zero, and interestingly, there even seems to be

a problem with reboxing existing kits. And so,

these still nice kits are being reboxed in Poland,

Germany and the Czech Republic.

The more the hunger and innovation drop off

in Japan, the more they grow in Europe and China, where the benefits are shifting from the big

firms to the smaller and intermediate ones. I’ll

leave the Chinese off to the side, as well as Airfix, with their production in Asia and retail in toy

stores concept, which I am not sure has all that

much potential, but I could easily be mistaken

and the project will end up being a successful

one. Certain assumptions could be made, but

the clock is running. I see interesting developments her in the east, especially in the Ukraine.

There, a new technology has evolved that uses

computer graphics that have, in my opinion, the

potential to completely remake the short-run

concept that has, until now, been dominated by

Czech firms. They, with exceptions like Special

Bobby, have stagnated in terms of innovation or

have not been able to take advantage of same.

If someone who can combine the Ukranian innovation with retail ability can be found, it it looks

as though this is possible, will become a major

player not only in the short run field. Among

Czech firms, the only real innovation appears to

be limited to us and probably to Special Hobby.

The latter introduced their He 162 in 1:72nd scale in Nuremburg, and it shows where evolution

can lead to. If Special Hobby can run with this,

we have something to look forward to. And we

will be only too happy to supply decals for their

kits, if not other accessory items as well.

Certainly, older firms that drop out of the toy

fair are replaced by new ones. However, these

don’t attract a lot of attention, and often, these

companies are on the rise with their moment in

the sun still ahead of them. When Eduard first

appeared in Nuremburg some 26 years ago, no

one cared much. The only person that seems to

have located us in the inflatable halls among the

Chinese exhibitors was Mr. Ono. It should be added that the current managers of Mr. Ono’s firm

Beaver are very good at locating new talent! And

who was new to this years fair? Companies like

Cooper State Models, AK Interaktive and Dora

Wings, for example.

So, all this just for starters. When someone tried to convince you that our hobby is on its last

legs and that the Nuremburg Toy Fair is about

nothing, be skeptical. Be very skeptical. Because

it’s not. The fair still perfectly introduces new

trends, agreements are made, and new procedures are thought up. The old ends, the new

begins, and it all comes together at Nuremburg.

You can’t stop progress and once a year, it can

all be brought into perspective, pondered, and

a course of action as to where it should go can

be determined. And that those that get thrown

out of the game are the ones that bitch and complain is pretty normal, isn’t it? Let them, while

we do our best to stay in the game.

A big part of the toy fair for us has become

our press conference. There, we basically introduce our new items for the upcoming year that

you are already familiar with from last month’s

newsletter. If you’d like to hear it for yourself,

though, we have come to an agreement with

Artur on something called Eduard Day at Artur.

This will take place on February 20th at 1600h

at Artur’s retail centre in Pankrac in Prague. This

will play out in much the same way as it did in

Nuremburg on Friday. This will also include some

small refreshments, and new items for March

will be available, including the new Kunkadlo

kit. Attendees to the Eduard press conference in

Nuremburg received the Kunkadlo, and the re-

INFO Eduard - February 2020

mainder will be offered for sale at Artur. There

are only a couple of dozen left or so, so if you are

interested in this kit, please stop on by.

Today, we are introducing our new items for

February, 2020. Please note that, among them,

there is the second edition of the Spitfire Mk.

VIII in the ProfiPACK line in 1:48th scale. The kit

makes its return to our catalog with no major

changes as compared to the first edition. In the

same line, we are introducing the Bf 1090G-10

Erla, another in the line of the Bf 109G series of

the later variants. This version differs in a number

of significant ways as compared to the Bf 109G10 produced at other plants, and for this reason,

many modellers consider this to be one of the

most interesting versions of the Bf 109, period.

The detail differences and all the little specifics

of the type can be found in the Bf 109G Late

Version article in last month’s newsletter. Under

the name ‚Il Magnifico‘, we make a return to an

older kit of a World War One subject, the Hanriot

HD.1. It is a 1:48th scale kit in the Limited Edition

line, and focuses on Italian usage, and includes

some of the most striking schemes to be found

on First World War aircraft. Thanks to these two

items, our February carries with it a distinct Italian flavour, because even the Bf 109G-10/R6,

as the Erla G-10 is correctly known, features an

Italian aircraft, as depicted on the boxart. That

boxart, by the way, depicts an actual event. In

the 1:72nd scale Weekend Line, we are releasing

a MiG-21MF Interceptor, which are known here

as ‚the Greys‘. In the 1:144th scale SUPER44, we

have the P-51D Mustang, which feature plastic

from Platz with four marking options, hailing

from previously released 1:48th scale kits.

In the second half of January, we packed and

made available two new items, that were sold

out through December. These are the Bf 109G-6/

AS (ProfiPACK 82163) and the P-51D Royal Class

(R0020). These are available as of last week, and

there will be no more than 1,000 pieces of each

up for grabs.

Turning our attention to accessory items,

I won’t get into naming each and every piece,

but I will point out what I would consider to

be among the most interesting of them. These

would, without a doubt, include new sets for the

1:48th scale HKM B-17G, as well as the LooK set

for the same item. In 1:32nd scale, we have sets

for the Ar 196A-3 and Fw 190F-8 from Revell,

and in the AFV department, I would like to point out a set for the new Pz.38(t) Ausf.E/F from

Tamiya in 1:35th scale. In 1:72nd, we decided on

basic sets, photoetched and masks for the new

Polish Yak-1b from Arma Hobby, for the torpedo

boat PT-579/588, several Brassin sets of wheels

including for the Shackleton from Revell and Airfix’s Buccaneer, as well as a couple of Brassin

wheel sets for the currently new MiG-21PFM. In

the Brassin line, also noteworthy are the seats

for the AMK F-14D in 1:48th, two engines for

the Fokker D.VII, which are two separate items,

the Mercedes D.III for the Fokker D.VII (OAW)

and the BMW III for the Fokker D.VIIF. Check out

also the two new sets covering the AIM-9M/L

Sidewinder in 1:32nd and the AIM-7M Sparrow

(632141 and 632142 respectively). We have two

new classic LooK sets for two different F-104Js in

1:48th, one for the Eduard/Hasegawa kit and the

other for the Kintetic offering. Also of note are

the two sets designed for the Tempest Mk.V in

1:48th scale, under the line called LookPlus. This

new line was introduced at Nuremburg. They

differ from the traditional LooKs by way of the

incluson of other useful items, such as wheels,

exhausts and a canopy masks that will be standard inclusions in this line.

And that’s it for now. I hope this newsletter

provides you with a good read. For now, I have

not yet had the chance to go over last year’s statistics, but I will have them at the press conference at Artur. But I did pick out one interesting tidbit that I would like to share with you, and that is

that for the third year in a row, our biggest market is the Czech Republic with a 22.88% share,

followed by the United States at 16.63%. Third

place is taken up by Great Britain at 14.33%, followed in order by 4th Germany (10.31%), 5th

Poland (4.41%), 6th Japan (4.34%), 7thFrance

(4.17%), 8th Russia (2.86%), 9th Slovakia (2.65%)

and 10th Australia (2.08%).

Also, I would like to add that the stories of

coronavirus spreading at the fair and of people

walking around with masks are greatly exaggerated. There was no panic. The masks were generally worn by people from Asia, and these were

in no greater numbers than normal.

Happy Modelling

Vladimir Sulc.

eduard

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