Am I alone in finding the current 'tendency' amongst many manufacturers to re-box other manufacturer's products, re-issue with new decals (and higher price) and generally do their best to confuse the consumer?

Now, to be absolutely fair, there are kits out there which they can re-issue or re-box to their heart's content the 15cwt Chevys (Italeri/Max/Peerless/etc...)and the cost of new mouldings is prohibitively expensive... Just because a kit is old, doesn't mean it's bad.....

However, there are some kits getting re-issued which would be better off getting consigned to the dustbin of history....

It's just that I am noticing more and more posts which express the confusion of many modellers, usually beginning with "I saw this in my LHS and it looks new....

Well up to you....What do you think?...Jim

If it's done properly, ie. with the box clearly marked that it's reissued and any price hike justified by additional parts such as PE, resin etc ( NOT just a decal change!), then I've no problem. If there is nothing to tell the buyer that it's from another company's moulds then it's deception - the buyer could already have the original release and be unaware that they are buying the same thing reboxed.

PS: I agree about the CMPs, Italeri's 15cwt and CGT are both from Peerless moulds and well worth having, I've built 7 and could still find a home for more. :-)

While not a bad kit, everyone is re-releasing the Italeri/Testors/Heller Shermans but Dragon/DML won't re-release their M4A1 Early (grrrrrrrrrr)! It would seem if Allied builders scream loud enough we can get the same old Sherman re-released to shut us up for a few hours.

It seems to me like Italeri is by far the worst offender in this regard. They have kits from all over the place and a lot of them stunk to begin with and they still stink upon reboxing.

It's true I guess, but at least they have fair prices... and that's not what can be said about some other brands.

I'm with Eagle on this one, Italeri (at least here in Europe) does not suffer from the 'price-inflation' of other brands....you cannot begin to imagine what Tamiya can cost here... Italeri also have one of the best catalogues of anyone. To dismiss them out of hand, seems ridiculous in the extreme...Jim

I see in my LHS they have a few tamiya boxes of Italeri subjects, with a few barrels thrown in. The average price of an Italeri kit is $20 but the reboxed tamiya ones cost $40. To me this is a disgrace.
The way I see it is ... for us newer modellers who see so many cool vehicles that are OOP and cost a fortune to buy, re-issueing is great. You can buy what you want. You dont need to buy everything on the shelves. Dragon have done this recently and because the prices were so good, they were bought up and actually have reduced the prices of the newer stuff.
Italeri recently reissued their M7 priest and i for one was very happy to pick it up for $18 new. As Jim said when he started the thread, a few more releases of the items like their chevys would be appreciated. I bought the gun tractor on a swedish e-bay type site and was over the moon.


100% in agreement. I believe they have a fair price for a fair model. I can understand paying top dollar for some of tamiyas newer kits, but their older kits and figures especially are overpriced for the standard of molding. When these are re-issued and sit on shelves and are equal to dragon figure prices, it makes me angry.

One thing that I omitted to mention, is that Armor Modellers have it bad with reissues and reboxing (when it isn't necessary) the ones who have it really BAD are the aviation modellers. If one looks through (for example) the catalogue of Revell, it truly is enough to make a grown-man weep. However in fairness to Revell, with their new managements structure in place, Revell are improving in leaps and bounds.....Jim

I would say that the real offense here is when the re-boxing is not made clear. Sometimes, it's obvious: when I bought a Challenger II and AS-90 in Hobbycraft boxes, I knew they were Trumpeter kits. But it isn't always that obvious, and yes, aircraft modelers have it at least as bad as we do, worse if you account for the difference in quantity of re-boxed kits.

I always appreciated that Testors (and now Italeri) listed the original molder of a kit when they boxed it. Well, except for the Peerless Max kits, but they'd gone out of business and sold the molds, so that's a little different. But the Testors Sherman had "Italeri" on the box as well. The Italeri Russian jets have "Zvezda" on the boxes. Alas, the Zvezda PzKpfw I doesn't mention its Italeri lineage.

When I got into this hobby in '89 I used to be amazed at how people knew the obsure lineage of some kits. I didn't realize that it was a regular thing for companies to do this, and that the people who amazed me just knew it because they'd been around a while. Now I've been around a while, and I find it comes as easily to me as it seemed to come to them, 15 years ago.

Randy

Yes, I think it should be clearly labelled in the box that a particular kit is re-issued. With Revell kits you have to be really carefull. When I was looking at some 1:72 Revell airplanes at modeling shop, I noticed something interesting, they're not telling wheter a kit is re-issued or not! If the kit is new, there is a mention of a "new mould". I then bought the P-51B mustang (new mould). These "new mould"-kits seem to be new (1998 or similar in the mould), and these are top-notch kits.
But then I don't know about kits with "new shape", or "structurally detailed surfaces" (raised panel lines?). But one thing's for sure, if you don't know, ask if you can open the box to be the kit is not an obnoxious re-issue from the 60's!
And Tamiya is another brand that likes to re-issue old kits, like the universal carrier. The mould has the year 1976 in it, and now the "forced reconnaissance" is like tthe third re-release, the only difference being a new sprue with a cuople of figures and a new price tag. They should do what everybody wants and do completely new model of it (and many aged kits not offered by other companies).