02-25-2012, 10:08 AM
Actually, MDC didn't "go under." Their story was similar to Athearn's. The original owner of Roundhouse/Model Die Casting got old and wanted to retire from business. None of his kids wanted the company. His choice was to either just shut down and walk away, or to try to sell the company. Horizon bought it and integrated the products into Athearn as a separate line. Horizon did not want any of the left over kits, just the dies, tooling, etc. I knew of a man in the Carson City, Nevada area who bought all of the previous production either from MDC or from Horizon, and had the stuff in storage. I think he sold it off to someone else who boxed everything into kits for sale, but I've lost track of who now offers the left over kits.