Why I'm not buying anymore 1/30 armour (3 Viewers)

[jazzeum]

Your right mate for £40.00 you can buy FOV die cast Sherman or you can pay £159.00 for a pollystone K&C Sherman firefly & the gun barrel won't stay up


Touché

Steve,

Since you have no interest in K & C, why do you feel it's necessary to come over and make that kind of comment?

It's frankly not helpful to keeping peace on the Forum.

 

[Mitch]

Here here!!
Mitch

Steve,

Since you have no interest in K & C, why do you feel it's necessary to come over and make that kind of comment?

It's frankly not helpful to keeping peace on the Forum.

 

[Propane & Propane acs.]

I dont mean to beat a dead horse even more but id like to address the points made about 21st Century's products by a number of members. Now before i start i will admit I am heavily biased towards uksub's opinion on the matter and i prefer fov and 21stcentury pieces. 21st did not go out of business for lack of demand or detail etc. They went out of bussiness because they produced too many pieces and Wallmart and ToysRus suddenly decided to drop their products and their test run with Target proved a bust. They built their products with very good detail and cheap in large numbers. Their bread and butter was the ability to sell their product to massive retailers who could move it quickly. Hence they went out of bussiness for that reason same reason when no major retailer would stock them. I must say some fov products may be lacking details but I feel you get more with them for less than with King and country. Fov products do retain their value by the way ive seen origional pershings (1st issue) selling for $100 and up even though a second issue pershing has been released. Just my two cents.

 

[uksubs]

Well I've been taking a look at all the great photos on the forum & have a Figarti Sherman crab coming in the post ,I love the look of first Legion armour but I'm only collecting ETO armour so that a no go

 

[jazzeum]

I guarantee you'll love it. Have you pre-ordered the AVRE. I've seen it in person and it too is fantastic.

 

[uksubs]

I guarantee you'll love it. Have you pre-ordered the AVRE. I've seen it in person and it too is fantastic.

Yep got the AVRE coming as well + truck & gun

 

[Alex]

I share some of the opinions expressed in this forum.

The newest K&C afvs are overpriced .... FOR ME. I mean I don't feel that they bring me enough joy for the price they sell those for now. And I've always hated that the figures sold with K&C tanks are more often than not subpar compared with the regular figures.

ANY tank done by a competent modeler will beat any tank made by K&C to this date.

Figarti, HB and FL are (sorry K&C) giving me much more for my money.

And in the figure area, I've stopped collecting K&C. I prefer to pay more (even custom) but have a real unique piece in my hands (not a mass market figure).

However, K&C has been, is and will remain successful because they make a nice product for the price, have a nice retail network,etc... K&C is the Wallmart of this world for toysoldiers. But I don't shop at Wallmart anyway.

Alex

 

[Mitch]

Alex....

I think any model built and painted by a competant modeller whatever, that means will always be better than any AFV which is on the market. That is why manufacturers are importing a lot of the model world materials into their polystone et al AFV's. If you want a ready built set of AFV's with great range then K&C is for you. If you want smaller runs of more limited seen AFV's then figarti do that as well as more popular stuff and FL are supposed to be the best for some at the moment. Though at the moment they both seem to be charging more than K&C

Its all their for the collector to choose but, I cannot see how K&C is a Wallmart. Its all down to the individual but, there is room for everyone.
Mitch

I share some of the opinions expressed in this forum.

The newest K&C afvs are overpriced .... FOR ME. I mean I don't feel that they bring me enough joy for the price they sell those for now. And I've always hated that the figures sold with K&C tanks are more often than not subpar compared with the regular figures.

ANY tank done by a competent modeler will beat any tank made by K&C to this date.

Figarti, HB and FL are (sorry K&C) giving me much more for my money.

And in the figure area, I've stopped collecting K&C. I prefer to pay more (even custom) but have a real unique piece in my hands (not a mass market figure).

However, K&C has been, is and will remain successful because they make a nice product for the price, have a nice retail network,etc... K&C is the Wallmart of this world for toysoldiers. But I don't shop at Wallmart anyway.

Alex

 

[Alex]

Wallmart is a place where people can find whatever they need .. food.. baby towels.. tires .. or whatever you need..

for a price that most people will find attractive ..

with a quality that the general population will be happy with ..

Do you find the best hammer there is at Wallmart .. no of course not

Cheers,

Alex

 

[Warrior]

The newest K&C afvs are overpriced .... FOR ME. I mean I don't feel that they bring me enough joy for the price they sell those for now.

ANY tank done by a competent modeler will beat any tank made by K&C to this date.

Figarti, HB and FL are (sorry K&C) giving me much more for my money.

And in the figure area, I've stopped collecting K&C. I prefer to pay more (even custom) but have a real unique piece in my hands (not a mass market figure).

