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I've seen a couple of really nifty items come up from him on ebay, but a couple of things he's done have raised some serious red flags for me. Has anyone else heard anything about this guy? I don't want to try and buy some stuff off him only to find out that I fell for the Mandelbaum of ebay auctions, or bought a stolen army or something.

I thought that name rung a bell. I bought some Chaos Spawn from him as my first ever eBay purchase. They were the actual plastic spawn and not recast. I think I had to re-glue some of the bits back onto the spawn's backs but that's going to be an issue with anything with that many smaller spikey bits no matter who you buy from.

Items arrived in a timely manner. It's original parts and not recasts. No idea how he gets the discounts he gets but over 3000 sells and has 99.8 eBay rating so I think he's legit.

He's got some well-painted models that are up REALLY cheap. I'd like to pick them up, but I had a little concern they might be hot.

But I had a weird interaction with him a week or so ago. I saw a model he had up. The wording he had in his description sounded a little shady, so I took a closer look, and the model was pretty dinged up. (It was a Dark Eldar Raider with some pretty serious damage to it. Some glued parts were snapped off, some parts were missing, some decorative parts had been glued on misaligned.) I've purchased 40k lots from buyers who didn't know anything about the game before, so I sent him an offer on it (he had it listed as an OBO listing) at a substantially reduced price with an explanation of why I was offering so low a price on it. Instead of responding to me, he just took the auction down, which seemed really weird.

When someone's got 3000+ sold items, I just have a hard time imagining any of it was stolen. I can see the concern, just saying I personally doubt it.

Considering the seller is from Northern Utah, I suspect it's a guy who works for Blue Table Painting and he/they simply sell models where the payments from the clients didn't come through or were returned because they were damaged, or something. That's just a wild theory I can't confirm through any hard evidence, though.

 SRSFACE wrote:
When someone's got 3000+ sold items, I just have a hard time imagining any of it was stolen. I can see the concern, just saying I personally doubt it.

Considering the seller is from Northern Utah, I suspect it's a guy who works for Blue Table Painting and he/they simply sell models where the payments from the clients didn't come through or were returned because they were damaged, or something. That's just a wild theory I can't confirm through any hard evidence, though.

Actually, that's a very logical theory that would fit with the available evidence.

One of the guys in my playing group down in St. George (which if you're not familiar with Utah is basically on the southern border, connecting us with Arizona and Nevada) used to work for Blue Table and has an odd assortment of extra stuff from his days working there, which is why I concocted that theory.

But, like I said, I personally have bought from him and it was exactly as advertised so there's that.

There are also a couple painting services in Utah that are made up of people who used to work for BTP but left them a few years ago during a... kerfuffle.

Eric

I've bought from him before. He has large lots of legitimate but painted/partially built stuff on a weekly basis, which tells me he buys used armies off of ex-players and re-sells them.
His low prices tend to bump up pretty high as bidding goes on, he just starts them low to get views. Sometimes the stuff stays low though, and you often get a good deal.

 MagickalMemories wrote:
There are also a couple painting services in Utah that are made up of people who used to work for BTP but left them a few years ago during a... kerfuffle.

Eric

Apologies for going off-topic, but when did this kerfuffle go down and what happened?

It might explain a lot of my previous unsatisfactory dealings. But not to distract from this thread, could you PM it to me?

I had a bit of trouble with that seller a few weeks back. Placed and paid for an order. No tracking info was ever submitted. It initially was scheduled to arrive at the end of November. At the end of December I contacted the seller to get a refund. He told me I would be refunded when I opened a case. I could not open a case because the estimated delivery date had changed to the end of December. I waited until that day came and went and tried to open a case. The estimated delivery time had changed again to the beginning of January. I waited again and tried to open a case. The estimated delivery date had changed again so I could not. I had to call eBay to finally settle it. Once that was done, I did not receive my full refund and had to call eBay again to finally get it all taken care of. Seemed extremely shady, but I have no proof that the seller did anything wrong. I will not be buying from him again.

Its an inteesting consern. He is apparently only a couple hours away from me.

I've gotten a few things off him. Never really anything to shady it would seem. He's the one who uses cardboard to take the picture on? If so yeah I've gotten a few Orky things from him.

Doesn't seem to be selling anything currently so can't judge

Bought some dark eldar incubi from him. He responded to my questions quickly and shipping was fast. No problems or shadyness in my dealings.

Got some movement on this front. Bought a Grotesque off of him. Cheap, only 8 bucks. Unfortunately, the pictures didn't show how badly it had been put together. The pieces had been superglued together in a slightly off position, which (since it's Finecast) is going to be almost impossible to fix. The arms came detached, which I was aware of. Unfortunate again, the superglue was done really poorly, to the point that I'm going to have to seek assistance on how to fix it.

It isn't even so bad that I want my money back. I mean, if I had know the grot was this boogered up, I might still have paid $8 plus shipping for him, I just would have liked to have known before hand. In any event, caveat emptor.

Putting him in the coldest part of your freezer overnight sometimes can make the superglue bond easier to break free. Works sometimes with plastic models. almost always with metal. I don't believe that it will hurt the finecast, if someone who has done this with finecast can chime in.

I just bought a couple of Broodlords off of him, so I'll see what they're like when they get here.
He could also be someone who buys large armies on Ebay, then breaks them up for resale. I know Lazarus Games does this. They outbid me on nearly $1500 worth of 2nd Edition Necrons (a massive and beautiful army, all painted, with custom conversions to create Deathmarks and other models, clearly years of work collecting it), I had gone as high as $800 but LG won with $810. How do I know Lazarus Games won it? Because a couple weeks later they started selling half of the army on Ebay in smaller lots. Pissed me off so much that I refuse to buy anything from that seller, no matter how good the price is. I was going to give that complete army a home and actually play with it, breaking it up for resale just somehow seems to dishonor the work and care that went into it.

Odd what you find sometimes when you google search yourself.

To answer a few questions some people posted.....

I do not sell stolen goods (at least not knowingly). I get a large portion of my stuff from Ebay, some from other sites and some from local gamers trading armies or quitting.

I never worked for Blue Table Painting or met them, they are located further south of me in the crazier mormon people area though I assume they are nice guys.

I personally play Dark Eldar, Nurgle and Inquisition/IG/Deathwatch and have an army of Dwarfs Id love to play some day. I am pretty bad though.

If you have any other questions feel free to PM me. I am a horrible communicator but Ill make the effort to respond promptly.

Foostickens wrote:
Odd what you find sometimes when you google search yourself.

To answer a few questions some people posted.....

I do not sell stolen goods (at least not knowingly). I get a large portion of my stuff from Ebay, some from other sites and some from local gamers trading armies or quitting.

I never worked for Blue Table Painting or met them, they are located further south of me in the crazier mormon people area though I assume they are nice guys.

I personally play Dark Eldar, Nurgle and Inquisition/IG/Deathwatch and have an army of Dwarfs Id love to play some day. I am pretty bad though.

If you have any other questions feel free to PM me. I am a horrible communicator but Ill make the effort to respond promptly.

Haha thats pretty funny. I dont use Ebay very often as in NZ we use trademe but do you make much money doing that? Or is it mostly a side project etc?

Yes I make a living. less pay and more hours than my previous job but I get to play with models in my basement all day so.....

Foostickens wrote:
Yes I make a living. less pay and more hours than my previous job but I get to play with models in my basement all day so.....

Wow thats a pretty good set up. Nothing beats wargaming any time haha. Thats pretty good.

Good to know. Welcome to Dakka!