Excitement and cooperation
The discovery of the original Commodore C64C molds in the US back in 2015 excited us. Dallas Moore, who bought the molds, started a Kickstarter campaign to produce C64C cases. He offered new cases made from the original Commodore molds. Thomas Koch supported him with renderings of the available colors. We were excited! 
After the dust settled, we couldn't stop thinking about a possible opportunity. Wouldn't it be great to produce some more cases, but in real hardcore retro colors? Of course, it would. Think of enjoying your beloved C64 in a great new but very retro look.
Thomas Koch, Jens Schoenfeld, and Frank Erstling teamed up and started to work together to achieve this goal. Jens bought the molds and transferred them to a German toolmaker company. Thomas Koch began to define the possible colors and Frank began to establish the RETURN Magazine online shop.
Passion for detail
After the molds arrived in Germany they weren't in their best shape. Jens decided to spend them a complete overhaul. First molding tests were made and the result was ok but not as great as anticipated. Several more tweaks and adjustments were made. Sending the molds to the toolmaker, back to the molding company, testing, back to the toolmaker, back to ... you know ... Groundhog Day was sending his regards.
While on the one front the molds were pushed to the possible limits Thomas has defined the colors for the cases: Beige (original color of the C64C), Gray Beige (bread bin), Black and SX-Style (Umbra Gray top and Aluminium Silver bottom). We measured a lot of original C64Cs, bread bins, SX-64 keyboards and other black parts from back in the days to get a feeling for the right colors and their respective Lab-values. After getting the first color chips and measuring them the colors were way off from our defined values. We supplied the color supplier the new measurements so that he knows on which color axis he should tweak the color components. Well, what was the result?
The same Groundhog Day feelings emerged on getting the colors right as well. We got two more samples. Now made from the real molds, but the colors were always off and you couldn't see a pattern how and why. After discussion with our molding company, he changed the supplier and the next colors were very close. Great decision. We could even approve already two colors right away! Now we are waiting for the last three colors to approve, but that shouldn't take too much time from now on.
We spent dozens of days to care for the molds, the right colors, the best possible materials and all associated extra stuff to achieve our dream to sit in front of a new and simultaneous a very retro style C64C.
Commodore® licensed
Thanks to the efforts and persistence of Jens who negotiated with the new Commodore rights owners. So that the C64C cases could be sold under the license of Commodore®. Which is really great news, because appropriate Commodore labels will be included for every case.
What's next?
If you want to share with us, which case or cases you might want to buy we had set up an online poll to get some rough numbers. We would really appreciate your help here to get more information about the needed amount of cases.
Click here to get to the poll
Thank you very much for joining this newsletter. Stay tuned for the next issue. If you want to get in touch with us visit the following websites:
www.icomp.de
www.return-magazin.de
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