Few weeks before the show, lets hope there will be no serious knock on from the Coronavirus crisis. Firstly I want to say that safety and stopping the spread of the virus is the most important thing and is head and shoulders above our or any other collectors hobby. I would not want to think we would be putting peoples health, whether it be in China or anywhere else, just for the sake of collecting toy soldiers.
I think it will, as with many things we buy, affect the supply and I hope we can all realise that this will mean a slow down in production and supply and realise it is no ones fault.
On the London show, I was mainly thinking of K & C, there maybe a few people not coming because of potential travel restrictions, but K & C are based in Hong Kong and I know Andy makes the strongest effort to get to the shows, but I am sure we all would understand if he did not travel. However, the European distributor is from Northern Italy and that could also be a problem, but I hope he is well and does not risk travelling if he feels it would not be OK, I am sure we all would understand.
One thing outside our hobby, I hope we as a species can learn from what is happening and how connected we all are and how easily these things spread. Unfortunately people have died and that is a tragedy, but death rates have been low and we need to learn from this and use it to learn as the next one might be serious and deadly, such as Spanish flu. The shinning light would be for those in power to get together and fund organisations like the WHO etc to put in place a worldwide system to combat these in the future. With countries that can afford it paying for everyone, as nationality, colour of skin, race, religion, gender, etc, none of this will matter. I doubt it as most of the politicians [from all parties] are about as much use as a chocolate coffee/tea pot or Star Wars Stormtrooper armour.
Final thing, when the Coronavirus crisis is over, if you can afford it, splash out a little more, as those people who make the things in our wonderful hobby do it to earn a living, feed their families and put a roof over their heads. They must be suffering from in China etc as many cannot work and generally there is not the social care systems we have in the West.
I think it will, as with many things we buy, affect the supply and I hope we can all realise that this will mean a slow down in production and supply and realise it is no ones fault.
On the London show, I was mainly thinking of K & C, there maybe a few people not coming because of potential travel restrictions, but K & C are based in Hong Kong and I know Andy makes the strongest effort to get to the shows, but I am sure we all would understand if he did not travel. However, the European distributor is from Northern Italy and that could also be a problem, but I hope he is well and does not risk travelling if he feels it would not be OK, I am sure we all would understand.
One thing outside our hobby, I hope we as a species can learn from what is happening and how connected we all are and how easily these things spread. Unfortunately people have died and that is a tragedy, but death rates have been low and we need to learn from this and use it to learn as the next one might be serious and deadly, such as Spanish flu. The shinning light would be for those in power to get together and fund organisations like the WHO etc to put in place a worldwide system to combat these in the future. With countries that can afford it paying for everyone, as nationality, colour of skin, race, religion, gender, etc, none of this will matter. I doubt it as most of the politicians [from all parties] are about as much use as a chocolate coffee/tea pot or Star Wars Stormtrooper armour.
Final thing, when the Coronavirus crisis is over, if you can afford it, splash out a little more, as those people who make the things in our wonderful hobby do it to earn a living, feed their families and put a roof over their heads. They must be suffering from in China etc as many cannot work and generally there is not the social care systems we have in the West.