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Hey guys,

I don't know if theres any interest in collecting old citadel paints, but I was just wondering; what are considered rare paints?

What is the rarest or most obscure in your collection? Post pics!

I have attached my pic of the hex pots in my collection. Can you boast that you have more than I? Bear in mind they all still have wet paint in, the older pots are far superior to any of the newer versions. The screw tops are the worst.

Orc Flesh Wash is something I've never seen outside of my own collection if you have it I'll give you a virtual cookie.

Please indulge my curiosity!

-AD

I think I've got you beaten buddy.

These were the best sets out there.
The box art is just the best, wish I had the full set of them.

i still have most of the inks from the 'Expert' paint set and a few from the other 3 sets still going.
i also have 'ork flesh' wash

No pics, but I have an old pot of ghoul grey squirreled away. It's a great colour, kind of warm yellowish grey, but I don't use it for fear of running out. Dunno what I'd replace it with.

My oldest, still useful pot of citadel paint is Brown Ink. Used to use it for a lot of things (mostly watered down on metallics), then stopped using it when they stopped selling it. But now though, the new contrast "wyldwood" is a damn close stand in for it.

Yeah, I still have a few of these, both the hex pots and the older, round pots. A lot of the more useful colours have been used up and replaced over the years with Coat D'arms (same paint, different label).

This is some of the collection. Almost all of these are new. But I probably have double that amount open. Trying to complete a full 2nd ed paint range set new. I'll get there some day.

99% of these ranges are still available from Coat d'Arms (the original manufacturer of those paints). Same bottles, same colours, etc.

Hold my beer.

Woo nice one guys! The boxes are beautiful for those old sets. I've never seen the round pots before! Those indeed must be rare.

Coat d'arms still sells them you say? I'll take a look. Good show lads.

Dang, you guys have some old paints! I haven't been in the hobby long enough, my oldest paints are screw top hex pots. I've got a pot of Beaten Copper around here somewhere, it was one of my favorites back in the day. Hopefully it's not all dried up (but I suppose if it is, I'd just get the Vallejo equivalent).

So I've looked and Cote d'arms do not sell any of these ranges in citadel branding and therefore all of these paints are indeed rare and collectable.

Edit: However the pots are refillable with the Coats d'arms branded stuff (nobody will know hehe) so the real collectable ones are the unopened bottles

 Axel Dale wrote:
Woo nice one guys! The boxes are beautiful for those old sets. I've never seen the round pots before! Those indeed must be rare.

Yeah, the round ones were the original range - there were two different labels. Then they moved to the hex bottles, with (mostly) the same paints. Then came the 'bolter shell' bottles, which were a different manufacturer, as the company that made the originals couldn't produce sufficient quantities due to the bottles not being suitable for machine filling or somesuch thing. At that point, the company that had made the older range reverted to the round bottles and kept selling the paint under the Coat D'Arms label.

So far as 'rare and collectible' goes... they're a curio for those who like paint, I supposed, but not particularly valuable, as they're not widely sought after.

Very interesting. You clearly know your stuff! Rare and collectable yes, valuable.. not yet my friend, not yet! But they become rarer as people chuck them away and use them. Something as niche as paint pots probably need a lot longer than 30 years to appreciate in value, but when associated with a collectable hobby - I believe the unopened full sets are definitely going to have high value to enthusiasts who want to decorate their hobby spaces etc. and the individual unopened pots too. Though I concede opened pots probably will never hold value.

Paint pots over the ages. I still routinely use RT-era paints. Don’t think I have a pic of my whole collections, might grab one this weekend. It’s predominatly the old hex pots, but some newer, some older. I had the old Space Marine and Expert boxes from the old days, might still be kicking around.

If you are looking for “collectable” you might want to focus on the colors that GW didn’t make a coresponding version of when they switched ranges.

The old hex pots are awesome. I still have original bottles of Amethyst Purple, Sapphire Blue, and Glistening Green that still are perfectly fine to paint with after a little over 20 years. I used to use them for the blades of power weapons, or dragon scales. I could crack them open today and paint right from the bottle, still.

The screw-top and flip-top hard plastic bolt shell bottles were probably the crappiest thing GW has put out, bar none.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
The old hex pots are awesome. I still have original bottles of Amethyst Purple, Sapphire Blue, and Glistening Green that still are perfectly fine to paint with after a little over 20 years. I used to use them for the blades of power weapons, or dragon scales. I could crack them open today and paint right from the bottle, still.

The screw-top and flip-top hard plastic bolt shell bottles were probably the crappiest thing GW has put out, bar none.

The screw top were basically one use pots. You cracked them open, and had a couple weeks before they were dead. By far the worst design. The flip top after them were still bad from an absolute POV, but miles better relativity.

