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| Left: Walthers Brick Millworks | Right: My build up the AHM Weekly Herald kit |
Galen tipped me off to Walthers new Brick Millworks kit, and how it looks a lot like the old Revell / AHM Engine House / Superior Bakery / Weekly Herald kits. The similarity is no doubt due to this architectural style being a fairly common one. The Walthers kit looks interesting, and I suspect that like the older item it has a lot of kitbashing potential.
7 August 2022 update: Speaking of engine houses, it looks like this kit might be a variation on Walthers 2-Stall Enginehouse kit.
Art Curren used to kitmingle (his preferred word) that bakery kit a lot. He could do wonders with the Walthers kit, but since the new one costs $50... and that's without any additions, it seems to go against Art's budget constraints.... at least in his early articles. It's good to know how to modify kits but there's less need to do so now, outside of fitting it to the layout space. Used to be we only had 20 kits on the market and we either scratchbuilt or kitbashed if we wanted something less common.
ReplyDeleteThe price of the kit is even higher here in Canada: $64.98 CDN.
DeleteI did some calculations to help me understand if today's Walthers kit is actually more expensive than the old Revell / AHM Engine house / Superior Bakery / Weekly Herald. The bakery and herald were released in 1961, and ads from that time list the price of all three of those kits at $3.98. which appears to be high compared to other kits, but those 3 were much better kits than average. An internet inflation calculator suggests that $3.98 is equivalent to around $40 in today's money. And the Walthers kit's $49.98 would be about $4.97 in 1961 money. Maybe the Walthers kit is larger, more detailed, or has more extras - I haven't inspected it, so I don't know - that would boost the price.
Kitbashing plastic kits does appear to be out of fashion today. Maybe it's because of price, many more kits on the market, variety of kits - I don't know for sure. Maybe it's just not cool anymore :-)