The Ship Model Forum

Mike I can tell you I have built just about all your ships from the first resin kit to your entire list of carriers which I am working on now.

Here two models built using IHP Colossus class kits not built by Nick:

Glory by Thomas:

https://www.modellmarine.de/index.php/modelle/538-thomas-traeger/6480-einheiten-der-british-pacific-fleet-trincomalee-1945-1-700-diverse-von-thomas-traeger-teil-3

I hope that Mogador and Volta will be released. The pictures looked really promising!


Colossus by Eberhard:

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Hello Mike,
Last year I read on your FB page the future of your CV-01 kit was depending on the capital acquired from the Colossus family sales.
Can you tell us what is the current status and perspectives of this neverwere kit? Did the crowdfunding reach a correct level?

_Bruno

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A day spent without laughing is a wasted day!

Mike - I've built a lot of your resin kits over the years and have part-built your Colossus kit. I really like your kits. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

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IPMS Fine Waterline Special Interest Group

Thanks for your support, guys. I wish we had more like you!

CVA-01 has not as many preorders as I would have liked but enough that I think we can make a onetime run of kits. I'm hoping we can start tooling it late this year or early next year.

First, we need to move the remaining inventory of Colossus kits before we can start CVA-01 work because we will need the room for the latter run. It's a much bigger ship and the production run will take up that much more space in the packing room and in the warehouse.

We are no longer planning any other new 1/700 ship kits after the CVA-01 so it is unlikely now that the Mogador or anything else will be made. There is no point in making new kits if you can't get them out to people that want them. It will be enough of a problem doing this for existing tooling, which we will continue to produce kits from as demand warrants. We do have a couple of distributors and we will rely on their reorders to plan future re-runs of Colossus kits.

CVA-01 will be a onetime run and will only be available direct from IHP to keep the price low. No dealers, so if you're outside the USA, be prepared for whatever your usual import fees and hassles might be. At least you'll be able to get the kit and it will be a unique one.

Mike Bartel
IHP
http://ihphobby.tripod.com

Ahem. I' m still building them and so is Ray Bean. It's just that I am not as fast as Nick.
I'm sorry to see that you are leaving the ship model market but I do understand the decision.

[quote="Pieter"]Ahem. I' m still building them and so is Ray Bean. It's just that I am not as fast as Nick.
I'm sorry to see that you are leaving the ship model market but I do understand the decision.
[quote="Mike@IHP"]


Not leaving it entirely, just wouldn't make any new kits after the CVA-01. I have an investment in the tooling for our existing kits. We'll make runs of existing kits as needed, but I don't see the need for many more of them either, so we can focus on some other projects I have in mind.

I have no idea how we'd sell the kits through anyone other than the distributors we have. And I've been learning of 'agreements' between the big domestic online vendors that are carving up the market between them. That means no competition and fewer products stocked, and one of them can try to sell our Colossus kits for near $100 on eBay because they can. That's a deliberate attempt to kill our product range as I see it. I was wondering why one of them wouldn't even return my inquiries. And this is just the big, well-known domestic vendors. International vendors are just as biased against stocking IHP kits. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about and it started much earlier than that.

But I'd walk away from ships entirely if I could. Even personally, I'm just not interested in buying or building ship kits anymore. The past 30 years of dealing with the ship business as a whole has left a bad taste in my mouth.

Mike Bartel
IHP
http://ihphobby.tripod.com