Finally, HistoriFigs has a new “postal” address, the new address is:

HistoriFigs
P.O. Box 94
Portage, WI 53901

Website updates are still in progress…

Official “re-start” is slated for February 2006.

Well, here we are 2006, a new year…

We are still in the process of updating the main website to relfect our new address, business policies and product listings for 2006. If all goes well, these updates will be completed and in place by the end of next week. Once the website is done, we will also be sending out a mailing, to everyone on our mailing list, with updates on HistoriFigs and information about our plans for 2006.

Last year many of you were intriged by our round up of of sales data for 2004, so in keeping with tradition we present some sales data for 2005. As with last year, we won’t get into $ or actual units sold, just some raw percentages….

I’ll start with two of the newer parts of our business; Custom/Contract casting and online retail sales of goods that we do not produce. The casting portion of our business provided nearly 50% of our total gross revenues, while the online retial sales came in at about 5%. As you can see the new business portions made up the bulk of our gross sales revenues.

OK, now lets get down to sales of the figures which we produce and sell (Scruby, Bloodaxe, Ghastly & Co. and of course HistoriFigs). When we look at just sales of these miniatures things breakdown as follows: Sales of 30mm figures account for 33% of all miniatures sold. Next in line are 25mm figures which weigh in at 25% of sales. We then come to N-Gauge figures at 22% followed by 15mm miniatures at 17% of sales. In the overall picture, 20mm sales were small enough to be factored out almost completely.

Now for a look at how the 2005 data stacks up against 2004…

Scale 2004 2005
30mm 33% 33%
25mm 25% 25%
20mm 5%
15mm 18% 17%
N-Gauge 12% 22%


Things look mostly the same, but as can be seen, N-Gauge has taken a fair sized jump, while 20mm has dropped low enough to not register on the scale

If we take one more look at the sales totals we can see some other trends; Dialing into indivivual purchases (on average) we find that the N-gauge buyer spends more per purchase than any other single scale. We find that 30mm customers come in a (very) close second. These are followed by 25mm and 15mm customers. It might be interesting to note that the average 15mm customer spends less than 1/2 (per purchse) then the average N-Gauge customer.

Our last look will be at the popular eras; As expected, the most popular period is Napoleonic. This is followed by the18th century and Colonial periods. Ancients round out the top four. In the 30mm world, Napoleonic are by far the dominent figures – over 80% of all 30mm sales are Napoleonic figures. In the 25mm realm, we find that Colonial captures 30% of the sales the reaming 70% is split between Napoleonic and 18th Century (Napoleonic having a slight edge). In N-gauge, Napoleonic figures are tops in sales, but in 2005 they were almost beaten out by the newly re-molded 30YW figures. Ancients dominate the 15mm and 20mm scales – not too suprising, since they make up the bulk of our offernings in these two scales.

We wish you all a Happy New Year, and please be sure to stop back in a week or so, as we ramp up for 2006 and the restart of HistoriFigs. Our monthly specials will resume in February, and we have another naming contest in the works (yes, there will be an expansion of the Bloodaxe Science Fiction line).

Where has the year gone to?

Sometimes it seems as if the year has simply flown by, and other times it feels like is has been 2005 forever!
2005, was quite busy. The year started off quite well for us, lots of uncertainty, but well none-the less. In late spring Alison had wrist surgery, which took here out of the production rotation, leaving us with just myself to run the casting and mold making operations. Then as summer approached, Alison and Liam left for Wisconsin – to look after our house while some repairs/upgrades were being performed. With Alison in Wisconsin and myself in California, HistoriFigs was back to a solo operation; I was covering casting, mold making, shipping and most of the bookkeeping. Needless to say I was behind schedule almost all of the time. As summer began to draw to a close, a job opportunity sprang up here in Wisconsin, and so the move was on. We had expected to move here at some point, but really did not know when that might be – the job market, isn’t any better here than it is in California – but I found a job with a company that I really like, so it has all worked out well.

Now, we had planned to shutdown HistoiFigs operations for only a few weeks – time to pack, time to move and time to get setup again. Well, packing time took longer than I thought it would. Actual moving time was what we had expected, but setup time is much longer than I had hoped for. We still do not have a winterized workspace for casting or mold making. Sorting and Packing has moved to the basement, so now we won’t get frostbite when sorting and packing out orders. Mold making will also move to the basement, one I find a mover to move the vulcanizer down to the basement. The stairs are too steep for me to move the equipment down. Failing to locate a mover, I will simply disassemble the machine and move it down on piece at a time – I figure that will take me most of a day – but not before Christmas, perhaps over the New Year’s weekend (if I don’t find a moving service by then). That just leaves winterizing the casting shop. I’ve re-drawn the plans, and figure I can have an insulated workspace setup with just a few days worth of work (just one more wall to build, and add stringers for the ceiling – plus insulation…) The storage room can remain lesser, or un-insulated this winter. So, we are on the path to a restart of “normal” operations…

Around the first of 2006, we will roll out our restart plan. For now, I’ll just say that we will be restarting in stages and that not all ranges will be available right away. More details will follow in January – both here and in a mailing to all of our customers.

We want to thank all of you for your continued support and wish all of you a happy and healthy holiday season, and may the new year bring you continued happiness.

Mike, Alison and Liam — HistoriFigs

We have sorted out the mail forwarding problems we were having with [snail] mail sent to our Post Office Box in Cotati. As it turns out the Post Office was holding our mail, so it was sitting in the Post Office in Cotati, rather than being forwarded to us in Wisconsin.

Things are all sorted out now and mail is being forwarded to our new home address. Shortly, we will have a new HistoriFigs mailing address here in Wisconsin and will post the new contact information as soon as we can. Until then, mail sent to the Cotati address will just take a couple of extra days to reach us.