Revell US model company - sold

[Bluehawk]

"... Here’s what we know about the sale. No official announcement has come from Blitz. Our information comes from court documents and other industry sources.

1. All Revell US operations ceased on Friday, April 13. The Illinois offices were closed and 15 people lost their jobs.

2. Revell Germany will continue to operate as in the past with Blitz being its owner. No word on any layoffs or changes in Germany. Sources tell us that Revell Germany staff only found out about the sale on Friday, and no further details were available at that time.

3. We believe model kits already in development, including the Ford GT that is due later this summer, will still be produced. We hear the Ford GT will now be boxed as a Revell Germany kit.

4. There has been no announcement of a distributor for Revell Germany products that may be sold in the U.S. market. We suspect an announcement will come soon though as the investors will want to see cash flow get back to its previous levels as soon as possible. In addition, the court documents say that all inventory must be moved from the Hobbico warehouse in Champaign, Ill., within 30 days.

5. Court documents say the sale included all molds and tooling owned by Revell US, so those now belong to Revell Germany.

6. It also included Revell trademarks, such as Revell in various forms, Snap Tite and Snaptite, Junior Kit, Bad Medicine, Renwal, RM Kustom, California Wheels, Monogram, Pro Modeler, Revell Monogram, Red Baron, Ice T, and many more.

7. There was at least one other bidder for Revell beyond the winning Blitz bid.

8. Also up in the air due to Hobbico’s bankruptcy is the distribution of Italeri and Hasegawa models. Hobbico was their U.S. distributor. There has been no word yet on who else may take up Italeri and Hasegawa distribution in the U.S. market."

Source:

http://www.scaleautomag.com/articles/2018/04/revell-has-been-sold

 

 

 

[ottodog8]

Wow. The end of an era.

 

Steve

[Garandomatic]

Aw man...

[manayunkman]

That's what the Romans said as they saw the Huns coming over the hill.

 

I loved Revell.

[Bluehawk]

Ayup...

[kammo-man]

Oh well.

Toys R us

Now this.

Its endless.

But life goes on.

 

Trends change.

Toys will change.

Facebook will end.

Phone books are dead.

Coins are only in museums,

[KRIS FORD]

They own Monogram? I thought they were separate entities..like AMT, Ertl, etc..I LOVED building them..had a mini shop and all..was the only way I could even come close to my dream Mo Pars..

 

Side note..any of y'all remember JO-HAN models?

[Waltz41]

A big shame. Grew up building their kits. They were the only ones you could really find in any stores, and they were cheap. I probably built over 25 of their 1/48th P-51D's!

 

Lots of rumors out there about what will happen with the molds and everything......time will tell. Hopefully we still see their stuff, otherwise grab any kits you might want now before they go crazy on ebay!

[KRIS FORD]

Oh well.

Toys R us

Now this.

Its endless.

But life goes on.

 

Trends change.

Toys will change.

Facebook will end.

Phone books are dead.

Coins are only in museums,

 

Also, guitar driven rock is DOA as well..(sucks, as I love playing guitar..)

 

[Teamski]

Well, kids don't build models anymore. They simply stare at smartphone screens.....

 

-Ski

[Blacksmith]

Another consequence of our waning connection with history, magnified by mass-migration to virtual spaces.

 

Ski - I partially agree with your point. The latest generation is definitely a screen generation, be it tablet, phone, or TV. However, that doesn’t mean they aren’t building stuff. If you’ve ever watched an 8-year-old play Minecraft, that’s all it is - world building, on a large / more complex scale. And they are OBSESSED with it.

 

Granted, it’s not the same as trimming, sanding, painting, gluing tiny plastic pieces. I grew up in the golden years of scale modeling, and built countless planes, tanks and funny cars. I actually think my “Revell Modelers Club” membership card is still at my parents house. So I’m definitely a little bummed at the above news. However, part of a company’s strategy has to include trend analysis as part of their long-term viability planning. Most of our generation (presumably) isn’t buying models, or getting heaps of them as gifts, like we once were. Heck, I’ve probably bought three models in 20 years, and none of them are finished.

 

So who is in line behind us? Just like collecting militaria - nobody. The “new guard” topic comes up every few months - most recently in the form of the helmet market. There are always differing opinions. Mine is that this is a dying hobby. I don’t like that fact, but I think believing anything else is an attempt to refute common logic. It may feel good to see a handful of 20-somethings at shows, or claim they’ve all moved to F@cebook, etc, but it’s a fraction of what’s needed to even stay at parity. Data to prove it is beyond reach, so I guess we’ll find out together...

[cutiger83]

Blacksmith,

 

I agree with you. I am 56 and am slowly growing tired of people criticizing the youth of today for not doing everything we did as children. I am quite sure my parents said the same thing about my generation when I was little.

