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What happens to review samples sent into magazines?


Jon Kunac-Tabinor

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Hi all- always wondered this. I mean obviously some get sent out to reviewers to, erm....review, and build, plus I guess any associated AM & decals.

But what happens to the rest? I mean there are so many aftermarket bits & bobs available nowadays that you couldn't possibly build or assemble or use them all - so do they get returned to the manufacturer? divvied out amongst the team? or is there a "Raiders of the Lost Ark" type store room at every magazine office filled with unimaginable delights, now gathering dust?

Jonners

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When I had my own magazine [motoring], we got a lot of books and mechanical aids to review. The books either went into our in-house library or the individual reviewer was allowed to keep it. The mechanical things were tried, and afterwards went into the tool box, or bin, or if we used an individual reviewer, he kept it, in his tool box. Sometimes we gave the mechanical item away to friends or associates, if it was of use to them, and not to our garage.

Very very rarely, a company asked for the sample back.

I expect that its much the same in a model magazine.

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A long, long time ago (1989) Ian Allan had a sale between Christmas and New Year at their HQ of a huge pile of books that had been sent into Aircraft Illustrated for review and which they no longer wanted/needed/or had space for. I arrived early on the day, spent what must have been £150 and could have spent more. The thing is that the prices were incredibly cheap e.g. mint Squadron Signals for £1 and £9.99 books for £2 etc etc. so I had to go some to buy what I did.

On occasion I have seen piles of review books from magazine publishers at airshows.

Like JKT I have wondered what happens to the review samples of kits and bits 'n bobs. And where do the reviewers keep the kits they've built especially if they are a prolific reviewer?

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The way I understand it, not every kit, accessory, decal sheet, PE set, paint, etc. is sent out to magazines. Sometimes manufacturers provide a sample or sometimes just information and photos. PE sets are a good example, most sets are not sent out for review since there is no gaurantee that there is a suitable kit at the magazine not yet sent to a reviewer. Sometimes it will happen that kit and accessories arrive at the same time and these would be sent together to the review builder/writer. I once received an Eduard kit with Eduard PE because they were sent to the mag together from E. Basically all sample kits are sent out and built by staff reviewers. There will be some unassigned accessories at the office and reviewers will ask what's in the cupboard but this is more miss than hit in my experience. Occasionally some filler or tool may show up in a kit box but not too often. Sometimes the magazine will request certain accessories for a particular build article but it takes time to assemble all the goodies and so this is not common for straight reviews. if a one page review includes accessories and after market decals, likely as not the reviewer has bought them themself.

Manufacturers supply samples because they want them used and reviewed. Obviously it's not in a magazine's long term interest to collect, hoard, bin or sell samples as this would hurt their relationship with those manufacturers meaning no more samples or less advertising. So what comes in does go out. The same logic applies at the reviewer level. If a reviewer has been sent kits and bits and no review or article comes back to the magazine, then that reviewer will not be getting any more kits or items.

So although it's nice to imagine shelves and desks full of free model bits, it doesn't really exist. sigh.

Hope this helps.

Edited by Bill Bunting
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  • 2 months later...

I was the aviation buyer (books and kits) at Midland Counties. From a book point of view, most samples ended up in piles around the office, but they were also used for the cataloging and marketing side of things as well as competitions. They were also useful to have at hand for customer enquiries. Admittedly, one or two caught my eye and if I asked the boss nicely...well, they're still on my shelf! Never got model kit samples though as it wasn't really necessary for our purposes.

How I miss that job!

Regards;
Steve

Edited by fightersweep
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Once at an IPMS AGM in the mid 80's I went to a Branch Secretaries' Meeting. On the table were review samples - Revell aircraft and AMT cars if I remember. "Help yourself" was the order, the only proviso being that we had to submit a review for the mag, which we all subsequently did.

Trevor

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I was the aviation buyer (books and kits) at Midland Counties. From a book point of view, most samples ended up in piles around the office, but they were also used for the cataloging and marketing side of things as well as competitions. They were also useful to have at hand for customer enquiries. Admittedly, one or two caught my eye and if I asked the boss nicely...well, they're still on my shelf! Never got model kit samples though as it wasn't really necessary for our purposes.

How I miss that job!

Regards;

Steve

How I miss MCP.....

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Dave;

Biggest mistake Ian Allan made closing down MCP, and that was subsequently admitted at board level. It's been four years since my redundancy and I still miss that job every day, but I'm thankful for having it for the eight years that I was there. I don't think that Ian Allan realised just what a loyal customer base they had.

Regards;

Steve

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I was the aviation buyer (books and kits) at Midland Counties. .......

How I miss that job!

How we miss Midland Counties!

[Oops: remember to read rest of thread before commenting.]

Edited by Seahawk
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Wasn't a former editor of a certain "International Magazine about Aviation in Scale" caught running a good sideline of selling kits and accessories out of his attic, when in fact they were from someone else's attic?

(Namely the mags review stash...)

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Wasn't a former editor of a certain "International Magazine about Aviation in Scale" caught running a good sideline of selling kits and accessories out of his attic, when in fact they were from someone else's attic?

(Namely the mags review stash...)

I recall that story. He was removed from that job rather smartly.

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I think Bill Bunting described it well. As an occasional reviewer I have quite few built review kits in my collection- I only volunteer to build type I'd like, or oddities which attract me. There is an obligation/drive to complete review samples fairly smartly, which is quite good for my modelling; it reduces my procrastination!

On a couple of occasions an editor has had spare accessories, PE or decals, which he distributed around his team, either along with review kits ir when we meet up at shows.. It's a nice, rare, unlooked for perk when it happens.

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  • 1 month later...

Jonners to answer your question, from my point of view since starting reviewing and building stuff full time for AMW I was a asked a while back to visit the Stamford HQ of Key Publishing and have a good look around the facilities to see how things are done at this big publishing house as well as making full use of their studio facilities to learn photographic and editing techniques. Whilst there I spent a lot of time with Editor Chris Clifford whose office was absolutely jammed full of review samples from various companies. I also visited a small warehouse on site where there was an Aladdins cave of models and accessories and here I was basically told to take anything I fancied !.... So I did, but out of courtesy only helped myself to stuff I needed, mostly boxed sets of Alclad paints, mig weathering packs and Eduard PE sets plus several pre production kits of yet to be released models, (though I drew the line at a Trumpeter 1/200th Nelson !).

At the end of the day all these products are all destined to find their way into review or article builds and end up in the magazine one way or another. It was an interesting experience to put it mildly. They simply update me with the latest releases that have arrived at the office and I just choose which ones I fancy building for the magazine......getting first dibs on anything brand new is a nice little extra too.

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