New 1/48 Spitfire Mk. IX from Eduard

[jester292]

Note I am using Walther's Solvaset, which is somewhat hotter than Microsol/set. It usually works very well for me for decals other than Tamiya, and it gets some decals to work which Microsol fails with. I also always glosscote.

I've been building Tamiya's 1/48 Fw-190D-9. I used the kit decals and Walther's SolvaSet. It is THE first time I've had a good experience with Tamiya decals. I couldn't believe how well they worked, even though they are a bit on the thick side. Other than that, I can relate to the statements being made about Tamiya's decal quality.

Aaron

[jester292]

Trying to stay on topic, Eduard's ProfiPack kits are probably the best deal for kits in the hobby right now. I'm in the US, and I don't understand what some are complaining about. At a local hobby shop here, the Eduard Fw-190D-9 ProfiPack was listed as $39.99. Eduard Bf-110G-2 ProfiPack was listed as $44.99. Weekend edition kits are typically $23.95 or $27.95. A great value. I don't know how anyone could argue against that. If you can't afford the $39.99, then don't buy it. But don't try to convince me that it needs to be availble for less, or that it's not a good value.

I'm not a spitfire fan, but I'm looking forward to seeing how Eduard handles this one. I'm sure the kit is going to be great, and the decals even better! Kudos to Eduard for changing the way I experience this hobby.

Aaron

Edited December 7, 2012 by jester292

[AlCZ]

Hey, boys calm down !!! Do you understand - Eduard is CZECH firm. And on czech model forum ipmsnymburk.com have a corner "Ask for Eduard". And when Mr. Å ulc announced another Messer or "Butcher bird" many modelers says - "You are not a patriot ! We need a Spit ! Pleease, please!" Sure. I'am a R.A.F. and USAAF fan. I'm not interest of Luftwaffe. When Airfix relased a year ago his new Spit Mk. I in 1/72 in modelforum.cz you have in three months a sixty pieces ! And Spit Mk. IX is future bestseller. Tamiya sleep, and Eduard is on the run. For every czech modeler it is a MUST have kit. Do you know... Hasegawa-bad shapes...ICM - bad moulds & fit problems, Occidental/MpM/Italeri - bad shapes, Airfix - bad shapes.... We really need a new Spitfire Mk. IX, it is a most important version of this legendary aircraft, with many national markings options.... And - price, price, price :) I hope a 15USD (260CZK) for OverTrees edition(And lately Weekend too). For czech Spit fans eduard prepare a special edition with decals for many Czechoslovakian Spitfires - with war and post-war markings. For me is most anticipated kit for next year...

[seawinder]

Hey, boys calm down !!! Do you understand - Eduard is CZECH firm. And on czech model forum ipmsnymburk.com have a corner "Ask for Eduard". And when Mr. Å ulc announced another Messer or "Butcher bird" many modelers says - "You are not a patriot ! We need a Spit ! Pleease, please!" Sure. I'am a R.A.F. and USAAF fan. I'm not interest of Luftwaffe. When Airfix relased a year ago his new Spit Mk. I in 1/72 in modelforum.cz you have in three months a sixty pieces ! And Spit Mk. IX is future bestseller. Tamiya sleep, and Eduard is on the run. For every czech modeler it is a MUST have kit. Do you know... Hasegawa-bad shapes...ICM - bad moulds & fit problems, Occidental/MpM/Italeri - bad shapes, Airfix - bad shapes.... We really need a new Spitfire Mk. IX, it is a most important version of this legendary aircraft, with many national markings options.... And - price, price, price :)/> I hope a 15USD (260CZK) for OverTrees edition(And lately Weekend too). For czech Spit fans eduard prepare a special edition with decals for many Czechoslovakian Spitfires - with war and post-war markings. For me is most anticipated kit for next year...

Who's upset? I'm sure many Spitfire enthusiasts (myself included) on both sides of the pond are eagerly awaiting Eduard's release in hopes we'll finally have something close to a definitive Mk. IX in 1/48 scale.

Pip

[Av8fan]

Saw this posted over on Hyperscale, and did not want to create another thread. this is from the Eduard Blog:

Test Wing

Posted by Libor Havránek|on December 21 2012, 01:04 PM|in Blog, Eduard Products|in 1/48, Spitfire, Spitfire Mk.IXc, test sprues

Spitfire Mk.IXc late version in 1/48th scale is coming out in April 2013. Today we’ve made the very first and successful test of wing sprue.

Note there are still some flashes on the sprue and we will also make several modifications to it – the parts and proportions as you see them on the photos below are not definite and will change before the final kit is released.

