Now your talking "joint venture". Team up with those in the business and do some horse trading for advertising, promotion and some kind of precentage for the club, assuming the product can bare it.

Old Magnet - The joint venture concept is already part of our strategy, on many levels.

Our publisher hits us up about our advertising rates regularly, saying they are well below what they should be our circulation and the activity generated by our consumer impressions. Almost all of our advertisers are members and we have chosen to keep rates low, mostly for the reasons you describe. We generate about $550.00 in advertising revenue per issue of the magazine. If we doubled those rates, we'd get $1,100.00 per issue if everyone kept advertising. That increase is not material to the $17,000.00 cost of production of the magazine.

I also doubt that most of those advertisers would continue with us if we increased the rates. You saw Side Seats comments, at the volume of business our members generate, he already can't afford to advertise with us.

We work with our member-vendors at the shows where we can to get them advertising space at a low or no cost. We don't ever control the shows we are at, we are a guest, but we always work hard to help our members display their wares at a reasonable price. We don't mark up any unavoidable table, tent or chair rent and often are successful at getting the show to give us favorable rates for those members who do display.

Faced with the sale of these side curtains which others were producing, we made every effort to survey advertised prices and to talk to producers about their pricing. Scott didn't get contacted. It is unfortunate that he didn't. We actually did discuss him when developing the prices, but no one on the Board had his contact information and we just didn't make the connection.

We have reciprocal advertising agreements with the Historical Construction Equipment Association, where we advertise our models in their magazine and they in ours for free. We are working on similar deals with other Clubs.

We have some existing model deals which are even better than joint venture. On those deals, the manufacturer invested all the cash, we provided technical advice and the license to produce the model, we both sell the models, they collect the money and pay us a service fee per unit. This is the best deal for us, requiring no cash investment, only a small management and technical investment and creates a cash flow for the Club. We are working on several such deals for future models.

With the George Logue patterns, the economic model at the top of our list is as I described above. Have someone license the use of the patterns, make the parts, warehouse and ship them, we sell them and they pay us a fee. We'd settle for a joint venture, where we share costs and marketing, but that is our second choice. We've got people beating the bushes across the country to find any foundry or machine shop who will do that type of deal. So far, we haven't found any competent shops interested in taking this sort of deal on.

If we were talking about making 100 or 500 units a month, we'd have people beating down our door. The problem is, realistically, how many people are going to buy a Sixty manifold? The Sixty manifold will probably cost somewhere around $2,200.00, plus shipping. How many Sixtys still exist? Even if all of them needed manifolds and every collector was willing to buy a new one, your talking total potential production of 1,000 or less, probably. Realistically, we're talking about a first production run of probably ten or maybe twenty units. That inventory will probably take months to sell, years if your not lucky, then you get to gear up, cast and machine ten or twenty more, then wait another several months to a year.

Looking at the Ten manifolds, at least there are a lot more tractors out there and the price should be cheaper. Even for those, though, you're talking about production runs in the ten to twenty units per run, and probably still a month or two between production runs. These are just not high enough volume units to make sense for a production business model.

The people who make them are like Side Seat, Scott and George Logue. These are a labor of love, not a profit center. Our Club can do them, and hopefully make just a little money at it, but we are not going to make a bunch of money or run other competitors out of the market. This is one of the reason we try to be so sensitive to the people like Scott, Side Seat and John Hahn, who are out there helping our hobby. The last thing we want to do is cause them difficulties when they are trying to help the thing that is at the core of our mission statement.

Thanks for your thoughts and insight. As I said before, this thread has provided many great new possibilities to improve the business of our Club going forward. We do need to keep in mind that the business of our Club is creating a good membership experience, preserving the tractors and facilitating the flow of information, not making a profit. We need to cover our costs, be economical in the projects we do, and preserve the value we have accumulated.

This is one of the reasons the models program was and will be so good for us. We can actively compete in that business without harming our core values and use the profits earned there to subsidize our core operations.

Pete.

Yes, I am well aware of limited demand. All the more reason that ACMOC should not become directly involved as a supplier. A "Commission Merchant" role is much more suitable. Pete, how about having some dialoge with Scott the see if there is a chance at recovering his production. Also would like to hear a response from George Logue and Side Seat on how some amiable arrangement could be made to market their products and have the club obtain some commission for the combined effort.

Old Magnet, this is what we're working on right now. I'm trying to get Scott's contact information for exactly that reason. I think Brewzer may have it and I'm going to send him a message so that I can talk to Scott.

