Meteor Productions

[Jason]

I'm on their email list, just ordered some B-52 resin update sets a few weeks back.

 

Got this email yesterday:

 

Hi Jason,

This is not a joke.

 

After fifteen years of serving the modeling community with superior decals & resin conversions, Meteor Productions, Inc., will cease business operations at 8 AM, Monday, February 18th, 2008. We are closing due to factors entirely unrelated to this Company, the hobby, the hobby industry, and the general business environment.

 

I want you to know how much I have enjoyed and appreciated my many years of working with so many fine people in America and around the world. You have been wonderful and I'm privileged to have known you. May God bless you.

 

(However, I'm not likely to miss the seven-day workweeks, 16-19 hours per day!)

 

Good luck and good modeling!

 

Dave Klaus

 

 

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RULES OF ENGAGEMENT FOR FINAL SALES

We have always worked on behalf of and in favor of our clients, so we're going out the door still supporting the modelers who supported us and gave us 15 wonderful years. From now until 8 AM Monday morning, we will accept orders ONLY from our existing clients in good standing. We'll ship all paid orders processed as of 8 AM Monday no later than Tuesday, February 19th.

 

ORDERS THAT DO NOT MEET THESE REQUIREMENTS CANNOT BE PROCESSED

We will accept orders from our existing clients in good standing only

Minimum order is $100.00 of merchandise. We do not have time to process smaller orders.

Sales are limited to stock on hand. We will not produce any additional resin sets to fill orders from now on. (The only exception is for the remaining Wild Hare Ass'n 1/32 FG.1/FGR.2 Super Massive Conversion Kits that have not yet been shipped; modelers who paid for the Phantom kit have already been separately contacted.)

All orders MUST be made on our website (http://meteorprod.com); we CANNOT process telephone or fax orders.

All prices are shown on our website. We will do our best to keep the website updated as to product availability, but BE ADVISED you are NOT guaranteed to receive any or all of the items you order. Obviously you will be charged only for the items actually shipped.

Orders will be filled on a first paid-first shipped basis.

Orders must be paid by Visa/Mastercard ONLY (we CANNOT accept American Express, checks, or money orders for these final shipments).

We ONLY can process orders that include full and complete credit card information, including the full card number and expiration date. Orders that do not include full credit card information WILL NOT BE PROCESSED.

For the last six months, on approximately 10% of all orders submitted to Meteor the client's credit card has been declined. This is often because the card number and/or expiration date was improper. We will process each order only ONCE; if the card declines for any reason we will terminate the order and sell the items to the next person.

All sales are final, obviously.

We CANNOT check stock, so do NOT call us to request stock checks.

Mail orders already sent that are paid with cash, check, or money order will be returned to the sender.

Neither this corporation nor any remaining assets not listed above are available for sale.

 

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Final On-Site (Walk-In) Selling Day, Saturday, February 16th, 2008

Date: Saturday, February 16th, 2008

Place: Meteor Productions warehouse, 7401 Fullerton Rd, Suite H, Springfield, VA 22153

Hours: 10 AM to 1 PM ONLY

All sales are final.

Cash (paper currency) sales only; no credit cards, checks, Monopoly Money, etc.

 

Merchandise on hand will be sold; we will not produce additional resin sets. Many sets will be completely sold out by Saturday; nonetheless we recommend "shopping" on our website and bring a list of sets you want along with you. Just add them to your online "shopping cart" and print out the cart contents. DO NOT SUBMIT THIS ORDER (THE STUFF IN YOUR SHOPPING CART) unless you intend for us to process it as an online order that will be shipped Saturday, Sunday, or Monday.

 

Certain display cases and other fixtures are available for sale and pickup from our warehouse. We can accept ONLY CASH for these fixtures. All such items MUST be picked up from the Meteor warehouse before 5 PM on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008. If not picked up, they will be moved into the parking lot outside the Meteor warehouse and you can pick up at your convenience.

Prices are as shown on our website. We have no need to do "deals" and will charge regular prices for our stock. Do not ask for discounts, special consideration, etc.

 

Minimum sale is $50 cash for this final "walk-in" selling day. We will not process requests for less than $50.

You are welcome to come to buy; do not come for any other reason. We are FAR too busy to chat, so you're inclined to come to wish us good luck, please send us an email instead. We must strictly enforce this rule.

© 2008, Meteor Productions, Inc.

