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I have gone through a number of armies in my time. I usually have a 2k fully painted multiple flocked and partly converted army with codex and case, and when I am done with it (after a year or so) I sell it on one of several sites. I realize that armies can vary, so take into consideration an army being at a minimum 7 out of 10 scale.

So, let's say I invested $400 on the items. Should I be able to sell it for $600? $800? With time and paints considered into the invested amount, total investment is usually about $500.

How do you personally figure in your "resale" value?

Need pics to determine something accurate .

Post some and we'll get a better idea?

This is just a genral discussion of how one determines the value of their army, if ever they had to sell it. No specific army is for sale here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

LunaHound wrote:
Need pics to determine something accurate .

Post some and we'll get a better idea?

No army for sale. Discussion is about how YOU determine YOUR armys value of you ever had to sell it. Do you sell it cheap because the army bores you? Or do you sell it to break even? Or because of the labor involved do you sell it for more money?

The quality of the job determines 90% of the price. I've sold multiple miniatures and whole units with up to 600% overhead, because, well, I'm good at converting things and not bad at painting (I'm also very modest).

The other 10 % is what the current codex says. Some people that I know were unable to ship their mech Eldar for more than 150% of their initial value (and the models had some good paintjobs on them) after 5th came out.

The value of a miniature depreciates immediately after it leaves the shelf at least 40 percent.

It doesn't begin to go back up in value until a Golden Daemon winning painter touches it with a paintbrush.

Only worth what someone's willing to pay. In an ideal world, your work and time is rewarded by increasing the value of the models. But from experience, it doesn't work that way.
Depends on who your selling it to, and what value they place on it. I buy and sell a lot of armies in my shop. Typical conversation might go like this:

"Whoa, 600.00 dollars for that woodelf army? That's kind of crazy."

'Well, the army is over 3500 points. It has several different lords and heroes so you can play it different ways. The models seperately cost 700.00, plus the effort to paint the army, and base it'

" Oh, I see. Still, 600.00 for an army, isn't that kind of crazy?"

Then I try to not kill them.

Same guy will drop 200.00 on new stuff 3 weeks in a row, and still have all the work painting it himself.

Linkdead wrote:The value of a miniature depreciates immediately after it leaves the shelf at least 40 percent.

It doesn't begin to go back up in value until a Golden Daemon winning painter touches it with a paintbrush.

See, it's this *%^^&% *(^&^& that gets me *^&^&*^. This is not a car. It is a model.

It really depends...

If I really just want to sell it, I put it on eBay, and allow the market to decide. People pay for quality, and don't pay for crap. I take the best pictures I can, and whatever it sells for is what it's worth.

If I want a number for an insurance quote, I think you just go with retail. Insurance doesn't cover the cost of painting...

You have to realize that people want models that match their army, typically, and there also tend to be quite a few painted miniatures for sale at any given time, so this drives the price down. eBay has been the most capitalistic way to find out (in general) what miniatures are worth.

Selling an entire army in one go helps keep the price up. I sold a 1500 point Tyranid army about seven years ago, and got twice what I paid for it. Of course, I also sold off about $600 of Lost and the Damned crap for $150 once it was no longer a legal army. It's really about how attractive (to the seller, not just visually) your army is.

Also can take in account the value of easy resell.

Popular armies like Orks and SM will net in higher price as buyers are more confident
someone will take it off their hands once they get bored of it.

Iorek wrote:You have to realize that people want models that match their army, typically, and there also tend to be quite a few painted miniatures for sale at any given time, so this drives the price down. eBay has been the most capitalistic way to find out (in general) what miniatures are worth.

This. That's why single models on the Dutch E-Bay branch never sell so well.

i lower the value for painted stuff. unpainted is higher because it gives me more enjoyment. but i am lazy too , so if it is too much then i rather have it painted as close to what i have.

Hm. I still see my topic is not being heard correctly. I am not asking the percieved value of ones army by others. Or what others might pay for your army.
What do YOU see is the value of your army?

I wanted to know how you would determine the value of your army.

For example, I paid $400 is boxes & bits. I used $10 of black primer, I used 20% of my 15 paints (15x$3.00 a bottle=$45.00x.20)=$9, I used $10 in green stuff, I used $5 in super glue, I used 20% of my flock $2.00, I spent 48 hours in labor work (x current national minimum wage is 6.55) $314.40......making my army worth $750.40......

Obviously it depends on the quality of the assembly and painting.
I have a friend with a full 8000pt IG army that is painted to a good gaming standard, but I would hesitate over paying 50% because he doesn't remove mold lines (which, on cadian helmets, are disgusting).


