Hi all,
Just got done finally taking a look at MTH volume 2 2017 catalog and was wondering if anyone knows when they will be starting to ship this items to hobby shops?
Original Post
It's highly variable. Nothing in the catalog has been manufactured when the catalog is issued. They take orders from their dealer network for a certain length of time, then they figure out if each item has sufficient orders to go into production, at which point they start working with their factories.
The factories don't produce the entire lineup at once, but instead move from components to sub-assemblies to completed products, so once completed products start being boxed up for shipment, there will usually be a steady stream of items building up and being shipped one container-load at a time. For that reason, MTH (and other companies) maintains a shipping schedule for on their website.
For the above reasons though, this schedule should not be regarded as sacrosanct, especially for the most recently issued catalog. Shipping dates for individual items can and do move around (mostly farther into the future) depending on factory priorities and the performance of the sub-contractors that supply them with components that go into the final product. It's best to wait 3-6 months then start eyeballing the shipping schedule on a semi-regular basis.
---PCJ
