RELEASED - 1/72 Early Merlin Spitfire Family - IBG Guessing Game Round 2

[Adam Poultney]

Early Fw190s would be a win with me- I have no desire whatsoever to touch the KP kits unless they have found some good decals for them. I didn't realise until the other day that eduard hadn't released anything earlier than an A-5 in 1/72

[Piotr Mikolajski]

9 minutes ago, Adam Poultney said:

I have no desire whatsoever to touch the KP kits unless they have found some good decals for them.

 

Good decals would raise the rating of many of their kits, or at least the customer would be less disappointed.

[VMA131Marine]

I still think the Hawker Hart/Hind/Hartebeeste/Demon series are possibilities based on this latest news.

[TheKinksFan]

18 minutes ago, VMA131Marine said:

I still think the Hawker Hart/Hind/Hartebeeste/Demon series are possibilities based on this latest news

You forget the AMG kits that already exist and the ones they will probably release in the future. 

[352nd Fighter Group]

 

Deleted 

 

Edited January 19 by 352nd Fighter Group
remove a word

[VMA131Marine]

51 minutes ago, TheKinksFan said:

You forget the AMG kits that already exist and the ones they will probably release in the future. 

No, I didn’t forget; I do have all of them. No reason IBG couldn’t do them too. Consider, Miniart did the Fokker F.13 right after MikroMir did the same subject.

 

That said, my money would be on early Merlin Spitfires and Seafires.

[TheKinksFan]

Just now, VMA131Marine said:

Miniart did the Fokker F.13 right after MikroMir did the same subject

I don't think Miniart uses steel moulds like IBG do, their runs are are very limited. And the moulds are still done in Ukraine. Don't think MikroMir use steel moulds either. Totally different cost to produce. These interwar British biplanes are a niche subject. I would be happy though if it was a Hawker series. 

[Tbolt]

It is good marketing - I don't know what it is but I already want to buy some 🤩

[Tbolt]

I made an error earlier. I think this is more like it:

 

P-47B

P-47C/D flat keel

P-47C/D to D-23

P-47D-25 to D-40 & M

P-47N 

[Piotr Mikolajski]

39 minutes ago, TheKinksFan said:

I don't think Miniart uses steel moulds like IBG do, their runs are are very limited. And the moulds are still done in Ukraine.

 

They use steel moulds. Runs are not limited, it is just usual rotation in the catalogue. And mould for years are not made in Ukraine.

[LN-KEH]

Besides the P-47 family, a P-38 family might fill the five fuselages and five propeller types.

[ModelMod]

4 hours ago, Piotr Mikolajski said:

 

Are you seriously trying to compare this whole process with a 'hard work' of copying an existing kit and releasing it from a resin mould, where all that takes a few weeks?

 

Of course not. What I'm mentioning is this curious behaviour pattern that can be observed with many of the "timely" releases of AZ / KP.

 

And I do this because I find it not only curious but annoying; I certainly understand the investment of time, work, resources and effort that it means to make a family of kits from steel molds, as in this case IBG is doing -one of my favorite brands at the moment, by the way- and what other worthy brands mentioned above have done. Therefore, the fact that someone "takes advantage" of a release to join in the enthusiasm for that particular subject releasing soft kits from resin moulds is particulary irritating to me.

 

 

[VMA131Marine]

3 hours ago, TheKinksFan said:

I don't think Miniart uses steel moulds like IBG do, their runs are are very limited. And the moulds are still done in Ukraine.

I believe Miniart use steel molds. They they may do limited runs of each boxing, but they certainly do enough boxings of each kit to equal

the production of a typical long run kit. Also, Miniart moved their entire operation to Poland.

[Robertone139]

F4U Corsair family

5 fuselages

 

F4U-1 Birdcage/F4U-1D Bubble

F-4U-4

F-4U-5

F4U-7/AU-1

F2G-1

[Piotr Mikolajski]

2 hours ago, ModelMod said:

What I'm mentioning is this curious behaviour pattern that can be observed with many of the "timely" releases of AZ / KP.

 

Well, it's AZ/KP's long-running war with Eduard and the parasitism of Eduard's advertising campaigns by fast releases of products of lower quality. And they are released much faster precisely because a resin mould can be prepared very quickly, especially if you don't have to care about quality.

I don't remember what caused this war, maybe colleagues from the Czechia remember. I think it is a loss for the model market, because the old kits from AZ were often quite good replicas of unique subjects. Even if they were not for every modeller, their Breguet XIV, for example, has not aged to this day.

 

2 hours ago, VMA131Marine said:

I believe Miniart use steel molds.

 

A quick look at the sprues is enough. I haven't heard of anyone making short run resin sliding moulds, and these are abundant in MiniArt models, even in figure accessory kits. Likewise with the visible valves to cut off the flow of plastic to the various parts of the moulds.

 

2 hours ago, VMA131Marine said:

They they may do limited runs of each boxing

 

From a certain point of view, most companies do ‘limited’ production runs. These are not the days when one batch was several thousand pieces and the moulds were not taken off the injection moulding machine for a month.

