I have just ordered the DML M4a2 Sherman from Luckymodels.com in Hong Kong. Total price (airmail) around €27.00 [Postage included] ($30+) Here in Spain, same model €45.00 Plus around €10.00 Postage... Total, for the mathematically challenged, €55.00 ($60+).

Now I consider this a little excessive... I understand that the stuff has to be shipped from China or Japan or Korea and that shipping nowadays is expensive.... However, I do wonder, just who is kidding who with these prices...

The best, I saw today. Tamiya's M2a2 (OIF) Version. €69.00 Almost $80 ...Aaaaaaarggghhh ..Jim

45Euro (sorry don't have the symbol on my keyboard) for the M4A2???

In Britain it's £22.99 which is a good deal less, even including VAT, maybe you should be asking searching questions of the importers. Dragon kits over here used to be around £35 until the importer changed and the prices dropped. Guess when I started buying Dragon again.

Seems someone getting richer.... and it sure ain't me.....

Me either, Dave....Jim, that is a bit excessive for that kit, sir...I can understand your pain, brother...The rich get richer....

Gunny

It does seem like there is some price gouging going on, over twice the price at retail. Of course a store needs to make money but that does seem excessive.

I'm curious, I couldn't find LuckModels.com either by putting in that as the URL or doing a google search for it. Do you have a hot link for them?

The best price I've found here in the US for that kit is Squadron at $28.97 US plus shipping. Your LuckModels seems much better than that. Now I'll have to see what our LHS is selling those for retail.

Rodger: LuckModel.com Couple of curiosities, the prices are a little better at Tristar for AFV CLUB and (not surprisingly :-) ) Tristar and LuckyModel give you the exact price of postage....Jim

I believe Jim meant Luckymodels.com

Whoops...typo in my original post....Jim

I found a guy from Hong Kong on eBay offering ridiculously low prices for the kits. Tamiya 105mm and M4 Early for $14with BIN options at $19. Shipping was high (aprrox $17US) but I still felt reasonable for airmail overseas. I bought several kits thinking that the savings on the kits would be tremendous if I got several kits for $19 and shipping was just a shade more than $17. Then I find out that he does not combine shipping because all the kits were prepackaged for shipping and he just attaches a sticker. He will not rebox into a single larger package.

Just another trick to watch out for when seeing those low overseas prices.

Now that is fuuny! :-) :-)

For you Americans out there like me you can type the Euro Symbol by pressing ALT+0128 That means hold the ALT key down and punch in 0128 got it? Good.

Example .... €

Bummer on those prices, sounds like some is out to get rich fast.


Later
Dave

In the UK we have similar problems - I bought my Maquette AEC Armoured Car from Squadron in the USA, including shipping by air, at not much over half of the UK price. I know that the $US is very much in our favour at the moment but this is rediculous. I also buy a fair amount from Ebay shops in the US and Hong Kong for the same reasons.

And for us continental Europeans who don´t have the GBP symbol on the keyboard, how do I create that???

Tia,

Thomas

I would also agree with the obscure price differences between countries.

I paid £47.00 including shipping for my Trumpeter 1/16 T-34 from Germany, where as its always £80.00 + over here in the U.K.

I also paid £290.00 including shipping for a Tamiya 1/16 full option Pershing from a good contact in HongKong, where as it always seems to be at least £700.00 upwards in the U.K.....have seen some place advertsing it for almost £900.00!!!!
Infact we got the Pershing AND full option King Tiger 1/16 Tamiya for less than £600.00 including shipping!

I suppose the impluse buyer may be caught by these places, but hopefully not clued up modellers.

ALT+156
example £

There you go.

Dave

I think its the same everywhere. I recently bought dragons 3´n´1 251 ausf D from Hobby easy. The kit, 2 figures kits and postage came to 360 sek. The 3´n´1 kit here alone, costs 430sek. Figure kits are costing 110-130sek in sweden, where as they are costing 37 sek from hobby easy. Moral ofthe story .... It pays to look around when you are buying a kit.

