Whispers – Page 7 – The Motor Pool

Forces of Valor: Panzers on the Ōi?

The all-new 88mm FLaK gun now comes with eight figures including the Desert Fox himself, General Erwin Rommel.

The Wehrmacht’s panzers never got as far as the Volga River during their assault on Bolshevism in the early 40s, no doubt a testament to the resolve of the Soviet Union and its war weary citizens. Seventy years hence, and those same tanks may have vaulted past the Soviet Union and reached the banks of Japan’s Ōi River. That’s because two important hobby shows are on the horizon, both situated on the doorstep of this Chinese manufacturer and therefore serve as excellent ways to showcase their Company’s progress.

Coming up in April is the Beijing Hobby Show (April 20th-22nd) and, one week later, is the all-important Japanese Shizuoka Hobby Show (April 26th-28th). Last year, if you recall, Waltersons, the new owners of the Forces of Valor brand, showed off snippets of their refurbished line at both shows, and are likely planning to do the same thing at this year’s events. That said, we know a great many of you are waiting with baited breath to see what’s in store for the coming year and when they’ll be hitting the virtual store shelves. Hang in there a bit longer and we feel confident you’ll get to see, hear and touch some of the latest and greatest military wares the hobby has ever seen.

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When Does a Model Become More than a Model?

If the world works in mysterious ways, why would you expect anything less from its smaller inanimate cousin? Case in point, Modelcollect, and their soon-to-be-released take on the German Landkreuzer, an outlandishly proposed project that took form towards the latter stages of World War II and was intended to be the “be-all and end-all” of armored fighting vehicles. Going well beyond the idea of a so-called “land battleship”, the Landkreuzer was, nevertheless, a foolish idea that never got beyond the sketch book stage. It called for two and perhaps three main guns that rivaled anything on a warship, as well as a series of secondary armament designed to protect the vehicle from both aerial and ground attack. The reality was that the vehicle would never be able traverse the battlefield, could not transit bridges, roads or railways, and would need a battery of high-powered engines to get it to run fed by fuel reserves the Wehrmacht no longer possessed. Likewise, the Landkreuzer would have required an inordinate number of men to operate, all of which could have been better suited in other roles.

Despite its massive size and misguided aim, model company Modelcollect has been feverishly working on a 1:72 scale replica of what the Landkrezuer might have looked like had it been completed. In the accompanying image, they even posed their finished project alongside two other fairly large 1:72 scale vehicles, just to give everyone an idea as to its size, perspective and finished appearance. As you can see, the Landkreuzer is absolutely huge, requiring a vast amount of shelf space to properly display. Its still not clear if the Company will offer a pre-assembled or even partially assembled version of this build to the diecast collector market or consign it to the model kit sector. If they do, it will be costly, not just in terms of price but in terms of shipping, likely weighing in along the lines of a 1:16 scale Extreme Metal tank previously made available by Unimax. Keep all of this in mind should you decide to chase this replica down later this year.

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Hobby Master Doubles Down for February

Hobby Master’s 1:72 scale US Navy Grumman F-14A Tomcat Fleet Defense Fighter – VF-114 “Aardvarks,” USS Abraham Lincoln (CVW-11), 2003

Ordinarily, Hobby Master is pretty good about getting their products to market on a timely basis, religiously hitting their street dates month after month with nary a problem save customs issues. Turns out this month we’ll be lavishly resupplied, since the March shipment arrived early and their February shipment arrived a wee bit late. Typically this isn’t a problem for us, although it may takes us an extra day or so to go through everything and marry up the new arrivals with any orders already in our system.

Hobby Master’s 1:72 scale US M60A1 Patton Medium Tank with Reliability Improved Selected Equipment (RISE) IR/White Light Spotlight – 3rd Armored Division, Gelnhausen, Germany, 1960s

On the downside, we’ve learned that their eagerly anticipated inaugural 1:72 scale M60A1 Patton tank (HG5601) is already sold out at both the factory and distribution level, which means we can no longer accept any orders for it. It appears as if a great many people were looking to add this particular vehicle to their collection and bodes well for their military vehicle lineup, which has struggled somewhat over the last couple of years and is now being produced in Pakistan rather than mainland China. We have no doubt that a Vietnam era version of the M60 tank will be offered again, likely clad in different markings, but in the mean time expect their first effort to command higher than normal prices in the after market, if you’re lucky enough to find it. On a separate note, the Austrian version of the Patton tank (HG5603) is also expected in the shipment, and the Israeli version, painted in a handsome desert motif, has been pushed back until May. We’re also willing to bet that other variants will be announced soon, including the venerable M60A3 and the M60A2 Starship. Now, if we can only get them to produce these vehicles in larger scales, then we’ve truly hit a home run.

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Atlas Editions Looks to Gain Market Share by Improving its Marketability

As a budget-minded line goes, Atlas Editions has always scored high marks in a number of critical areas including cost and detail, not too mention depth and breadth of range. However, from a marketability standpoint, the range has struggled, oftentimes employing simple balsa packaging and a see-through styrene cover, bereft of any information or hyperbole, to help sell the product. Recognizing these deficiencies, the Company has finally developed better packaging for some of their latest line extensions, thereby looking to better position it against the likes of Oxford Aviation, Altaya and others.

Their 1:144 scale bomber range will now come packaged as shown above while their 1:144-1:200 jet aircraft will come nestled in the packaging below. We assume other segments of the range will see a similar change in marketing format as the year progresses, all based upon impressions garnered from their collectors and authorized dealers.

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Payment Gateways: Ebay Pal?