At the moment, premiere models are being injected in larger numbers, but reissues are very often a thousand or a few thousand units, largely depending on orders from intermediaries. If there is suddenly more demand from wholesalers, production will simply be increased.

 

This is particularly evident when a manufacturer or its representative announces plans to reissue one kit or another. Shops, if they are interested, place pre-orders. The representative completes them and orders a specific batch of boxes, and after a certain period of time, they receive their delivery. If you compare the list of models planned for renewal with the list of what has come in, you sometimes see that some models have simply not been reissued. From the manufacturer's side, it's also much more convenient. Why reissue 20 kits with two thousand boxes each and have a clogged up warehouse when you can reissue a thousand boxes of some kits and five thousand of others and 98% of them will go out of stock.

[VMA131Marine]

24 minutes ago, Piotr Mikolajski said:

At the moment, premiere models are being injected in larger numbers, but reissues are very often a thousand or a few thousand units, largely depending on orders from intermediaries.

Based on the numbers on the boxes I get when I order from Airfix direct, their production runs for their recent larger kits (think 1/48 Buccaneer & Sea King) are between 5,000 and 8,000 kits. I’d guess the smaller cheaper kits are made in  considerably larger batches.

[Dennis_C]

13 hours ago, Piotr Mikolajski said:

 

It takes up to a few years to prepare and design a project of family of kits, cut the steel moulds and test the quality of injection moulding. Are you seriously trying to compare this whole process with a 'hard work' of copying an existing kit and releasing it from a resin mould, where all that takes a few weeks?

That does not contradict to the idea AZ/KP may still try to parasitize on potential IBG early Fw-190 family. If the project was lasting for years for IBG and AZ/KP now knows the approximate release date - why not to start working on resin molds right now? Mind their early Antons are not coming tomorrow so they have 1 or 2 months to do the job. 

[Dennis_C]

6 hours ago, Robertone139 said:

F4U Corsair family

5 fuselages

 

F4U-1 Birdcage/F4U-1D Bubble

F-4U-4

F-4U-5

F4U-7/AU-1

F2G-1

That would be a nice release. Shall this family have 7 propellers though?

[352nd Fighter Group]

 

  

 

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Edited January 20 by 352nd Fighter Group
Remove a word

[Robertone139]

1 hour ago, Dennis_C said:

That would be a nice release. Shall this family have 7 propellers though?

Definitely

[Piotr Mikolajski]

8 hours ago, VMA131Marine said:

Based on the numbers on the boxes I get when I order from Airfix direct, their production runs for their recent larger kits (think 1/48 Buccaneer & Sea King) are between 5,000 and 8,000 kits.

 

If you are talking about the stickers on the bottom of the box, I have no key to read the information. I have two different Gladiators:

• A02052: MIC07 P91319 / A02052 12 852
• A02052A: MIC07 PO10008569 / A02052A 47 525

Does this mean factory + order number + catalogue number of the kit + next box number of set A02052 (with eventual letters)? I have no idea. Could more than 47,000 Gladiators have been sold from 2013 to 2022 (that's when I bought the second box)? It's entirely possible. But that would also give an average of around 5,000 sold per year.

 

8 hours ago, VMA131Marine said:

I’d guess the smaller cheaper kits are made in  considerably larger batches.

 

Considerably larger batches, like a few times larger, would mean production similar to that of the 1970s and 1980s, and we are all well aware that these are very different times. Decades ago, we flew models around the room and drove tanks on the desk. Today, all you need to do is install a game where you can fly and drive too, and on top of that the sounds will be better than our vroom vroom.

[352nd Fighter Group]

P-47 Family 

 

first off you had the P-43 Lancer which was Related development

 

I would say one Protoype will be included 

 

P-47D with two Sub-variants

 

P-47G with two Sub-variants

 

Then P-47 M or N 

 with different Boxings

 

Thats my Thinking 

 

[VMA131Marine]

58 minutes ago, Piotr Mikolajski said:

Does this mean factory + order number + catalogue number of the kit + next box number of set A02052 (with eventual letters)? I have no idea.

No, not those. The larger kits are packed individually in brown shipping boxes. These boxes identify what the kit is and also have handwritten numbers on them indicating what number of the lot they are, e.g. 4270 of 7999. You only get kits in these boxes if you order direct from Airfix in the UK. I’m not sure what the last few numbers on the sticker represent but when my Lysander shows up next week I will look and see if the sticker correlates with the production numbers in any way.

[VMA131Marine]

25 minutes ago, 352nd Fighter Group said:

P-47 Family 

 

first off you had the P-43 Lancer which was Related development

 

I would say one Protoype will be included 

 

P-47D with two Sub-variants

 

P-47G with two Sub-variants

 

Then P-47 M or N 

 with different Boxings

 

Thats my Thinking 

 

What about the P-47Bs and Cs?

[GioCare]

still with the "spitfire family"idea, even with the last "five fuselages" clue. 7 different propellers and 5 different fuselages. Spit offers a lot of possibilities without risking with prototypes and other niche subjects.