Majorette in Receivership

Posted by on Feb 8, 2010 in DieCast News, Majorette | 0 comments

[Article 2/8/2010]

by: “Dipstick”

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For those of you following the “Rollercoaster Ride” known as the fate of Majorette Die Cast, it has just recently taken another turn. 

The new Owner is Smody who it appears is committed to the company and will add it to its stable of many brands including Schuco.  See:  http://www.simba-dickie-group.de/en/company__brands/overview.shtml  This transition should give Majorette some addition distribution which it has lacked for years and is speculated as the reason for its demise. 

There is a general article posted by Jeff Koch on Hemmings Eweekly at this link which discusses further details: http://www.hemmings.com/newsletter/newsletter_item.html?id=2680&refer=rss

On another note, Christian Falkensteiner of Austria attended the Nuremberg Toy Fair and reports the following:

Products of many different manufacturers have appeared under the Dickie name, and it is true that most have been of relatively low quality. The company uses the Schuco name for its more upmarket / higher quality / higher priced diecast models, and again those are made by several different manufacturers, with the dominant one nowadays being High Speed. I think most customers do not realize that Dickie and Schuco models come from the same company, so the reputation of one brand hardly harms the other. Simba/Dickie and Schuco even have two separate stalls at Nuremberg Toyfair.
 
With Majorette it would surely be the same, if they choose to keep it on the market. Only time will tell…
 Simba-Dickie never grants picture permission at its stall, so I can only show catalog pictures. But I have to say that I, too, was quite impressed by the display. It had obviously been prepared by Majorette before the takeover, as the original plan had been for Majorette to have a stall of its own in hall 12.0. When I noticed that some other company (not diecast-related at all) occupied that space, I feared for the worst.
 
However, as I had read before that Majorette had been taken over by Smoby, I next asked about Majorette information at the Smoby stall in hall 6 – Smoby, although nowadays a subsidiary of Simba-Dickie, still has its own stall at Nuremberg Toyfair. There I was told to turn to the stall of the parent company, i.e. Simba-Dickie itself. (The two stalls were located in neighboring locations across the same aisle in hall 6.)
Indeed I was quite surprised to see that the development of the Majorette range had obviously continued without interruption throughout what was a very difficult time for the company; it was just the distribution to the stores which had failed to happen.
For the first time since 1976, the Majorette logo has been significantly redesigned:
 
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The only new castings from last year which I did not see are the new Subaru Impreza and the Renault F1 racer. The former is not even shown in the catalog, so may have been cancelled, maybe due to licensing problems. The latter is shown in the catalog on the Racing series page, but none of the other Renault F1 licensed items introduced last year seem to have survived. This may mean that the license has been lost.  

The new design has already been applied to the packaging of most ranges, notable exceptions being the Racing and Fantasy (former Fiction) ranges, the packaging of which looks like it did before.

This is the new series 200 single blisterpack design, and all other packaging types now feature a design similar to this:

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Most of the series 200 models introduced last year are now being produced in Thailand and ready to be distributed. The following three I had the chance to inspect and note the numbers from the baseplates:

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205G Peugeot 4007

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205H Peugeot Bipper

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276A Toyota FJ Cruiser

I did not see the new Citroëns, but the catalog pictures show them in their finished form

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Citroën C-Crosser

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Citroën Nemo

The Citroën C5 is an exception, for it has been delayed to officially become a 2010 introduction and was only shown as a resin prototype, same as pictured in the catalog:

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The other new castings for 2010, which were all shown as resin prototypes, are as follows:

 
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BMW X6
 
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 Renault Kangoo Express
 
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Renault Mégane Coupé

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Renault Mégane Trophy

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Seat León Cupra

Several new wheel designs have been introduced, as can be seen in the pictures above, and many of the models displayed already featured those new wheels. All in all they seem quite decent to me, certainly not worse than the older designs.

Other noteworthy facts regarding the 200 series are the omission of the ex-Team Tuning generics which had been mixed in with the range last year, and the footnote saying “subject of license renewal with the licensor, currently under negotiation”, attached to all Chevrolet and Mercedes-Benz models and the (old) Subaru Impreza WRC. So the fate of those castings is presently insecure.

The Majorette Motor and Pinder ranges continue in new packaging, but with no new models, and as indicated above the Racing range was included in the display and is shown in the catalog too, but with no changes in lineup or packaging compared with last year. The Fantasy series is also included in the catalog, but I did not see it in the Toyfair display.

Generally I am pleased to report that a large portion of the unrealistic fantasy items which made up the bulk of the ranges in recent years seems to have been discontinued. This means a return of the Majorette brand to its roots, which I think is a good thing.

Now all we need is the products in the stores, and I am quite confident that Simba-Dickie is capable of achieving this fairly quickly, although no promises of any particular release dates have been made. Anyway they are determined to continue the brand and develop it in keeping with its tradition. Production will continue at the present facility in Thailand. It looks like we will soon see Majorette models wherever Dickie diecast models are available presently; this is particularly good news for Germany where Majorette had been virtually non-existent in recent times. In turn French stores will have more Dickie items beside the Majorette offerings, but by and large I expect that the three-inch part of the Dickie diecast ranges (made up of products made by various Chinese sub-contractor companies) will by and by make way for Majorette products.

The Solido range, which has been purchased by Smoby together with Majorette, has been passed on to the Schuco division of Simba-Dickie. A display of that range was therefore set up at the Schuco stall in hall 7. The story there is similar to Majorette and Dickie; i.e. the Solido brand will continue as a sister brand of Schuco, both offering mainly 1:18 and 1:43 scale models. Details of how the two brands will be distinguished from each other have not been worked out yet.

This is good news and with unique and not-yet-done castings line the Toyota FJ and the BMW X6 on the horizon lets wish them the best on getting the company back on the ground and distribution in place – even here in the US. 

 

Many thanks to Christian For the update and contribution!!!

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