Marklin announces price hike

We have received an e-mail from Walters signed by Tim Wickerham that reads as follows:

"Price Adjustment on February 1, 2010
Märklin Germany has announced a price adjustment will take effect February 1, 2010 on Märklin, Trix and LGB products. Prices have been held stable since October 1, 2008 despite rising costs of raw materials. At this time we have not been informed of the percentage of the increase. We are giving you advance notice so you will have the opportunity to review your present inventory and place fill-in orders prior to the February 1st date. "

This is a joke. Prices held since 2008? Where? Not at Walthers as they increased substantially the prices in February 2009 and not at Marklin GmbH. Do they think Dealers do not keep price lists from one year to an other or what?

But what is a reality is that prices will go higher AGAIN and with an Euro rising daily, this will bring very high values to products from Marklin, Trix/Minitrix and LGB.

While other Manufacturers are struggling to keep prices down to fight against the drop on sales they had, Marklin is doing all what they can to once for all remove the Brand from the face of the Earth because their extreme high prices.

It is clear that Marklin (and all their Brands) have converted in elite only products. There is no more "kids" that can afford these prices nor parents willing to pay for their kid's toys enormous amounts of money required to buy Marklin products.

The new "set of..... (how many?)" is now a common policy from Marklin that make sets of 10, 20 and up to 40 cars. Who the hell can have 40 cars pulled by one locomotive? What has to be the size of that layout?. Oh yes, some of them say "can be sold separately" so everyone wants the car # 1 and # 3 but nobody wants the car # 2 for example, so Dealers will lose a bunch by being stuck with products they can't sell. Why Marklin does not allow Dealers also to but the cars they want from that particular set?

The average Marklin Customer is well over 55 years old, so what is Marklin doing? waiting a few more years to see all Collectors die and then close the Company for lack of Sales?

Widows do not buy Marklin, they sell the wonderful collections their late husbands had for pennies on eBay or given for sale as states to Lawyers that have no idea what they have on hand and also trow away for nothing (other than their fees) immense collections.

If Marklin does not start producing GOOD QUALITY cheap models as entry level where kids and parents can afford to buy them, the future of the Brand is very dark.

If Marklin also does not see that has to eliminate all sources of extra expenses such as subsidiaries that have nothing to do or Distributors that only make a lot more expensive and complicated to provide products from them, then also this will be a problem down the road to recovery and again, future is not bright at all.

It is clear, from the results, that only those Countries where Marklin has sold direct at a global unique price scheme had success during 2009 while all others, went down substantially including USA.

So let's see what the new Nuremberg Fair brings to us but I'm not too confident that will be good news.

In fact, all those not released items from 2009 have new prices as each year they rise prices for non released items.