EDUARD:NEWS IN MARCH March 1st, 2002

PHOTOETCHOur new painted seatbelts sets have become a real best seller. The painted quarterscale USAF and Luftwaffe seatbelts have sold more than any other photoetch setwe have produced. Although we still have no feedback or even a magazinereview about this new line, this is the best way of finding out if a new line isaccepted. However, such a success does some trouble with production set-up ofnew releases, and we have to think of how to enlarge the production line to beable to bring out new sets faster. This means that we have to buy some newmachines and not acquire people to paint the sets with extra fine brushes!How will we continue this line? There are still quite a few seatbelts sets we havenot done yet, we still do not have any modern or WW I seatbelts, and we havevery few WW II seatbelts in other scales than 1/48th. In April you can expect1/72nd scale sets of Luftwaffe and USAF seatbelts and also a painted detail set forthe 1/72nd scale A6M5 Zero and 1/48th scale Ki-43 Oscar (both are Hasegawa).The set for the new Hasegawa 1/48th scale AH-64 Apache is now available.It is true that we release 1/72nd scale sets really slow. In fact, when this “colour”

project was prepared, we didn’t expect to do 1/72nd scale sets for all the troubles connected with the fine details.Thanks to advanced research, we reached a technological level that allows us to paint very fine details.Productivity is lower than that with 1/48th scale sets and, unfortunately, 1/72nd scale sets are less sellable than1/48th scale sets. Due to this, the price level is relatively higher for 1/72nd painted sets.Every month the most important and the most awaited new products from us are sets for new kits. Together withthe previously mentioned AH-64 set, we also have two sets in the classic black line. The first one is a big set forthe new Hasegawa Bf 109G-6 in 1/32nd scale. The kit looks fine, and I guess it will be a pleasure to add manyfine details. The same is possible to say about the second set, Tamiya’s 1/72nd scale George. Get a perfect model;add plenty of super details andwin!For other new releases I wouldlike you to see the landing flapsset for Hasegawa 1/48th scaleSpitfire Mk.IX and in 1/35th

scale AFV’s sets, there arethree very interesting sets forreissued Tamiya kits. TheM3A2 Half-track, M-42 Dusterand Sd.Kfz.124 Wespe. TheAcademy M-113 Zelda is nice,but when our perforated armourshields are added, the kits lookgreat. See the pictures on theweb site!

PLASTIC KITSWe were very interested to seewhat new kits would bedisplayed at the Nurnberg ToyFair this year. Thanks to somerumours, we were lookingforward to see a new quarterscale Firefly. We heard a lotabout it and when it wascommented that the kit wasdone by persons who done ourAiracobra, it became even moreinteresting, especially when thisis not true. When it wasannounced the kit is crafted atthe top level achieved in ourcountry, it was really, really

very interesting, especially when we know who crafted this kit. Many people understand the publicity aroundthis Firefly and that we are somehow connected with this kit and that it must be at least on our quality level. Thisis not true. We have no connection with this Firefly, we didn’t provide any service for it (except photoetch,ordered through a third company, which is strange) and we are sure no person who designed our P-39 everdesigned something for this Firefly, which can be clearly seen when the box is opened. I must say, that thepublicity for Firefly was very clever, but in our mind it is unfair. OK, let’s let it be.

Have a look at our March releases. There are more kits than usual. Wehave three new releases this month. The first one is the Bf-108 inpopular ProfiPACK version. Together with the photoetch and masksheets, this kit contains four marking options. The first one is aLuftwaffe green-green DB+KY of the IV/JG 51. The second one is aGerman civil D-IDBT used by the German embassy in London in1939and the third one is a Croatian aircraft with German markings andcamouflage BD+JG. The last one is a Hungarian G.3+55 with late warcamouflage. The photoetch set for the Bf-108 should be released in

April.The second kit is a new 1/48th scale Albatros D.V. Of course, you cansay this is not a new kit, it is just the old one that we released a couple ofyears ago. No, don’t worry. This is a completely new kit, completelyredesigned and newly moulded. The original kit was Eduard’s mostsuccessful WW I kit a real best seller. The Albatros D.V was the first kitthat started us on our path from the old short-run kits to the new standardmain stream production. This kit was very popular but it was still oldproduction and it hurt the image of our new line, which was a goodreason to stop the production and re-do the kit. You can see the result

now. The first Albatros D.V release is the standard kit, without anyphotoetch, but with express mask included, and with three interestingmarking options. All these markings are with green/mauve camouflagedupper surfaces (or green/brown, just God and Ray Rimmel know). TheProfiPACK version, to be released next month, will contain four highlyinteresting lozenge markings, which should be more fun for all WW Ifans!The third new kit is not a kit but it is the next release in the model padline. This one is a large size (30x40 cm) PSP model pad.