 

While the youth of today may not be as interested in building plastic models of tanks or planes, I see them using their imaginations to build legos. I see them using their imaginations to design beautiful pictures on a computer. Everything you see and use with today's technology was because some child sat in front of an old tv screen or old computer and used their minds to think of a new way to do things not the same old way as their parents.

 

Stop criticizing our youth for not doing everything exactly as we did as children but maybe as Blacksmith said, find a way to let them enjoy their world as well as ours.

 

...Kat

[ArtyScout]

Well, kids don't build models anymore. They simply stare at smartphone screens.....

 

-Ski

Most kids don't build models, Ski. But I did get my grandson into building them once he saw what I was doing. He's 12 and enjoys putting together the models (planes), but he still needs to learn the patience aspect of model building. He likes to put them together, slap the decals on and go off into the 'wild blue yonder' with a gray styrene plane. But at least I've bridged the first gap. Getting him to sit down and build something with his own hands. We've built a 1/48 scale Huey Hog and P-51 Mustang, a 1/72 scale F-14A & F-15E and now we have a 1/72 scale P-47 Thunderbolt waiting. I'm hoping that sooner or later he is going to want to paint one.

 

Semper Fi.

 

Manny

[Waltz41]

I teach high school students. Been doing it for 17 years now. I have many models hanging and displayed in my classroom. In that time, I would say probably about 15 or so kids total even knew any of the airplanes names that I have out. And only 2 said they built/build models.

 

It definitely is a dying hobby. I'm sure I'll get my 3 year old son at some point to sit down and do some models with me, and who knows, maybe he will be into it.....but percentage wise it's a very small, tiny slice of people who build that are mainly older and only getting older. However, as long as these companies are producing kits, then maybe there is a little hope! The main problem now though is availability. Hobby shops are disappearing for the most part, and the only retail stores to carry any models (craft stores like Hobby Lobby, AC Moore, Michaels) mainly carried Revell/Monogram. If they are gone....really there's nothing left and no chance to randomly catch that 10 year old into the hobby because grandpa picked up a kit when he was out at the craft store with grandma :-)

[Garandomatic]

Not to mention that you need to be 18 to buy water-based paint at Walmart... and they haven't had models at mine since maybe 2008...

 

I've messed around with the digital stuff with my kids, playing minecraft, etc. Had a kid just this year create the World Trade Center Plaza in minecraft for his final project. It wasn't perfect, but I was impressed, and he had hours in it... I can see that there is value in what the kids are doing today, but I wish they were more balanced with it. At some point you need to get off the couch, and I have students that will skip school when the latest game comes out. Some folks, that's all they do. It's their choice, but there is a world out there that must be grappled with. I cannot help but believe with unwavering certainty that the kid that can still do something with his hands will make something of himself. Or herself, of course.

 

Until we evolve a bit and can handle the constant connectivity of tech, I also fear for our future generation(s). Suicide seems off the charts. Bullying as well, apparently, but I would never know as it is all very stealthy. I have no data to back this up, but the correlation between technology in our lives and a crushing erosion of personal stamina when it comes to work is terrifying. But the people that make studies about how to save education always seem to assess kids on the East Coast that seem to all be able to be naturally curious learners capable of conducting independent research from birth. I don't think anybody bothers to do surveys with kids in middle America.

 

I suppose make-believe plastic is as much a fantasy as make-believe computer-based whatnot, but building models and all kinds of other things has taught me some pretty specialized skills... I'm thorough... Big-time eye for color, detail... Really dig being able to pull off "tedious" when it really matters... Translated that into being a sort of master patineur of bronze statues at the family business. Knocked out an 8 ft. Thomas Edison this weekend, only took 7 hours. Hell, defeating tedious in itself is a superpower today. Farmers I know of can't even get the big ol' tough football team to help put up hay... For money... And the coach's blessing that it's PT... Too hard... That said, I had a kid 3D print the USS Arizona for their final project along with a small research paper. What will be more important in coming years, I don't know. Probably both. I was able to support myself while I was subbing by selling hot rod related artwork worldwide for a little while, and that wouldn't have happened even 10 years before. That might be the difference... I wonder if the digital world isn't so attractive that the kind of can-do spirit that once seemed so universal now looks like a rarity because the world makes the rules for you when it isn't on a screen. Why give a crap when things get hard, you can always jump back into the xbox... It might be that most kids do not possess, or are not ingrained with the discipline to have the balance I mention earlier to be masters of their lives.

