Rare Kits

[BillyJ]

Following on from the manufactures fan clubs in other countries thread..

I thought I might ask:

Do the likes of Trumpeter/Dragon/Tamiya etc discontinue certain kits from their respective ranges every so often in a similar way that Revell & Airfix do?

As many of us know - certain Airfix kits especially, have been missing from the marketplace for years for whatever reason, but has the same occurred with specific kits formerly on offer from our Chinese/Japanese manufacturers too?

Just to provide some known examples - Airfix Angel Interceptor. I remember building these during the Captain Scarlett heydays. They have since been MIA for quite a while now and have consequently fetched silly prices on ebay.
I have been led to understand that this particular kit is being re-released in the near future.

Revell's 2004 release of the 1/72 scale U Boat. This one has been missing for some 2 or 3 years now and is fetching some extremely handsome prices in the 2nd hand marketplace.

Trumpeter? Dragon? Tamiya?

Do these companies also have any long lost and much sought-after Holy Grails of modelling in the same way?

I have no idea, so over to you lot!

[BWP]

I don't know about Trumpeter or Tamiya, but certainly Dragon don't keep everything in production all the time. Old kits get superceded by newer releases of the same subject. In addition, their "Cyber-Hobby" products are intended to be limited-run kits and go out of general availability relatively quickly.

Of course Tamiya also have out-of-production kits. Lots of kits from the '60s and '70s that they don't make any more! Generally (I believe) that's because they replace the older kit with a new tool of the same subject.

[SJPONeill]

My answer would be, no, noit in the same sense as Airfix, Frog, Aurora, Renwal etc...there are some kits that for one reason or another like lost/damaged molds or molds retooled for another variant that will never come back from that manufacturer; but there are others like the Renwal/Revell 1/32 Atomic Cannon that simply have not been rereleased since 1982 or earlier until this year despite considerable interest in rerelease from the market.

I can't think of any Tamiya kit that can not sourced with relative ease, even the 1/100 series aircraft that were hard to find for a while; nor the same for Trumpeter...as Bruce says, there are some Dragon releases that are a bit hard to find but again if one doigs deep enough in the right places, one can usually turn one up...

True rarities are more those like the Aerodynamix 1/32 Buccaneer of which a very few were produced before the company went belly-up or the Heritage Aviation 1/32 Vulcan which is a limited release of only 25 kits. essentially really kicks in when the company ceases to operate like Dynavector or goes belly-up and its molds are either or redeployed to shore up a bridge somewhere like many of the Dinky molds...

[jargonking]

I can't think of any Tamiya kit that can not sourced with relative ease

Actually Tamiya have a huge back catalogue of kits that are unavailable....many of the 1/12 motorcycles and 1/24 cars are highly sought after and command high prices on the second hand market.

[JamesPerrin]

I can't think of any Tamiya kit that can not sourced with relative ease

Actually Tamiya have a huge back catalogue of kits that are unavailable....many of the 1/12 motorcycles and 1/24 cars are highly sought after and command high prices on the second hand market.

Street cars and bikes are very much tied to the time they were released; the real things as well as the kits, and so their popularity is short lived. For this reason a number of the Airfix cars have not been re-released unless they are iconic vehicles like the MGB or DB5. The Tamiya catalogue I had back in 1986 was full of standard Japanese family hatchbacks and saloon that I'm sure would be hard to find today.

[Flute]

essentially really kicks in when the company ceases to operate like Dynavector or goes belly-up and its molds are either or redeployed to shore up a bridge somewhere like many of the Dinky molds...

FWIW, Dynavector is still with us. The kit stuff is just one part of the operation: http://www.dynavector.co.jp/airmodel/english/index.html; .


Paul.

[novokits]

And anybody know where tooling for old 1/96th FROG Vulcan, Victor, Valiant, Viscount, DC-7???
Some year ago I hear that tooling of Vulcan was lost somwhere on Brazil, but, probably this is just a rumor...

[PaulBradley]

And anybody know where tooling for old 1/96th FROG Vulcan, Victor, Valiant, Viscount, DC-7???
Some year ago I hear that tooling of Vulcan was lost somwhere on Brazil, but, probably this is just a rumor...

Yes, I understand those tools are so old that they were lost with Percy Fawcett....

[novokits]

In "Lost World" by Conan Doyle nothing about this too....
Britannia, Lancaster was send to European half of USSR and now, we can buy it from Eastern Express!
More sad things with Caravelle, Comet4 (and some quantity of others novo/frog kits) - this kits was manufacturing in Tashkent (Uzbekistan) They were lost with Mr. Usmanhodzhaev and Mr. Karimov

[johnsan]

Tamiya had several other 72nd kits along with the Shinden. They're not very good kits and have not been produced for years. You can still find them in second hand model shops in Tokyo.

I don't think there is much nostalgia in the Japanese market for old, superseded kits like these.

Most Japanese manufacturers rotate kits. They are big believers in the just in time theory of production. I've been told tax laws discourage keeping large quantities of manufactured goods on hand. There is also the problem of warehousing space.

[novokits]

Hello Johnsan! Maybe you known, what happens with Tsukuda? I see some him kits unber other brand, but no all kits...

[flakmonkey]

The Hasegawa 1/12 Mazda RX-7 is out of production and getting particularly hard to find, especially if you don't want to sell body parts to pay for it. Not sure what the situation is with their 1/8 scale museum model series, but I know where there is one...

[johnsan]

Hello Johnsan! Maybe you known, what happens with Tsukuda? I see some him kits unber other brand, but no all kits...

Tsukuda is long gone. They only did a couple of kits and much of their stuff was from other manufacturers.

Today, there is a Tsukuda Hobbies that produces anime and science fiction large scale figures.