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While I appreciate this isn't exactly "news" I figured it is relevant to a large proportion of Dakka users, so I thought I would post it here.

Due to various natural disasters, the price of tin has hit an all time record high. That's important to us because metal minis can contain up to 91% tin.

I've been contemplating a number of new white metal products and was shocked at the current price of alloys.

Another thread on Dakka got me thinking about how many people must have metal models they don't want and aren't saleable.

So I thought we should recycle them! Let's turn them into base weights and conversion parts! Given that there's a cost to melting them down, I don't know if it really qualifies as "green", but what the heck!

I would be happy to pay $1 an ounce for old metal minis, parts and even clippings (whatever the metal equivalent of sprues are called).

Alternatively, I could give $2 an ounce credit against whatever product they become.

In the interests of fairness, I must point out that virgin alloys are currently going for nearly $4 an ounce.

For users outside the US, an ounce is about 28g, which means this might be worthwhile for you too. If people think this is worthwhile, perhaps I can have my family and friends in England and Australia act as collection points!

What do people think?

BloodQuest wrote:Another thread on Dakka got me thinking about how many people must have metal models they don't want and aren't saleable.

At least from GW's range, I can't think of anything much that wouldn't be sellable. Even minis that no longer have any practical use in the games tend to still sell to collectors, or people playing home-brew rules or older editions.

This concept only works when the material values exceed the artistic value. Sure $1 for the amount of metal in a GW is almost reasonable, especially if its one you don't want anymore, but then you have to consider that via Ebay or bartering you can sell that same piece of metal for $10+. Its value as art exceeds its value as a lump of metal.

Yeah you might not want to sell the models themselves for their metal but you can sell all those worthless metal sprues.

Back when I started casting I looked at bulk buying unpainted metal models to melt down. Sad thing is though that the price is almost always more than just buying the bars.

To make money from it you'd need to do it as a private trade with someone who wanted it specifically for casting (and the other guy who didn't care about ebay prices). If you just put re-melted bars on ebay I doubt you'd make your money back.

Plus it'd have to be from unpainted metals, as melting painted models (even those with undercoats) really reduces the quality of the metal. You can scrape some of the rubbish off, but you'd lose a fair bit more metal than just buying unpainted models.

If anyone is curious, the cheapest models I found that were mostly unpainted and from an era where I knew they couldn't have lead in them were metal cadians I think(?) It was a few years back.

aka_mythos wrote:This concept only works when the material values exceed the artistic value. Sure $1 for the amount of metal in a GW is almost reasonable, especially if its one you don't want anymore, but then you have to consider that via Ebay or bartering you can sell that same piece of metal for $10+. Its value as art exceeds its value as a lump of metal.

I understand your point, but I think there's a nice chuck on models from 1990's models that you have to all but give away. Know anyone who will give me $25 for 2 dozen corsairs?

I've got about 5 pounds of old fantasy models that I've been holding on to for something like this. Would it make a difference what material they're made from? I'm sure that I've got both lead and white metal models as my range goes back to old Ral Parthas and Grenadier models.

I've heard that Reaper does a recycle/recasting event at Reapercon where you can bring old minis to have melted down and recast as new models, but I'd be happy to trade them for base weights or conversion bits like extra armor for SM tanks or the like.

Most of the stuff is unpainted, but some of it could be stripped, which I imagine is preferable. Any ideas what kinds of bits you'd make for the recasting?

YAY Finally a way to recycle GWs y metal models!!!1

Where are you finding these prices? I did a quick look and was coming up with $4-7/lb, not per ounce.

Edit: Not quite right in my first post the prices I were looking at had lead mixed in. The traded price for tin is less than $11/lb, you can buy pure tin on amazon for $15/lb, so your price of $1 an ounce is pretty generous. How many minis in a lb anyway? For most people it doesn't seem worth the postage.

$1 an ounce is a steal. Ive got a Pedro Kantor tat is missing his head and an arm, and probably wouldn't sell to anyone. I'd live to get a few bucks for him through recycling.

I personally would not buy recast metals that I wasn't sure about the content of. Lead was good back in the day, but it's not really good stuff to be working with. You also need a very high tin content to get good models.

Clearly this is not an issue for Reaper, though they could be selling them on again as ingots.

asmith wrote:Where are you finding these prices? I did a quick look and was coming up with $4-7/lb, not per ounce.

I think we were both out -- I had transcribed a number incorrectly. However, tin price on the London Metal Exchange this AM was $11.06/lb.

To correct some misperceptions, you need a high tin content to make decent lead-free pewter, but real old fashioned lead/tin is still the best, just not legal for anything sold as toys. Collectors stuff can still have a lead content.

As to not wanting to buy alloys of unknown content, I think it would be a case where I would give people the choice, recycled or new metal.

I do think the threat of being recycled might act as an extra incentive to models making a LD test...

Anyway, it does seem that realistically lead free pewter is going to cost me about $1/ounce, so I'll go redo the math and see what's achievable, allowing for postage costs, of course.

As a guide, my pewter bases weigh 1/3oz, and a metal Apothecary weighs just under an ounce, although he also has a metal backpack.

For a long time now, I've also weighted bases with nickels and for some reason, I also have a yearning to make Terminator bases out of those State Quarters everyone was collecting a while back...

Been working all night, so off to catch a few Z's, will check in on this later...

insaniak wrote:

BloodQuest wrote:Another thread on Dakka got me thinking about how many people must have metal models they don't want and aren't saleable.

At least from GW's range, I can't think of anything much that wouldn't be sellable. Even minis that no longer have any practical use in the games tend to still sell to collectors, or people playing home-brew rules or older editions.

Razorgore anyone?

Hrm.... I have a few metal tyranids that might be worth somthing, but they are painted and I think the shipping cost would outwieght whatever I would get for the minis.

Looking more closely at postal rates, it would seem to be worthwhile if you had 3 ounces or more (assuming $1/ounce).

I dunno, I feel there is a case for all this and I know I have old stuff I'll end up melting down for bases and so on.

fire4effekt wrote:Razorgore anyone?

To be fair, even the ugliest model has some fans, for whatever reason.

Although it's possible that all three of the people who like the razorgor already have one...

Well, if this project ever does work out, then you need to do a comercial like all those cash for gold ones.

bbb wrote:Well, if this project ever does work out, then you need to do a comercial like all those cash for gold ones.

Now I'm really offended...

Kind of funny you posted this, I was thinking of tossing an old white metal mini in the crucible with some copper to make a cheap bronze for casting. Glad to see that the percentages wouldn't be too far off

Good luck with the idea, though I suspect that most people will pay >1$ per model as folks are saying. I hope so at least, as I have some old Dark Eldar I want to get rid of

holy crap, are people still are like i touched lead now i'm going to die... uhm i hate to break it to you but most people that cast their own bullets use lead and dont have a problem.

but you have to not be stupid, so.... dont eat it, and wash your hands.

using 50 lead/50 tin for casting works pretty well, of course it matters if you are going to sell it to someone else vs using it for your personal use.