When I'm buying stuff on eBay, this is how I check:
New In Box : i'll pay up to 80% (of UK prices). Otherwise I can get cheaper from Maelstrom.
New, on sprues: up to 75%
Assembled, Unpainted or Primed: If assembled well, up to 70%. If badly, up to 40%.
Assembled, Painted Badly Plastic; up to 35%
Painted badly metal: up to 50%

Of course you are talking about a well painted army.
In which case, I'd think that people would only pay MORE than retail if the painting is something like Eavy Metal army standard. In that case, people would accept that they can't have exactly their favorite color scheme, and 'put up' with well painted figs instead. For anything less quality, I personally would find myself stripping them down.
So for a Eavy Metal standard army, i'd pay between 150-200%.

Another thing to consider is that people don't tend to enjoy paying huge amounts of money at once, even if they would spend the same amount over 3 days. Just the idea of spending $1000 on an army is a deterrant: its the reason that most people will build their army in lots of one unit at a time. So if you're selling a full army, you're appealing to a very specific market.


EDIT:
If i ever sell my Tau army (extremely unlikely unless i find myself needing to pay for emergency surgery ) I'm not going to be happy with less than 2x retail value. It has enough to fill up every FoC, at least one unit of everything (up to 6 units of FW) everything with dedicated transports, every single model individually converted, everything painted to an Eavy Metal standard, and including a custom-made carry case. Factor in the cost of models, the cost of paints, greenstuff, conversion material (I am making custom-molded parts for some of my minis), and most importantly time spent (I am very slow painter, generally 1 hour per model/1 squad per day) . . something like that i believe is worth 2x price.

ill give you a tener?

krazynadechukr2 wrote:Hm. I still see my topic is not being heard correctly. I am not asking the percieved value of ones army by others. Or what others might pay for your army.
What do YOU see is the value of your army?

Most people are assuming you want to know the value because you are going to sell it, in which case, it very much depends on the "perceived" value by others.

Why are you interested in this "value"? Are you trying to insure your mini's, or are you trying to sell them?

whitedragon wrote:

krazynadechukr2 wrote:Hm. I still see my topic is not being heard correctly. I am not asking the percieved value of ones army by others. Or what others might pay for your army.
What do YOU see is the value of your army?

Most people are assuming you want to know the value because you are going to sell it, in which case, it very much depends on the "perceived" value by others.

Why are you interested in this "value"? Are you trying to insure your mini's, or are you trying to sell them?

Precisely. I determine that my painted 2k armies are worth exactly $0 USD, unless I am wanting to sell one (or have to claim it for insurace/taxes) in which case it's worth however much I can get for it.

That's like, how money works.

I'm also in the camp of resale devalues the item, since a large part of my enjoyment comes from the construction and painting of the item. Why would I pay more just to spend more time undoing what someone else has done?
Now, not everyone feels that way - lucky for those of us trying to sell fully painted armies. But if you're trying to get my $$, being painted isn't a bonus, it's a liability.

people who shop for whole armies are looking for a bargain. painted or not people buy bulk to save money so unless it's painted by someone with a few trophies it's probably gonna be looked at as too expensive. I've seen a guy try four times to sell 4000 points of orks for 280 bucks, he finally put it to an open bid, winner was 145.

that's barely a battleforce and a half for 4k points.




I shop in a similar manner, painted or not I'm buying bulk to save money otherwise i'd just plan out the army long-term like usual. Unless I can save 70% or more on retail I wouldn't buy a whole army. Maybe individual painted models like if you sold your stuff squad by squad you could break even, but even then it's iffy.

Unless you don't care about the money sell by squad it's more attractive to the customer.

What kind of % worth does table top quality painting bring in for a complete army?

I'm going to give my standard response.

Blood of the fallen.

If I finish 2k worth of painted models, then it's a keeper.

krazynadechukr2 wrote:

Linkdead wrote:The value of a miniature depreciates immediately after it leaves the shelf at least 40 percent.

It doesn't begin to go back up in value until a Golden Daemon winning painter touches it with a paintbrush.

See, it's this *%^^&% *(^&^& that gets me *^&^&*^. This is not a car. It is a model.

You may not like it but Linkdead is right, how many times have you resold regular still in production GW minis and gotten what you paid back?

Unless you are really really good the buyer will probably want to repaint it.

The obvious exception to this rule is Forge World which regularly makes its money back.

With my painting skills, I would charge retail value plus a little bit off. I'm willing to take the hit if it means I'll be making space for new models to work on.

The realistic resale value is what you get offered for it on eBay or at a bring-and-buy, and so on.

If it's a nice army with a good selection of models and well painted, you should certainly get over the base retail value of the bare models. Plenty of players pay for painting services. I don't see why you shouldn't get a multiple of the base retail value but it depends on who's in the market. I'm basing that on experience of buying historical armies. The market for 40K may be different.

