Donner und Blitzen!

[Clitheroekid]

In one of my rare viewings of live TV recently I saw an ad for a Spitfire kit, which is apparently delivered in weekly instalments - https://www.spitfiremodel.com/

It seemed an odd and cumbersome way of delivering the kit, but I used to enjoy building model aircraft when I was a kid, and it looks like a good quality model, so in a mildly nostalgic mood I was quite tempted - until I worked out the price!

So how much would you think for a decent quality kit of a Spitfire? £50? £100?

How about £1,200!

They lure you in with an initial payment of just £1.99 for week 1, then just £5.99 for week two, rising to £9.99 for subsequent weeks. It took a bit of digging to find out how many subsequent weeks there are, and it turns out to be 118

As nobody with more than a single brain cell would spend one tenth of that amount on a model plane that doesn't even fly I can only assume they're hoping that people will just sign up without realising it's a two year commitment, and that if / when they do find out they'll by then be too committed to abandon it.

It's hard to believe that anyone would actually sign up for this, but there are evidently enough stupid people around to finance a TV advertising campaign.

[XFool]

In one of my rare viewings of live TV recently I saw an ad for a Spitfire kit, which is apparently delivered in weekly instalments - https://www.spitfiremodel.com/

It seemed an odd and cumbersome way of delivering the kit, but I used to enjoy building model aircraft when I was a kid, and it looks like a good quality model, so in a mildly nostalgic mood I was quite tempted - until I worked out the price!

So how much would you think for a decent quality kit of a Spitfire? £50? £100?

How about £1,200!

They lure you in with an initial payment of just £1.99 for week 1, then just £5.99 for week two, rising to £9.99 for subsequent weeks. It took a bit of digging to find out how many subsequent weeks there are, and it turns out to be 118

As nobody with more than a single brain cell would spend one tenth of that amount on a model plane that doesn't even fly I can only assume they're hoping that people will just sign up without realising it's a two year commitment, and that if / when they do find out they'll by then be too committed to abandon it.

It's hard to believe that anyone would actually sign up for this, but there are evidently enough stupid people around to finance a TV advertising campaign.

Aimed at the, err... 'Brexit Market'?

I'll get me coat.

[JohnB]

I googled, and found another Spitfilre kit, £28 a month for 32 months, but they were upfront about the £800 cost
https://www.model-space.com/gb/build-the-spitfire.html

I guess part of the attraction is the delayed gratification of doing a bit each month, but the website is full of £800-1000 one-off kits, so that's how much it is.

Mind you, flying for 30 minutes in a Spitfire is £2750, and I know someone who was happy to do that who I otherwise regard as sane.

[staffordian]

This is just the latest in a whole string of similar rip offs.

I recall similar ads for a warship, a car of some sort and several earlier ones the details of which escape me.

All the ads give you the ongoing magazine prices and number of issues involved and they all work out at high three or low four figure sums.

Which makes me wonder if anyone has ever actually bought the lot and completed the model. I can't help thinking that their sales figures must tail off to almost zero well before the end of the run.

I suppose the publishers must make enough from the early sales to ensure enough profit.

But every time I see these adverts I can't help wondering what sort of mug is taken in by them.

[servodude]

how much does a magazine without a piece of plastic tat attached cost?
- I might occasionally pick one up when I'm waiting for a flight; and I'm always amazed at how expensive they seem

- sd

[UncleEbenezer]

how much does a magazine without a piece of plastic tat attached cost?
- I might occasionally pick one up when I'm waiting for a flight; and I'm always amazed at how expensive they seem

- sd

Mags are much better value per issue if you subscribe. An annual up-front payment for weekly deliveries seems kind-of the opposite to a hook-a-sucker (or pester-power) ripoff.

[JohnB]

Partworks are always poor value compared with a book, but they appeal to different aspects of psychology, collecting, delayed gratification and ritual. That trip to the shop, settling down with a cup of tea and the sorting of the growing pile of magazines is key. But the model partwork has the extra hook that 3/4 of a Spitfire is useless, while a History of WWII up to D-Day has some use.

If you want a model spitfire, it would be rational to pay for the completed kit assembled in a third world sweatshop, but that misses the point of the hobby.

[bungeejumper]

It's a very old scam, I mean, err, a very old piece of deception, and it nearly always starts on 1st January. You get the first three issues of the magazine for £1.99 (in the OP's case), and then it becomes £9.99, as also described, and only then do then they tell you that you're going to have to buy 118 issues.

