The Ship Model Forum

Not trying to be political here, just passing on some actual news. My pre-order of the Hobby Boss HMS Lord Clive kit was cancelled by Squadron. Here is the text from the email Brandon Lowe sent:

Hello, (this is going out to multiple customers at once)

I am very sorry that I have to send this email, but due to current circumstances (yes, I am talking about tariffs) we are not sure when or if we will be able to get this HMS Lord Clive kit. Hobby intends to release it, and we intend to stock it... BUT until further notice, we will not be accepting preorders for this kit and we have canceled all current preorders for it. I really hope that at some point in the future we can get this kit as I was looking forward to it myself.

If you prepaid for the kit, your payment has been refunded. If you ordered other items along with it that are now in stock, those items will be split off of the order and shipped out tomorrow.

If you did not prepay for the kit, and ordered other items that are now in stock - please place a new order for those in stock items if you still want them.

Again, I am very sorry about this - this is the first time I have ever not been able to fulfill preorders.... we are going to work preorders in the future a little differently in such a way that perhaps this won't happen again.

Thank you,
Brandon Lowe

I would suggest that Squadron was taking a look at potentially taking a bath on pre-orders. I do not blame him for cancelling these but claiming the manufacture is cancelling the kit, if molds are already cut is a bit circumspect. You will probably see the kit, but not at the price Squadron thought they could sell it for.

Was someone claiming that? I don't see it in either Brandon's email or Felix's comment.

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De quoi s'agit-il?

Add another casualty. Hobby Easy. Hong Kong Post shut down any shipments via boat as of 4/16. As of the 27th of April all air shipments to the US will be shut down. These are shipments only handled by Honk Kong Post. Unknown what Hobby Easy will do. There are other courier services they use but to my knowledge DHL or Fed Ex is not in their line up.If you have a Fed Ex account tariff fees will be charged to your account. Unknown about DHL. All good things…

Maybe unrelated, but I've seen the Lord Clive listed on one EU website as being postponed for release to 30/06, but it does seem strange that they'd still proceed with it but not selling in the US. On the other hand, as someone else already said previously, it also seems strange they'd just retire it if moulds have already been prepared, not to consider the development costs already wasted on the kit.

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We can have all of the resources in the world and still get it wrong. Not out of any incompetence, it's just because of how difficult it is sometimes to implement a physical feature without having seen it with your own two eyes. - the Chieftain

Possibly US tariffs don't affect china to EU trade?

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At least one UK hobby shop website has the Hobby Boss "Lord Clive" listed - and why not, the UK will not be charging ridiculous extra tariffs and Hobby boss will be wanting to sell as many as they can worldwide.

I suggest taking a quick vacation outside the USA with a large suitcase (assuming that personal imports are still allowed).

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By the way, kind of unrelated but if you're following this post then you may want to buy this kit: WORD OF WARNING.
Since I had done research on this class previous to HobbyBoss releasing their own, do not be fooled by what's said in or on the box: the ship represented is not Lord Clive, it's her sister General Wolfe. Which to be fair consists of 99.9% of the depictions of her class in model form, because we have surviving plans for that particular one.
The reason you can tell is fairly simple: due to various modifications done to them, Lord Clive can be easily distinguished (at least if you're not looking from dead ahead or dead astern) because she has four 4'' guns, two per side, instead of the two single 6'' guns (one each side) that the kit comes with. Plus other minor things, but that's the gist of it.

Just thought that if you wanted to buy the thing you would want to know, since I want one and was very annoyed when found this out today, but maybe it's just a 'me' thing.

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We can have all of the resources in the world and still get it wrong. Not out of any incompetence, it's just because of how difficult it is sometimes to implement a physical feature without having seen it with your own two eyes. - the Chieftain

I have the Wolfe plans too, as fitted & later with the 18" gun mount(1916?).

Exchanged e-mails with Daniel of Hobby Easy. It is official Hobby Easy will no longer ship product to the US. My order was the last order out of Hong Kong on April 26.

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Looks like the hobby shops on the Canadian and Mexican sides of the US border will be doing great trade.

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Very doubtful. All international trade is based on US dollars. Nobody wants Pesos or Canadian dollars, Chinese Dong etc. All nations hold amounts of foreign currencies in reserve for trade but not to the extent the U.S. Dollar is. As access to US dollars dry up international trade between nations will slow and expenses increase. So very doubtful Mexican hobby shops will be doing booming business unless they are sitting on a hidden reserve of US Dollars. The only two other world stable currencies are EU and Brits and neither wish to replace the dollar in international trade and then shoulder the inflationary burden upon their citizens that comes with it.

If you are an organized hobbyist you ordered your building needs well in advance, A smart hobbyist looked for best price, best service. The hobby evolved years ago from open the kit break out the glue mentality. I have a great deal of respect for Hobby Easy and their business practice. Unlike the Chinese pirates on E-Bay who can not collect US tariffs followed orders and cut trade to maintain the good will of its American customer base. All storms pass.

