Shout Outs

Altaya Sails into History

Even though they aren’t available just yet in the North American marketplace, that doesn’t mean we can’t go hog wild over Altaya’s latest venture – a range of 1:1250 scale WWII-era warships. Unlike the Eaglemoss Warships of the World series, which is heavily focused on Japanese warships, the Altaya collection serves up a much wider array of ships from around the world. Currently, it appears as if the series is only available in Spain, with each ship’s accompanying literature printed in Spanish. Hopefully, the series will be localized for the English-speaking market and become available in the not-too-distant future to naval buffs on this side of the pond.

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Wings of the Great War Dons its Floaties

Fully assembled, scale WWI-era aircraft have always been in short supply, and when they are finally offered, then tend to focus on the fighter aircraft of the time. It is therefore with great pride that we can finally put forth something a bit different – a WWI-era float plane. Expected this April, Wings of the Great War breaks with tradition and plans to roll out a 1:72 scale resin representation of a German Hansa-Brandenburg W.29 Float Plane (WW17001), which saw service at the tail end of WWI.

Also slated for an April fly over is a German Roland D.VIa Fighter (WW16001) as well as their second look at the German Pfalz D.IIIa Biplane Fighter (WW11002), both painted in a dazzling lozenge pattern. Its been 100 years since many of these aircraft took to the skies, but that doesn’t mean they still don’t conjure up the wild swirling dogfights which came to symbolize the war in the air in the War to End All Wars.

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Dragon Goes for a Dip at Dieppe

No stranger to the ranks of the Churchill tanks, Dragon announced plans to reinvigorate the line with a vehicle involved in the disastrous Dieppe Raid of 1942 (DRR60419). This particular vehicle sports an extended exhaust pipes for deep wading purposes and bears the markings of the 14th Canadian Army Tank Regiment (Calgary Regiment).

On a side note, we anticipate that the manufacturer will soon announce a number of “Hobart’s Funnies”, which were specialized Churchill tanks developed for the D-Day landings at Normandy. Stay tuned…

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Unimax Studies War No More?

According to a post on the Diecast Hangar Pub forum, a prominent UK distributor is indicating that Unimax, the makers of the Forces of Valor range of military vehicles, aircraft and warships, are throwing in the towel and calling it quits, at least as far as military diecast is concerned. They claim that the manufacturer has cancelled all of their upcoming projects slated for 2015, instead of postponing them indefinitely as had been rumored. Recently, Unimax had closed their North American distribution arm and sold off all of their inventory to a US distributor.

If true, this marks a particularly sad state of affairs for collectors, who were expecting a number of key items for several months running. Moreover, the departure of another long time stalwart in the diecast military space represents a nod to some of the manufacturers who have gained market share either by offering untapped subject matter, cheaper items, other scales, or a combination of all three mitigating factors.

Please note that we have yet to confirm these findings with our North American distributor so the information provided could still be sketchy. For further information, please review this thread:

http://tdhp.fr.yuku.com/topic/19329/Re-FOV-items-Cancelled-totally?page=-1#.VLUoOXsYNM4

Update: In early January, our distributor informed us that the list of product originally slated for release was nixed by the manufacturer in favor of a new group of items. It is now February, with the Nuremberg Toy Fair behind us, and we are of the opinion that Unimax has withdrawn from the marketplace, perhaps permanently. We hope it isn’t true but at this point fear the worst.

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Toy Fair Cometh

On January 28th, the Spielwarenmesse Toy Fair in Nuremberg, Germany, throws open its doors and welcomes buyers, exhibitors and visitors to its annual showing. While we will not be attending, we will be posting information gleaned from the manufacturer’s web site, newsletters, and promotional literature so that our audience can learn about the very latest piece of diecast memorabilia headed to market.

Years ago, we used to attend the Toy Fair here in New York City at 200 5th Avenue, which has since transitioned to the Jacob Javits Center. Yesterday, I paid a visit to the old 200 5th Avenue building which stands opposite the world famous Flat Iron building. 200 5th Avenue has since been changed into an Italian market, complete with restaurants, salumerias, groceries and other faire. It was strange and a bit sad to walk through the revitalized building, which held all sorts of memories for me and my family. The march of time has certainly swallowed up another tradition, be it for better or worse, and I can only hope the new tenants understand the history and allure their building once meant to the toy business.

