this kit in his den behind class. the ship had a nautical map as a backround and a letter from IIRC {35+ years ago} the British Admiralty. He had written about some specifics regarding rigging. 

each piece of the standing & working rigging was tied off with the proper knot, etc. This is the ONLY model to my knowledge his dad made. {he was a mechanical engineer..for the want of a better word, he was a rocket scientist }

My point being, how many kits can they sell for that type of modeler? {I am sure the happy campers here have that type of skill and desire, but not me. I stick with armor because I don't have to worry about rigging, or PE hatches and watertight doors, or canopy masking or even the rigging for WWI planes} 

that is my

The last several posts have correctly identified several elements of this whole issue. 

We are, I think, in the midst of a "golden age" of ship modeling.  The amount of information available to the modeler, in the form of books, periodicals, websites, etc., is far greater than it was thirty years ago (which, in the whole history of ship modeling, is a rather short time).  Firms like the Conway Maritime Press, the Naval Institute Press, and Chatham Publications have given us dozens - even hundreds - of books and articles that make information about the prototypes far more accessible than it was for our parents and grandparents.  But the stuff isn't cheap, and one doesn't find much of it in hobby shops.  The sailing ship modeler has to get in the habit of hanging out at libraries and museums - and if he/she doesn't live within driving distance of any such institutions, or have the money to buy the books over the web, he/she has a problem.

I agree completely with those who say the web has the potential to be the best source of information and advice ever for ship modelers - and modelers of all ilks.  The unlimited space for conversations, the infinite flexibility of discussion groups, and the potential for the convenient posting of information, all have the potential to be real boons to the hobby.  Some basic ship modeling texts (e.g., Cambell and Mondfeld [sp?]) are already available on the web; one hopes that trend will continue.

Everybody who's ever tried to make money from the hobby business knows what dostacos is talking about.  It's almost inevitable:  the better and more experienced a modeler gets, the more time he spends on each model, and the less money he spends.  (The little model of the frigate Hancock that appears in my avatar may have $200 worth of materials in it.  Building it took me six years.  The hobby dealer who relies for his living on people like me will go broke in a hurry.)  I'm not prepared to assert that sailing ship modeling is the most difficult or challenging form of modeling there is; if I did that I'd get lots of legitimate arguments from veteran aircraft, armor, car, and railroad modelers.  (Has anybody out there ever read Gerald Wingrove's book on scratchbuilt car modeling?)  But a sailing ship model inevitably takes a considerable amount of time.  An experienced airplane modeler can produce several fine models (from good kits) in the time it takes an equally experienced sailing ship modeler to build one of the same relative quality.

It may be that the plastic sailing ship kit was, in economic terms, a fundamentally flawed concept from the beginning.  I don't see much hope that this particular phase of the hobby will be brought back to life.  But I do wish some of those excellent old Revell kits (and, for that matter, the ones from Imai, and several other manufacturers) would come back. 

Shalom, I asked Revell about the availability of the 1/96 Cutty Sark and Constitution. The following is the response:

>They are still available you can order them from www.omnimodels.com


>Thanks Sean
>Revell Consumer Services
>800-833-3570

>Making quality matter one kit at a time.
>>
>>From: Benjamin A. Zabriskie
>>Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 4:51 PM
>>To: Revell Consumer Service
>>Subject: 1/96 Ships

>>I am looking at your on-line catalog. I do see the 1/96 Cutty Sark or Constitution. Have they been discontinued?

>>Ben

According to Omni Models, they are available for $51.99 for the Cutty Sark, and $63.99 for the Revell/Germany Constitution.