Therefore we ask you not to make any premature conclusions about correct shapes etc. (For example about the undercarriage area)

Sorry if this has been posted already

[Shawn C.]

Therefore we ask you not to make any premature conclusions about correct shapes etc. (For example about the undercarriage area)

[/b]

Yeah, good luck with that!!!

:deadhorse1:/>

Edited December 22, 2012 by Shawn C.

[Robertson]

You do realize that the Hasegawa Price Jump was essentially due to the massive change in Yen valuation in the fall of 2008 (which led to a massive price jump in a number of areas including camera lenses). Hasegawa, being a relatively small company which relies on 3rd party distribution for foreign sales, chose not to compensate pricing to their distributors and thus we saw massive price jumps. Tamiya, a much larger company which is heavily dependent on foreign markets for their Bread & Butter RC products and who also does their own distribution in large non-Japanese markets ended up eating the currency shift to prevent a similar jump at a very inopportune moment.

It depends what you mean by "essentially" when compared to Tamiya's (and everyone else's) pricing...

On December 22 2007 the yen was at 114.05 for each US dollar, almost identical for CAN $ at 114.8.

It had dropped to 103 on April 20 of the next year (identical to CAN $), so already down well before the Fall of 2008.

By January 2010 the US $ had been bottoming out for one year to roughly at 90 Yen to each US Dollars (CAN $ was 87, but from a much lower bottom of 71 a year before). That was "only" a 22% drop.

By January 2011 the US $ was at 83 Yen and the CAN $ identical.

Fall 2012 the US $ and CAN $ were both identical at 79 Yen.

So if we take 80 Yen as the benchmark drop from the 114 yen high (a generous attitude for a price gouge made a whole 4 years earlier), we get a 30% drop in value.

If we take the 103 Yen figure of April 2008, just before the Hasegawa hike, we would only get a 23 % drop.

These are the rises in msrps that could be seen printed on Hasegawa's own dealer catalogue in the Fall of 2008:

Hasegawa FW-190A-8; US $ 43.95 -CAN $ 59.95 (estimated)

Previous CAN $ 34.95...

In CAN $ that is a 42% increase in price.

Hasegawa P-38J; US $ 63.95(!!!!) -CAN $ 84.95 (estimated)

Previous CAN $ 49.95

Also a 42% increase in price.

Tamiya, in the same dealer catalogue, also planned to increase its prices, but look at the amount:

P-51D: Tamiya P-51D; US $ 30.00 - CAN $ 39.95 (estimated)

Previous CAN $ 34.95

So that is a 13% increase for Tamiya vs a 42% increase for Hasegawa over the same period. In reality the Tamiya price increase never materialized anywhere, but Hasegawa's did.

Further, massive price increases did not materialize for any other Japanese maker that I am aware of during this period, and neither did the very large projected Trumpeteer price increases visible in that same catalog.

The reality of exporting goods is that when currencies change you lose or gain revenues. Most companies can't constantly try to head off their losses by anticipating currency markets, because they may as well lose in competitiveness and markets what they gain in revenues by doing so.

The fact that Hasegawa piled on an extra 12% or 20% of price hikes over an already bad situation shows just how much they apparently did not care about overseas markets.

As for lower Hasegawa prices in some places, for Sprue Brothers that was clearly based on some previously bought stock which took a couple of years to exhaust: If you look at their prices now, it's close to the same thing as everywhere else, and not appreciably different from Hannants on a Hawker Typhoon I looked up.

While I can't tell Hasegawa how to run their business, I don't quite feel an irresistible urge to defend them by putting all the other makers in the same bag, since few or none of them did anything even remotely similar...

Most makers accept the risks of currency exchange on items that are very low-cost to produce per unit (especially with paid-for moulds), rather than use the currency market as an opportunity to milk customers. This is why the comparison to camera lens is not valid: The unit cost for those is very high in that case, and the work load is also very high per unit, so the amount you need to get back on each is not anywhere near as arbitrary as it is on plastic popped out of twenty year old moulds!

And in 1/48th WWII, Hasegawa hasn't even cut a new aircraft mould in 45 whole months, since just about the same time they jacked up everything, so hiking prices to pay for new moulds is not even an issue for these types of subjects... Unlike currency markets, they knew exactly what their future planned mould cutting would cost them in that area: Zip...

Robertson

Edited December 22, 2012 by Robertson

[Edgar]

And the relevance to Eduard is..............?

[Daryl J.]

It's the tunnel vision at work again.