Insaniak, Tyton, Pinkterror, thank you for introducing me to a new sensation. I never thought I would be envious of a paint pot collection.

The old 'Expert Paint Set' inks are definitely sought after as Citadel have never done an equivalent product. The hex pot 'glaze' paints are also not that common I don't think.

Yeah, I don't think most people really caught on to what the glazes were for, so I suspect that they weren't a great seller. Which means there won't be as many of them out in the wild by now as the other paints of the era.

This thread is almost as good as the OOP models thread! I had rummage through my paints and found these











Some classic pots in there from when Blood Angels were orange and Salamanders were Dark Angels Green! I've also got a pot of Coat D'Arms chestnut ink because that used to be one of my favs.

I’ve still got paints covering 4 generations of citadel paints. Most though have been transferred to dropper bottles as I was fed up of crusty flip tops. I reused all of the labels though. I don’t have any from the generation that bantha beast has, the flip top bolter shells or white flip top modern ones.

I still have all of my washes in their original hex bottles as I didn’t see the need to thin them on a palette. Including the lovely Ork Flesh Wash, which I still use on all of my green skins. Interesting to note there is now a contrast alternative!

As for the rarest (in a useable form), surely it has to be the screw top “Bolter shell” bottles. I never had many but all were useless apart from my boltgun metal.

The new contrast paints are good substitutes for the old washes (which more more inks/glazes then wash/shades) I’ve switched from my old Chestnut Wash to Darkoath Flesh.

None of the blues looked like a match for the old Blue Ink, and I’m not blowing the cash to try it out. One of these days I need to place a Coate D’arms order.

Good to know, thanks Nevelon. I’ve been branching out to other paints, and will probably try the coat d’arms too, to get some of the older paints again

these are my oldest paints:

note that I've put the bone & rotting flesh to one side as I have added newer paints to these pots
From left to right, if I remember correctly are:
Worm Purple; Imperial Purple; something Grey; Elf Grey; Bilious Green; Electric Blue; Enchanted Blue; Bleached Bone; Rotting Flesh.

I can't find my 'Expert Paint Set' inks atm though :(

I used to have all of the old hex pots but replaced them as I used them up.

I'd very much doubt old paint pots will ever see any value attached to them as they aren't very good at being collectible since they will dry out eventually, and the paints themselves are replaceable with Cote D'arms. Maybe in a few decades someone might spend a couple bucks on an old pot for nostalgia, but I would definitely recommend not investing in old paint pots. Old miniatures can be VERY lucrative though!

Hyes we established that only the unopened bottles / sets may hold any value but nice to see so many peoples paints can't lie! Some cool one's there like Glistening Green and Red Wash

 Axel Dale wrote:
Some cool one's there like Glistening Green and Red Wash

Yeah, the coloured metallics were fantastic. My original Space Marine army was Glistening Green, and I was very sad when they dropped those paints from the range. It was only years later, after switching to Dark Angels Green, that I came across Coat D'Arms and replenished the original colour. So I now have a Chapter that is Dark Angels Green, with an old 'Lost Company' in Glistening Green...

So, I came across this and decided to chime in since I actually have some artifacts of the old Citadel paint line.

When I first started out, I bought sets like crazy! Here are the remnants of the Citadel Ork and Eldar, Creature, Expert, Monster, Metallic and Space Marine paint sets. Plus some I picked up individually. The first pic from left to right is: Imperial Purple, Worm Purple, Fire Dragon Crimson, Hobgoblin Orange, Go Fasta Red, Terracotta, 2 pots of Blood Angel Orange and Sunburst Yellow (I think) Second pic has, from left to right: Chaos Black, Salamander Black, another Black, probably Chaos, Codex Grey, Ghoul Grey, 2 blues that might be Enchanted Blue or Moody Blue, Marine Dark Blue or Midnight Blue (I honestly don't know any more and they aren't labeled!) Spearstaff Brown, Snakebite Leather, Hawk Turquoise, Bilious Green and Scorpion Green. The third pic are the metallics, left to right: Chainmail, Polished Blue, Glistening Green, Beaten Copper, Dwarf Bronze, Burnished Gold, Shining Gold and 2 pots of Mithril Silver. The last pic are the inks, from left to right: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Brown, Chestnut and Black.

Before you ask, some of the old colors just didn't last through storage (probably because I didn't store them correctly also! ) Bleached Bone, Goblin Green, Blood Red, Skull White, Orc Brown, Bad Moon Yellow, Titillating Pink, Elf Grey, Beastial Brown and *sigh* Tin Bitz! (Oh, I gave away Amethyst Purple to my Eldar playing friend back in the day) I mourned every one that didn't survive...but thankfully, there's alternatives out there that replicate those colors and I've replaced some already. The only P.I.T.A. about them are the metallics clumping up after all this time and they take forever to shake to a usable condition!