Small Scale Military Headquarters

21C Limited Edition 32X "Extreme Wings" aircraft......I found very limited numbers of these on the shelf at two local Wamart stores in the following flavors, A6M3 Zero type 22 Tainan AG Rabaul 1942, P51D Ridge Runner III 335th FS Maj. Mckennon, Me109E4, Macchi Veltro tan/green camo with German markings, Macchi Folgore camo, may have been others but I did not have time to do a more thorough recon, the box labels said "Limited to 5000 pieces" or something like that. What do you guys think, are these worth squirreling away a few?? They run about $18 a copy including tax. Comments??

Just go ahead and get one (ir more) of each, like the rest of us.. and be careful,- there just as addictive as the 1/18th.

18.00???? I thought they were 14.96 plus tax..for those concerned about irrelevent details.

18.00???? I thought they were 14.96 plus tax

DOH! You are right....just looked at my receipt, and with tax they come to $15.71, sorry about the brain fog, Still, the 32X AC I see at various online retailers go for about $22 ea. not including shipping, so $16 (or thereabouts) each seems like a pretty good deal to me, but what I am really curious about is the "Limited Edition" thing, is there anything to it, or is it just smoke and mirrors, ie. a marketing tactic??

well, it is a bit of a marketing tactic but 5000 of one particular paint scheme is a lot. It's not 5000 Macchis that have been made but 5000 of a particular paint scheme on a Macchi that have been made. If you're thinking of getting a bunch to make a profit off of one day you may have a long wait. And there's no guarantee that the limited paint schemes will be in any particular demand down the road.

As always with this hobby, buy what you want for enjoyment and if you end up being able to make some profit from it one day, so be it.

If you're thinking of getting a bunch to make a profit off of one day you may have a long wait.

Oh no, absolutely not. I mean not in the sense of going out and buying like ten or fifteen of the things, no way Jose. On the other hand, I could see myself buying two (or three at most), keeping one for personal use, and salting the other one or two away for a rainy day. When you look at the prices some of the out of production 21C stuff is going for on e-bay these days, you could probably make out pretty good on a lot of this stuff by having two or so examples of each. I dunno, I am kind of new to this game, and it always arouses my curiosity when I see these terms like "Limited Edition" and "Special Edition" etc. not that I am neccessarily looking to make a killing or anything like that, but I am a collector of other things besides models, coins for example, and I can tell you for sure that limited mintings can add a real premium to certain items down the road.

probably just a distribution thing. I've seen other posts where there were lots of zeros at a WM but few if any Macchi's to be found.

Exactly a distribution thing. You there in Michigan are past that invisible divide which according to Wal Mart determins who gets what. In my area in California, we got two A6M3s and a Macchi. In your area, you got two Macchis and one type of Zero. It may be fair to say that you have the Macchi paintscheme I desire and I have the Zero scheme you desire. In my opinion, it would have made more sense to ship one of each plane type in each case of six.

In my opinion, it would have made more sense to ship one of each plane type in each case of six.

Problem with that is one collector cleans out an entire WM in one trip. He can get all 6 planes at once, leaving none behind. I bet it's also a bigger pain to pack cases with more variety, but that's a guess.

..And I'm sure WM likes that to get different birds you need to hit every WM conceivable..

Collectibility is a funny thing. The stuff that is sold as collectible is so, in the sense that it usually is part of a larger set that one must aquire to have the whole collection. Is that what makes them more valuable down the road? Depending on the piece, a couple years may make a big difference. I try not to rationalize my mulitple purchases with the idea of selling them for more money in the future. They are cheap and nice models. I buy them for my son too. Someday when he is grown and recalls having a Zero and a Mustang, long since gone, he may look to buy a couple. That is where your collector`s market will come into being. It is the idea of them being "cheap toys" that will make them colletible in the future. Many Me109s will have to go to the trash dump to make the one in your closet valuable. Look at the Hess trucks for example. The early ones that were bought as gifts for little kids to play with, break and toss away are the valuable ones. The later trucks that adults lined up in Hess marts to buy mulitple of, are really not great collectibles since too many survived. I was glad to see Hess kill the collectible market for their trucks buy tripling the production runs a few years back.

The hard part of collecting the 32x planes doesnt seem to be limited production numbers but rather limited distribution. While I have resorted to sending away to get some planes that have not been available in my area, they are not really rare, just not available at my local WM. That doesnt constitute being a rare collectible as large numbers of available planes are located elsewhere...

TJ

I'm with aferg on this. Buy the ones you like and don't worry too much with future value. The planes are nice for the money and since they are reasonable you might buy two just to have a backup copy incase your 4 year old son sends one sailing down the stairs or something like that.
Todd