[Jennings]

Here's the bottom line on kit prices folks:

Manufacturers charge what they charge. You can choose to buy their products or not. Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything. No human being on planet Earth *needs* plastic model kits to survive. Every manufacturer is a different entity. They all have different cost structures, different philosophies, and different amounts of resources. You can scout around and find the best deal you can find, but in the end, the market will decide whether a manufacturer's prices are out of line or not. Grousing about it here (or anywhere else) does nothing but sacrifice innocent electrons. Is it too expensive (for *you*)? Don't buy it. Or save your pennies. I don't hear anyone complaining about how cheap some manufacturers' kits are compared to others. To quote a very trite phrase from the current vernacular, it is what it is.

Edited December 22, 2012 by Jennings

[Scooby]

Here's the bottom line on kit prices folks:

Manufacturers charge what they charge. You can choose to buy their products or not. Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything. No human being on planet Earth *needs* plastic model kits to survive. Every manufacturer is a different entity. They all have different cost structures, different philosophies, and different amounts of resources. You can scout around and find the best deal you can find, but in the end, the market will decide whether a manufacturer's prices are out of line or not. Grousing about it here (or anywhere else) does nothing but sacrifice innocent electrons. Is it too expensive (for *you*)? Don't buy it. Or save your pennies. I don't hear anyone complaining about how cheap some manufacturers' kits are compared to others. To quote a very trite phrase from the current vernacular, it is what it is.

You sum up what I feel and understand, if I like it I buy it and I think I will like the Eduard Spitfire!

I don't have a single kit I have complained about the price.

[randypandy831]

like i always say "you gotta pay to play"

[Robertson]

Here's the bottom line on kit prices folks:

Manufacturers charge what they charge. You can choose to buy their products or not. Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything. No human being on planet Earth *needs* plastic model kits to survive. Every manufacturer is a different entity. They all have different cost structures, different philosophies, and different amounts of resources. You can scout around and find the best deal you can find, but in the end, the market will decide whether a manufacturer's prices are out of line or not. Grousing about it here (or anywhere else) does nothing but sacrifice innocent electrons. Is it too expensive (for *you*)? Don't buy it. Or save your pennies. I don't hear anyone complaining about how cheap some manufacturers' kits are compared to others. To quote a very trite phrase from the current vernacular, it is what it is.

It is what it is, but you have to wonder why some want to minimize what Hasegawa did by lumping other makers into the same bag, which they clearly don't deserve.

It's also very peculiar to see such a company simultaneously drop entirely the entire 1/48th WWII aircraft market for 45 consecutive months, and then come out with models of large-scale office or school desks and chairs, or a Japanese aircraft carrier that will set you back around three hundred dollars, plus a similar amount for all the wood and metal after-market they did for it... Retreating to the home market could not be more plain, and their price hikes on the old more "world-wide" stuff were nothing short of insulting...

It's also funny in a way: Hannants also thought, initially, that the 2008 financial crisis would bring the hobby to a standstill world-wide, and they cut back on inventory by not replenishing stocks: Mr. Hannants himself pointed how wrong he was to think this, and how relatively unaffected hobby spending was by the global crisis... The difference is, he had no intent to treat the world-wide buying public like they were idiots. Hiking 42% on 20 year old moulds, and slashing completely what is still an "entry" scale, is basically saying: "We don't give a damn about developing the hobby outside of Japan (Maybe because we think you're all old, dying and capricious foggies with oversized stashes)".

Indeed they don't. But there's always something more commendable about bucking a bad trend than eagerly buckling to it.

Robertson

[Edgar]

And the relevance to Eduard is....................?

[vince14]

It is what it is, but you have to wonder why some want to minimize what Hasegawa did by lumping other makers into the same bag, which they clearly don't deserve.

It's also very peculiar to see such a company simultaneously drop entirely the entire 1/48th WWII aircraft market for 45 consecutive months, and then come out with models of large-scale office or school desks and chairs, or a Japanese aircraft carrier that will set you back around three hundred dollars, plus a similar amount for all the wood and metal after-market they did for it... Retreating to the home market could not be more plain, and their price hikes on the old more "world-wide" stuff were nothing short of insulting...

It's also funny in a way: Hannants also thought, initially, that the 2008 financial crisis would bring the hobby to a standstill world-wide, and they cut back on inventory by not replenishing stocks: Mr. Hannants himself pointed how wrong he was to think this, and how relatively unaffected hobby spending was by the global crisis... The difference is, he had no intent to treat the world-wide buying public like they were idiots. Hiking 42% on 20 year old moulds, and slashing completely what is still an "entry" scale, is basically saying: "We don't give a damn about developing the hobby outside of Japan (Maybe because we think you're all old, dying and capricious foggies with oversized stashes)".