Shermies...I would pay attention to the feedback left from some Hong Kong ebayers...I (to my mistake) ordered several items from two different HK ebayers all at the same time. The items arrived wrapped in brown paper and were crushed (no real damage though), but 3/4 of my stuff never arrived (most likely due to the poor packaging.

Now I'm out $80!!!

Note the USD $ is Shift + 4.

I have to agree, even within NZ there is a great variation in prices on kits. I have just ordered from hobby easy and for tamiya's GMC ,Quad and Academys M-18 it cost me $89 NZD ( $50ish USD) with shipping where if I was to buy that here it would cost me in excess of $110 NZD ($70ish USD)

I'm afraid I don't see any variation in kit prices here at all.

The best deal in town here (well Spain at least ) is with Italeri - I can get virtually ALL their kits discounted - gotta be the cheapest place on the planet for them... The new LCM is only coming in at €40 for example.

The hobby stores (and this is the pity) are generally very good indeed although the distributors have them hamstrung. I have bought from TriStar and HLJ in the past, the reason I have switched to LuckyModel is because they are really upfront with the postage charges..

I must say,24 hours later, I am damned impressed with their service. This arrived (by e-mail obviously) this morning:



I must say I am impressed....Jim

well i am also impressed by what u say Jim and i think these guys desrve a try.
For the prices i ll tell u that an AFV Longtom here in greece costeme 51 euros with postal and 14,55 the same time in Hobbyeasy...what to say ...

Totally agree, I even bought my airbrush from the US, incl P&P and Customs (I got the Badger 200-20 with a complete spare fine tip and needle), for ±£15 cheaper than just the airbrush alone costs here in the UK!

Jim, I noticed that shipping from Malaysia to the UK are just ±£1 more expensive than local shipping/postage charges, plus the model kits are just over half the price they are here in the UK.

Also I was looking at a local online model shop for Tamiya’s 1/35 JGSDF Light Armoured Vehicle saw the wonderful price of £24.99 (excluding shipping).

Checked out my favourite online shop and noticed that for a similar price £25.30, I can not only get Tamiya’s 1/35 JGSDF Light Armoured Vehicle, I can also get Tamiya’s 1/35 JGSDF Iraq Humanitarian Assistance Team plus Dragon’s 1/16 352nd VOLKSGRENADIER. This includes shipping to the UK @ $12.75 (±£6.62).

Even taking into account the $/£ exchange rate, scale models are very expensive in the UK.

I think that England is the most expensive as far as models are concerned.
I'm in luck- the new distributor has Italeri at low, low prices (cheaper than Italy, France or Greece where I did my buying before), Hasegawa at normal level European prices (if I want larger kits I simply go for HLJ) and is supposed to get Tamiya straight from Japan, so prices could be reasonable- or not, I'll just have to wait and see...

Cheers,
Tvrtko

Hmm...you should try to come here in the Philippines and buy a few kits here.

Presently, the rate is P57 pesos to $ 1 US dollar.

My Academy Panzer Kit costs P440, an average cost for a kit here. That is equal to $7.72 dollars.

A DML Nashorn Kit that I'm planning to buy costs P 890, considered to be quite expensive here. That is equal to $15.00.

A 1/35th scale Tamiya New Jersey sells for P1,800...a good price for a ship model at this scale. That is equal to around $ 31.58.

The 1/32 scale Tamiya F-15 is sold here for around P5,000. That is extremely expensive for us. But it would just be P87.72 for you.

The only downside is that model building is a relatively young hobby here in the Philippines. So you may find out that most of the kits here are also sold and available there in your countries.

Angela

When I used to buy FSM it was interesting to compare American and British prices. As far as Tamiya prices went it seemed like a model costing (say) $15 in the US would cost £15 over here. Completely unrelated to the exchange rate anyway.