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Dear All, I like doing this hobby on the cheap. Does anyone have any tips or pointers where to pick up badly painted 40k Models (ebay is too commercial now) or any websites where people get rid of old models.

I have tried on the Swap forum but most people don't want to admit to it.

I'm going to some local car boot sales to try and buy old bits or Games...

Well.. shameless plug here.. Bartertown... or RM?

Yeah, aware of it, but i've been stung for bloody import costs from the US before, so I wouldn't use the site, which is a great shame as it looks brilliant.

Nevermind eh>

What's wrong with eBay?

There's heaps of stuff going. Some of it is pretty well painted but there's loads of bare plastic and poster painted too.

I got 28 terribly painted Marines from eBay for 20 bucks. Don't boycott eBay for no good reason - you're not going to find a better place outside of lucky flea markets.

I always feel like i get ripped off on Ebay. I regularly see items going for well above market values especially OOP stuff. I wish there was a Crappy painted filter as if you enter SPACE MARINE you get back 4,000 odd hits.

I do like ebay, but it is flooded with people selling individual resin bits for £0.99 from Sprues which is all well and good but there are literally 10's of websites for parts. Anyway rant over, the main problem is not being able to see the Crappy painted miniatures for the spares and parts.

Also people are selling their models individually, plus it is always a bid not a "Buy Now" so the prices can be inflated by others and then you find you get only 4 models from the guy that had 15 on offer. I find it frustrating, i have cash but i hate being ripped off. (OMG I sound like my Dad)

Some of your GW stores do buy/sell used minis events where ive gotten things for extremely cheap, check into that.

mwnciboo wrote:I always feel like i get ripped off on Ebay. I regularly see items going for well above market values especially OOP stuff. I wish there was a Crappy painted filter as if you enter SPACE MARINE you get back 4,000 odd hits.

I do like ebay, but it is flooded with people selling individual resin bits for £0.99 from Sprues which is all well and good but there are literally 10's of websites for parts. Anyway rant over, the main problem is not being able to see the Crappy painted miniatures for the spares and parts.

Also people are selling their models individually, plus it is always a bid not a "Buy Now" so the prices can be inflated by others and then you find you get only 4 models from the guy that had 15 on offer. I find it frustrating, i have cash but i hate being ripped off. (OMG I sound like my Dad)

You sound like you're overthinking this and making excuses for yourself. Just search "Space Marine -bits" and all the bits will be gone, leaving just the Marines. In your case, "Space Marine painted -bits" and you should be good. As for bidding, that all depends on how much you're willing to spend for poorly painted figures.

Alternatively, you could just try Dakka's own Swap Shop - there's always someone with some terribly painted Marines lying around, myself included

If you're looking for crappily painted models, your best bet is to search 'pro painted'.



They might be a bit more expensive though.

-bits damn it....I am being a slow. Off to ebay i go. I use the swap shop quite alot its where the model for my avatar came from!

Brother SRM wrote:
You sound like you're overthinking this and making excuses for yourself. Just search "Space Marine -bits" and all the bits will be gone, leaving just the Marines. In your case, "Space Marine painted -bits" and you should be good. As for bidding, that all depends on how much you're willing to spend for poorly painted figures.

Alternatively, you could just try Dakka's own Swap Shop - there's always someone with some terribly painted Marines lying around, myself included

Didn't know you could do this, so that's at least two people you've helped today - thanks!

The key to cheap purchasing on eBay is to bid low. You will get overbid on a lot of auctions but the ones you win will be good cheap.

I'm running at about 50% of retail price for a variety of Tyranid stuff including NIB, assembled unpainted, painted, and spare bits. That includes the postage cost.

I did manage to let a couple of super bargains go. If I hadn't been on holiday I could have had two Carnifexes for 99 pence each (plus postage). But I forgot to bid.

The point is, if you bide your time, and bid conservatively, there is enough unwanted stuff being punted out that you will gradually pick up real bargains.

When searching for crappily painted stuff just look for "painted". Most painted stuff on eBay is trash, if people had any sense they would strip it before sellling it.

Also, look for poorly described items. I've picked up a few things cheap because the seller didn't use something that would draw attention to it. I got a nicely painted Nagash for £5 which was less than half of what it was usually selling for at the time. They called it "Nagash lord of the dead" but if they'd called it "Nagash Warhammer Undead OOP" it would have got a lot more hits. It got so few hits that I put it on my watched list the first time and forgot about it, they relisted it and a week later I won as the only bidder, yet other Nagash's were selling for £15 all the while.

Right, many thanks for showing me the error of my ways on Ebay. (Space Marine painted -bits) its now much easier, i'm banking on the law of statistics e.g if I bid low enough on enough items eventually i'll get a monkey that writes shakespeare i'm banking on the law of statistics if bid low enough on enough items eventually i'll win some of the cheap miniatures and strip them with Dettol.

Cheers Guys

Ebay can turn up some good stuff, you just need to be patient with it. Also consider messaging people who have items which are due to end but have no bids because of high reserve prices. Often you can thrash out a deal which works well for both of you.

It is possible to pick up the odd bargain at car boot sales and charity shops, but these are becoming rare due to progammes like bargain hunt, coupled with the internet, people are checking the value of things before they sell them or give them away.

The one thing to keep in mind is that the standard of a painted miniature is entirely subjective, what may be a crappy paint job to you could resemble the pinnacle of 8 hours hard work slaving with a paint brush. In reality it may look like garden gnome that got drunk in a paint factory but to the painter it is their own personal Golden Deamon winner.