OT: What happened to Polarlights and Playingmantis?

[B-52 GUNNER]

I noticed that Polarlights and Playingmantis are no longer on-line.

It looks like RC2 shut them down.

Does anyone know what happened exactly?

All I can find is Johnny Lighting and it looks more like ERTL.

I was hoping for more 1/350 scale Star Trek ships. (TOS Enterprise, Romulan War Bird, etc.)

My daughter was hoping for more Charlie Brown figures as well.

Scot

[David Hingtgen]

I recently read that the Trek ships are not dead, but there is a licensing dispute. The 1/350 NX-01 is out of production, but the 1/350 1701-A is still being made. But there will be no new kits until licensing is resolved.

[B-52 GUNNER]

I hope they do more of these kits.

RC2 also owns AMT/ERTL; I would hate it if the decided to scrap any new kits and just rerelease the old AMT Star Trek kits because they already have the molds for them.

Polarlights is the best.

[Jinnai]

RC2 bought out PL/Playing Mantis, chasing after their Johnny Lightning series of die-cast cars and whatnot.

Then basically sat on the Trek license and only released the 1/350 1701-A and 1/1000 NX-01. After that, no more effort to produce kits with the Trek license.

That's in a nutshell.

[glane21]

I saw Rudolph and Charlie Brown Christmas toys in stores this month, those were both Playing Mantis licenses. But I've also seen the same toys as "Memory Lane". So someone has their licenses and molds in full effect.