I completely agree with you, in the end, it is the builder who is going to enjoy his ship and modify it or not to his liking. Of course, that is how it should be, have the freedom to post and build any kind of ship and brand each individual likes.
What I was meaning with my opinion is that although ZHL kits may be good, if you do the maths it costs as much as a Panart/Mantua/Sergal one. I personally love the die-cast metal and brass plated decorations from Mantua and although sometimes they are not quite smooth and need a bit of work, I prefer them to having to paint hundreds of little bare metal decorations. This is my point of view, of course, I just like the natural finish of the brass ones more (we could say I am not as good at painting!).
So that is why I said that because most people tend to choose the ZHL one over the price. I might be wrong and I also know that customs and other duties change over the countries but at least here in Spain, it adds up to almost the same price as a "brand" one.
I think that in your comments there is a misunderstanding about ZHL Models.
For most of the kits Max sells, he is just the middle man, a seller. Those kits are made by Chinese developers who won respect due to the quality of their kits. Quality that you will not find in what you call "branded ones". By the way, they are "Branded too". Their boxes have their names and logos.
For a few kits that Max sell as "ZHL kits" , I have not seen a serious complain from anybody here at SOS. A missing part or a section that do not fit as expected, those happens also buying the "non chinese branded ones".
The decorations of the "Chinese branded kits" are very good and compete in quality with any other branded decorations. Plus, if you have budget to buy the after market CNC decorations for a few models sell by ZHL, well, those are just fantastic.
One last important point here is "Customer Service" . ZHL Models offers a customer service that I have only seen on others Chinese developers, that do not sell through ZHL Models, but I wasn't fortunate enought the get such quality of customer service from the non Chinese branded kits. That was many years ago. Could be today the others non-chinese Branded kits have improved their customer services. Nevertheless, as an example, start of 2020, after 5 months of trying to get the missings parts from the De Agostini Vasa kit (they never delivery the correct ones), they accepted to refund my $1200 dollars. And I returned the Kit plus a box full of wrong parts they shipped me during those 5 months. BTW , a few months later, it happened the same with the De Agostini Sovereign of the Sea. Missing parts. This one I returned right away and got back my $1100. Not cheap kits at all.
About price, the kits that ZHL sell are not really cheap. There are a few cheaper than others, or they are within the market value or are more expensive. But how do you measure if the price is correct when for many of the kits ZHL sell there isn't a comparator and the price also depends on what you get inside the box (wood quality, decors quality, etc). What i do, is to search at SOS the build logs of the kit I am interested that ZHL sells. Then you take your own conclusion about the price and kit quality.
Bottom line, I "do not have any commercial relationship with MAX=ZHL models" but I have bought a few kits that he sells, under his name and or "branded". I assembled 2 of those and I do not have anything to regret at all. All the others I bought, from him, the boxes where carefully inspected. The wood quality was always what you were paying for. Nothing to regret there either. You have 3 months to claim any missing part. It will be shipped ASAP to you free of charge. Plus, as an exaple, I broke the lamp of my Pegasus during my final assembling of the Kit (1 year after I got it). Max sent another one to me free of charge. Could it be because I am a frequent customer ? Who knows.
Cheers
Daniel
a kit and i will give it a go.
