Thanksgiving is Shaping Up to Become Another Fleet Week

EMGC31

According to our distributor, a brand new squadron of Eaglemoss 1:1100 warships will be leaving port and headed our way around the third week of November. The five warships include Imperial Japanese Navy Shikishima Class Battleship – Shikishima (EMGC30), German Kriegsmarine Bismarck Class Battleship – KMS Tirpitz (EMGC31), Imperial Japanese Navy Kongo Class Battleship – Hiei (EMGC37), Imperial Japanese Navy Taiho Class Aircraft Carrier – Taiho (EMGC41) and Imperial Japanese Navy Mogami Class Heavy Cruiser – Mikuma (EMGC32). With Thanksgiving around the corner, we expect these fleet favorites to sell out quickly.

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The F-35 Takes a Dive, in Pricing

HA4401

If you’re a fan of either the Hobby Master or Air Force 1 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, then you may want to sit up and take notice of the following announcement. Yesterday, we learned that our distributor has dropped the minimum advertised price for the entire Hobby Master and Air Force 1 1:72 scale F-35 catalog to just $49.99 apiece, which, in some instances, equates to an almost 50% price drop from a high of almost $85. No reason was give for the huge price decrease ahead of the holiday season, so we assume they are just looking to move inventory and provide great value to the aviation collecting community. We’ve lowered our prices accordingly, and will bring in extra inventory to cover any orders that exceed our current stock level.

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News, Rumors and Scuttlebutt

Corgi2015Catalog

As we inch ever closer to the holidays, several interesting bits of news seem to have surfaced. For starters, Corgi will no longer be offering a Spring and Winter catalog, as they have done in the past. Instead, they plan to offer one catalog per year, which will be issued in the Spring, likely coinciding with the opening of several International Toy Fairs.

 

Meanwhile, Eaglemoss has indicated that the 1:43 scale Vehicles of the Second World War has reached its conclusion with the release of EM70, a 1939 Mercedes-Benz Gelandewagen Typ 4 (G4) Limousine – Heer, Germany, 1939. The series has done remarkably well for us, so we’re still hoping that they reconsider their decision or perhaps offer a follow-on series of vehicles from other time periods.  Likewise, it looks as if their Warships of the World series may be nearing its own run, as we get closer and closer to issue #80. We’re hoping that they re-release the series with English-translated magazines and packaging, thereby reaching a broader audience of naval enthusiasts. It would be a smart if somewhat more expensive decision on their part, should they look to keep the series afloat and perhaps add more naval subjects.

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Israel’s Defense Forces Look to the Future

Namer

Israel Defence Industries is hard at work developing two new infantry fighting vehicles to be supplied to the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and designed to replace several aging systems that have outlived their usefulness. The first is a fully-tracked vehicle, dubbed the Namer (“Leopard”), and also a syllabic abbreviation of “Nagmash” (APC) and “Merkava” is an Israeli armored personnel carrier based on a Merkava tank chassis. Namer was developed by and is being assembled by the Israeli Ordnance Corps. It has already entered service in limited numbers with the Israel Defense Forces since the end of 2008. According to the IDF, it is the most heavily armored vehicle in the world.

 

Also in development is the Eitan (“Jew”), which is an 8×8 wheeled vehicle that will accompany and weigh just half as much as Namer APCs. “Sources here said it will weigh no more than 35 tons and will incorporate a new generation of active protection, an advanced turret and a full complement of munitions and sensors,” Defense News reported. The choice of name seems a bit peculiar, given its potential for export in the foreign market, even if its design is cutting edge.

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The LRS-B: And the Winner is…

LRSB3a

Northrop Grumman. So says Defense Secretary Ash Carter and the Air Force leadership on Tuesday night, which is expected to top $55 billion over the life of the program. According to Defense News, “Northrop now has the Pentagon’s blessing to build a new fleet of aircraft to replace the Air Force’s aging B-52s and B-1s. As builder of the B-2 stealth bomber, Northrop beat out a joint Lockheed Martin-Boeing team in a closely watched competition that has lasted months longer than anticipated.”

The Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) will undoubtedly incorporate stealthy characteristics, much like the B-2 Spirit bomber it will eventually replace, yet cost substantially less per plane. “LRS-B’s projected unit cost is higher compared to the B-1, but significantly lower relative to the $1.5 billion price tag of Northrop’s B-2, according to an Air Force handout. The expected development cost overall for LRS-B is also lower than for the B-2, at $23.5 billion,” according to Defense News.

Thus far the new plane has yet to be revealed to the public, even though Northrop Grumman unveiled a brand new web site touting the aircraft within hours after being awarded the contract. By choosing the Northrop-Grumman design over the one espoused by the Boeing-Lockheed-Martin team, the DoD maintains the traditional selection process fostered by the military-industrial complex, and likely keeps Northrop-Grumman afloat who might very well have had to look for a suitor to take over its flagging business should it have lost the contract.

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New Payment Option: Checkout with Amazon

Amazon Payments

We’ve been approved to begin accepting online payments through Amazon’s “Checkout with Amazon” payment system. You can now pay for your purchases through your Amazon account, or, if you prefer, use PayPal or the four major credit cards (AMEX, VISA, MasterCard, Discover). A “Pay with Amazon” button will appear at the bottom of your shopping cart, which will then take you to your Amazon account and enable you to pay for your purchase through Amazon’s secure wallet. If you have any further questions, feel free to contact us by phone during normal business hours or via email.

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Put a Corgi Plane in Your Jack-o-Lantern!

AA27501

We were about to close the books on October since nothing further was expected, however, we have since learned that three eagerly awaited Corgi Aviation Archive aircraft are winging their way to us as we speak. The first up, is the incredible Short Sunderland flying boat (AA27501), a huge model that’s probably going to need its own shelf to display it properly.

AA33714

Also coming is the Heinkel He-111 medium bomber (AA33714) as well as a sweet-looking Typhoon ground attack aircraft (AA36509). All are already sold out at the manufacturer’s level and, with the holidays looming, we expect these favorites to sell out fast.

AA36509

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Wings of the Great War Embarks Upon a Bombing Run

WW11101

It was just a matter of time before Wings of the Great War branched out from fighters and float planes to include the unwieldy bombers of WWI. Their first foray will be a British-built Airco DH4, which was attached to a US Marine Corps squadron during the latter stages of the War (WW11101).

WW11101a

Priced at just $39.99, we can probably expect more bombing subjects, and perhaps a dirigible, in the months ahead.

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