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Hi folks, I have recently decided to sell my backlog of unpainted minis as well as some of my painted armies. mainly as i have sets of minis in the 140th place of priority to paint. which means im never going to paint them all. So i thought, sell them and buy the stuff i do want to paint, like a new ork army.

The only thing is, even though i have been a commission painter for some time now, I have never actually sold an army, and would like some advice on the best ways to get my moneys worth. initially i was thinking ebay but im open to other methods. Also i was wondering what the worth of my miniatures are and what i should expect for them.


First thing is pricing, how do i go about pricing in this market, from what I have seen painted minis tend to sell for less than there actual worth, being the cost of the minis plus cost of the paintwork.
I was planning to work on a system of half the value of the miniatures plus half the value of the paint work. this i think is a reasonably expectation, but what do you think?
for example, 10 ork boyz is £18 retail, and in my professional opinion have a paint job worth around £4 a model.
so on this system it would be £19 for 10 of my painted ork boyz, £9 for the miniatures £10 for the paintwork. but what would you say, is this a fair estimate or am i over pricing or undercutting myself?


The second issue is how do i market an army for sale, do i sell it as one big lot or brake it down into lots of smaller lots? whats the best way to advertise my sale/auction? and is eBay really the best format for selling my minis? i would like to hear about your opinions, experiences and thoughts on these matters.


Here is the list of the army for reference to this post and as a working example of how you would market it? everything is painted to a nice standard except where stated otherwise. more photos can be found here http://s1304.photobucket.com/user/James-littler/library/40k%20orks?sort=4&page=1

1:warboss in mega armour,


2:warboss,Lot 2


3:Big mek X2, one with kustom force field, has minor chipping to paintwork


4: ard boyz x 10 + nob, powerklaw


5: slugga boyz lot 1, boyz x 31 + nob, powerklaw


6: nobs lot 1, nobs x 5 +painboy, big choppas, painboy has chipping on the syringe.


7: nobs lot 2, nobs x 8, assorted weapons, partly/ unpainted missing one arm


8: slugga boyz lot 2, boyz x 27, one armed with big shoota, basic paint work


9: burna boyz x 7, + mek


10: bikers x 10, + nob, powerklaw, all bases are provided but not all painted


11: deffkoptas lot 1, deffkoptas x 3, rokkits


12: deffkoptas lot 2, deffkoptas x 5, rokkits, one missing rotar blades, one missing arms, basic paintwork


13: shoota boyz x 17, +nob, big choppa, 2x rokkit, mixed painting standards.


14: custom battlewagon, deff rolla, big shootas, rokkit


15: custom mekjunka, assorted guns.


16:custom trukk, sits a little to one side


17: looted wagon x 2, boom guns, basic paint work


18: super heavy, kustom battlefortress, assorted guns



Thank you for reading my post.

The painting on those is a reasonable tabletop standard so I'd suggest you could aim for around retail price on the models. If you're not in a rush it's probably easier to try selling on forums and waiting until you find a buyer for the right price. Based on others' posts, people tend to like buying armies whole (so colour schemes and basing are coherent). If buying single figures/units it's more often they they don't care about paintjobs or are going to strip and repaint, and in either case it means the paintjob they have doesn't matter. On the flip side, buying large lots like armies at once people may expect some kind of bulk discount.

The short version is I'd probably try selling it all at once on forums, and ask for RRP, although be prepared for people to negotiate. I'd consider offering the Battle Fortress separately too as that's quite a nice kitbash which could probably fit into peoples' existing collections.

Magos has the right of it. From the various different experiences I've seen with the Swap Shop or Ebay, it really depends on the person looking at your stuff.

It's comforting to know that Orks are relatively easy to move given the need for such a large quantity of models just for a basic battle/army. You could probably move this as a lot to the right person.

A lot of nice conversions here, especially like that battlefortress.

Note: You also have to decide what your lowest point will be, you did put time and effort into this so don't feel as though you need to kneecap yourself just to get rid of it.