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West Coast Port Delays Have an Impact on Business

The work slow down affecting many of the West Coast’s ports is now having a material impact on business across the country. In our particular case, several shipments that were expected to arrive in December have now been postponed until January, and many of the items we were expecting in January will likely come in one month later. We apologize for the delay but wanted to point out that these types of circumstances are beyond our control.

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UPS Dimensional Rates Will Soon Take Effect

Please be aware that UPS and FedEx live rates will be calculated in a new way, beginning December 29th, 2014 (UPS) and January 1st, 2015 (FedEx).

In an effort to encourage efficient packing and decrease fuel usage for delivery trucks, both carriers will now use “dimensional weight” to help determine the most accurate shipping cost for a package. Dimensional weight is different from actual weight, and is more representative of the amount of truck space a package actually occupies.

As a result, the shipping cost for a number of larger items we stock will go up dramatically, particularly if it needs to be shipped cross-country. We will be monitoring these adjusted shipping rates and will either have to increase their individual shipping costs, raise our free shipping threshold, or, in a worse case scenario, drop an item altogether if it proves to be uneconomical for us to ship. Over the past few months, we have already systematically eliminated those items we feel will be impacted by these shipping adjustments, and will continue to curate our product portfolio to see which items may need to be examined more closely going forward.

We strongly recommend that if you are interested in purchasing any of the larger items we stock that you do so now before we reach the December 29th deadline.

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The Motor Pool: Looking Ahead to 2015

As 2014 draws to a close, we are already looking ahead to the new year with a great deal of excitement. For openers, we will be migrating our web site to a more responsive design, using a cutting edge template that is both informative and attractively conceived. Likewise, our mobile interface will change substantially, so that it looks more appealing on today’s larger phone and tablet screens. Look for the changes to take effect in early 2015.

In other news, we will be dropping a number of under-performing lines where we see little growth going forward. Some lines have been languishing for some time, either no longer supported by the manufacturer or in need of a redress. This is actually good news for us, since we plan to bring in a great many new lines in 2015, several of which are tied to the expanding military science fiction universe heralded in by such brands as Star Wars and Star Trek. Moreover, a number of new military themed lines have been moving aggressively to market, which portends good things to come for our collector audience.

We hope you enjoy many of the changes coming your way.

The following lines are being drawn down and closed out:

Gaincorp aircraft, Easy Model warships, aircraft and military vehicles, Tamiya Masterworks, older Minichamps racing motorcycles, figures and racing helmets, Minichamps classic cars, Dragon Warbirds, Blitz 72, Schuco, Sky Defenders, Air Commander, Sword Models, The Collectors Showcase, Merit International, BBI, Gearbox Toys, IXO Models, Sky Guardians Europe, Marushin

The following lines look to be dramatically expanded going forward:

Air Force 1, Hobby Master, Eaglemoss Collections, Fabbri, Wings of the Great War, Luft-X, DeAgostini, Oxford, Hasbro, Bandai, Modelcollect, Panzerstahl, Disney

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Star Wars: The Force Awakens Trailer

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plwVRYEQG_I&w=560&h=315]

Black Friday seems to have several meanings this year, as filmmaker J.J. Abrams can mutely testify. Earlier today, the Star Wars director for Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens released the first trailers for the upcoming film, which is slated to premiere December 18th, 2015.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RsQd7hn9bg&w=560&h=315]

Interestingly, we can hear Darth Vader’s aspirator at the end of the film, the black caped figure who purportedly died in episode VI, but will likely make a flashback or “Force”-reinvigorated cameo appearance for the upcoming film. Anyway, sit back and enjoy!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyfTIU02jFQ&w=560&h=315]

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Star Trek Boldly Goes to London

According to StarTrek.com, the proposed Paramount London Resort, scheduled to open southeast of London in 2020, will feature a Star Trek-themed area, that will include rides, attractions and other Star Trek-related cornucopia.

More information concerning the planned park, as well as other areas within the resort, can be found here: http://www.startrek.com/article/paramount-london-resort-with-trek-attraction-2020-opening

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