Well Hasegawa you are about to lose another customer!!

[Huey Gunner]

The days of mowing the lawn, getting your allowance and then heading off the the LHS are gone for good.

I had a paper route delivering the Alhambra Post Advocate to support my habit. There are still soommee cheap kits out there. But they are few and far between. And, there's no real grey area. Either really crappy cheap kit's. Then it's

[nfiler]

I don't understand your logic here. Your blaming Hasegawa for the price a local hobby shop or even what an e-shop wants for a Hasegawa kit?

I just checked R10 and their price for the Sea King is $44.40. Sure, your going to have to pay some shipping, but what is clear to me is that while Hasegawa prices are high, they are not necessarily the ones to blame for prices like $150. Somewhere between Hasegawa and your stash is somebody trying to get rich quick.

I doubt that the company that took over after Dragon USA has had enough time to import many kits and distribute them to your LHS. I suspect the impact of this importer change on prices will not be significant. If you want to get some indications of where the price issue might reside, go to the Dragon USA site and look at the prices they are posting on the stock of Hasegawa kits they have "left over". There is a pretty big difference between what they were listing them for and what they are asking now, and I doubt if they intend to lose money.

$159.99 retail on the reissued 1/48 Sea King?? Serious??

I could have bought the same kit two years ago for $59.99!! I shuddered at that price then.

Good luck selling all those 15 year old moulded kits! Looks like Trumpeter has some competition now!!

[ChernayaAkula]

THIS ONE?

Hobby Link Japan had them for around 55 bucks US. As far as I know, HLJ charges Hasegawa's recommended retail prices, which can also be found on the box. Look for a combination of serial number, colon and another number. That number should be the RRP in Yen. For example, for the 1/48 Harrier GR Mk.7 it's #PT36:2800 and for the 1/72 F-15J Aggressor it's #00792:2600.

Someone's obviously taking the mickey, but apparently it's not Hasegawa. For what it's worth, I stopped buying Hasegawa here in Germany as well. The prices are just over the top. Now I get most of 'em through Lucky Model or HLJ. Even with shipping and paying VAT at customs, it's way cheaper.

[phantom]

I think Hasegawa was one of the final nails that killed the good hobby store in my home town. Ed was not able to get anything except special order for some months before the store finally joined the choir invisible.

[Two Mikes]

Just looked at the flyer, it is HAS09863. That's either a typo on Squadron's part or they're electing to sell it at well over MSRP. Check Sprue Brothers price, also listed at DragonUSA, who was the importer for this until recently at $71.95 which would pretty much be the standard US MSRP since they were the distributor for Hasegawa.

[Two Mikes]

Just looked at the flyer, it is HAS09863. That's either a typo on Squadron's part or they're electing to sell it at well over MSRP. Check Sprue Brothers price, also listed at DragonUSA, who was the importer for this until recently at $71.95 which would pretty much be the standard US MSRP since they were the distributor for Hasegawa.

Mike

I hope it is a typo.

If not, then there is something bad going on either in Japan or between the middleman and me. I only buy at Sprue Brothers when I order online for the most part. I only brought this up because the price was staggering!

Edited April 3, 2010 by Two Mikes

[Dave Williams]

I wonder if Squadron is still using the original price.

When the Hasegawa Sea King AEW was first announced, the parts were going to be in resin and white metal, and the price was over $100 in Japan (and this when the the dollar was worth more against the yen then it is now!). Before the kit was actually released, Hasegawa announced that the new parts would be molded in plastic and the price was dropped to about half.

http://www.hlj.com/product/HSG09863

It's strange that Squadron is just now showing the RN Sea King, and at such a high price. They have been in the US for a couple of months already at a street price of about $65 (SB still has 13).

http://store.spruebrothers.com/148-hasegaw...863-p19316.aspx

But hey, if anyone doesn't want to pay Squadron's price, I'll sell one of my three for only $100.

[twhite80]

Unfortunately Mike they are not listening and more importantly they don't care. My Hasegawa motto is "When they are on sale: Stock up!"

[mlicari]

Heck, I stopped buying Hasegawa kits a LONG time ago, unless they were deeply discounted or I could pick them up second-hand. Since they've always been over-priced for me, this current pricing is completely absurd.

:)

Mike

[Av8fan]

The days of mowing the lawn, getting your allowance and then heading off to the LHS are gone for good.

I remember saving my money(pennies back then) and hopefully the kit I was saving for was still there when I had enough money for it.

[pollie]

Wanted to buy a couple of resin droptanks for my 1/48 Hasegawa A-4 Skyhawk lately. I found a set of TwoMikes resin 300 gallon tanks in my local hobbyshop, but they cost me 17 euro, excl. shipping. That is more than 23 US$! For a set of tanks?!

I know I am not buying anymore TwoMikes stuff, too expensive!

(Notice how ridiculous this sounds? It's the expensive yen, the retailer and the hobbyshop that pump up the price of Hase kits, so please stop having a dig at my favourite plastic model manufacturer).

[Fishwelding]

Not to discount simple greed, but I suspect there's an economy of scale problem here. If less and less modelers in the United States are buying Hasagawa models, then someone in the chain needs to add more, proportionally, to each kit for shipping across the Pacific. We may already be at a point where it's not worth it to Hasagawa to ship to the United States and Canada at all, they should realistically have no supplier here, and instead rely on Asian E-retailers to do their sales in North America. With a few exceptions of potentially generous or savvy people, no one in the chain wants to take the hit to their cut, so they just pass it on. The same thing might be happening to Italeri, who's prices, within my lifetime, seem to have soared.