Indeed they don't. But there's always something more commendable about bucking a bad trend than eagerly buckling to it.

Robertson

Well....don't buy Hasegawa kits then. I'd quite like to buy a brand-new Ferrari, but I don't find their prices to be 'insulting' to me just because I can't afford one.

Vince

[joscasle]

And the relevance to Eduard is....................?

Agree!!!!

[ChesshireCat]

We're still waiting for the Eduard 1/72 MiG-21s almost 2 years later...

yes we need at Mig21!! Lets hope they do a Mig21MF first! I'll be good for two of them

gary

[MikeC]

No doubt the 1:72 MiG-21s will be very good if they are the same quality as their 1:48 stablemates, but I will not be buying any as I don't do 1:72 any more.

But I will most certainly be buying the 1:48 Spitfire IX, along with the Airfix Spitfire XIX - I can see that 2013 will be the "Year of the Spitfire" for me.

[dragonlance]

Yep, I can see myself bagging minimally two XIX's. We'll see about Eduard yet, probably in April, at Mosonmagyarovar model show in Hungary.

[Edgar]

It is what it is, but you have to wonder why some want to minimize what Hasegawa did by lumping other makers into the same bag, which they clearly don't deserve.

It's also very peculiar to see such a company simultaneously drop entirely the entire 1/48th WWII aircraft market for 45 consecutive months, and then come out with models of large-scale office or school desks and chairs, or a Japanese aircraft carrier that will set you back around three hundred dollars, plus a similar amount for all the wood and metal after-market they did for it... Retreating to the home market could not be more plain, and their price hikes on the old more "world-wide" stuff were nothing short of insulting...

Except they've done nothing of the sort. A friend has been buying Hasegawa kits, for years, and using them as swap deals with modellers across the world. He's kept a record of the yen prices he was quoted, from the time that the kits first appeared, and i've checked those prices against the latest list prices, as quoted by HobbyLink Japan. Of 24 kits in the PT range, still listed after all these years, 11 have gone from 2200yen to 2400 (+ 9%); 1 from 2000 to 2400 (+ 20%); 6 from 2400 to 2600 (+8.3%); 2 from 2600 to 2800 (+7.7%); 1 from 1400 to 1500 (+7.1%); 1 from 3600 to 3800 (+5.6%); 1 from 1800 to 2200 (+22%) This averages out at 8.12%, over a period of, at least, 13 years. Hasegawa is known to sell 70-80% of their production in Japan, so can hardly be accused of "retreating," if they consider them first, and, if they're having to diversify into furniture, it looks as though they're struggling, not "gouging.".

The difference is, he had no intent to treat the world-wide buying public like they were idiots. Hiking 42% on 20 year old moulds, and slashing completely what is still an "entry" scale, is basically saying: "We don't give a damn about developing the hobby outside of Japan (Maybe because we think you're all old, dying and capricious foggies with oversized stashes)".

Years ago the yen was double its today's value (220 to the £, against about 110 now,) and anyone, who looks back further than a few years, can see this. An importer of Fujimi kits has told the owner of my local shop that he is now paying as much for a kit as he used to sell it to the shop, even though Fujimi's yen price, on the invoice, hasn't changed. Lambasting Hasegawa is a waste of electronics; save your silly bilious rhetoric for the bankers who wrecked the international money markets, and Mother Nature, who cost Japan dearly with the earthquake and tsunami.

I'm sorry about hijacking the Spitfire thread, but this nonsense about Hasegawa (and only Hasegawa) has got to stop (and, yes, we've got exactly the same situation with prices here, but know enough not to lambast Hasegawa.)

Edited December 27, 2012 by Edgar

[Jennings]

Hannants also thought, initially, that the 2008 financial crisis would bring the hobby to a standstill world-wide

Leading world economists didn't have a clue what was going to happen, so why should anyone else (an ongoing situation, btw)?

[randypandy831]

my god, I thought this ended a long time ago........

any new info besides this coast debate?

[dragonlance]

Nothing new.

This is just killing time until the fuselage pictures are published. Then the real fun starts

[Dmanton300]

Cannon barrels that butt mount onto wing stubs?!? In 2012? Even 1/72 Spitfire kits are starting to appear with barrels that slip into the leading edge. Sheesh.

[Edgar]

Cannon barrels that butt mount onto wing stubs?!? In 2012? Even 1/72 Spitfire kits are starting to appear with barrels that slip into the leading edge.

I think that you really need to look a little more closely at the photos; there are holes moulded into the stubs, which are obviously there to accept pins on the end of the cannon fairings/barrels, so they will lock in, not be a simple butt fit.