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Due to Covid and a member of the household that is immune compromised, a friend of mine had to move out of town, and part of that was making the decision to downsize their gaming collection. As someone with the time and inclination to help out, I've offered to help them sell their old collection off. Ideally to get them cash to smooth over the holidays, but not looking to gouge anyone or make things complicated.

To that end, I come to the community asking for guidance. A ballpark. Items/figures that might be rarer or more valuable due to higher demand.

As an old school Magic player, I assume there aren't any figurative Black Lotuses in the mix, but I also have no idea if sprues full of shields are worth pennies or $20 a shot.

So any input at all, on part or in whole, would be useful.

I've put up the pictures on a Canadian Warhammer buy/sell group, and have inquiries coming in, but pricing things out is a bit difficult when I don't even know what most of this stuff is.

Help me, Dakka Dakka community. You're my only hope!

First round of pics;

Second round of pics;

Second round of pics;

Oh, and the carrying case!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On further reflection, I fully respect if the answer is "We have no idea, just put it on eBay and let the community figure it out".

I’m not an e-bay guy, so can’t help a lot with the specific prices.

But from chatter I hear, especially for the Eldar stuff, old metal sculpts for stuff that is only finecast now can actually have some value. Reprinted plastic stuff is probably not going to have more then the basic resell value, but they are going to be the gems from that collections.

First advice split by army at least you have 4 armies there Skaven, Orcs and Goblins, Empire & Vampire Counts there'll sell for more seperately than as a collection. If you have the time split them by unit types the metals will have more value seperated and advertised for what they are than individually. Sprues might well go for more than assembled plastics as well.

A few thoughts

1) Do you know what all those things are by name? Important question, if you do great, if you don't and you don't know how to find out you need to ask to get it all known. This is important for knowing what you've got and selling it on.

2) Typically you can expect anything currently in production and sold by GW to sell, on sprue, for less than 3rd party retail sites. This is because those going to ebay and the like for secondhand models are doing so for the discount. That's a little different now, corona has sapped some supplies so you can get a better deal in some areas on some models that are out of stock; but in general it will only go up at best to current retail value.

3) Anything metal will generally keep its value well even if painted. Because metal is durable and paint strips really well. Even if the model is currently sold in finecast, the metal version will be at least retail value if not higher on some popular items (eg Diaz Deamonettes).

4) If you look on ebay for hints look at "sold" listings not all listings; you need to knwo what stuff actaully sold for as there are more than a few ebay stores with insanely high prices that never actually sell

5) Out of production plastics, especially for Old World - can sell at a premium value. Because so many armies got lost there are those willing to pay to get access to those models. Orcs/goblins, Empire and Vampire counts lost a fair bit each in the transition. So I'd expect some of them (Esp on sprue) to sell at good values - some of the out of production will even sell for more than old retail prices.


Eg that metal wyvern with plastic wings and those wolf riding goblins - all out of production now - 9th age and old world players and those who missed out will be more keen to spend decent money on them and they will have at least kept if not increased in value now that GW no longer produces them.

You have to break it down by Army. Your pictures have my curiosity, but the sheer amount doesn't peak my interest.

All of your pictures look like you can get a couple hundred, depending on how you part it out. acros the board- $500.00-$700.00

If you want to break it down by unit, my suggestion would be to price it by last couple of years, or the price that was paid, plus Shipping and handling. NOT by current prices.

Use Ebay as the ballpark, they don't honestly have good prices for those who want to sell. You are competing against hundreds, if not thousands of people, so you can have one price in one place, and three times that much in another- It all depends on how you bundle it.

As an Army, you can ask for $100.00 and above, as a Unit, your looking at $45.00 or less. And that also depends on if the unit is complete.

Question:
If you don't know what a unit/model is, why don't you simply send your friend a pic & ask them??

The old metal barrow guard/wights (20th pic down) are probably worth something

You've got a couple of 1st edition Eldar in the bottom pic of the first post (Striking Scorpions, Warlocks) - those can usually go for about £5-10 each if you give them a paint stripper bath (only strip them with that if they are metals! I'm not sure if the Warlocks were ever re-produced in resin)

I'm not too sure about the fantasy stuff and what the market is like for it now. There was a glut of extremely cheap stuff a few years ago when everyone was selling their stuff off to get AoS, but don't know if that has started to rebound at all.

 Pacific wrote:
There was a glut of extremely cheap stuff a few years ago when everyone was selling their stuff off to get AoS, but don't know if that has started to rebound at all.

Varies. I know anything Tomb Kings can sell for insane prices right now, even if built. I also sold on some high elves on sprue and whilst I sold them at what I bought them for years ago I could likely have sold them with a decent chunk of profit if I'd been eager/ebayed. Basically out of production adds value when the models are not replaced by anything. You tap into a nostalgia and completion market. If its unpainted/on the sprue then the prices can go up quite a lot.

GW having hteir stock stripped also stripped ebay of a fair bit of stock earlier this year as well so there's also some increase on price from that period of time as well.

