Kit cost

[Vincent Fiore]

I received my classic airframe BR 20 today.it is a lot more complicated than the SM 79. It is a very nice kit, however i started to reflect on the price. As a young man many years ago I remember buying a four engine bomber for about one dollar, a single engine fighter for thirty nine cents. How are we to get young people engaged in this hobby with the prices so out of proportion
to todays wages? It seams to me that the manufacturers will kill the goose
that lays the golden eggs.

[Editor]

An age old discussion - on the whole I agree. Unfortunately the tooling required to deliver the detail you find in this kit is expensive (e.g, $50,000-100,000 USD). Some of the old Revell kits that on occasion get re-issued are still quite affordable (e.g., 1/48 Me.109 $10-$15) but contain nowhere near the detail today's avid modelers demand (e.g., Haseagwa kit). Add to that if a new manufacturer enters the market with a less than detailed kit (sub-standard), they get savaged by reviews resulting in low sales and even sometimes losses making it too risky to do these types of kits. The only manufacturers that seem to deliver acceptable quality at reasonable prices these days are Italeri and Airfix to some extent.