I wonder what happened. Over on ARC, the general feeling amongst a lot of folks posting there was that Mr. Klaus was a less than reputable businessman. I read various rumblings about all sorts of shady business practices etc. Me personally, I have purchased from Meteor on three separate occasions and have never had a problem (although I haven't seen my B-52 sets as of yet, but I was assured they shipped a couple of days ago).

 

Garth, any idea what happened since you're local?

[ShotMagnet]

Damn; it's not like there are too many decal manufacturers, though with a printer and access to the Internet and the right software and a minimum of artistic talent you could make your own.

 

Still...

 

 

Shot

[Corinthian]

Oops. Didn't see this thread, I posted the same email message at the SR-71 decal thread. And here I was thinking of ordering some decals from them. Too late.

[Garth]

I'm on their email list, just ordered some B-52 resin update sets a few weeks back.

 

Got this email yesterday:

I wonder what happened. Over on ARC, the general feeling amongst a lot of folks posting there was that Mr. Klaus was a less than reputable businessman. I read various rumblings about all sorts of shady business practices etc. Me personally, I have purchased from Meteor on three separate occasions and have never had a problem (although I haven't seen my B-52 sets as of yet, but I was assured they shipped a couple of days ago).

 

Garth, any idea what happened since you're local?

 

Sorry, was out of town for the long weekend and while I did get online a bit to check things out, it was infrequent given the fact that my parent's home has evolved into more of a museum (early New England antiques and reproductions) than when I lived there, and I was spending most of my time managing an 8-year old and 3-year old in that environment.

 

Anyways, I heard about this via the Hyperscale boards right about when it happened. This is a major disappointment to me, and, imho, a blow to the modelling industry. I won't go into any speculation of the reasons behind the closing, since that has been done (and is still being done) to death on Hyperscale, ARC, and the other modelling boards.

 

What I will be more than happy to supply is my own observations. Dave Kaus is an all-around good guy, imo. I've NEVER seen him act in a disreputable manner, and I've probably spent several thousand dollars at Meteor over the past 10 years or so for total purchase instances in the dozens. I've heard rumblings about such in the past on boards, my personal guess is that every small-businessman out there is going to make enemies and now that Meteor is shutting down in such a highly-public manner those enemies are coming out of the woodwork to get a couple good last kicks in.

 

As I mentioned on the other thread, I was at Meteor Saturday before last. Dave was always very hospitable to Saturday walk-ins, especially guys like me who walked in with bored and unsympathetic children in tow. He and his staff (looked like most of them were in, which was highly unusual) seemed pretty stressed and distracted to me, he mentioned working 7 day weeks and 19 hour days getting the BUFF and other sets together and out the door (they were organizing and bagging the sets - which looked phenominal, btw) by hand) and seemed pretty interested in completing my sale and having me leave.

 

I want to point out, explicitly, that I took zero offense at Dave acting that way. Like I said, he's a good guy, his Saturday morning business hours were a great benefit but he was always explicit about them being a courtesy to his local customers and on the terms that he set. He obviously had a lot of other things on his mind and I had no problem getting out of his hair (with my SR, B-52 and B-17 sheets in hand).

 

Dave's also sent out some other unusual emails in the past few months, specifically one where he explicitly said that he was not going to do any more 1/72 sets unless they were of something he wanted to build himself. Apparently he'd gotten burned by bad market research and had produced some 1/72 sets that weren't moving at all.

 

My main concern here is that Dave is doing ok. Although I'm disappointed in not being able to lay hands on his projected (he was apparently going to do minimal updates for the AMT BUFF sets based on the Monogram sets, some B-52 weapons sets, and a couple 1/48 B-17 sets) or possible (all his stuff was of seriously good quality) whatever is happening to cause him to take such drastic action is clearly a higher priority than some guy lamenting lost modeling goodies.

 

--Garth

[Jason]

I got my B-52 sets today. As usual, the quality of the castings is superb, even flawless. They didn't skip any of the details either, every little tiny blade antenna is included. I gotta hand it to them they produced an excellent product, it's really too bad they've closed down.

[nitflegal]

I was able to get a couple of decal sets when I saw the notice. I've heard things both good and bad but I've never had an issue. Besaides, his stuff is just beautifully done and always has been. Hopefully he reopens his doors in a year or so or sells his masters as it would be a real blow if those products just vanished.

 

Matt