What are people's opinions on the Zvezda 1/72 JU88 kits?

The reason I ask is that we stock them but there seems to be hardly any interest in them. Now I've read reviews of them, looked at both kits and I've even started building my own JU88G-6 and so far they look good to me. I know of the tail issue with the G and I have the Quickboost tail fin to correct mine. I also have the Hasegawa JU88A-4 in my own stash and on comparason, the Zvezda kit looks a bargain to me, maybe not quite as good but it's only half the price and better than other JU88 kits.

Does anyone else have any opinions on this?

thanks
Mike

I think the Zvezda kits are exceptional value, and in my opinion only fail in one area compared to the Hasegawa kits- the clear parts. I much prefer Hasegawa style clear bits. But at the Zvezda price i'd buy them every time.

I think there's a couple of problems why people are not buying them. Locally the reason is they are simply not available. For some reason all Zvezda and new ICM kits have completely disapeared where i am...no sign of the 1/48 Bf109F series, no Pe-8's or Ju88's. And no ICM Laggs or Hs126. It must be a local distributor thing i suppose (i believe the same distrubitor does both brands here).

But obviously that's not the problem where you are because you're saying they are in fact in stock, just not selling.
I think the problem is that for the avarage customer, Hasegawa is a well known quantity. Zvezda are a company that has in recent years begun making excellent low priced kits, but many people don't know it. It needs to be advertised more somehow i suppose. Another even more simplistic reason could simply be that look at A Hasegawa box and compare to a Zvezda one? Which just looks more enticing? The art does sell, we're really very simple creatures deep down. Also the Hasegawa kits cost way more, so they must be way better right?

Another problem for the Ju88 series in particular is that there is an erronous rumour that goes around stating that they are just re-boxings of the Italeri kits. Which is simply not true- one has raised panel lines and one has fine recessed lines just for a start.

Anyway those are my thoughts...like i said i'd be just happy if i could actually go into one of my LHS's and actually find the new Zvezda and ICM kits.

Andrew

I think people believe they are re-packaged Italeri kits, because there are quite a few Zvezda kits repackaged by Italeri, and this hints at some sort of cooperation between the companies. However recent Zvezda models are of very good quality and also superb value. I think the little success of Zvezda kits can be attributed to communication deficiencies from Zvezda, because the products themselves have improved in quality a much in the past years.

I don't know the prices in the UK, but in my country Zvezda is fairly expensive so nobody buys a Zvezda model just for a check. Maybe you could open a few Zvezda boxes and show your customers?

c[ ]