wdolson
Posts: 10398
Joined: 6/28/2006 From: Near Portland, OR Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: m10bob FWIW Revell quality went downhill in the 70's after the acquisiton/merger with Testors paints. The original Buffalo they released in approx 1965-66 was "dead-on" except they were still making rivets the size of scale cantaloupes. Revell and Testors are separate companies and always were. Testors is a division of RPM, which makes a lot of chemicals for the painting industry. Revell was a stand alone company until the early 80s when they were briefly owned by CEJI. They became independent again, then merged with Monogram in 1985. The management of the new company was mostly Revell's, but the facilities were mostly Monogram's. Revell was sitting on some very valuable real estate in Venice, CA and Monogram owned a lot of acreage in semi-rural Illinois. The Monogram plant was also much newer. Since the Revell-Monogram merger, the company has had a lot of owners. Some owners have put effort into developing new kits, while others have let the company languish. Hallmark owned the company from the mid-90s up until a year or two ago and they were probably the worst owners. In the early to mid 90s RM did come out with some very nice kits. In aircraft they came out with several all new 1/48 scale kits: a Ju-52, an A-26, a PBY, a new SB2C, a Do-217, and a few others. The Do-217 came out after Hallmark took them over, but I believe it was well along when they bought the company. The company has new owners again and there are rumors that some of the old kits will be retooled to bring them up to modern standards. Revell's quality from the 50s through the 70s was fairly consistent. In the 50s and most of the 60s, it was quite good compared to the competition. In the 70s, they began to look old and tired because the competition had improved. The Japanese started producting much better kits in the 70s and Monogram started releasing super detailed 1/48 scale kits. As time went on, the Japanese kept improving their kits and Revell didn't. Today, Revell Germany (which is a separate company) is a major player with many new, modern kits mixed in with re-releases of old kits from Monogram, Revell US, and even Matchbox. Revell-Monogram hasn't produced many new kits in a while, but what they have produced have been in the same league with the other better brands. Bill
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WitP AE - Test team lead, programmer
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