Unfortunately, George Logue has passed away, which is pretty much what put us in the situation we're in now. George didn't want the hobby to lose the production from the patterns he had developed, his kids aren't really in a situation to be able to continue production, so before he died, he asked the Club to accept the patterns and work to put them to use.

Our current production of reproduction wrenches, tags and radiator cap repair kits is the same sort of thing. These are made by a Club member who was already producing them, he just asked us if we'd market them for a small markup which covers our handling and credit card fees, so they'd get to more people, helping his operation and our members, too. This project has potential to expand to other reproduction products as he develops the capability and we both see interest.

We'd like to work with Side Seat, too, if we can, along with any other potential supplier to the needs of our hobby, on the same basis. Essentially, in these relationships, we're just the conduit and clearinghouse for information. The members get information about what is available and we help to get what production volume demand there is focused to those who are members and supporters of the Club.

Wally, if you read this, please let me know if you have contact information for Scott. My email is pbloom (at) ymail dot com and my telephone is (661) 343-3691.

Pete.

Sorry, I knew about George Logue, was thinking of the other supplier, George Rankin.

Contact information for Scott is listed in the classified section of the magazine 831-636-8986.

"dctex99" wrote:

My turn for my 2 cents....As a model dealer for 30 plus years, most asked about CAT now is the 15 which SpecCast has already photographed, and
may be a little less to make than the big ones, and maybe some modification can do others close to it. The D2 was the biggest hit you ever produced with its many variations!!

dctex99,As a seller of models Has Acmoc ever approached you for opinions on a model being considered for production ?
I am sure after 30 years you would have a good idea of what will ring the cash register bell , and what will collect dust on the shelf .
Would you have given the thumbs down to the DW20 if asked .

As a member of the Heavy Equipment forum one thing that stands out to me is the is the dislike shown by Americans , For almost anything Chinese.
Point being ,If these ACMOC models had an American flag and MADE IN THE USA Would they Sell better ?
AS you Commented above , the D2s were the hit with Buyers .Is there interest in plows ETC to put behind this popular model .

On the membership thing....I think I recall there was a time when there was a member/nonmember (as in paid member) designation on the registered user list. This would have been about pre George Howard or his early days as I recall. But the practice was abandoned.

To me it makes a difference whether those requesting help are dues paying or not, not so much for the occasional requester but for those that repeatedly ask and are to cheap to buy a parts or service manul or do a search for the info.

There has got to be some middle ground as to when enough is enough and a commitment for services is reasonable.

The other thing I notice is non members posting answers to questions with great verbal detail at the same time that a posted attachment from one of the manuals is present but they are not able to see it.

Just grinding more gears......

First up i will say some good discussions taking place here and appreciate the contribution from the posters.

From my point of view i just wonder if the club is missing the boat a bit on member profile to some degree, in my case i am in my mid 40,s, don,t own or plan to any time soon an "older" Cat of some sort so the reproduction stuff is of no benefit to me at all but i certainly support the idea of it and i am sure 100,s of collectors are very happy what is produced and available.

I did my time at the local Cat dealer in the mid 80,s so worked on a lot of gear from the 70,s and just a little from the 60,s, today this is certainly the "era" that interests me so the most significant connection back to that era of equipment for me comes from literature i kept from those days, stuff found on Ebay and diecast models from that era, (although my diecast collection does also consist of 23 ACMOC models) now that era is not going to float everyones boat but as the 40 year and back rule advances every year i think the model committee needs to come out of the "small crawler era" mindset that seems to be quite prevalent from the past series (DW20 & 491 being the exception).

Obviously the biggest stumbling block to the model program now is the stock on the shelf as significant cash is sitting there effectively as dead money and as a paid member of ACMOC i would support making the movement of those a priority at this time more so than a new model, i know a new model will generate interest but i can,t help but think things like timing and model choice have to a degree in the past been detrimental to the ultimate sales.

A good model choice is everything when it comes to what the club needs out of, sales. It,s critical the MC get this right going forward and consideration of what model is done needs to be made more around the diecast model collectors than ACMOC members, there is a big market out there that i don,t think we are tapping into all that well.

I read with great interest all the opinions on Acmocs decision to sell all the leftover sheet metal from George Logue. Scott owns a vineyard and a full production shop which he runs by himself. He does not have a lot of spare time on his hands. He is a true craftsman and produces the Cat parts for the love of the hobby. He was still in the development stage on some of his items. The idea that he would write an article to promote himself in the magazine is ridiculous. There are all the reasons in the world why it was handled the way it was, but obviously they were wrong. I am sure a simple phone call would have solved the problem. I know there are still a lot of demand for his products from many collectors. I personally have purchased side curtains from him and I called him and thanked him for his effort. - Wally