I recently finished the RFM model 503 eastern front tiger and and am looking for a panther model for the next build and it looks like there will be a flood of new models coming out and am having a hard time deciding what will be a good choice, also looking for a good photo reference guide for panther tanks?

The Panther Tank by Thomas Jentz, Panther and its variants by Spielberger, Panther and Panther in Detail by Uwe Feist & Bruce Culver, Modelling the Panther by Steve Beveren, as well many Concord books have some nice panther pics, especially "Armoured Units at Arnhem" and lastly the Panzer Wrecks publication.

With all the Panther's coming this year, Feist Books is doing a very limited reissue of "Panzerkampfwagen Panther". Order now if you want one.

https://feistbooks.com/shop/books/panzerkampfwagen-panther/

Here is another excellent book, "Panther External Appearance & Design Changes". It's a bit pricy, but good to have in your library.

https://ak-interactive.com/product/panther-external-appearance-design-changes/

Panzer Tracts 5-1 through 5-4 all cover the individual Panther versions.

I was looking at the re-release of the panther in detail, But thanks for all the suggestions!

PANTHER Germany's quest for combat dominance By Michael and Gladys Green is good. They use historical photos and photos from museums. The quality of photos is good to excellent. By Osprey publishing. ISBN 978-1-84908-841-1. Listed at $24.95. I got mine at half priced books for about $12.

Just buy them all. That's what I do, unless one get's a really bad review...then I tend to stay away from it. I don't care if Dragon gets a bad review , I buy it anyway lol, because I trust them & I know theres a few Dragon h8r's out there.

The new Meng panthers look to be quite good, as well the upcoming Takom ones. Dragon are always reliable albeit a little pricey. That being said Dragon Usa Online will often have crazy deals which are always nice.

I got the new Dragon Panther G with the anti aircraft armor for $39 on one of their sales.

It really depends on which version of the panther you want. At the moment there are far more aftermarket goodies for the Panther A.

I pre-ordered the rereleased panther in detail, but I'll look into getting others at my local hobby shop, I wish RFM or Takom would release there interior models so we can see which one to go with

Even if RFM does have mistakes I enjoy having the challenge of correcting them

Spielberger is good for an overall development history. Jentz' "Panther Tank: Quest for Combat Supremacy" has more detailed development history plus charts which show which visible external mods were included.

If you want a good modeler's guide for super detailing, I suggest Bunrin-Do's "Achtung Panzer #4: Panther Tank" which has very useful drawings of the various visible components.

All three are mentioned in this somewhat dated reference list: http://www.missing-lynx.com/library/german/panther.htm