However, K&C has been, is and will remain successful because they make a nice product for the price, have a nice retail network,etc... K&C is the Wallmart of this world for toysoldiers. But I don't shop at Wallmart anyway.

Alex

Kind of a confusing post to be honest.

First you said K & C tanks are overpriced, then you say they make a nice product for the price, so which is it, are they overpriced or not?

"Any tank done by a competent modeler will beat any tank made by K & C to date".................and you'll pay for it, bigtime if it is a competent modeler, probably three times the cost of a K & C AFV. Also, we've discussed this already, but here goes again; you're comparing apples to hand grenades, a plastic model kit with hundreds of parts vs a polystone tank, comparing the two makes zero sense.

"Figarti, HB and FL are giving me much more for my money"...........HB does not make tanks, so why are they in the mix? Figarti tanks are mostly metal, FL tanks are made of a newer concept resin, so again, you're comparing apples to hand grenades.

Glad to see you can afford custom, one off type figures and you don't need to shop at Walmart either.

Thousands of families in the US need a store like Walmart, there is a recession going on in case you missed it.

Good luck with your future minus K & C collecting.

 

[Alex]

I don't understand why people are taking all the time comments made about K&C as if it was a personal attack against that company.

K&C AFVs are ok for the money FOR ME and FOR ME they are overpriced THESE DAYS.

Let me clarify by a simple example :
The last T34 made by K&C was very nice and was spot on in terms of price. A nice product with an affordable price tag.

BUT price of K&C AFVs have risen in the last couple of years. Three reasons possible :

1) Increase in cost of production for the manufacturer : Andy agreed on that thousands of times
2) Increase in profit margins : very unlikely
3) Increase in the quality of the product : this is where I left K&C. I do not think that the increase in the quality of their products was asking for such an increase in price.

And this is where I do think that Figarti, FL and (old HB vehicles) are offering superb products with an increase in the price tag that I do agree with.

But to each his own and yes a lot of people like Wallmart. For me, Wallmart is the last store I would go ... See, I have dozens of employees working for me and I do care for them. Couldnt treat them like they re treated in canadian wallmarts... But thats another story

Alex

 

[Warrior]

Let me clarify by a simple example :
The last T34 made by K&C was very nice and was spot on in terms of price. A nice product with an affordable price tag.

BUT price of K&C AFVs have risen in the last couple of years.

So the example you are using to prove your point that K & C's AFV's are pricey is a T34 they made back in 2005?

It's now 2010, that was five years ago.

Pretty sure the price of everything has gone up the past five years.

And they haven't come out with a new T34 lately, so what do you have to compare it to in terms of price increases?

If you are going to use examples like these to prove your point, then you have no point.

At least you're taking good care of the dozens of employees of yours, so you've got that going for you, which is nice...................

 

[Alex]

No point ?

C'mon ...

Warrior, I was wondering if you do have other figures or AFVs made by other manufacturers ?

I do have a lot of K&Cs, Britains, Aeoart, First Legion, Honour Bound and a lot of custom made pieces and I can compare apples to apples.

Now I don't care if the price has increased.. As long as you get a better figure, better AFV, I don't care, I'll buy it ... Has K&C delivered something really new lately ? Not for me at least... But maybe it's because I have already thousands of K&C figures sitting on my shelves.

Cheers,

Alex

So the example you are using to prove your point that K & C's AFV's are pricey is a T34 they made back in 2005?

It's now 2010, that was five years ago.

Pretty sure the price of everything has gone up the past five years.

And they haven't come out with a new T34 lately, so what do you have to compare it to in terms of price increases?

If you are going to use examples like these to prove your point, then you have no point.

At least you're taking good care of the dozens of employees of yours, so you've got that going for you, which is nice...................

 

[King & Country]

Hi Guys,

As we all know “everyone’s got an opinion” and our friend Alex of Montreal definitely has his…

In his opinion “K&C’s AFV’s have not improved… not delivered something new… no increase in quality only increase in price”.

He then goes off on a slight tangent to compare us to Wallmart… following it up with the comment that Wallmart is “the last store he would go to!”

Fortunately for K&C we do have our supporters… hundreds of them, maybe thousands, all over the world who believe, as I do, that we constantly strive to rise to the many challenges of competing in a highly competitive market.

And I further believe that when it comes to delivering what we said we’d deliver… when we said we’d deliver it… Not just occasionally but month after month on a regular basis to a very wide variety of our collectors then we keep our part of the bargain… with our collectors and our dealers.

There’s also an element on this forum (Alex maybe one of them) who believe that K&C is this huge company… a behemoth (hence the Wallmart allusion) and indulge in a kind of inverted snobbery towards K&C and our collectors. Well, I can’t do much about other people’s attitudes or opinions so I’ll just have to continue doing what we do best… Keeping most collectors happy… and having fun doing it!

Best wishes and happy collecting!
Andy C.

