Mike Wolf is retiring

[HONDO74]

I can't speculate. I can only say if the sales numbers prove MTH trains and the DCS operating system truely are great and sell well. someone will take over. You can tell me all day how great MTH is and it meaningless. I want to see hard sales numbers on the table. The market speaks with its wallet, not its mouth.

Agreed! I want to see the numbers, and from an unimpeachable source.

I'd be more interested to see what real assets exist.

http://modeltrainjournal.com/phpBB3/vie ... hp?t=17000
Mike Wolf CEO Of MTH Trains On TrainWorld Facebook Live
6,439 views
•May 31, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYNl1D1hdMo

Who owns the factory and the tooling ??

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Agreed! I want to see the numbers, and from an unimpeachable source.

I'd be more interested to see what real assets exist.

http://modeltrainjournal.com/phpBB3/vie ... hp?t=17000
Mike Wolf CEO Of MTH Trains On TrainWorld Facebook Live
6,439 views
•May 31, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYNl1D1hdMo

Who owns the factory and the tooling ??

That was in part my question, but also what the real status of any IP that still exists. W/o all 3, just what really exists other than stock in a warehouse?

[Neil]

Mike says he does. Then again he's said a lot of things that weren't, um, exactly true .

[Neil]

My guess is he is selling whatever IP he owns and the business's "good will." That and $2.50 you can buy a pretzel at a baseball game .

[G3750]

I can't speculate. I can only say if the sales numbers prove MTH trains and the DCS operating system truely are great and sell well. someone will take over. You can tell me all day how great MTH is and it meaningless. I want to see hard sales numbers on the table. The market speaks with its wallet, not its mouth.

Agreed! I want to see the numbers, and from an unimpeachable source.

I'd be more interested to see what real assets exist.

I'm with you. I am very skeptical as to what those are.

George

[chuck]

On the video with the tour of the Chinese production, scan to 1hr and 7 minutes. The guys that "own" the factory are his partners that he picked up from Korea when Samhongsa shut down their toy train unit. I think that "Mr. Lee" is one of the former Samhongsa big wigs. He is very careful in his choice of words regarding ownership. He never says I own, it's aways "we". The tooling was transferred from Korea to China when they moved production. He also talked about subcontracting, a lot. The video starts out in the die casting plant and he explicitly says this is a subcontractor. Subcontractors work in the main assembly plant and even the lost wax detail parts are subcontracted out to jewelry firms in the area. Not sure how much of this stuff is owned by Mr. Wolf. I suspect that he and the four guys mentioned in the that clip have shared ownership, no idea of percentages or how that figures into the sale/break up of the company/business.

[healey36]

Does anyone ever recover their dies/molds back from the Chinese at the end of the day? Seems the track-record on that is pretty abysmal. At Hughes we had various trim bits molded in the PRC for some of the ground equipment. Though the agreements were written such that the dies were Hughes property, I don’t recall the manufacturing engineers ever getting them back. Pretty low-tech, so it wasn’t a big deal.

I recall an incident years ago involving the Chinese and Dept 56. The shtick with Dept 56 was that after a certain number of pieces were made, the molds were broken and the piece was never made again. However, after 2-3 years went by after the mold was “broken”, remarkably similar pieces showed up in Walmart in nearly identical, possibly identical form. I have a couple of them, purchased before I realized Dept 56 made the same thing. Knowing what we know now about the PRC’s stance regarding IP, I guess one shouldn’t be surprised.

So if the guy doesn’t have a clear path to getting his offshore dies/molds in hand, what assets does MTH have? A warehouse? Remaining inventory? Software? The brand and related goodwill? Seems to me all he is selling is some sort of licensing agreement to continue having the stuff made and then marketing it.

It seems not too different from the Lionel model. I remember Calabrese saying 90% of Lionel was the brand...after that, not much in the way of tangible assets.

[chuck]

If the tool and dies are shipped in for the purpose of casting you probably can get them back. If the tool/die is actually made in China I don't think you have much of a chance getting it back or even controlling what happens to it after your production run is finished. Unless you go there (China) with contract in one hand and a sledge hand in the other and beat the sh*t out of the mold personally.

[chuck]

Just received an email alert from Mario's Trains:

MTH is Closing??...Inventory Clearance!

Seems someone has figured out a way to potentially cash in on the "news"

[Neil]

Dealers who depend on MTH for their primary business, such as Stockyard Express, Ready to Roll and Mr. Muffin, have some tough decisions to make in the face of overwhelming uncertainty. Time to add Howard Hitchcock to your Christmas card list folks?

[HONDO74]

Howard Hitchcock

Lionel President Howard Hitchcock On TrainWorld TV At The York TCA Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-Ufy7MwtTQ

It wasn't too many years ago that Tony Lash and all the MTH bobbleheads were predicting that Mike Wolf would own Lionel

[Neil]

"It wasn't too many years ago that Tony Lash and all the MTH bobbleheads were predicting that Mike Wolf would own Lionel "

These were same homers who were praising the superiority of PS1 over TMCC. Sort of like asking Quebecois folks about the future of Ontario in the 1970s . Or vice versa.

