12MAY2018 /21:37 UTC-07 Tango 06 (23 Ordibehesht 1397/27 Sha’ban 1439/28 Ding-Si 4716)
“It is a sad time for the model building community… I have not seen anything ‘official’ from Revell, but It has been confirmed to me by a reliable source that Revell USA has in fact closed their doors.”-UP Scale Hobbies facebook post
Another victim of the so called recovered economy, the end of a long model building era in the United States, Revell USA (Revell-Monogram) is dead!
Starting out in California in 1943, as a subcontractor for plastics manufacturers, its first job reportedly being parts for washing machines, followed by anything relating to HO (1:87) scale train sets. It was known as Precision Specialties.
When the company decided to focus on toys the name was changed to Revell (Wikipedia says it’s from the French word reveille, however Revell is a English/French family name that goes back to medieval times). In the 1950s the focus was originally on model cars, but shifted to U.S. Navy ships, the most infamous being the constantly re-issued and horribly inaccurate USS Missouri. This is humorous because supposedly the USN kits were considered so accurate that the Soviet Union bought Revell kits to learn about U.S. warship development (maybe that’s why the U.S.S.R. was constantly behind in the naval arms race).
Purportedly this crappy kit is what got the ball rollin’ for Revell
The success of Revell’s ship kits led to the company producing kits of almost anything you can think of. However, this didn’t stop Revell from succumbing to the same economic forces as other industries, as I’ve previously explained in 1:72 SHOCK & AWE LOCKHEED F-104 STARFIGHTER, OR, WHY YOU CAN’T TRUST SCALE DRAWINGS! PLUS MASSIVE HISTORICAL CONFUSION ABOUT REVELL-MONOGRAM!
Monogram’s classic 1974 issue Do 335, Monogram was Revell’s biggest U.S. competitor at that time
By 2012, longtime model kit builders thought economic bad times were over for Revell when an employee owned, Illinois based company, called Hobbico bought and merged Revell USA and Revell Germany (GmbH). Wrong again! In January 2018, Hobbico went bankrupt busted and began liquidating its divisions. Immediately, Revell Germany issued a statement saying they were not impacted (“Hobbico’s bankruptcy filing was made in the United States and is strictly limited to the company’s U.S. operations, Revell-Germany is unaffected.”).
For decades (since 1970s) Revell Germany has reissued British Frog kits
Revell USA production was halted in April, even shipments of already packaged kits were stopped. A group of investors called Quantum Capital Partners aus München (for some odd reason many U.S. and British sources are calling the group Blitz GmbH, my source is Revell Germany itself) which bought both Revell Germany and Revell USA.
The month before Revell was sold-off, Revell USA announced the much longed for reissue of the coveted Deal’s Wheels Baja Humbug
According to bankruptcy court documents, on 13APR2018 Quantum Capital Partners of Munich won the rights to Revell with a bid of about $3.9-million USD. Revell USA ceased to exist, Revell Germany will continue as if nothing had happened. I should point out that the $3.9-million was the high bid, apparently there was only one other bidder, it’s just more proof the model kit industry is in decline. Hobbico was hoping for $10-million.
According to a press release by Revell Germany, Deutschland is the new home base for all Revell operations, including ops in North America: “Revell is pleased to partner with Quantum Capital Partners who supports the company in its further international growth. At this point, I would also like to thank all trading and business partners for the Thank you for your confidence during the transition period in recent weeks.”-Stefan Krings, president of Revell Germany
“Revell is a renowned and well-established company and has been an impressive and internationally established successful toy brand. We will build on this strength and the brand with its unique positioning as a model maker….”-Steffen Görig, Quantum Capital Partners
Since its founding in 2008, Quantum Capital Partners (QCP) has taken over several dozens of companies including BASF, Bosch, Deutsche Bahn and even Airbus (even joining with the Islamic Investment Bank to make sure Airbus aircraft are Shariah compliant)!
Classic Hasegawa Voodoo, one of the first jet kits I built in the 1970s
By the way, Hobbico’s demise also affected Japan’s Hasegawa and Italy’s Italeri as Hobbico had become the distributor of those brands in the United States.
Italeri’s old M47 (first released around late 1970s early 80s) is so good that recently Korea’s Academy issued it
FALLING DOWN: U.S. MODEL KIT/RAILROAD HOBBY DEMISE, 2016-17
BLACKLIGHT REVELL DEAL’S WHEELS