the advances made in this technology. Our

plan is to replace the cast cockpits with

3D printed ones over time. We are also

going to produce 3D prints for armor in

1:35th and ships in 1:350th. Also of note are

eleven new Space sets, complemented by

a set for the raised rivets on the 1:48th

scale Su-25 using the same technology.

Among new mask and photoetched sets,

I would point out items for the Tornado IDS

in 1:32nd from Italeri and the first sets for

the 48th scale Airfix Anson.

Shows

It looks like the revival of the show season

is unstoppable. That would mean that after

Nuremburg, we will attend all significant

shows through the spring, including Prosek and Moson, and even Lingen between

them. We will also attend some smaller local shows, although these will be more for

exposure of our new items than as vendors. In the summer, we will be in Texas

at the IPMS Nationals, the fall will have us

at E-day, in which we want to draw on the

success of the last show, and take it a step

further. Unfortunately, Telford will is not in

our plans.

Excellent news has come out of Slovakia,

which will see the return of Bratislava’s

Plastic Winter. It will be the return of a legend in a big way. It will have a new venue and you have no idea how much I am

looking forward to this show! So much so

that the final big premiere of our making

that I mentioned in the last paragraph will

take place in Bratislava on November 11th,

2023!

Articles

There are two, in this issue, both from Mira

Baric. There is the tenth edition of his report on the air war over Ukraine and the

second part of Midway, about the search

for sunken ships with Paul Allen. As is now

our custom, we have five Boxart Stories.

This newsletter is published in the classic PDF format and can be downloaded as

you have in the past. At the same time, it

is available through the Triobo publishing

vehicle. You had an opportunity to test this

new system out back in December, and the

feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. There are some negative points that

were raised, but among modellers, how

can it be any other way? It does appear

as though there are no fatal flaws in the

system. If you should run into an issue,

though, you can bring it to our attention,

and we can discuss the principles of its

functionality. Starting with February, our

newsletter will be published using Triobo

exclusively.

interesting one and somewhat surprising,

because over a six month period of the

market cooling, and the associated drop in

sales, it ended with a recovery that brought us in line with our best year ever, 2020.

This is because of excellent performance

over the first and fourth quarters last year,

brought on by your support for us and our

products. Our main markets, traditionally

the Czech Republic, the EU, the United States and Japan, even saw relatively significant growth. This amounted to 7% in the

Czech Republic, 9% in Japan, and as high

as 14% in the US. There were some major jumps in the year in smaller markets,

such as China by 58% and Australia by 71%,

but the champion amongst the developed

world is Canada, with a jump of 84%.

With the EU, it is a bit more complicated,

because we trade with individual nations.

The results vary, and while we recorded

an increase in sales of 11% in France and

even 26% in Poland, in Germany we registered a decrease of 11%. There were downturns elsewhere as well. Predictably, Russia fell by 47% and this year the bottom

will fall out if the war doesn’t end soon.

We’ll see no sales in the Russian market immediately at the start of this year.

Less understandable is the drop in sales

to Great Britain, where they amounted to

25%. In a market that has seen long term

growth, this is rather shocking. It can’t be

blamed on Brexit, and in Britain we saw

a drop in the year before last of 5%, in line

with the global figure compared to 2020. In

short, everything appeared pretty normal

and back then, there was a drop of about

a percentage across the board. Last year’s

25% drop in sales is more dramatic, and

I would venture a guess that it points to

a worsening condition for mutual trade

between Great Britain and the EU. Furthermore, even we are seeing worsening

conditions with respect to imports from

Britain, almost to the level seen back in

the days of communism. We have even refused delivery of some items, because the

additional duties and import taxes were

higher than the cost of the actual goods.

Add to that the cost of postage, which has

risen, and continues to rise enormously,

and you can see why there is fear for the

future of international trade. I would like

to extend my sincere thanks and gratitude

to all those who, despite these conditions,

still purchased items off our e-shop. Your

help in maintaining this avenue of sales is

not taken for granted.

That was the good news. Here’s the bad

news. The other side of the coin when it

comes to sales are expenses. These, unfortunately, rose exponentially. At the end

of the summer, it even appeared as though

these would not see any limits. There were

also the effects of supply issues from earlier in the year. Luckily, our industry was

not as hard hit as, say, the automobile sector. We never had to stop, or even limit,

production. Nevertheless, inflation raised

our expenses significantly, bit into our

profits and put the brakes on development.

The fall brought some relief on all fronts,

including on the threat of further increases

in energy costs, even though if these costs

reach the government mandated ceiling,

we’ve got something to look forward to….

we’ll still end up paying three times as

much as last year. The rising cost of production is the main, and really, the only, reason for price increases which we needed

to implement with the New Year. We tried

to minimize these as best we could, and

because this was our responsibility alone,

I put a lot of careful thought into this step.

Despite all this, I firmly believe that we still

provide the best value for the money compared to other firms. I believe that this will

be noticed by you, and that we can count on

your continued support for 2023!

And, I wish all the best for the New Year,

much success and good health!

Happy Modelling

Vladimir Sulc

2022

The space allocated for my introduction to

the newsletter has been pretty much used

up, but I would at least like to summarize

some stats for 2022. The year has been an

8

INFO Eduard

January 2023