Those weekly mags where you get little bits to build collection/build object

[ILovePlayingDarts]

I've thought this before about these mags. Have just seen the one for building a replica of Nelson's ship Victory.

It's £5.99 per mag, and you buy over 100 of them to get the full kit to build the ship.

That's over £700 for what looks on screen to be a pretty basic model, with little detail.

I am sure that for just a fraction of this outlay you can get a much more realistic kit to build, that looks better.

They are really taking the P*.

Thses things are complete rubbish, I sometimes buy the first issue because they are cheap but never the rest. Don't know how they can justify the scandalous price!

that ad makes me laugh! would take ages to get all the bits.

my advice would be to buy an airfix kit, much cheaper and you get all the bits at once.

I've had a fight on my hands before to stop dd wanting to get one set about something girly (forget what), and just put my foot down with a firm NO.

I do know people who've begun to buy one of these sets, and they've had real problems towards the end. Some of these collections have never been fully published, meaning people have spent this extortionate sum of money and have not collected the full set, despite calling/contacting the publishers.

So, my ds wants Victory, so he's now going to be learning the same lesson his sister did! Grrrr!

Its like the crochet blanket one, far too much money for something you can learn from the internet and you can get much nicer wool than the stuff on the magazine.

I have bought a couple of these but only ones where you get 'add ons' like the Dora magazines where you get the doll first and every fortnight a new outfit. Or peppa pig playland where you get magnet boards and then every fortnight either new magnets or a new background.
That way you get a toy and anytime you stop you have something 'whole' to play with. All the others are shitola IMO.

Thats not too bad JackB, at least you get something worthwhile from it.
But they are really overpriced aren't they?

i would 100% recommend to go with the airfix route rather than these mags.

hobbycraft have lots of choice and it's fun to do at once, who thought spreading it over a year or so was a good idea

DD1 is currently collecting the 'Hello Kitty' dinner set. She loves it. And it encourages her to eat as she has her own crockery and recipes she can chose from.

Well not really, they were 4 quid a fortnight, which is the same as cbeebies weekly, and the gifts weren't some shit plastic phone and a pack of cheap crayons

but yes, the rest are completely overpriced and ridiculous, that dinosaur one is hysterical. I saw it in tesco earlier. this month you get a Jaw. for like a fiver!

oohhhhh I hate those bloody things! models, dvds etc... can't help wondering how much info is actually in the mags?

with magazines DH and I agreed never to subscribe for the kiddies - we'll just let them choose one every couple of weeks so they get variety. there are some pretty good preschool ones, usually with a craft kit. when they're older if they have a particular interest I'd much rather buy a book!!!

ShinyandNew: I have no children and like to think that I'm a resopnsible young adult, but that Hello Kitty dinner set had me desperate to be a little girl again for an excuse to buy it!

I agree on these sets though, but love those Human Body sets, brilliant stuff!

They are called partworks in the trade. One of my ex-boyfriends worked for a company that published partworks. If they are successful, they are massive money spinners, but there is no guarantee of success and lots are expensive flops.

Gah. Almost got a black eye in the scramble to get the Hello Kitty dinner plate for 99p in WH SMiths the other week...missed out. Gutted I bet someone is flogging them for 5 times that on Ebay now.

I started collecting the Mr Bean magazines for ds with the stinky stickers, he changed school half way through so never finished collecting them, now we have half an encyclopedia and half a finished sticker book (I'll happily buy the rest if anyone has them to sell)
He later collected the horrible science and the roald dahl ones, I collected the horrible science ones from WHSmith for bloody years! Just when I thought it was done the bastards extended the print runs so I had to buy the farkers for another 6 months! (I'm a mug!)

Never again!

What happens if they are a complete flop?

Do they discontinue them?

What if you buy, say 10 issues, and they discontinue it?
Thats just as rubbish as buying the full set and realising how much money you spent on a very basic airfix model!

DD has the Sabrina The Teenage Witch magazines. I religiously bought it every 2 weeks and it took 2 years!!

By which time, she was completely over Sabrina and moved on to Groovy Chick!

Do any of the magazines continue to the last issue?

I thought they were all a scam and folded after 5-10 issues. That's still 5-10 issues of utter crap sold for a vastly inflated price, so they must make a profit...

Has anyone ever completed anything?

Bloody Horrible science did. Just before the last issue the bastards announced they were going to continue to make the feckers! The Roald Dahl ones went to the end aswell.

I used to work in WHS, and we would get sent the first 8 or so issues, which sold like hot cakes, but after this, customers had to place an order for it, because they are so expensive for the shop to stock that it is not worth even ordering one too many. (So it is the same in WHS, any local newsagent, etc etc)

So it appears that they disappear from the shelves but often they are available to order beyond the first few issues. I don't think this covers the series ending 2 issues before the end though.

Agree though, why would you bother?

I am not too far away from collecting the whole 'How your body works' series for my DD, where you build a skeleton with all the organs inside. She is only 5 but really wanted it after she saw it on tv, and I thought it would be a useful thing to have as she gets older and starts learning more about the body at school. So far the whole thing has been a bloody nightmare, I have it on order from my local newsagents and to begin with the publishers were forever missing issues out which have to be chased up, and since then I have had to contact them 4 times re faulty or missing parts. Some of the bits are really badly made and I feel like I need valium after a session of trying to build the bloody thing. Problem is, once you have invested so much money you are reluctant to stop buying it. Thankfully not too many more to go!

Let this be a lesson to you not to do this again jen!!

I've stuck with VIZ for a few years now, safe in the knowledge that you never get what it says on the cover.

I bought all Horrible History ones (complete series) for dd about 6 years ago,fab mags but when you work out all the money spent

I don't buy any magazines such as these,I fucking hate the way the first edition pulls the children into wanting them by being 99p and then from week two,they are £4.99+

I did spy the Hello Kitty magazine and thought how shit the quality was...

lol - Yep no worries there - the nearly finished crappy skeleton which has cost over £200 that I have had to build stands there as a stark reminder not to ever be so bloody stupid again. We will stick to Sparkle World in future!

Its not even an investment is it?
Like Jen said, they're usually badly made anyway so its not even like you get a good quality skeleton to keep forever!