Great release, original concept but questionable marketing in my opinion.
Hypothetical concept: One or more “trusted customers” buy it then at some point down the line decide they’re not going to paint it after all, so sell it on eBay. Could end up anywhere.
I get the thinking behind it but if every producer went down that road, they would never gain any new customers and the hobby would soon end up every bit as dead as some fear it could be due to recasters. It’s also a bit insulting, frankly. No different to going into a shop and being told that they won’t serve you because you’re not a long term or “trusted” customer. Anyone did that with me, my immediate response would be to tell them to do one and I’d never go back. Even if I’d bought from there before and liked what they were selling.
- Steve
An unusual business model as you say Steve but ultimately, his business, his decision. I do wonder however what the mechanism is for getting 'onto the list' and inner sanctum and also, what is 'Plan B' for when his current 50 x 'band of brothers' start to die off or, even possibly at sometime in the future abandons the hobby due to family/health/economic reasons etc. or even, a simple change in era and genre of interest for the modeller(s). Is there a waiting list to join on a one in - one out basis and how do you get onto said list...? Is it by invitation only..?
Also, are there 50 people out there who will buy each and every single piece produced irrespective of subject, pose, number of figures, scale, cost etc...?
This is taking fear of recasting to another level and I think other manufactures have already all but negated loss and risk to them by adapting to the real and not an ideal world environment by having limited runs of figures (available to all) so they recoup their investment, make a return and profit that they are content with and then if the re-casters later get hold of the piece, then business damage is kept to a bare minimum. The other sound tactic as well of course is to sell figures in quick limited runs and at a price which means any saving (if any) is all but negligible if you buy a poor recast figure from the criminals.
One excellent UK manufacturer I can think of is very savvy and pragmatic in this respect and appears to have all but eliminated the re-caster risk to his business.
I don't paint WW2 Germans/ US so this is of no consequence to me and Jeff himself will have to decide if this revision of his business model works or not.
Either way, he is a talent so his work will hopefully always be in demand to those with an interest in that genre. I wish him well.
Gary