Dear business friends,
As we have already announced before, this May Newsletter brings not just the usual information on the released models and sets, but also their adjusted prices. Not just the usual price increase, no, we have changed the prices both ways, up and down. If there is the increase, it usually is by mere 10% whilst the reduction can be up to 25%. And we do believe that the price reduction of the older models or sets might have an impact on their sales. On the other hand, the price increase of new models is not any dramatic indeed, mostly even not covering the skyrocketing prices of energies and raw materials needed for their production.
The May issue of the Special Hobby Newsletter brings the information on the new, radial engined version of the Potez 25 biplane. The box top art portrays a Potez flown by Estonian pilots and not just as the triangle shaped national markings do look unusually tempting. Estonia in the pre-WW2 years did quite a lot of business with Czechoslovakia and the military of this Baltic country purchased aeroplanes in France and Britain, but also from Czechoslovak aircraft industry. And it is very unfortuntate and sad that the freedom and independence of both Estonia and Czechoslovakia was brought to an abrupt end in 1939 when two European moustached dictators, Herr Hitler and Comrade Stalin took the decision to divide Europe. Nazi Germany invaded the remaining territory of Czechoslovakia (whose border regions had already been seized by Germans a year before), Stalin’s Soviet Union took the Baltic countries including Estonia and most of their airmen were imprisoned in Soviet gulags. Their fate, that should not be forgotten especially today as another dictator desires to revive the Soviet Union. Another of our May new releases is the very first Swedish-made jet plane, the SAAB J/A-21R in 1/72 which is kitted both in the fighter and ground-attack versions in one box. The final one of our May releases, or at least those in the styrene format, is the quarter scale kit set of the US aviation legend, the J-3 Cub. The kit bears the title ‘Cub goes to war’ to remind us all of the fact that very many of the brave US airmen who fought in WW2 had their initial training in this aircraft. What is more, even subtle-looking, made of thin metal tubes and covered in fabric, these Cubs also known in the military as Grasshoppers, often achieved much more combat success than other, all metal and more powerful engine-equipped types.
Our range of sets and figures is also very wide really. Your attention should be attracted by the first figures produced by the direct 3D print. Both in 48 and 72 scales, we have for you a set with an Africakorps soldier with a camel. Excellent, as it cannot be produced in the same quality by any other means, is the 3D printed set, or perhaps we should call it a miniature assembly kit, with the M2 flamethrower. Among our resin cast sets, we would like to focus your attention to the two various styles of Hurricane exhausts made for Revell’s 1/32 model as well as yet another set designed to make the 1/72 PT Boats look much more detailed. And that is not all indeed. The very complete list of our May new releases is here for you below this editorial.
A. Riedel