While we do not ever foresee us accepting any form of crypto currency to complete a sale, largely due to its volatility and lack of governmental oversight, we do anticipate accepting eBay’s new, unnamed intermediate payment system announced this January and expected to go live later this year. Since its inception, PayPal had always been the favored means of payment on eBay for both domestic and international transactions, which slowly but surely did away with traditional means of payment and provided a measure of comfort for both the buyer and seller whenever a problem arose.

As some of you may already know, eBay and PayPal went their separate ways a couple of years ago and, according to eBay, the auction house is now developing its own proprietary payment system which will be favored over PayPal once it has been fully fleshed out. This means that both we and our eBay customers will now have to add a new payment system to our respective payment portfolios in order to take advantage of any perks this new payment system will likely offer. It will also mean that we will begin accepting eBay’s payment system on our own web site once it has been rolled out. So, whether it be called ePay or Payment with eBay, we’ll post more information on the new payment gateway once the auction house has christened it and prepped it for prime time.

Note: According to CNN, Dutch-based Adyen, who has helped a number of high profile companies handle payments, has been chosen by eBay to support its payment processing. The new system will gradually be rolled out later this year and should be fully implemented by 2021.

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Has Forces of Valor Gone AWOL?

Well, its the last day at the Nuremberg Toy Fair and thus far we haven’t heard a peep from Waltersons, the new owners of the Forces of Valor brand. That doesn’t necessarily spell doom and gloom. Far from it. It could very well mean that they are so busy that they haven’t found the time to post any of their latest introductions online. So, rather than contact us and hear the same old story of not learning anything new, we would prefer that you contact them directly and perhaps get it firsthand. Oh, and if you do learn anything, please be good enough to share it with us and everyone else.

Internet:

http://www.waltersons.com/

http://forcesofvalor.com/new_website/products.php

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/fovhobbies/

https://www.facebook.com/waltersonsindustry/

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Calibre Wings Reveals its No Longer on the Fence(r)

Calibre WIngs’ 1:72 scale Soviet Sukhoi Su-24M “Fencer” Attack Aircraft – “White 42”

Even as they continue to tease CAD drawings of their upcoming F-16 Fighting Falcon, Calibre Wings decided to post preliminary images of their upcoming Sukhoi Su-24. In development for at lease a year, the images for their first pair of Fencers reveal some of the detail we’ve come to expect from this relative newcomer to the diecast military space, even if the colors may need a little tweaking to get them to match real-world aircraft.

A second Fencer is in the hopper. A Ukranian Sukhoi Su-24MR “Fencer” Attack Aircraft – “Yellow 15”

Thus far, no hard-and-fast release information has surfaced, so we’re willing to bet that they’ll likely take wing in the summer, perhaps right after their second pairing of F-14 Tomcats make it to market.

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Eaglemoss: Getting Back to Ship Shape

Eaglemoss’ 1:100 scale US Navy New Orleans Class Heavy Cruiser – USS Minneapolis (CA-36) could finally be weighing anchor

Earlier today we received news concerning many of the back ordered warships in the Eaglemoss Warships of the World series. According to our distributor, a number of long out-of-stock warships are expected some time in February, along with several new warships that many of you have been asking about for quite some time. We strongly recommend placing your orders for any ships you may be after since it could be some time before the next restock takes place.

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Santa Must Have Made A Second Trip to Our Roof Top

UFOologists take note of Luft-X’s 1:72 scale Haunebu 1 with its landing gear retracted, now available and ready for shipping

Looks as if we are ringing in the new year in grand fashioned with loads of hot new products for January. We’ve already taken delivery of the Solido 1:72 scale military vehicles and aircraft that are produced by War Master and now we’ve cleared the landing pad for the Luft-X Haunebu flying saucers. Our distributors report that they will soon be flush with a number of other important deliveries, including the January shipment of Hobby Master products, a bevy of new Modelcollect and Precision Model Art military vehicles and vengeance weapons, a pair of Corgi WWII era aircraft, and a follow-on cache of Eaglemoss sci-fi replicas that include a wide assortment of new Star Trek products. We could also see the first ship in the Alien and Predator line, and get a glimpse of what’s in store from Forces of Valor and Dragon.

Note: Ordinarily I refrain from commenting on the look and feel of products in hand, but in the case of the recently received Luft-X Haunebu, pictured above and below, I thought I’d share my initial impressions. At first glance, the manufacturer did a first-rate job with the packaging and presentation of this rather unique item, which, let’s face it, is an oddity for most military collectors that might prevent them from adding it to their collection. Then there’s the overall weight and appearance of the saucer, which clocks in at almost 4 pounds and looks every bit as good as some of the pictures circulating on the web I know its a bit more expensive than some of the other issues in the Luft-X series, but trust me, its worth every penny, a faithful recreation that could’ve helped to change the air war in the west had it been perfected and built in quantity.

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USPS Rate Hikes Go Into Effect Soon

As part of their annual rate assessment, the United States Postal Service (USPS) announced increases to shipping costs effective January 21st, 2018. On average, First Class Mail and Priority Mail rates are expected to rise by approximately 24%, as the Service continues to grapple with huge financial losses and the crippling effects of lower letter volume.

As a result, we may have to increase our flat rate shipping rate later this month once we get a better sense of how these rate hikes will affect our own costs, particularly for larger parcels that need to be shipped to the Midwest, Northwest, Southwest and West Coast regions. As you know, many of the soon-to-be-released Forces of Valor 1:32 scale military vehicles will be heavier than their counterparts from years ago, due to the fact that they will incorporate more metal as well as contain a bonus engine and stronger packaging. This means that we may need to change their shipping costs, particularly if an order calls for multiple vehicles. We are sorry to have to implement these changes and hope that you understand that increased shipping costs have a serious effect on our business model.

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