 

[fab-two]

Hi Andy

I am a great admirer of K&C's work and try to get as many pieces is a can. I would be interested in your thoughts on where you seeing technology pushing the boundary of future innovations in your range. Will we see detailed trackwork on tank treads? Will we see photo-etched parts? I fully understand if you can't be too specific due to business reasons but just a broad description would be fab.

thxs

stephen

 

[Alex]

Respectfully,

It's not an 'attitude' i do have if we're talking about your products, it's a lack of interest. I would go back to collecting K&C products anytime if :

-better tracks on AFVs
-quality of the figures sold with AFVs always the same as the 'regular' figures
-better shading and highlighting on the clothes of the figures
-use of photoetched steel on swords and the like
-no oversized weapons
-improvement in the topic that I will call 'Da scale issue' : not that I care if K&C figures are 1/30 or not as long as the figures are all of the same scale that's fine with me BUT it is not. I have hundreds of your napoleonics. I remember the day I bought some chasseurs a cheval. Those look so great I bought dozens. Couple of time after, I went to my local dealer to buy some cuirassiers. They were lookind good but when I came home and tried to display those along with the chasseurs, wow, what a difference in size... And the cuirassiers were as we all know tall guys riding 'big' horses. It was such a bummer FOR ME that I simply returned them back to my dealer....


Now this it not an 'attitude' these are objective facts that I would like one day to find on K&C products and if it does come with an increase in price, let be so.

Cheers

Alex

Hi Guys,

As we all know “everyone’s got an opinion” and our friend Alex of Montreal definitely has his…

In his opinion “K&C’s AFV’s have not improved… not delivered something new… no increase in quality only increase in price”.

He then goes off on a slight tangent to compare us to Wallmart… following it up with the comment that Wallmart is “the last store he would go to!”

Fortunately for K&C we do have our supporters… hundreds of them, maybe thousands, all over the world who believe, as I do, that we constantly strive to rise to the many challenges of competing in a highly competitive market.

And I further believe that when it comes to delivering what we said we’d deliver… when we said we’d deliver it… Not just occasionally but month after month on a regular basis to a very wide variety of our collectors then we keep our part of the bargain… with our collectors and our dealers.

There’s also an element on this forum (Alex maybe one of them) who believe that K&C is this huge company… a behemoth (hence the Wallmart allusion) and indulge in a kind of inverted snobbery towards K&C and our collectors. Well, I can’t do much about other people’s attitudes or opinions so I’ll just have to continue doing what we do best… Keeping most collectors happy… and having fun doing it!

Best wishes and happy collecting!
Andy C.

 

[uksubs]

Just got my Figarti Churchill AVRE , Matador + 5.5 gun & got to say I'm very happy with the detail & paint job
I will post photo later

 

[uksubs]

Hi Andy

I am a great admirer of K&C's work and try to get as many pieces is a can. I would be interested in your thoughts on where you seeing technology pushing the boundary of future innovations in your range. Will we see detailed trackwork on tank treads? Will we see photo-etched parts? I fully understand if you can't be too specific due to business reasons but just a broad description would be fab.

thxs

stephen

I think it will be interesting to see how K&C go about adding new detail & don't think K&C will let us down , just looking at the new paint finish on the Panther tank + mickey mouse Austin are very good

 

[Mitch]

Alex...

I kinda got the original reason for this thread but, your post with the greatest of respect seems somewhat contradictory. You state ' I have hundereds' of K&C products but, then complain about price against quality. I have said before on here I am no RAH RAH for any manufacturer and will critique when needed but, your post seems to be an attempt to look down your nose at the company that you allegedly buy substantially from and, thats what does not make sense to me.

I have looked at everything K&C has done and, do not see these huge differences in size and scale that you quote. I for one want some differences in size of figures as this creates realism in a range and, we all, including yourself from your post want this.

You quoted price but, in the current market IMO at the moment FL, Figarti are the most expensive and, K&C although expensive have improved in all of the aspects you state. I have said this in other posts that I am not enamoured with the importation from the model world of photo etched parts and other such aspirations I like the polystone stuff for what it is or, if I did not want something different then I could return to plastic modelling but, I do not really wish to.

I have critiqued every manufacturer on here for things that are not right and, will continue to do so but, your argument does not hold up in the terms which, you have stated it IMO
Mitch

 

[Alex]

Hi Mitch,

Some food for thoughts. 4 WS figures for 89$ that was good.

New figures with same kind of painting, pose, etc.. for much more than 89$.. That's where they lost me...

But then again, as I always said and will always repeat, we're blessed to have all these manufacturers. It's just that K&C doesn't appeal to me anymore.

Whenever you visit a K&C dealer, compare the size of the chasseurs a cheval with the cuirassiers.. You'll see what I mean.

Anyway, that's all I have to say on the subject.

Alex