Apologies for the silence folks, I appreciate all of the feedback!

To answer some questions;

- splitting and selling individually occurred to me, but both my friend and I are willing to accept a somewhat lesser return simply to get this stuff out of the house and into the hands of someone who actually knows what it is, whether a player, a collector, or even a reseller; I'm not a warhammer guy, and he's buried in other responsibilities for the foreseeable future.

@Overread: 1) I do not, but have reached out to a Facebook group that does assessments/valuations of collections.

2) That's good to know, though I'm leaning more towards moving things in bulk if I can. Currently have offers on the whole lot, but if that falls through, trying to work out by faction/army and going with that would be reasonable. I have sold enough Magic cards over the years to know what it's like to move the sought after stuff and end up sitting on piles of chaff. Letting people get a deal by grabbing the good with the less sought after stuff holds appeal for simplicity.

3) That's really good to know, thank you!

4) Yeah, that's my approach. Easier for selling video games or books, a bit harder without knowing what most of this is (back to point 1). But I totally get that people will list things for stupid prices. Definitely more valuable to know what it has actually sold for (though seeing how much higher the current auctions are as a trendline are useful as well).

5) Thank you, that kind of call out is super helpful, and I appreciate it.

@Grot 6: Thank you for the ballpark. Honestly, it's reassuring to know that that's roughly where I should hope to end up (and already have offers in the $500'ish range).

@ccs: My friend has a lot on his plate, and will for the foreseeable future (looking for work, helping his wife's business as best he can, trying to stay sane like we all are). I've asked for feedback and gotten a few notes, but I offered to do this to take it off his hands, and he's not sweating getting maximum value back. If I can get 80-90% of a fair/reasonable 'take this all off my hands' amount, that's fine. I really just wanted reassurance that getting like $500 for it wasn't leaving a solid grand on the table, you know? I had no baseline/starting point, so knowing that this is a 'half a grand or so' kind of pile rather than 'uh, that's hyper rare, one army alone should be a grand or two' to avoid absolutely throwing away the pile was my main concern. I liken it to someone handing a non-Magic player a stack of 500 cards and asking which ones are valuable... all of them? None of them? Except with the variations on the figures, assembled versus not, metal versus resin, primed or not, quality of assembly and/or painting, etc, there's even more variations present than 'is the card in good condition or not, and what is it?'

@Pacific: Thank you for the assessment. Perhaps someone gets a deal. It's not that big an apartment, so getting 2 boxes worth of the stuff out would be nice, and getting them some cash in preparation for the holidays would be great.

Funny aside; selling stuff for them (they also decided to get rid of their Xbox 360 games and a few other odds and ends) has led to me starting to move some stuff of my own. Recognizing that it's time to free up some space of my own.

As pointed out above, you may want to at least split into armies. I can see Empire, Skaven, Vampire Counts, and Elves (not sure if High elves, but I do see Dark in there), as well as a number of 40K, with the Eldar and the couple Marines. My guess with the fantasy armies is you are looking at much more than $100 each, simply from the amount that is there. Of course, you do have to accept a slightly lower price to get it all sold at once. But it gets it out of the house and into someone else's hands!

That said, if you would be willing to part anything out, give me a heads up!

Those old-school shield sprues are the standout to me:

You will get a much much lesser $$ if you sell it as lot.

But there are ebay traders that will take the whole collection out of hand.

Splitting these up and parcelling will take a bit of effort but not as much as you think. Yes you will have to do some leg work but thats just what you gotta do if you want to get the most value.
Its a pain but if you dont care about the money why even sell them in the first place??

I would strongly suggest you compile an inventory of whats there.

The WHFB armies should go for decent cash on ebay. They re all OOP now meaning you cant get them anymore, and are a collectors item rather then a gaming piece like in current edition WH.
They hold decent value especially if they are unpainted. Caveat Vendidor my friend.. Know what you are selling.

Good luck.

I sold nearly the identical Eldar army here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Eldar-OOP-Mostly-Metal-Warhammer-40k-Army-Lot-Striking-Scorpions-Harlequins/393001364456


Your Photo: https://www.dakkadakka.com/s/i/at/at2/2020/11/29/5dfccdbfe61216c74579a26df366a8d0_67621.jpg

Sold for 130~ you can probably get 150~ zone for that small army



I wouldn't sell much of what you've posted since your friend put in $10k+ over 10+ years to get this collection but if he can't get financing for a loan/aid I understand. Good luck and hopefully there is not much regret! Keep some of the older stuff that will only go up in value!

You'll be doing your friend a grave disservice by selling this as a single lot because its target market as such is resellers, who are going to want to pay <25-50% of what they can sell it on for.

Simply splitting it into armies will easily double your profit for not much extra effort. There are a few oddball items - first pic is a Space Marine bike, 9th is a High Elf Noble, etc. but most of those are solid full armies you'll have no trouble at all selling as such.