Steeplecab, you are correct. I am not a Vietnam veteran. I was born in 1963 while John F. Kennedy was president. My wife and I have 4 kids, 2 in college and 2 in high school, all at home.
You are correct about what I know about Essex class ships and where the limited information I know about them comes from - history, veteran accounts, information from subject matter experts and researchers, an intensive study of ship plans and photos, and visits to museum ship Yorktown.
What I know about aftermarket sales comes from personal experience. I'd like to share what I've learned with all of you as it may be similar to what other vendors and model companies have learned.
Modelers tend to buy products and models of subjects that they are emotionally tied to. Model Monkey ship products for Arizona, Hood, Titanic, Bismarck, KGV class, Fletcher class and Iowa class and museum ships sell reasonably well. Products for other ship subjects don't sell as well or at all. Products for model aircraft sell far, far better than products for model ships.
Best Model Monkey sellers are generally products for model aircraft: 1/32 scale Bristol Beaufighter cockpit, 1/24 scale P-51 Mustang wheel wells, and 1/24 and 1/32 scale Supermarine Spitfire exhausts. For ships, Fletcher class 5" mounts sell more than anything else. For superstructures, Arizona 1941 is the best seller, hands down.
Cold War subjects just don't sell. The only Cold War subjects that sell at all are Mk.56 directors and "Frog-eye" 5"/54 mounts. There has not been much interest at all for Cold War islands. For example, except for just 2 islands, none of the Model Monkey Essex class SCB islands or Forrestal class islands offered for sale at the Toms Modelworks table at the IPMS Nationals in Chattanooga or at Telford this year sold. They were returned to me and still sit in a box months later waiting for a buyer. All of the Yorktown CV-5 class islands sent to those shows sold at the shows. No Essex SCB island for Forrestal class island has yet to sell enough of them to pay for the research and time needed to create them. None.
Having said that, I am very grateful for those of you who have purchased or will purchase an Essex SCB or Forrestal island. Thank you!
There appears to be three critical issues regarding producing a sellable model: 1) authoritative reference availability, 2) market interest, and 3) there has to be a popular injection-molded plastic kit to put the aftermarket model on without the modeler having to do much scratch-building.
References. Subjects offered in the Model Monkey catalog are often limited by what can be researched. That's why you see the specific Essex and Forrestal islands that you do, and not others. Ideally, to produce an accurate island, 5-view drawings and photos are needed capturing the appearance of the island within a short time period. As you all know, islands changed appearance often and conspicuously. So, the drawings and photos need to show the ship at about the same time. Without sufficient authoritative references of the subject made at the same time, a reasonably accurate model cannot be designed. If the ship exists today as a museum ship, it is simply far easier to research its features, as Admhawk stated. The existence of the subject makes 1970-ish Intrepid, Yorktown, Lexington and Hornet good research subjects. Bennington, not so much. Mark is also correct in pointing out that even if the subject exists, mistakes in designing a model of it can still be made. With that in mind, models of non-existent subjects are certain to have mistakes.
Market interest. Like all Cold War subjects, SCB Essex islands for all ships of the class remain among my worst sellers. They are among the most difficult products to research and design. They are geometrically very complex objects, each one takes weeks to complete. Then, they don't sell, which is a time and financial loss for me and my family. Of those that do sell, it is the museum ships that customers seem to want most. This tends to indicate that modelers having a very personal, hands-on experience with a subject drives market interest. There is far less demand for products for sisterships that no longer exist, can be seen, felt, and walked on.
Veteran market. Obviously, a ship veteran can be emotionally attached to his or her ship. This, however, can actually spoil sales. Potential SCB Essex veterans/SCB island customers have repeatedly told me that if I could not produce the SCB island of the ship that veteran served on exactly as it appeared precisely during the time he served aboard will not buy an island from me. No other island will do. Unfortunately, that kind of bespoke project with no other sales potential is too costly to produce so I must decline. When I decline to research and produce that specific island for that one modeler's one model ship at precisely one moment in time, that potential customer follows through on his threat and does not buy an island at all. This has happened several times. This repeated experience indicates that, generally, Essex SCB veterans are not really interested in buying a model of their ship per se, they seem to be only interested in buying a model of their ship only if that model represents the ship at exactly the moment they served on it. That kind of subject is too specific appealing to too small a market to generate enough market interest to pay for the research and design effort needed to produce it.
With Essex SCB veterans generally not buying, and other potential customers not buying either, the SCB island market is not big enough to sustain more efforts to research and design more Cold War-era islands. A market with no buyers is not a market.
The need for a popular injection-molded plastic kit to put the aftermarket model on without the modeler having to do much scratch-building. On "the other site" last week, a modeler interested in building USS Hornet CVS-12 in 1/350 scale, asked how much work modifying the Gallery Models Intrepid kit would be needed to make an accurate Hornet. Respondents said a lot of work would be needed including changing the shape of the hull and moving an elevator. The modeler then said thanks and said that he would abandon the project based on the "lot of work" responses. Obviously, he will not be buying a Model Monkey Hornet island. One wonders if he decided not to buy the Gallery Intrepid kit, too. If so, that means that Gallery, a distributor, a hobby shop or other seller, and I lost a potential sale by an interested modeler. That conversation is very typical.
Sales for Model Monkey products for conversions are among my worst sellers. Modelers tend to buy direct replacements of inaccurate kit parts, not conversion parts. It also explains the reluctance of SCB Essex veterans to buy a similar island to the one they really want, and modify it to be the one they really want. Modification or scratchbuilding need is sales kryptonite.
The only islands that have generated enough interest to have paid for the work needed to design them are Lexington CV-2 class (specifically Lex at Coral Sea) and all of the Yorktown CV-5 class ships, in their Midway appearance. I now sell, perhaps, 1 of those per month. That's all, despite TWO Midway movies released this past year. One would think the movies, whatever their quality, would have improved sales. The movies have not improved sales of Yorktown class islands. It should be noted that customers of the Yorktown class islands are not known to be veterans of any of the ships, just very interested modelers.
Now, to address another issue brought up in the Steeplecab post, his presumption that I never served on a warship of any kind, anywhere, ever is correct. But I am a veteran.
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