Thoughts on Recasting

In the scale model world, Recasting is taking someone elses work, making a cheap, inferior copy, passing it off and selling it as your own - which is just wrong. In certain modeling genres recasting is rampant.

There's not a week goes by over at The Clubhouse - a mostly garage kit figure forum - that there isn't an announcement that someones work has been copied and the recaster is selling it as his own.
Today, you can hardly trust any figure kits you see on Ebay anymore, especially if they originate from SE Asia (but it is certainly not limited to that region). Some recasters even have the nerve to say in the auction text that it is a recast. Even if it's not mentioned, you need to do a little homework before buying. Ask questiuons in places like The Clubhouse. Look around on the net; If other places are selling the kit for $100 then the guy selling on ebay for $25 is most likely a recaster.

It's also detrimental to the hobby as it kills the producers incentive to make new kits. There are quite a few garage kit producers that havequit the business because they just can't compete with their own kit. They need to charge $100 for it, and some guy sitting it Thailand (which seems like the recasting capital) is selling a bogus copy of the kit for $25.

We have to stand firm and not give in to buying recasts of kits we just can't afford or are out of production. If you can't afford it - you can't afford it. Is it right to buy something out of the back of a truck just beause you can afford to buy it in the store? No.
If it's out of production there's always a chance that they will reintroduce it. Talk to the producer, if there's enough interest he may bring it back. Being out of production doesn't give a recaster the right to make an unauthorized copy and sell it.
We can't say we won't support recasters, unless they have something really want. That just doesn't work.

In my Links column, there is a link to a Recasters FAQ. Everyone needs to read it and stand firm against these thieves.