De Agostini

De Agostini S.p.A., usually spelled DeAgostini (without the spacing), was founded in 1901 and is a Novara, Italy-based holding company that specializes in the production of magazines, comics, and collectibles. 
The company has regularly produced partwork publications based on a number of licensed entertainment properties such as Star Trek, Star Wars, and Marvel, among many others. These publications are distributed in sixty-six countries, primarily under the Atlas Editions, DeAgostini Publishing, DeAgostini Editore, and Planeta DeAgostini imprints. 
==Star Trek licensing==
DeAgostini's involvement with the Star Trek franchise commenced with the publication of edited versions of GE Fabbri's Star Trek Fact Files and the Star Trek: Best Episode Collection for the Japanese market. 
Later, the company initiated the short-lived The Official Star Trek The Next Generation: Build the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D partwork publication in Japan.
For the former three publications, DeAgostini entered into a joint venture with GE Fabbri. Under contract to GE Fabbri, Midsommer Books' UK staff were responsible for editing and writing while DeAgostini's Japanese branch was responsible for the translation, marketing, and production for Japan. GE Fabbri and Eaglemoss Publications merged in 2012 to form Eaglemoss Collections.
For its home country of Italy, the company also published a truncated Italian-language version of the Star Trek Fact Files.
Beginning in 2012, the company began to publish Eaglemoss Collections/Hero Collector's Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection partwork (and the first two of its related Shipyards reference books in 2019) in Japan, under its own imprint.
DeAgostini also publishes Eaglemoss/Hero Collector's Star Trek: Discovery The Official Starships Collection and Star Trek: The Next Generation Build The USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D partworks in Japan, under the DeAgostini imprint. After the August 2022 bankruptcy of Eaglemoss, it was announced on that DeAgostini (Italy) had taken over the entire Build The USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D program as part of their newly established "Fanhome" brand, as detailed below.
==Fanhome==
Launched on 1 June 2021, , Fanhome became the publishing imprint and brand under which DeAgostini's intended to house and market its science fiction, "genre", and pop culture product lines. Associated web portals and webshops were also initiated under this trademark, and in this it showed big similarities with the Hero Collector brand and imprint of former Star Trek (sub)licensor Eaglemoss Collections.
Upon the January 2023 takeover of the Build The USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D program from the now defunct Eaglemoss for release under their new "Fanhome" brand, DeAgostini hoped delivery to customers to resume in February for Europe (UK and Germany only), followed a month later to those in the USA. In Japan the partwork continued to be housed under the local DeAgostini branch like it was when it was launched in that country. Non-Japanese collectors had to take out new subscriptions with DeAgostini/Fanhome though. By July 2023 subscription services were up and running for the selected regions.
On 19 August 2023, competitor (new) Master Replicas broke the news that they had lost out on the Star Trek license to release new outings in the various starship model/magazine partwork lines, and that it had gone to DeAgostini instead for a third quarter 2024 launch. This was only officially confirmed by Fanhome on 13 December 2023, who additionally clarified that it was their intent to pick up where Eaglemoss had left off with brand new die-cast model releases from the most recent Kurtzman-era Star Trek television productions. That the license went to DeAgostini instead Master Replicas might have been due to Fanhome's very recent launch of an in detail worked out, yet very similar "" model/magazine partwork line (an indication that DeAgostini/Fanhome was much further along in finalizing their release processes than Master Replicas wasThere is potentially a second, major reason in play regarding the 's preference for DeAgostini; Master Replicas is a purely British company, and operating exclusively from the UK, which means that the substantial EU Star Trek collector market is slapped with hefty import duties and VAT at 21% (which comes on top of the British VAT already included in the retail price) for products ordered at that company, increasing retail prices by around forty percent in total in comparison to those charged to UK customers, as the (additional) customs clearance costs and the much steeper UK-EU shipping costs are not only part of the import duties, but of the VAT (charged in both the UK and the EU) calculations as well. Operating internationally, Italian DeAgostini does not face such restrictions, including for the UK where they already operate a physically established local subsidiary since 1969 – thereby circumventing the obligatory import restrictions. This is not an option likely to become viable anytime soon to the small-sized (new) Master Replicas company.The US customer base for Master Replicas products incidentally, is far less impacted as the treshold for UK import duties stands at US$800 net as of 2023. The much lower corresponding EU treshold is €150 gross, thus encompassing all the additional costs including the EU VAT whereas the 21% VAT and clearance costs are always due for UK imports. All this goes a long way in explaining the dramatic 38% collapse of UK exports to the EU, ever since became effective at the start of 2021 , becoming a huge incentive for the franchise to avoid the UK as the European base of (merchandise) operations. Master Replicas' predecessor Eaglemoss had circumvented that pitfall by opening mainland Europe subsidiaries before they went bankrupt.Oddly enough though, when Fanhome made their official December 2023 Star Trek die-cast model line announcement, they only did so for US and UK clientele – with the franchise seemingly snubbing the EU's substantial Star Trek fanbase (yet) again – and thereby making their proposition as equally unattracive and prohibitively costly for EU fans as it already had been under Master Replicas.), which incidentally, was DeAgostini in essence revisiting their prior Star Wars vehicle partwork line they had already marketed previously in the period 2008-2011 under a near-identical collection title.
==See also==
* Star Trek starship miniatures
* Star Trek model kits
==Footnote==
== External links ==
* – official website
** – official US website (similar sites also for the UK, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands)
Category:Publishers
Category:Collectible companies