The Takom Bergepanther's are now listed for pre-order on the Hobbysearch site. Shows a June release.

Bergepanther Ausf.D Umbau Seibert 1945 Full Interior Kit
https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10534305

Bergepanther Ausf.A Assembled by Demag Full Interior Kit
https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10534301

Much more affordable at Hobbyeasy:
https://www.hobbyeasy.com/en/data/dt7xdtfkga1l9lfp2kjo.html

https://www.hobbyeasy.com/en/data/fkejoq8kzq8znoimlvk3.html

Too many options, where are the comparison reviews?

I'll sit on my wallet and wait for the reviews
/ Robin

I'm not a big fan of pre-orders. Why does a company taking a pre order also require you to pre pay shipping? AFAIK HLJ is about the only one that doesn't.
For example, Lucky Model have had the M728 on pre order since August 2017. Still no sign of it and yet they take not only the full price of the kit but also around US$15 for shipping. That adds up to a lot of free money for them to make interest on.
Why advertise it so soon when they know it will be months before it is available?
(I waited until this week to put in my order. Let's hope it comes out soon).

lucky model immediately charges when you order. Hobbyeasy charges on your credit card before shipping same as for pre order. I have bought a lot of model from them, if some item is not available, send me e-mail and ask what to do.

It's hardly going to be a money-maker for them. In the US, the best possible interest rate for short-term is under 4%, so by giving them, say, $100 for a year, you are out about $2.50 after you pay your taxes on the interest. I doubt they are even getting interest on their mercantile accounts over there.




Well, it got them a sale out of you, so ...

I can see why a retailer sells pre-orders but I don't understand why anyone takes them up on it. I'll wait until I see what I'm buying. I could see reservations, even with a small deposit, but why would somebody buy a kit sight unseen?

I think some places have offered a pre-order price that was much lower than the MSRP, so if you were getting something with a high probability of being good (like the AFV Club M728) or at least a known quantity (like a modern Tamiya kit) I could see the advantage.

KL

Getting money from customers vs loaning from the bank.
The interest for ths eller does not lie in trying to get an interest from money deposited in a bank account. The value lies in loaning money for no interest rate at all instead of going to the bank.
Instead of risking their own funds, or loaned from the bank, when buying a big box of models they use the cash from the pre-orders. It is safer for them to order 50 kits when they have already sold 25 of them. With the difference in price between what You are paying and what they are paying the manufacturer the 25 pre-orders has financed more than those 25 kits.
/ Robin

Hobby Search does not charge for pre-orders. You don't pay anything until the it ships, kit or shipping. I've got 4 kits on pre-order with them and haven't been charged anything yet.

I ordered both of them a few days ago at my favourite hobby shop. Both with 5€ discount for pre-ordering and shipping free.

Let's just hope the Takom Panther is equal/better than the Meng one!

I'm sure both kits will be great "but" we already know Takom has used the resin conversion as a guide, which is pretty much the definitive deal. If I make these my last kit purchases, it will definitely be the two Takom versions!!👍😻

HE is showing the release date as June 20th so we'll have to sit tight for some reviews before we can jump on them I think. Plus, there will be some Ebay sellers soon after they become available.

Dear Steve,

Let me explain why we charge on the pre-order. We don't want to keep your money upfront. However, in order to charge your card when the goods ready, the only way to keep your credit card at our database.

Traditional, all mail order keep the cc data of the consumer in their database. When the goods are ready, they will charge the credit card plus shipping when it ready to go.

However, there is a risk of the credit card database leak outbreak happen at the e-tailer. Therefore, since we start the business 15 years ago, we use the 3rd parties Verify by VISA or MASTERSECURE for MASTER card to authorize the transaction.

But this type of online payment processor can only keep the "amount" on hold for few days up to a week (like you give the cc to hotel when you check-in to lock your amount without charging you).

Our payment processing services company can only hold the tx for 72 hours (3 days), after that, the amount will revoked from the card and back to your credit limit. That is the reason we have to charge the card within 72 hours of authorization. And we have put the statement that we will charge the card once you authorized it.

For pre-order, we try our best to line up with our supplier to make sure the estimated delivery. Like AFV Club, we schedule to have the shipment in June and it is July.

Either for backorder or pre-order, the nature is the same. Therefore, we try our best to show shipment inbound data. In the past, we have try to remove the backorder services and pre-order as we have a nightmare and customer think we got their money on hand. But in result a lot of customer complain why we don't offer the services even they agree to prepay.

Therefore, at least, we provide the services again and we let the customer know they will be charged at the first hand and they have the right to cancel and ask for refund. The refund normally take a week to refund (by our banker) and it should display at your statement within 1-2 weeks from the date of refund.

The full charge to card is based on the sensitivity fiscal data. And for those customer who don't want to prepay, you just need to check to see if the item "in stock". But in many case, the "in stock" and backorder/pre-order are those item the customer want and to save shipping, they want it shipped at one time, so, it is hard to separate the charges from "in stock" and pre-order/backorder item.

So. if we need to charge base on the item shipped with pre-order/backorder, we have to do a series of manual operation to charge or not charge which order base on the daily operation before it get packed. For example, if a customer pre-order an item for 3-4 months, his credit card may expire when the goods are arrived and we have contact the customer one by one to ask for new cc data (and possible data security risk).

We are working out a new solution with PayPal to see we can get the pre-authorization process, so you can register with PayPal to let us to charge your PayPal account when the goods coming in stock and ship out with the particular shipping cost at your own decision.

We hope to deploy this solution within the coming 6 months, once it is ready, the issue will be solved with balance between customer prepayment as well as data security risk that we encountered.

Regards
Raymond Chung
LuckyModel.com

I’ve always had great service from LuckyModel.
Dan

Takom used practically NOTHING of the TMD resin one as a guide. Despite what TMD say...

Jus' Sayin'

Sam

Source or gtfo.

Both the Ausf. D and Ausf. A have been released. The links in the first post will lead you to pics of the sprues.