In my old age I work part time at DesPlaines Hobbies. In my youth I worked
at All Nation Hobby Shop in Chicago, My sense of the "Decal Business" is
that it has never been better. I asked Ron, owner of DesPlaines about this
subject last week (it was a thread on the Steam Era Freight Car List) and he
had the same opinion (he also worked at All Nation, but at different times
than I did).
It is true that we are getting more accurate models with correct
lettering.... but the level of knowlege and interest in
freight car (and locomotive) paint schemes, phases, etc, etc. has
dramatically increased in the last 10-15 years in particular.
Nowadays, instead of decals being sold mostly to achieve some variety from
the standard Athearn and MDC offerings, we see people researching and
modeling very specific paint schemes from photographs of individual cars or
units at a particular point in time.
The Decal business is more complicated than it was in the 50's and 60's.....
generic data sets, for example, are no longer acceptable. In fact, Road
Name sets are not useable anymore because we now know that the heralds, road
name lettering, etc., vary from car type to car type (or batch to batch).
Plus, from a company's standpoint, the range of products has tripled from
the 50's where you had maybe three decades of coverage... now you have to
cover from the 30's to today, 2003..... a span of 70 years.....and the
number of railroads, additional paint jobs, mergers, new car and locomotive
types, has skyrocketed. Inventory management may be a challange for
retailer, wholesaler and manufacturer, but the need for decals is probably
greater today than in the past.
Charlie
----- Original Message -----
From: "Val Nelson" <super-chief-val@c...>
To: <BRHSlist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 11:36 AM
Subject: Re: [BRHSlist] Microscale
> My appologies to everyone. It certainly was not my intention to spread
false
> information, by any means!!
>
> My hobby shop guy is a very respected dealer, having been in the business
for over
> 35 years. He knew Irvin Athearn, personally, and had some very
entertaining
> stories about that relationship. He also knew/knows a lot of the head
honchos of
> several major manufactures. And when he says that Microscale is planning
on
> discontinuing their lines, who am I to question it. The reason he stated
behind
> that 'decision' was due to the fact that so many kit and RTR manufacturers
are
> coming out with such excellent and varried stenciling that the need for
decals has
> dramatically declined.
>
> But what do I know????
>
> Val
>
>
>
> Aeolus3@a... wrote:
>
> > In a message dated 1/16/03 7:27:16 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> > Dave_Lotz@m... writes:
> >
> > > Not true. The last I knew, Microscale is alive and well and producing
> > > decals. Let's be careful about spreading unsubstantiated rumors!
> > >
> >
> > Microscale just produced a new CZ Set of decals in HO. There are now 2
sets...
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
> > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
|