As someone with actual experience of international trading, I assure you this is simply false. Until fairly recently international trade in petroleum products was done in US dollars, but even that's changed over the past couple of years. When I bought model industry goods from Canada, I paid the Canadian business in Canadian dollars. When I bought model industry goods from Ukraine, they asked that I paid in Euros. When I sold to the USA, Denmark, Germany, France and the Netherlands they all paid me in Pounds Sterling. The only reason someone might ask for US dollars when it's not their own currency is essentially so that each party takes their own exchange rate risk, although trade presumes that the US dollar is stable and with the state the US economy is now in Americans shouldn't presume everyone else is falling over themselves to trade in US dollars.

International trade will carry on regardless of the USA. This idea that the USA owns the ball and if they decide to go home then nobody else can play is quite absurd to almost everyone outside the USA. We can and do trade in many currencies.

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James Duff
Sovereign Hobbies Ltd
http://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk

Current build:
HMS Imperial D09 1/350
http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=167151

As a US-based aftermarket vendor, here are some thoughts based on our current experience.

1. Regarding different currencies, customers can and normally do pay for purchases from us using their own local currency. We use two different 3rd party payment processing services, PayPal and a secure service called "Stripe". We don't accept any payments directly. Payments are securely made to either PayPal or Stripe, not to us. PayPal and Stripe pay us later. Both PayPal and Stripe accept payment in most any common currency. When an international customer makes a payment to us through PayPal or Stripe in their own currency, PayPal and Stripe convert the payment into US dollars for us and charge us a currency conversion fee, which is a loss to us. We accept that loss as a necessary part of doing business internationally.*

2. Regarding our products exported to customers overseas, we typically see one or two customers per year decline to pay their government's import taxes such as VAT or GST and the package we sent gets returned to us. Just this past week, we received 6 returns from various customs officials in Europe and 1 return from Canada. This is extremely unusual. From a production perspective, it is also extremely disruptive and costly to produce products for customers who then decline to accept them, even if the refusal reason is completely understandable and justified.

3. Regarding buying the materials we need to produce our products, everything we use to make our products comes from China. All of our 3D-printers, their repair parts, the consumables the printers use to operate like resin vat film, the resin itself, all of the packing materials, the labels we put on the boxes and the 2D printer ink that marks the labels, even the software we use to design and print the models, all comes from China. All of it.

Therefore, any tariffs placed on Chinese goods we routinely buy immediately affects us.

We get everything from China because China has been arguably the best, most economical source of high quality, affordable 3D printers, resins, repair parts, consumables and packing materials. There are many reasons we don't buy 3D printers and resin from US companies. Most importantly, there just aren't many US manufacturers that exist at all. The few US companies that do exist typically outsource printer and resin production to, you guessed it, China. The US-based 3D printer company may be headquartered outside of Boston, but their machines and resins are actually made in China. High quality, affordable printers and resins just aren't made here in the US. We have to go elsewhere.

We can shift buying packaging material to US-based sources (at a significantly increased cost) but little else. We have seen some indications that the resin we use may no longer be shipped to the US from the factory in China. This means that we are going to have to make some tough decisions. We are scrambling now to find alternate sources of quality, affordable resin. Unfortunately, most of those non-Chinese resin sources have had tariffs applied to them, too. When we do find a potential resin replacement, the new resin has to be iteratively tested on our machines to determine correct printer settings for that resin which takes time, often many days. We recently tested resin manufactured in Taiwan and found it unsatisfactory for our needs. The search continues.

Increased material and production costs means that our current pricing is not sustainable and will likely have to be raised yet again this year. For the first time in nearly 10 years, we found it necessary to raise prices slightly in January for many products. We may have to do it again this month, significantly so, assuming we can even find suitable resin supply alternatives and that our existing 3D printers continue to function well.

These tariff-related supply issues are already badly impacting our operations and production costs. Chaotic supply indicators at this time suggest these conditions will worsen for the foreseeable future.

Call me "Debbie Downer" but this is the new reality we are working in.

We sincerely appreciate the patronage of our customers at this difficult time and wish fellow vendors all the best.

Just my 2 cents.

* We use trusted 3rd party payment processors PayPal and Stripe as a protection to both our customers and us. Since we never have our customers' payment information such as their credit card or bank information, we can't lose it nor can it be stolen from us.

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Have fun, Monkey around.™

-Steve L.

Complete catalog: - https://www.model-monkey.com/
Follow Model Monkey® on Facebook: - https://www.facebook.com/modelmonkeybookandhobby

that return from Canada was not from me as last time I bought stuff(1/429 scale ship anchors) from Steve was a few years ago with no issues.

Thats isnt how international trade works. It may to a layman, but in reality I think you get very good breakdown above from actual vendors, please take their word over the info you got.

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- @Shipific on IG
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