I don’t know about you but I often visit the manufacturers websites looking for new kits or just wanting to browse their whole catalogue finding models for a build only to discover that they haven’t updated their websites in ages – and you still have no clue if they have that German StuG you were looking for or just the inspiration you were looking for…?
I know you can head over to scalemates.com and search their database, but listing all kits from a manufacturer in an easy to view format they don’t do so well, so I decided to abandon my attempt to keep records in Excel and instead create an online catalogue of all major manufacturers of armour kits to make it easier – and to make it available to everyone!
The initial work is obviously very time consuming but when it’s there then maintenance is simple. I will check for new releases perhaps once a week and just add the new kits as they are released, and yesterday I added the full catalogue for Tamiya and Takom.
I also include the no longer available kits and highlight this in a separate column called Available? Y means it’s still manufactured and N means it’s no more being manufactured. Simple!
The whole catalogue is searchable in real time so it’ll update as you type your search criterias. You can search for a kit number, or part of a kit number. You can also search for keywords in the kit name like “German” or “m4a3”. You can also sort by pressing the column name and this will sort the whole catalogue ascending, or descending, on that column.
Currently there are no links to the product on the manufacturers webpage, and honestly this’ll never be complete because the majority of these kits aren’t available on their webpages, but I will try to provide some sort of external link where applicable.
I’ve tried to keep it as simple and light-weight as possible but it could be extended to be really complex and detailed but that’s not the type of database I’m after. I just wanted a way to quickly be able to search, or list, all or most of the kits ever produced!
I’m currently focusing on 1/35 scale armour but I might extend it in the near future if there’s any interest for it? Just send me a message, or write a comment, and I will try to cater for your wishes if possible!
You can find these catalogues in the top menu under “Scale Model Kits” and then just choose the manufacturer you wish to browse!
You can also use these direct links to the currently available catalogues:
I am using images downloaded from the manufacturers in the catalogue but I’ve specified whom they’re copyrighted to. If you as a manufacturer don’t like that I’m using your images to showcase your whole catalogue – with your copyright information, then please send me a message and I will take them down, but I doubt anyone would do that because this is free advertising… 😉
I’m not going to be held responsible for any possible errors in this catalogue but I’ve spent many hours verifying all the data but there’s always the chance that I made the odd error when compiling the catalogues – especially for the older kits from the 70’s that’s no longer available? It’s hard enough finding boxart etc.
If you’ve got you own lists for one or more manufacturers of kits I’d be more than happy to add it here and thus save me from doing the same work as you’ve done! I will credit anyone who’s helping out because this is a useful feature when you just want an easy to overview list/catalogue for a particular manufacturer! I might even be interested in having you maintaining some of the catalogues yourself here on this website – if you are willing to? Just contact me and we’ll take it from there.
If it grows a lot bigger in the future I will probably write a specific WordPress plugin that offers more features than I have today, but the goal isn’t to make it more complicated because the whole point is to have something really simple and fast.
I hope it can be of use to some of you and if you like it, please spread the word so others might find it as well!
If you as a manufacturer would like to appear with your catalogue here and it’s currently not done then please contact me and we can make this happen! It’s all about making it easier to find all the available kits out there in the world because no stash is ever too big! 😀
Happy modelling!
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