What happens to the tooling when a company goes bust?

[RaceAddict]

I'm just curious if anyone here is in the know...

 

But what happens to the tooling for any given kit if the company goes bankrupt, or just simply ceases operations?

 

I was browsing scalemates.com this afternoon and noticed that Kitty Hawk made a nice looking F-101 in 1/48th, but when I looked a little deeper I couldn't find a single version of the kit for sale at any of the usual sites I shop from. Then I found one that mentioned KH shut up shop June of 2021 and they were clearing out the last of their KH kits (of which the Voodoo wasn't one they had).

 

Given the time and money that goes into designing and producing a kit, it would be a shame for the tooling to disappear into the ether instead of ending up in the hands of a manufacturer that could perhaps continue it's production. 

[JohnT]

If the company goes into liquidation it falls the the court appointed liquidator to sell the company assets and apply the proceeds of sale to meet liabilities and creditors. If they have a value they could be purchased and used by a competitor. Where a competitor would want to is another matter. If no buyers then I assume they have scrap metal value and if not they would get binned i guess

[Robin-42]

Depends on who owns it and who physically has it. WnW stopped producing, but did not go bankrupt. The tooling for their Lancaster was clearly in China as a company is selling it. The rest could be in Peter Jackson’s basement for all we know. In the end, very little tooling gets lost forever, unless sunk-that’s happened, scrapped-rarely, usually if worn out beyond redemption. At some point most molds get re-released eventually. 

[Black Knight]

When Frog closed up most of the moulds were sold to Novo and since them the moulds have travelled around the Ukraine to various kit companies. Novo were only allowed to buy the non-German subject kits. [a political reason so we'll say no more ] Revell got the German subject kit moulds

Revell also bought up the Matchbox kit moulds when Lesney stopped doing model kits

As already said; the moulds are an asset which is sold on, the proceeds go to pay the debts et cetera. 

Only occasionally has any moulds really gone to the scrap yard

[Giorgio N]

Moulds very rarely disappear, they are after all assets that can be resold to help paying the creditors. At the same time the last 10-20 years have also seen a good number of companies that had their kits produced by others and in this case the mould may simply remain property of whoever was the actual manufacturer.. or the property may become reason for a legal battle.

In any case I'd be confident enough to bet that the KH moulds will reappear at some point under some other name. Hard to tell however when that may happen, could be in a year or in 10...

This of course unless the moulds are worn. I don't know what kind of manufacturing process KH used, how many copies were expected to be made from each mould and how many were made. Some of the old Classic Airframes kits reappered under the Special Hobby name even if they were from short-run moulds so there is always hope...

[Ossington 2]

Some of the Kitmaster rail subjects did not survive when Airfix took them over. I suspect the 0-6-0 diesel shunter & Stirling Single, along with the coaches went for scrap. Dapol did release the 0-6-0 steam loco but a fire in the plant destoyed the mould apparently. any ne know more?

[Hornchurch]

On 03/01/2022 at 03:07, Black Knight said:

When Frog closed up most of the moulds were sold to Novo and since them the moulds have travelled around the Ukraine to various kit companies.

Novo were only allowed to buy the non-German subject kits.

[a political reason so we'll say no more ].

 

Revell got the German subject kit moulds

Revell also bought up the Matchbox kit moulds when Lesney stopped doing model kits

 

 

 

I was devastated (as a kid), when FROG folded, back in 1976

Last kit I built (during my childhood-spell), was the FROG Macchi Mc.202 Folgore (1976, too)

 

IIRC, the Novo acquisitions were to 'shun' the Nazi a/c

(With WW.II being fairly-recent back then & no-wish for the Soviets to sell their effigies ?)

 

I did pick up the Novo "Martin Baltimore" & "Airspeed Oxford" for my 2nd kit-spell

I also remember the Novo Javelin being a bit rough in White-plastic.

But that was like a Rolls-Royce, compared to that Russian (made) Whitley I bought !

 

Now my question is.... (you said...), "Revell got the German subject kit moulds/molds"

 

So, WHO ended-up with the former FROG Dornier Do.17-Z, in 1/72 scale ?

 

FROG's distribution was fairly poor (where I lived) & AIRFIX clearly held sway.

 

As FROG folded in '76, I never got to even see the FROG Do17-Z, until 1986

They had one in 'Mil-Slides' in Croydon, which I saw (2nd-hand) for the first time

 

Also (& forgive me asking), but - Who ended up with the Lesney Fairey Seafox ?

After it left Matchbox, I "lost trace" - (kids/mortgage/M/cycles !)

 

Am I wrong in assuming both of those got "Hoovered-up" by Revell ?

If so, was the (Ex-FROG), Dornier Do.17 "tidied-up" by Revell, perchance ?

[Black Knight]

36 minutes ago, Hornchurch said:

So, WHO ended-up with the former FROG Dornier Do.17-Z, in 1/72 scale ?

Scalemates is our friend;

Revell 

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/frog-f205-dornier-do17z-2--163273

 

36 minutes ago, Hornchurch said:

Also (& forgive me asking), but - Who ended up with the Lesney Fairey Seafox ?

 Again, Revell

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/matchbox-pk-36-fairey-seafox--147228