The 2013 Indy Show (1 Viewer)

[swalterh]

If by "celebrities" you mean manufacturers like K & C, Figarti, Britains, Frontline, Collectors Showcase, etc, who attend OTSN and The West Coaster; the Indy show is known for the most part as a plastics show, the midwest has a very, very strong plastics following, OTSN used to be dominated by plastic dealers, more and more metal dealers have come to the show the past 12 or so years.

I sell both metal and plastic, I've got a nice core group of midwesterners who support me; that said, for me to hump all the way from MA to IN in late March, it's a crapshoot as far as the weather, specificially this winter.

I've attended three shows so far this year and two have been impacted by snow, ever since February 11th or so, seems like every week we get hammered with snow, the mid atlantic got clobbered yesterday as a matter of fact.

I don't think by industry celebrities not coming it's a knock on the show as again, the show is very strong as far as plastic sales go..................

Thanks for providing some history and perspective. I did see a few metal dealers at the Indy Show. A guy from NH was there with a lot of JJD stuff. Didn’t see any K&C dealers though. I did get to see FL in person for the first time and was left wondering what all of the fuss is about. They’re close to St. Petersburg, but IMO not worth $15-20 more than a K&C figure.

My take on WB’s lack of participation at the moment is that none of their new stuff is off the boat yet. Andy never seems to run into this problem since he does monthly releases. One has to wonder a little bit about the future viability of some of the bigger producers in this industry. I saw a ton of merchandise that clearly has been overproduced and was available at very good prices. It begs the question of how much more “new” stuff can be introduced that will be fresh and interesting to a market that has been saturated over the last 10-20 years.

 

[Warrior]

Thanks for providing some history and perspective. I did see a few metal dealers at the Indy Show. A guy from NH was there with a lot of JJD stuff. Didn’t see any K&C dealers though. I did get to see FL in person for the first time and was left wondering what all of the fuss is about. They’re close to St. Petersburg, but IMO not worth $15-20 more than a K&C figure.

My take on WB’s lack of participation at the moment is that none of their new stuff is off the boat yet. Andy never seems to run into this problem since he does monthly releases. One has to wonder a little bit about the future viability of some of the bigger producers in this industry. I saw a ton of merchandise that clearly has been overproduced and was available at very good prices. It begs the question of how much more “new” stuff can be introduced that will be fresh and interesting to a market that has been saturated over the last 10-20 years.

It's just one mans take on the show for what it's worth.

Britains actually has been rolling out quite a bit of product so far this year; with so many ACW battles coming up this year for their 150th anniversary, Britains is concentrating on getting out to some of the events at the battlefields, it's a very good marketing idea.

K & C at this point actually comes out with new releases weekly, but you are correct in that they do one monthly announcement, then the items get rolled out weekly throughout that particular month.


I can't speak towards the overproduced merchandise you saw at the show at very good prices as I wasn't there...............

 

[pugio]

Thank goodness for plastic, George. I'm still collecting some metal, but I've switched over to plastic from my distant childhood. I've found some great plastic dealers, at shows and on the internet and they all know and speak very highly of you. So far I've got almost complete playsets of Rin Tin Tin Fort Apache, Walt Disney's Davy Crockett and Zorro, Wyatt Earp's Dodge City and my next quest of Capt. Gallant.... Yes, I've gone over to the dark side and having a great time.....

 

[Warrior]

Thank goodness for plastic, George. I'm still collecting some metal, but I've switched over to plastic from my distant childhood. I've found some great plastic dealers, at shows and on the internet and they all know and speak very highly of you. So far I've got almost complete playsets of Rin Tin Tin Fort Apache, Walt Disney's Davy Crockett and Zorro, Wyatt Earp's Dodge City and my next quest of Capt. Gallant.... Yes, I've gone over to the dark side and having a great time.....

It's great to read this as from my experience, collectors who got back into the hobby began with plastics as that is what they had as children, sort of recapturing their youth so to speak.

As you know, I got my start in this business selling plastic as back in the mid 1990's when I first started, plastics were all the rage and metal collectors were into gloss finished figures.

As matte painted metals became popular in the late 1990's thanks to K & C as well as other forward thinking companies, a lot of my plastic customers started to dabble in metal and then quite a few of them switched over entirely to metal and gave up on plastic.

Great to see you going back to your roots; bottom line is you sound like you are having fun and in the end, that's all that matters, collect what you like and have fun is the name of the game.