Price of plans is waaaay up. Why?

Good question. When I was getting started in 1991 I used to buy RCM plans for $2.50 to $7.50 each. Those were the good old days.

The message from Robert Reynolds contains these words:

I had exactly the same argument on the RCM&E website forum re plans given away free with the mag then they want $20 or more for one sheet, thing is when they are printed up for the mag there is always an over run to make sure they have enough due to snags when machines damage a sheet or whatever during printing or folding or when the magazine is made up on the gatherer that puts cover, innards and plan together and for things like bad register and so on. On a ten thousand copy run we would allow a 200 over run with an insert such as a plan and usually most of them are left over to go into store for future requests, they have been paid for by the original production run so cost nothing more to provide, one place to keep an eye on is eBay and I have picked up a lot of plans off there for as little as $2,

regards, Terry

A very good question, they have shot up way past the CPI, I put it down to greed. But never mind, I will not buy a new plan again.

There's other options, plan loan services, borrowing, purchase used, or the old "scale it up from the magazine" trick. And to be brutally frank, I have enough plans to keep me going until I reach about 95 !!

Barry

Same reason as gas - The corporate robber Barons say that the *market* sets prices and that they have nothing to do with it . Increased demand causes increased prices. Modelers are buying more plans to insure that they always have enough to scratch build and to pass on??

I just received a set of Bluemax II plans from AMA. The D category cost is $19.00 and $4.00 plus some change for shipping via express mail. I agree with the less demand part of your post. However, it doesn't cost them any more to reproduce one copy of the master plan that they have on hand than two or four.. It cost more to make copies than it did ten years ago. But not that much more.

Also, when I called plans service I kept getting an answering machine telling me to leave my number and they will get back to me. I called the AMA main number and the operator got the same results. I finally left my number and was called back within the hour. This suggests to me that he is doing double duty at AMA headquarters.

Maybe they don't want us building anymore and really do prefer the checkbook modeler.

AMA (self insurance) is better off financially with fliers that build kits or fly RTF planes.

The liability is then shared with the manufactures / importer / distributor and the retail seller that delivered the model to the flyer.

Just my thoughts

Hugh