Agree, but he could have seen others releasing, WP, K & C and T Gunn, tank crew. A cost benefit analysis could have made it uneconomical, sales numbers would have to be around 80 to 100 figures/sets to make a decent enough profit. While we have to remember, it is not like John is not releasing a lot per month, his releases, and amounts, have remained constant and sometimes overwhelming, whereas some manufaturers have decreased their output and are re-issuing figures and/or irregular timescales. Finally there is a 'competitive' process on what to release, with limited resources he will have to decide which will sell better and quickly and weighing say Tank Crews against ACW, Romans, Zulu War, etc. The economics say the others will sell in bigger quantities and there can be multiple versions from a casting, through different painting schemes. Plus have to think this is why we see so many Tiger 1s released, for multiple theatres and from so many different manufacturers, simply they sell.
Admire what John does, the quality and the ranges, but one thing i think is really clever, is releasing 1 to 3 [sometimes 4] figures/sets in a range per month. As not many people collect everything, i collect 3/4 of his ranges now. it makes it possible for collectors to buy relatively small amounts every month and build their collections. As many are on a fixed income, have other pressures on their funds and only have 1 kidney left, as they have sold the other kidney for some previous JJD release.
However, i wish he would do one thing, revisit some retired ranges every now and then. He has relatively recently done it with the Aztec/Conquistador range, with the release of the Dog and handler. I collected the WW1 ground crew, Saxon/Viking, Greeks/Trojans and the Aztec/Conquistadors, have them all or all the ones i was to collect [no chariots]. All now retired, it would nice to throw us collectors a bone and release the odd new figure for those range. Would also like to see John release some WW2 German Luftwaffe ground crew, his ME109s and FW190s were excellent.
