Louis Badolato
Lieutenant General
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2005
- Messages
- 17,220
I don't think there is any question that Andy is a marketing genius, as well as an innovator. When you think about where K&C was when I started collecting, and how far he has come in the last fifteen years its mind boggling. And when you think about his innovations, it is even more amazing. Nobody was making affordable realistic matt metal toy soldiers back then. No other toy soldier company had thought to make affordable polystone vehicles to go with them. No other toy soldier company was making custom dioramas for both display and sale to collectors. Without K&C, is there a 1:30 scale collecting market today? Are there other wonderful companies like Figarti and Honour Bound? In some areas, such as armored vehicle production, his competitors may have surpassed Andy's efforts, but he continues to consistently improve his products, while keeping the prices of his products far more affordable for the most part (both K&C and Figarti have gone a little high end with the warbirds (assuming that the price for the Figarti B17 reflects the cost of the their large warbirds in future) and Figarti's E-Boat, but that is only to be expected with items of the size and quality as these magnificent and extremely limited production works of art. I think the Wangs at Figarti have a similar genius, and expect the friendly competition between Andy and Gordon and James and Rick to keep collectors very happy (and very broke) for many, many years.