ScoobyDoo Posted January 16, 2021 Share Posted January 16, 2021 Reading on other sites I hear anyone who made a CC payment to squadron have been having the transaction just disappear from their transactions. Which is odd but is the same as a refund. Squadron was my regular source of plastic until they changed their business practice and started selling at inflated prices. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Mike Posted January 16, 2021 Share Posted January 16, 2021 Wow. They have been there since I was a teen. I finally got to go to an Eaglequest, and the warehouse sale a couple of years ago; had a lot of fun. Great work on the show tables as well. Sorry to see them go, esp. as the coof seems to have re-energized this hobby. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tnarg Posted January 16, 2021 Share Posted January 16, 2021 For so many years you couldn't get Squadron to stop sending multiple copies of their catalog, then they tried to get you to subscribe and pay for it. The days of reading the paper catalog seem to have passed them by. The same thing has happened to many other smaller hobby shops. Even in these crazy times, it makes sense to see if you can buy something locally to keep a place open to buy paint, glue and supplies. Even the local restaurants are trying to survive with takeout. We just got some great crab sandwiches as they just opened up the season again.... and it was order online and pick up at the restaurant. Those with good service may just survive. Hope and pray this crazy situation gets better soon. Tnarg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thierry laurent Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 To me this is a very sad situation for our US friends. Close to all US model companies disappeared, then many garage ones and many distributors and resellers. Twenty years ago, I typically went to US shops for at least 25% of my purchases in spite of the possible customs fees. The price was ok, the range very large and the service globally ok with a good competition between them: GMW, Roll Models, VLS, Squadron, Victory, etc. They had a lot of products from small producers we could not find easily in the old World. This changed drastically and the era of European garage industry businessmen moving to the US is a thing of the past. Most of the large US webshops disappeared. It looks we Europeans stay the lucky guys in spite of the higher level of taxes we have to pay. The amount of very active producers and good resellers has never been so high. Except for most plastic kits, close to everything is now produced in our internal market. I was even puzzled when I saw that some Chinese kits were now far cheaper in Europe than in the US (Hobby Boss bombers). It looks we now have our Golden age. I'm wondering if the era of cheap price of overseas goodies and the lack of actual import taxes did not have a nasty impact for the US model ecosystem? Too bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeMaben Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 It's not the price of overseas goodies, it's the shipping. I still buy mostly USA for that reason alone. Canada , forget about it . Even US shipping in the US can be 'unreasonable'. firefly7 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thierry laurent Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 Indeed Mike the postal prices are now quite high. In my post I was referring to the beginning of the century. At that time nobody was worrying about carbon energy use and most global private carriers were US companies. MikeMaben 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Confusionreigns178 Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 (edited) Pardon my ignorance, but are these guys a different company to "Squadron / Signal"? Chris. Edited January 18, 2021 by Confusionreigns178 Correcting a typo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thierry laurent Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 16 minutes ago, Confusionreigns178 said: Pardon my ignore, but are these guys a different company to "Squadron / Signal"? Chris. Same company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neo Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 I wonder what this means for black box/ avionics. Arent they they owners of that? On the topic of them closing, i never ordered from them either their sales had nothing in stock until the day after the sale ended where it fealt they found a new full warehouse, or when they did their shipping to canada was by far the most expensive ive ever seen, like i was going to get a blakbox f-18d cockipit it was 45$usd of shipping... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark P Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 A sad situation but a sign of the times. For me, their shipping policy with correspondingly high costs meant that I had not used them for years. I was able to get items quicker and much cheaper from Hannants. So, in my opinion poor business decisions placed them in this situation. Mark Proulx MikeMaben 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oyoy5 Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 Yeah really sad indeed since all modelers in the US have great memories of squadron as a kid. I guess hopefully someone will buy their detail molds such as True details, Avionics etc. and Squadron Signal did some very good walk around series for sure. We are down to one actual model shop and one HobbyTown now in my town of Louisville. Newer Kit prices are so high and shipping is ridiculous soon guess something has to give. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_K2 Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 6 hours ago, thierry laurent said: Same company. Yep, MMD, Squadron mail order and Squadron/Signal (book publishing), were all under one corporate umbrella. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_K2 Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 5 hours ago, Mark P said: A sad situation but a sign of the times. For me, their shipping policy with correspondingly high costs meant that I had not used them for years. I was able to get items quicker and much cheaper from Hannants. So, in my opinion poor business decisions placed them in this situation. Mark Proulx Same here. A blind refusal to use cheaper shipping options (first class, parcel post), meant stupid high prices on shipping small items. Combined with an all too frequent lack of stock, I just slowly drifted away from them, heading more and more toward Sprue, Kitlinx and others. Now Squadron doesn't really enter into my thinking while referencing best prices for stuff, being little more than a distant memory. My recent discovery of Scale Hobbyist (thanks to a member here), adds even another option. Lots of Models is yet another source (at least at times), but he doesn't really stock kits, as such. 5 hours ago, oyoy5 said: Yeah really sad indeed since all modelers in the US have great memories of squadron as a kid. I guess hopefully someone will buy their detail molds such as True details, Avionics etc. and Squadron Signal did some very good walk around series for sure. We are down to one actual model shop and one HobbyTown now in my town of Louisville. Newer Kit prices are so high and shipping is ridiculous soon guess something has to give. The Encore stuff, while not necessarily great, were sometimes pretty cool too. thierry laurent 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_K2 Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 11 hours ago, thierry laurent said: GMW, Roll Models, VLS, Squadron, Victory, etc. They had a lot of products from small producers we could not find easily in the old World. There was quite a period of time when VLS, located just a few miles north of my house, sold anything you wanted at the front desk. They subsequently went to mail order only, then eventually moved somewhere west of here, and continued business for some years. As far as I am aware, they too folded up shop eventually, and are now no more. Some of the Verlindan garbage still gets sold frequently, usually on feepay by independent sellers, as does some of the Letterman stuff, books and whatnot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oyoy5 Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 Lots of models bought a ton of Verlindens molds when they went under. Not sure how good a business decision that was since the resin figures fit I a little tough to be nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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