But the model partwork has the extra hook that 3/4 of a Spitfire is useless

I think this what economists mean by "sunk costs". Having already shelled out £500, the poor sucker isn't going to let the remaining £500 get in his way, because the alternative would be to have to admit to his friends and family what a truly stupid thing he's done. It's him that's sunk.

But as JohnB says, it keeps him busy, and there's a certain James May pleasure in doing something slowly and to a high degree of perfection. Back in the fifties and sixties, before everybody had television, grown men would build quite large models of wooden ships in their spare bedrooms, taking enormous care to get the rigging on the Cutty Sark exactly right. Their wives didn't mock them - quite the opposite, in fact, because it kept their hands busy in the evenings, and they'd got enough kids already.

BJ

[redsturgeon]

These days if you want to keep yourself busy with something, I discovered yesterday that it could be quite lucrative.

viewtopic.php?f=39&t=21837

Don't make model aircraft, fix iphones instead...I reckon about £50-£100 per hour is the going rate!

John

[AleisterCrowley]

want a Spitfire kit ? £50 from Airfix for a 1:24 (big) jobbie
https://www.airfix.com/uk-en/shop/aircr ... -mk1a.html
1:72 under a tenner

[staffordian]

want a Spitfire kit ? £50 from Airfix for a 1:24 (big) jobbie
https://www.airfix.com/uk-en/shop/aircr ... -mk1a.html
1:72 under a tenner

All you need to do is buy this, then post bits of it to yourself every week and you've saved a fortune

[bungeejumper]

Which reminds me, I once worked with somebody who'd been a salesman for something that was called Franklin Mint. But who was now trying to go straight and lead an honest life so that he could finally make his mother proud.

If the name Franklin Mint rings a distant bell, it defines your age group. For most of the 1980s, the Sunday paper magazines were full of glossy ads for the limited-edition Lincoln Memorial Medallion series (£25 a month until you died of boredom), or the Martin Luther King porcelain tea plate collection, or the Ultimate Edwardian China Dolls series. (I may have made some of those up. I did not, however, make up the limited-edition collectable Princess Diana Tribute dolls that came out before the lady was even cold in the ground, and which annoyed Her Maj more than somewhat.)

These were all totally bogus "collectibles", designed to lock unwary punters into standing-order payments that would batter their bank balances for many years, while giving them something nice to hang on their chalet-style teak veneer bookshelves beside the photos of Noel Edmonds. And the guarantee that, when you'd bought the whole subscription series, you'd have a family heirloom, or at least something of considerable saleroom value.

As any fule kno, the one thing that's obvious about priceless collectibles is that you can't know in advance which things are going to be actually collectible, and you certainly can't pre-build collectability into your tacky merchandise unless you're Andy Warhol. And if anyone tells you otherwise they're having you on. The salerooms are full of this shite, which cost its lucky buyers £400 a go and is now worth £15, or more probably 15p.

Still, it proved to be a valuable learning curve for a boomer generation that ought to have known better. As for my colleague from Franklin Mint, the last I heard of him, he was selling timeshares on Tenerife.

BJ

[JohnB]

Do you mean you're not getting their 2020 Donald Trump collection? https://www.franklinmint.com/store/
Not sure they are operating in the UK now, but there is always the Danbury Mint. https://www.danburymint.co.uk/

[swill453]

Danbury Mint is, I think, the UK equivalent. Still flogging a dead princess https://www.danburymint.co.uk/product/p ... memorative

Scott.

[bungeejumper]

Do you mean you're not getting their 2020 Donald Trump collection? https://www.franklinmint.com/store/

Naah, I'm more attracted to the “Widow’s Mite” [which] is a genuine 2,000-year-old coin that was used in the Holy Land at the time of Jesus and is mentioned in the Bible. Due to its connection to Jesus and the Bible, it is one of the most famous ancient coins."

Why, this coin "may even have been held by Jesus himself". (Yes, it really does say that.) And it can be mine for only $29.99. https://www.franklinmint.com/product/Z1 ... te?cp=null. Praise the lawd and pass the opiates.

BJ

[AleisterCrowley]

Viz 'comic' did some great parodies of Franklin Mint and similar

http://viz.co.uk/2014/10/07/elvis-presl ... tankhamun/
http://viz.co.uk/2016/03/15/vermin-mint-bourbonhenge/