tomytec vehicle collections sputtering

[cteno4]

I wonder where the tomytec vehicle collections are going. the big collection sets have been sputtering out in the last year on their release cycle. over the last couple of years or so the car collections went from one every 3-4 months to now last was 9 months. granted it was a fast cycle, but they seemed to be selling out with the limited collectors system they had. they seem to be now focusing on releasing the small "know quantity" rereleases of stuff from the sets, but not much new this year. I am hoping its just the economic stagnation and not a major move to not release much in the way of new stuff but focus on mining the old moulds for rerelease potential.

 

while i totally understand that they need to make money and this is probably the best way in this economy (reuse of stuff in hand and smaller, more inexpensive sets for the market to buy on a limited budget) i worry that the variety will peter out.

 

I do miss the old days with a new vehicle set coming out every couple of months, there were three cars to a box, and the old yen where the prices were cheap in dollars to get them! I guess i should count myself lucky to have gotten a big hoard of vehicles when they were cheap and plentiful!

 

car collection

 

12R   Mar. Late, 2012      9 months

14     Jun. Late, 2011      4

13     Mid Feb., 2011        3

12     Nov. Late, 2010      3

11     Aug. Mid, 2010        3

10     May. Late, 2010      3

09     Feb. Late, 2010       4

08     Oct. Late, 2009       3

07     Jun. Late, 2009       9

06     Sept. Late, 2008     7

05     Jan. Late, 2008      2

04     Nov. Late, 2007     3

03     Jul. Late, 2006      4

02     Mar. Late, 2005     5

01     Oct. Late, 2004

 

jeff

[Densha]

I guess i should count myself lucky to have gotten a big hoard of vehicles when they were cheap and plentiful!

Oh yes you are. Maybe you noticed Greenmax is repacking their kits and selling them for a higher price as well. I'm thinking about getting myself some stuff like Unitrack (which is getting also more expensive at the local webshop) and other (also model train unrelated) things that I will need soon, like a new camera. There's a chance for the general consumer tax in the Netherlands the rise as well, so I need to strike before the government strikes.

 

But wouldn't you have enough cars at a certain moment? Maybe there aren't much people who buy the vehicle collection anymore or something?

[jappomania]

Jeff, don't forget also bus, truck, trailer, working vehicles collection.......

[Guest ___]

I understand that TOMY has to pay for the rights to produce models of the prototypes, so maybe they are running lean these days as far as licensing rights go, or perhaps, they are not making much of an ROI on producing the car collections. It is also possible that those rising licensing fees in recent years has made the ROI less attractive to TOMY.

[cteno4]

Yep licensing also plays into the cost like the moulds do, probably per use, so im guessing the reissues of smaller sets and what not are covered under the initial run license. im sure they have this worked out on their ROI and perhaps it was to run up a bunch of collections with the big up front costs of moulds and licenses and then back off once a large pile was created and work on the smaller reissue packages. Im just wondering if the whole big series collection thing is waning some in japan, maybe because of the economy.

 

I started to think about the whole tomytec line and such and what the actual rate of things coming out was vs just my perception so i laid it out quickly in a table. the number is the number of each collection in the series. numbers in the blue line and above for a collection are the new releases and the ones below are the re-release versions, usually with just colors changed.

 

interesting to see that all the big collections have tapered off in the last year or so. perhaps just too much investment to do a big collection or maybe that was the plan and now its into the mining the collections for the individual or small set sales.

 

building collection is the only one staying strong in the current year in both new and re-releases, other individual and small sets are decreasing some the last year or so.

 

jeff

[JR 500系]

AAahhh Thanks Jeff for coming up with this... This question has been on my mind for a long time now...

 

Sadly, i'm one of the guys who are suffering from the declining quantity of Tomytec car collections... And having to pay high premium prices for these beautiful cars... Making a simple search on ebay and one can find heavily marked-up prices of just a box of 2-cars, even more so for highly sought after or 'special' cars that are found in a carton... It's just so so difficult to find a box of cars now to populate the streets... I was so lucky to have grabbed the last box of Car collection 6 from Bigman Izu...

 

However, a search on Japan Auctions proved otherwise. There are plently of car collections from various series up for grabs, but the shipping and service charges just couldnt account for them... If i were in Japan, things would be so much otherwise...

[Densha]

I don't get why Tomytec doesn't re-release more stuff in that case. I guess they also made so many different models that they there's so much choice it doesn't make a lot sense to make more new models, or something like that. Re-releasing only costs material I think.

[cteno4]

yes they may have flooded the market with too much of a selection! even though they save a lot on the start up costs to do re-releases, its still a chunk of change to do a production run. one benefit tomytec has is tomy is a big toy producer so probably has a lot of production muscle in china and they are hungry right now for work!

 

but even if the do get it done cheap they have the inventory and distribution to deal with. from what bill has schooled me on with japanese inventory it can easily get passed back the chain so tomy might have to deal with a lot of excess stock then (and a myriad of it) which i also take the japanese supply chain does not like (hey they brought us just in time inventory production!)

 

outside the larger selection in the vehicle collections at least a lot of the tomytec stuff is still available most of the time for modelers, if they continued with the collector only way it would have been a pain to get into the hobby!

 

I do agree they could mine the vehicle collections more for some more vehicle variety, think thats something folks always will need more of. wonder if the chinese architectural cars hit them hard? we had a bunch out on a couple of the ttrak modules at the obon festival the other weekend and i really did not notice them sticking out at all from the tomytec cars even when concentrated!

 

jeff

[cteno4]

well 6 months later and it still looks like even a greater pause in the vehicle production. pretty much nothing new in the last year to year and a half, all re-release or smaller 1-4 vehicle sets or re-releases. 

 

wonder if they just flooded the market, but the larger sets are pretty much oos these days everywhere and the small sets dont have the full variety in them. construction vehicles also have stopped except for a few single re-releases.

 

maybe just getting some pent up demand hopefully.

 

jeff

[JR 500系]

HHhmmm indeed Jeff. But i'm quite happy with the Tomytec Car collection 15 as it is a combination of the long gone yet highly sought after collection 8 and 10, the mini-vans and luxury cars collections. The 6, 14 and 12R are quiite, in a sence, 'common', and it's hard to find luxury cars like the Nissan Cefiro and Toyota Crown that collection 10 used to offer. 6 is compact cars, 14 is minicars and 12R, that's a rip-off from the original 12 which actually has more common cars.

 

Looking forward to 16 perhaps, with more vans to dis-allow monopoly of Kato's vans, and MUCH LESSER emergency vehicles like police, ambulances & fire department. Goes the same for Lego, WAY too much emphasis on emergency vehicles...

[cteno4]

just noticed again how the whole tomytec vehicle collection has slowed even more. only movement seems to be specialized bus sets and the smaller packs of previously released vehicles. wonder if they have totally saturated the market or just harder times for selling stuff like this. Gotta figure there are always a pretty good crop of newbies coming in that will want this stuff and most is not kept in production for long at all except the new small packs with a narrower selection. perhaps the collector market has run out on these and its back to mainly the model rr folks.

 

jeff

[Mudkip Orange]

Everything they produce gets the release date delayed once or twice. The railway collection for the most recent Watarase Keikoku DMU was delayed twice for about 7 weeks total, and the Tsurumi Line 200-something still hasn't been released, at this point it's the only thing holding up a five hundred dollar order from Ms. Ahn.