By contrast, I sense that while Dragon's armor prices seem to be going up over the last two decades, this has been a slower process, and with photoetch and machined metal parts included, they are arguably better value. I suspect that's because armor has really taken off as a hobby in the US, and Dragon can better maintain economies of scale. All this is complete hunch, mind you, but it's difficult to believe that with the loss of plastic modeling population, we aren't somehow paying for it in higher prices. Unfortunately, this starts a revolving door of fail, because then manufacturers, middlemen and suppliers keep upping the ante, and people decide to watch TV instead of build models.

The market for children, I think, realistically died about 1992. Unless they get some capital to launch a grand offensive to retake the youth market, the hobby seems to be trying to grab the newly-domesticated twenty-something, rather than anyone under, say, 22 years old. It isn't simply that stupid younger guys started consuming video games; it's that video games made more sense than plastic modeling, for the dollar-per-hour of value, especially with the resale, rental, and trade value of games, and the fact that women play games, too. I'm sort of curious as to whether Revell USA will awaken to that in time; their latest buyer said something to the effect that they viewed plastic models as a gateway drug to RC aircraft, but with late developments in RC and the higher cost of plastic kits, one wonders if kids need a gateway drug to RC airplanes much longer.

By the way, all my comments deal more or less with the United States. I don't know what things are like in elsewhere, but it would be interesting to compare.

Edited April 3, 2010 by Fishwelding

[cvrle]

Ok, here's the example for Croatia:

The local Hasegawa importer/seller (they're a toy/hobby chain) charges prices that are very close to what i would pay for the kit if I ordered online and paid shipping on top. Usually, the difference is only a dollar or two (we're talking 1/72 scale here).

And if, by any chance, you get hit with VAT and customs, it's more expensive buying online. Needless to say, they get almost all of my Hasegawa business (Only when it's a "limited edition" kit I "Must" have, do I buy outside - thus far, once in every 5 years).

When they're having a sale... Well, the 1/72 E-2C JASDF went for about US$28 ( I bought it with a frequent buyer discount before the discount for US$38. full price was about US$ 45), the 1/72 AH-1S was less then US$10 etc...

So, importers have a hand in the cookie jar, the question is only how deep...

P:S: just checked the HLJ price for the AH-1 S - even at full price, it's only less than a dollar more than the Japanese RRP

Edited April 3, 2010 by cvrle

[madmanrick]

Wanted to buy a couple of resin droptanks for my 1/48 Hasegawa A-4 Skyhawk lately. I found a set of TwoMikes resin 300 gallon tanks in my local hobbyshop, but they cost me 17 euro, excl. shipping. That is more than 23 US$! For a set of tanks?!

If I were you, I'd stop shopping at ANY local hobby shop that charged me shipping.

Edited April 3, 2010 by madmanrick

[Abakan]

"Thank you Jesus for thy..........

"Amen"

You call THAT a stash?

[Huey Gunner]

You call THAT a stash?

No. I call it MY stash! :lol:

[Huey Gunner]

If I were you, I'd stop shopping at ANY local hobby shop that charged me shipping.

No sh**!

[The_Animal]

"Thank you Jesus for thy..........

"Amen"

I will not take the Lord's name in vain...

I will not take the Lord's name in vain...

I will not take the Lord's name in vain...

I will not take the Lord's name in vain...

I will not take the Lord's name in vain...

I will not take the Lord's name in vain...

I will not take the Lord's name in vain...

Aw...sh** J- ~bleeping~ C**** on a bicycle!!!! What the ~bleep~ did you do...Hijack a model shop??????!!!!!

[Gundamhead]

Why is it Tamiya and Trumpeter get a pass for ridiculous priced kits? In my opinion, Hasagawa is a better kit than the other two.

I still believe it's some damned import tax. Someplace inbetween the Hasagawa MSRP, and our shore, the price almost triples. In Japan the kits are going for about 1/2 of what they are asking here. That's including shipping. I just keep buying from overseas instead of paying a reasonable price to help keep the hobby economy here going.

And those of you that are so disgusted with Hasagawa, please, feel free to send me your unwanted Hasagawa kits.

[Julien (UK)]

2010 is the year of the stash!

Julien

[Murph]

Why is it... Trumpeter get a pass for ridiculous priced kits?

When did Trumpeter get a pass for anything?

Regards,

Murph

[madmanrick]

Why is it Tamiya and Trumpeter get a pass for ridiculous priced kits? In my opinion, Hasagawa is a better kit than the other two.

I challenge you to find even ONE person on these forums that has said that Trumpeter gets a pass for their overly high prices? Furthermore while Hasegawa was once better than Tamiya vis a vis quality, I am not sure you can say that anymore. However, Tamiya's prices are also getting ridiculous, although they aren't reissuing kits continually while also raising the price at astronomical rates, despite the addition of only some (crappy) decals.

I just keep buying from overseas instead of paying a reasonable price to help keep the hobby economy here going.

That would be an option, however with the astronomical shipping rates that are being charged by most Countries these days, it frequently isn't enough of a savings over the domestic price, to make it truly worthwhile. If you can find them on sale at Lucky or with free shipping, then they are worth, but that doesn't happen often enough.

[Fishwelding]

When did Trumpeter get a pass for anything?

Regards,

Murph

Indeed, I recall myself having sneered at their C-47 kit's price. And still will, if it hasn't since dropped at least by half.

[4scourge7]

2010 is the year of the stash!

Julien

Absolutely spot-on Julien.

Hase 72nd scale F-16I Sufa being touted for £26.00 in The UK....... PASS.

I could get three RoG Typhoons for that.

Or I could start clearing my `loft insulation`.

Cheers, Ian

[catcow1234]

I do like Hasegawa kits but the prices they are charging are just too much. It's a shame but I don't even look at their kits when I'm looking to buy these days. They are pricing themselves out of the marketplace.