The “studio quality” models are 90cm long and price starts from 15,000 USD.
How is there a market for these artisan models but not regular models without hole that you can swoosh around?
Wait, are you talking about
the models Factory Entertainment just pre-announced? Are those real numbers or just off the top of your head? The press release didn't have any information on price or size (presumably that's coming in a week when they make the "real" announcement), but I was actually expecting them to be smaller than that and a touch less than is typical for your ultra-high-end collectable, possibly less than $1000 each. I know there's inflation, but the
Quantum Mechanix/Anovos models from the early 2010s were about 90 cm and a third of your $15k figure, and the preview pictures in the press release look nice but, how should I put it, a bit more mass-produced than those were. Seams, visible decal backing, screw-covers, one misplaced decal that actually shouldn't be there at all on that version of the ship...
For those that haven't seen and don't feel like clicking through to the press release, here are the preview pictures of the models Factory Entertainment are announcing a week from today at SDCC. They've said they'll be showing the Enterprise-refit, Enterprise-D, and Excelsior, and announcing a fourth ship later this summer.
Anyway, to answer your question, it's balancing effort and scale. You don't have to sell a lot of $5000 ship models to make back your money, but if you're making ten thousand four-inch models, that's introducing all the related costs like factories, warehousing, overseas shipping and distribution, keeping track of the things (as we can see with more of certain EM models just appearing every few weeks), and you have to get rid of them all, relatively quickly (I think QMX still had NX-01 "Artisan Replicas" for sale for six or seven years, after the -As and -Ds all sold out. Heck, if you're just working person-to-person, you can get an Enterprise-refit about the same size and of the same or better quality by hiring an expert model-builder to assemble and paint the Polar Lights kit for you for two thirds to half the price (never mind the inflation between 2009 and today).