Of course if you just want to get rid of the figures and get cash for a new army, you can price low for a quick sale.

How much is my army worth to me?
It's priceless!

2k of orks, converted and painted by ME.
I can impress my friends, use them as talking-points (even for people not in the hobby), fight with them, reminisce over painting them, and the skills I learned doing so.
Just having them on the shelf for me to gaze over and say "I did that!".

This is something I can't get from buying a pre-painted, table-ready army. That's just some toys I bought.

If I was to run into dire straights and try to sell them, it doesn't matter what price I think they are worth. E-bay will tell me what price they will sell for. (Marketing skills, photo-fu and other factors come into play).

mikhaila wrote:Only worth what someone's willing to pay. In an ideal world, your work and time is rewarded by increasing the value of the models. But from experience, it doesn't work that way.
Depends on who your selling it to, and what value they place on it. I buy and sell a lot of armies in my shop. Typical conversation might go like this:

"Whoa, 600.00 dollars for that woodelf army? That's kind of crazy."

'Well, the army is over 3500 points. It has several different lords and heroes so you can play it different ways. The models seperately cost 700.00, plus the effort to paint the army, and base it'

" Oh, I see. Still, 600.00 for an army, isn't that kind of crazy?"

Then I try to not kill them.

Same guy will drop 200.00 on new stuff 3 weeks in a row, and still have all the work painting it himself.

What most people dont understand is the value of the time spent. far too few sellers actually try to point out an army costs: Unit price, meterial costs, plus time.
Some sellers might add in a combined unit price so people will know how much the models cost, but don't expalin how many hours work it is. A successful sale should include this information up front.

This army cost $500 in models and kits, approx $20 for material expenses, plus over 140 hours for assembly and painting time. However you can get all this for $800 ready to play with no effort on your part!

Suddenly it now looks like a bargain.

Nice idea, but just time-taken is a very variable affair.

I might take 3 hours to paint one model, and it still looks like carp, while someone else might put get a much better effect in 1 hour.

It's very hard for me to judge time-taken, as I sometimes batch-paint, getting on with squad 2 while the base coat on squad 1 dries, other times, I paint one model at a time, interspersed with playing Civ4, taking phone-calls, reading dakkadakka etc.

BlackSpike wrote:How much is my army worth to me?
It's priceless!

I think this is true for many people . Once you've played with your army for a while, it's taken on character and has history... it's really hard to let it go! I did not paint my army myself (no time, and it's not my favorite part of the hobby!) and I still feel this way

BlackSpike wrote:Nice idea, but just time-taken is a very variable affair.

I might take 3 hours to paint one model, and it still looks like carp, while someone else might put get a much better effect in 1 hour.

It's very hard for me to judge time-taken, as I sometimes batch-paint, getting on with squad 2 while the base coat on squad 1 dries, other times, I paint one model at a time, interspersed with playing Civ4, taking phone-calls, reading dakkadakka etc.

Who cares: if the army is crap it wont sell for more than scrap cost. If you paint Golden Demon you can set your own price and get it.

For those in between giving an estimate of how much time taken to the nearest ten hours or so, take account for time not spent painting and deduct it. Noone neds you to be accuratge, you could even just make up a reasonable figure. What matters is impressing on the potential customer that buying from you will save a 'lot' of time, however much a 'lot' is. They will naturally start to think of how much their time is worth and understand that selling your army for a fairly suizable sum is more reasonable than it looks at face value. If you fail to express this point you will get the problems Mikhaila got and your armies will sell for less.

If you pay to have your house decorated you pay for more than paint and wallpaper, you have to pay for the workmen. everyone expects this. However because of poor marketing of gaming army sales most potential buyers just dont think of ther labour cost involved in a sale and as a result it is so often deducted.

Just as with anything else for sale, undersell yourself and you lose out. Its a market out there, sellers should behave like sellers and sell. Got a good product but you dont push it, make a loss. Simple as that.

BlackSpike wrote:Nice idea, but just time-taken is a very variable affair.

I might take 3 hours to paint one model, and it still looks like carp, while someone else might put get a much better effect in 1 hour.

It's very hard for me to judge time-taken, as I sometimes batch-paint, getting on with squad 2 while the base coat on squad 1 dries, other times, I paint one model at a time, interspersed with playing Civ4, taking phone-calls, reading dakkadakka etc.

When I buy a painted army I am paying for the time I don't have to spend painting it myself. I enjoy painting and I am quite good at but I just don't have time.

I don't care if the people who painted it took ages or a few minutes. If they are skilfull and can do good work quickly and make more money from it, more power to them.