[Neil]

I thought these were interesting posts on a forum that is fairly MTH friendly. Just two other perspectives that I just happen to largely agree with . Lots of people engaging in magical thinking right now, but these two aren't. Even if an MTH survives this fiasco of announcements, are dealers and hobbyists going to trust these folks initially? I think a lot of folks would take wait and see attitudes at best. Whether he knows it or not, Mike Wolf has put his successors (if any) in a hole to begin with by these bizarre announcements.

"I for one am glad we chose LEGACY. We knocked around the idea of purchasing DCS and integrating the two down the road. Not so much anymore. Scott Mann picked up ERR so maybe someone will grab DCS and run with it as an addition to what they already have that is train related. As a stand alone entity I believe the investment would far outweigh the rewards. Therefore I truly believe DCS will be dead in the water after the supposed one year of support. Maybe in the future a system that combines LEGACY and DCS could be in the offing as I have seen many other proprietary systems used under license in the past and now. One such system being the HUMMINBIRD integrated remote system being licensed to LOWRANCE now so you don't have to spend serious coin on a changing to a complete HUMMINBIRD system. As far as I'm concerned every one has the right to enjoy their retirement as much as the next person. This situation could have been handled much differently. It does seem that things appear to be a little shady to some. Remember, MTH upgraded their DCS system without any backwards compatibility at all . That left a lot of people holding the proverbial "bag"! A lot of dealers and hobbyists lost out big time. That being said our local train dealer did say four years ago MTH was looking for a buyer because Mike Wolf had enough and wanted out. that was a huge factor in our decision to go with Lionel and LEGACY.At this time I will definitely go with my gut feeling as it has treated me very well in the past."

"Other than the accessories and rolling stock, not to worried about MTH leaving the market. I have had issues with DCS and the engines, not happy about the lag time to run trains, problems with control boards, leaving PROTO2 in non- support and all that. I was working in a train specific store, so I have had multiple experiences over multiple makes/models/manufacturers....so, I have first hand experience.

I have not had the quality issues in Lionel that some have spoken about, save for my CNJ CamelBack not producing enough smoke and my dealer taking care of it in 30 days time. Everything else I have from Lionel has been fine. Damn near perfect in some cases. But, then again, I'm not buying items over $500.....My last purchase of the First Responders set runs well, pulls great and does what I expect it to. Paint/fit/finish are impeccable.

What may have driven Mike to retire? Maybe no one wants the business. He made his money and he wants to retire. Good for him. The electronic techs seem to have interest in the technology, but if that technology continues to have this absurd interest in continuing DCS, then why bother? TMCC is easy to use and the learning curve is low. Legacy is more of a step up and the learning curve a little steeper but not being licenced.

In my world, Lionel would buy the HO and accessory line. Possibly the rolling stock. IF Atlas O was smart, they or Menards would buy the locomotive molds and licence TMCC. Make it either a mid or low line inventory, Conventional or TMCC. Now, you have competition again. 1 operating system which is what O gauge NEEDS.

Regardless of your opinion, LionChief was and is GENIUS!! Yes, I get it, multiple controllers and all that. BUT hand a remote to a 5 year old and they are off and running and with WiFi? Smart move, Lionel."

[ScaleCraft]

I have said this before. I know at least one company who "owned" their own tooling, like for decades, shipped it to PRC to have stuff made cheaper than in Germany....and the cost to the new company owners, political and bureaucratic BS, and time was unbelievable. They got the stuff eventually, but not pretty.

As far as Intellectual Property...HA! Not with the PRC. They don't care. Look at AristoCraft for one. Tooling developed and owned by the PRC, when Aristo closed their doors, all sorts of "fans" wanted to save it. Buy it. Put together their meager savings and keep it going. But there was nothing there to save. Name, which by that point in the game had been sullied to the point only the blinder-equipped die hards would deal with it, and that's it. Warehouse was leased. Tooling held by PRC. Just slammed the door shut and that was that. Two, three years later the US outlet for Kader Heavy Industries, which is Bachmann, started releasing Aristo cra...stuff with Dragnet....."only the name has been changed".

If the PRC does own the tooling, and this all goes to poo, just wait a couple of years and the PRC will start making the stuff again, if for no other reason than to continue amortizing their investment.

[Roy]

MTH has a nice-looking RS-1. I also like their subway and el cars.

One of the few MTH pieces I have, is a Walt Disney World-style ten wheeler, from a Xmas set. I've been having fun modifying it. It had one of their damnable U-shaped boilers, for one thing. But, it's far better proportioned than their disgusting General, which looks like a blow-up of the Tyco HO miscreation. Speaking of blow-ups, the Disney 4-6-0 is an enlargement of a three-foot gauge engine.

Equally hideous, are MTH's adaptations of the New York Central 999 to represent the transcontinental golden spike engines. They're selling these as Premier models.