Dear Gentlemen - thank you for the kind words. And thank you for supporting W. Britain. I would like to address a number of things this issue raises
1) We did see some dramatic price increases for the first 2-4 years of W. Britain under First Gear - the reasons for this were many - increased quality of sculpting (RC2 had the figures sculpted in China, we decided to use Ken and Alan instead, who are not only American and British, therefore commanding a higher wage, but also in my opinion very talented sculptors who are intimately familair with military history, material culture and equipage, all of which also warranted a much higher wage than Chinese sculptors - many of whom I have also found are very talented - so please do not take this as a swipe against them, it is simply my personal preference). Painting quality also increased greatly with the use of new factories and more highly trained painters. At the same time the world economy, as we all know now, was in full overdrive, making the cost of raw materials - metals, packaging, foam, etc. go through the roof while at the same time wages in China were increasing by double digits every year. A perfect storm of price increases!
2) In the last 3-4 years, we have been a in worldwide recession, this cooled raw material increases, tempered the wage increases in China and allowed us to slow down (unfortunately not stop) the price increases of the first few years. And to be frank, we feel we reached a nice level of quality that gave collectors great value for what we charged, so you did not see dramatic increases due to quantum leaps in quality - though I do believe all along we continue to ramp up sculpting and painting each year - albeit more incrementally now.
3) I have just come back from China and they are not sure what will happen next year. The safe bets are modest wage increases, raw materials should hold steady, exchange rates - who knows - but also should remain steady and possibly even improve slightly for us.
4) Ken, Alan, our master painters Dave, Wendy, Ted, Chip, our resin casters, and the staff at First Gear have been on wage freezes for four years now. Of course on a personal note from all of us that is not fun (but many are facing this across the world of course, so we are not crying in our beer), but on a more realistic note, we all have good solid jobs because we have remained competetive, profitable and strongly in business through these challenging times, the company does what is it can in other ways to look after us and lets face is we are ALL pretty passionate about this business and avocation, we love what we are doing. All of this has also helped to keep prices in check.
5) As I have mentioned before here, we have kept staff to an absolute minimum - 3-4 full/part time at First Gear and the rest as independent contractors.
6) The usphot of all this is that we intend to keep our pricing very competitive while still striving to give the absolute best quality possible. So in 2013 we will see some VERY small price increases.
I think that covers it. And we will get to Gallipoli, Isandlwana...someday, hang in there, I know you're not patient! Again, thank you guys for the words of encouragement.
Richard