GAVIAIf any model reaches to the top of Czech quality, it is Gavia. Gavia usesmany of our techniques and also employs our tooling, the quality is verygood. Right now, Gavia is finishing their first 2002 release, a 1/48th scaleLa-7. We have a test shot here, and the kit looks great, with more finedetails than you would expect. I think it should be very interesting tocompare this La-7 with the Academy kit, which will be released soon.

GUN BARRELSWhen we did the marketing research concerning the possible productionof milled gun barrels, most people said that it is not very interesting.Even when they saw the samples, they thought that there are to manysimilar products on the market and that one more would not be able tosell successfully. Even after that, we decided to produce our type ofbarrels. However we remembered the market research result so we set-up just a limited edition. We expected to sell this first batch in sixmonths or more. Nobody expected that it would be sold out during thefirst week after release, but it happened! Quite good result for such “un-

sellable” one. In March we release a barrel for Tamiya’s Tiger II. We have two versions for this kit, 34003 is abasic version and coming soon is 37017 which is a highly detailed version.

That‘s all for today. I hope you aren‘t bored. When you want to meet us personally, we’ll be in Antwerp on the16th of this month.

V.Šulc

NEW RELEASES IN MARCH 2002

PLASTIC KITS 1/488053 Messerschmitt Bf 108 B ProfiPACK 34,998109 Albatros D.V 22,998804 Model pad – PSP 300x400 mm 11,99

PHOTOETCH 1/700 – SHIPS17 017 Shinano (Tamiya) 19,99

PHOTOETCH 1/3535 431 M-60A1 Patton (Tamiya 35120) 19,9935 438 M-113 IDF Zelda Armour shields (Academy) 22,9935 439 M-35A1 Gun Truck (AFV) 19,9935 440 M-48A3 Patton (Tamiya 35120) 19,9935 444 Quad Gun tractor (Tamiya 35045) 19,9935 446 M-7 Priest (Italeri) 22,9935 447 M-3A2 Halftrack (Tamiya 35070) 19,9935 449 M-42 Duster (Tamiya 35161) 22,9935 450 Sd.Kfz.124 Wespe (Tamiya 35200) 19,99

PHOTOETCH 1/7272 377 N1K1-Ja type 11 George (Tamiya) 11,9972 379 Tornado F.Mk.3 (Hasegawa) 19,99

PHOTOETCH 1/4848 388 Spitfire Mk.IX flaps (Hasegawa) 14,9948 389 F-14D Super Tomcat (Hasegawa) 19,99

PRE-PAINTED PHOTOETCH 1/4849 201 AH-64D Apache (Hasegawa) 19,99

PHOTOETCH 1/3232 070 Bf 109G-6 (Hasegawa) 19,99

PRE-PAINTED PHOTOETCH 1/3232 068 Seatbelts IJN 8,9932 069 Seatbelts IJA 8,99

PHOTOETCH ZOOM 1/48FE 161 F-14D Super Tomcat (Hasegawa) 5,99

PHOTOETCH ZOOM 1/48 - ColourFE 201 AH-64D Apache (Hasegawa) 5,99

PHOTOETCH ZOOM 1/72SS 180 Spitfire Mk.IX (Hasegawa) 3,99

EXPRESS MASK 1/48XF 154 AH-64D Apache (Hasegawa) 4,99XF 156 Ki-43-II Oscar (Hasegawa) 2,99XF 157 Spitfire Mk.VIII/IX (Hasegawa) 2,99XF 163 Su-22 (KP) 3,99XF 164 S-3 Viking (AMT) 4,99

EXPRESS MASK 1/72XS 157 UH-1B Iroquis (Italeri) 3,99XS 158 SR-71 (Academy) 2,99XS 163 P-51D (Hasegawa) 2,99XS 166 P-40N (Hasegawa) 2,99XS 168 P-40E (Hasegawa) 2,99XS 171 F-86F (Academy) 2,99XS 175 P-51D (Academy) 2,99XS 176 F-15D (Academy) 3,99

TANK BARRELS 1/3534 003 Pz.VI King Tiger 11,99