 

You never know. They said small bookstores were dead, read last week or so that they are having some kind of significant and inexplicable comeback. I could see the future generations adopting more spartan lives in terms of physical possessions and make it rough for us or our heirs to liquidate our estates, but focusing energy and concentration on some tiny representation might just be hard to kill, and refreshingly "real."

 

I tried to make this at least coherent, but it's awful noisy in my head as another school year wraps up and I deal with raising teenagers of my own. I am nowhere near 25% as tough as my dad, at times I'd feel reassured if my kids were 25% as tough as me when it came to doing your job and fidelity to duty, and there's two caring and involved parents in the house.

[Teamski]

Blacksmith,

 

I agree with you. I am 56 and am slowly growing tired of people criticizing the youth of today for not doing everything we did as children. I am quite sure my parents said the same thing about my generation when I was little.

 

While the youth of today may not be as interested in building plastic models of tanks or planes, I see them using their imaginations to build legos. I see them using their imaginations to design beautiful pictures on a computer. Everything you see and use with today's technology was because some child sat in front of an old tv screen or old computer and used their minds to think of a new way to do things not the same old way as their parents.

 

Stop criticizing our youth for not doing everything exactly as we did as children but maybe as Blacksmith said, find a way to let them enjoy their world as well as ours.

 

...Kat

 

 

I am happy that there are baby boomers out there that still have faith in the egg shells we call kids today. Call me a cynic I guess I see my daughter's generation fail to plan...plan for anything. Plan for kids, plan for a birthday party, plan on saving for a new car. Due to the instant reward mentality (where everybody gets a medal), a lot of millennials fail to see the big picture and are subject to a ton of false narratives through social media the forms their world view. That work ethic that once supported generations is gone. As children, us X Gens were given nothing but worksheets on which we worked out math and word problems. By middle school, we knew our multiplication tables. Today, you are lucky if you see a kid being able to recite it on graduation. No, there was something lost in the transition from corded phones to today's pocket rockets. There is no thinking, just doing. We now have children shooting up schools on a regular because of the latent narcissism that social media created. Tell me one single mass shooting at a school in the 1980's.

 

Ok, I know....rant over.

 

-Ski

[Proud Kraut]

"Ok, I know....rant over."

 

Yep.... folks, you made some good points. Thanks for your input! But...

 

1. Today's kids didn't grow on trees or were brought by aliens. They were raised, taught and educated by all of us.

 

2. Please, let's return to modeling here.

[Blacksmith]

Sorry, I have to repond here, and am happy to move this to non-militaria / misc, if preferred.

 

I am a GenXer BTW, and have a different perspective - primarily that labeling and lumping people into sterotypical groups is dangerous. That thinking is partially the reason we have militaria to collect in the first place (if you dont get my drift, PM me).

 

Also, Im intentionally not responding to the school shooting comment.

 

There are so-called Millenials that I hold in as high regard as any from any generation. They are fighting a Global War, with no end in sight, which they volunteered for.

 

They are just as hard-working as any, though it may not come in the form of driving a two-horse team through a field for 16 hours a day. Times are changing, and the people that need to live in them are as well.

 

Id assert that maybe we need to shower them in disappointment a little less, and appreciate the abilities that theyre developing that maybe we dont have. Or maybe just come to grips with the emotion that they have what most everyone wants - their youth.

 

I say, more power to them. I hope they live their own life, and not the life others expect them to. And who knows, maybe theyll look up from their screens one day, and tell us that they cured the disease that someone you love would have otherwise died from.

 

 

 

From The Breakfast Club

 

VERNON

You think about this...when you get

old, these kids; when I get old,

they're gonna be runnin' the country.

 

CARL

Yeah?

 

VERNON

Now this is the thought that wakes

me up in the middle of the night...

That when I get older, these kids

are gonna take care of me...

 

CARL

I wouldn't count on it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am happy that there are baby boomers out there that still have faith in the egg shells we call kids today. Call me a cynic I guess I see my daughter's generation fail to plan...plan for anything. Plan for kids, plan for a birthday party, plan on saving for a new car. Due to the instant reward mentality (where everybody gets a medal), a lot of millennials fail to see the big picture and are subject to a ton of false narratives through social media the forms their world view. That work ethic that once supported generations is gone. As children, us X Gens were given nothing but worksheets on which we worked out math and word problems. By middle school, we knew our multiplication tables. Today, you are lucky if you see a kid being able to recite it on graduation. No, there was something lost in the transition from corded phones to today's pocket rockets. There is no thinking, just doing. We now have children shooting up schools on a regular because of the latent narcissism that social media created. Tell me one single mass shooting at a school in the 1980's.

 

Ok, I know....rant over.

 

-Ski

[Proud Kraut]

Well said. Once again, thanks everybody for their contribution to this thread!