Home > Conventions > SDCC 09 – Merit International Booth!! (Part 1)
As you all know by now, Merit International was at the San Diego Comic Con 2009, showing off the JSI 1:18 scale F-14 that everyone is anxious for.

SDCC 09 – Merit International Booth!! (Part 1)

merit07I also asked them about upcoming JSI products, but they did not know any more information other than what has already been announced. One hopeful nugget though was when I asked about the 21st Century Toys “Super Cobra” mold, he said to stay hopeful.. with a smirk on his face. Hopefully this means someone got a hold of the mold and will bringing out new Super Cobra’s sometime in the near future.  Since these still sell on eBay for over $200 on a regular basis, a company would be crazy not to release these.

merit08We also talked about the “interesting” choice in paint schemes for the new Panther tank by JSI. Suffice it to say, no one understands why they decided to go with the primer paint job, while historically interesting, it is not a product with mass market appeal. Hopefully they will release a better repaint in the near future.

There is no more information on the F-15E or the Su-27, which is disappointing, but not surprising. I would imagine these products will depend highly on the success of the F-14. If the market can support a $230 model airplane, then there is hope for repaints and additional models.

The “Jolly Rodger” scheme is still suspected to be the production model for the F-14, but there is no information if it’ll be the High-vis or the Low-vis scheme.  JSI is planning on repaints for the F-14, which is not surprising considering the amount of money they spent in designing the 1:18 scale F-14 from scratch. However, we do not know what paint schemes they will choose yet.

We also briefly discussed BBI, Unimax, and Admiral Toy’s 1:18 scale offerings.

BBI was a no-show at SDCC 09 and has gone almost completely silent after releasing their recent Zero, so it’d hard to tell what their game plan is as far as 1:18 scale goes. Hopefully they will realize there is still a demand for their products and release some much anticipated products!

Unimax was also a no show at SDCC this year, and that was a real disappointment, as I was hoping to get a look at their LAV-25. Merit mentioned that 1:18 collectors strongly prefer tracked vehicles vs wheeled vehicles by a large margin!

Finally, we talked about Admiral Toys, and how we’d really love to get… ANYTHING out of them in the near future. They have some really nice designs, but without retail products available anytime soon, it is really hard to get excited about them.

It was really great chatting with Anthony and the guys at Merit, and I am going back by their booth tomorrow to get some more pictures and try to pick their brains some more.

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to check out our SDCC Forums at our: 1:18 scale Sewing Circle

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About Paul Ernst

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One comment

  1. The paint on the Corsair is worth the extra cash. Now I just need to find out what my wife did with my cash.

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