Selling Guidelines (Not for here...)

[GriffonI92]

So looking at selling some models to a guy and the question got brought up what is the going rate? Where is the Car Max for Warhammer?

 

Curious what people think. To start with I broke up into categories you would see models.

 

Like New (In box, just out of box, still on sprue, maybe primered on sprue...)

 

Assemled

 

Assembled and Primered

 

Painted (This one gets complicated. Does it just have one coat? Painted to owners discretion?)

 

Those are all the categories I could think of.

 

Also, does anyone have luck selling old books and/or White Dwarfs?

[Halandaar]

There are so many variables that it's hard to give straightforward answers. For example, when you talk about painted models, even within that there are different degrees of painted;

• Primed
• Fully painted
• Fully painted but really badly done by a six year old
• Fully painted and really well done by a six-time Golden Demon finalist

And individual people will have different thresholds on what they consider acceptable. I personally wouldn't buy anything with more than a coat of primer on it, but have successfully sold fully painted armies to people who obviously don't mind that.

 

You can't just apply flat percentages to things either, because there is variation in the value and availability of individual models. A well painted Tactical Squad isn't necessarily worth much because there are hundreds of them available. A Tomb Kings unit is going to be much more valuable because it's out of production, but still highly sought after, even if it has a genuinely terrible paintjob.

 

The best thing to do is probably just to jump on eBay and search what similar models have sold for recently; ignore the listings prices, you're looking for the prices people actually pay. That will give you a much clearer idea of the value of your models.

[Brother Tyler]

If this is a notional preparation for selling, your best bet is to consult online auction sites such as eBay and commission painting services (since you're asking about already painted miniatures).

 

If you have a specific buyer in mind, this is really a discussion the two of you ought to be having. You figure out how much you want for the models, your buyer figures out how much he is willing to pay for them, and then you negotiate to find an acceptable compromise.

 

I haven't had any luck selling old books or issues of White Dwarf Magazine (that I was willing to part with) to local game stores. There are some that I wouldn't part with, but which I could probably get decent money for (mostly Rogue Trader/1st Edition era stuff and limited edition stuff). Your local market for used stuff might be different. Also, eBay is once again a good indicator of what the market will bear.

[Arkaniss]

Ah, eBay. The amount of 'pro-painted' and 'OOP' listings I've seen But in all seriousness Halandaar and Brother Tyler are spot on, as with eBay too- is the big cheese of this sort of thing so trawling through it will give you a good idea of the going rate. There will always be outliers of course but you'll soon realise what those are.

 

Old codices are perhaps not the greatest sellers unless it's for a now defunct army but that's more of a WHFB thing than 40K.

[MARK0SIAN]

I don’t sell much but I do buy a lot from eBay so my perspective is more from what a buyer might want to know.

 

Assembly:

 

I find these generally fall into 3 categories. New in box/on sprue, partially assembled and fully assembled. In terms of the latter two, I am more likely to purchase if there is an accurate description or detailed pictures telling me exactly what wargear they have been assembled with.

 

Painting:

 

The main descriptions I see here are: unpainted, primed, painted, painted to tabletop standard and pro-painted. The first two are self explanatory, ‘painted’ tends to mean to a low or basic standard, ‘tabletop standard’ tends to mean they were painted by someone who understood the process but isn’t great at detail and ‘pro-painted’ varies incredibly from some incredibly beautiful models to ones that you struggle to believe someone can make a living painting at that standard.

 

Generally speaking I avoid pro-painted ones as they’re usually overpriced but the others don’t have much effect on my buying decision provided they haven’t used really thick paint or colours that are really difficult to paint over.

 

Price:

 

This is the trickiest and the advice Halandaar gave is excellent. I would add on to it that it is not just the availability of the models that affect the price. You also need to think about the typical composition of your target audiences army.

 

For example, you might have a squad of guardsmen that are perfect for your buyer, they’re in the exact right state of assembly for them and the exact state of painting they were looking for. They may even be beautifully painted already. However, no matter how good they are or how perfect they are, I would not pay the same for them as I would for a squad of (for example) Grey Knights in the same condition. And it’s not because of their original cost. It’s because if I’m starting a guard army I will need to buy at least another five squads from somewhere and if I pay that price each time it will cost a fortune. Whereas I will probably only have to buy one or two more Grey Knights squads.

 

Tl:dr you need to think about the value of the models you’re selling in your buyers list when thinking of a price.

[Dr. Clock]

If it's off the sprue, my guideline is usually 50% of retail.

 

There is probably some market for 'pre-painted' minis where people are willing to pay retail prices or thereabouts in order to 'save time' on the build and paint side, but I think for many hobbyists there's an issue that even if something is passably painted, they'll need to do at least some work to make it fit into their force. Also when buying online etc., there's a 'floating risk' that something won't be what you expected, so I'm far less likely to consider purchasing something at close-to-retail when if I just pay a few more dollars I know that risk is gone, and I can just work from the sprues.

 

So for me, anyway, if it's off the sprue I'm thinking of buying mostly because it will save money, rather than time.

 

I also think it's way too easy for people to fall into the trap of trying to shift their NOS minis at or near to the MSRP! At that point anyone buying them is doing you a favor. Most of the time when I buy stuff through 'informal' channels, I'm doing so because I feel like I'm making some kind of saving.

 

For OOP stuff, Ebay is a good guide - those items can have pretty substantial pricetags just based on rarity... or not, often depending on current 'metagame' concerns.

 

Even though checking Ebay is a good way to price out your lots, in the past year I found a local/regional Facebook 'trading group'. This has been way better for me than Ebay really ever was. My location means that shipping is often a significant factor, and if I can just drive over and pick something up from someone, it can be alot more convenient than ordering from another country.

 

Old books or White Dwarfs will be hard to shift unless you're more or less giving them away, in my experience...

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[MARK0SIAN]

Also remember that it’s pretty easy (at least in the UK) to get most core models brand new from independent retailers at 15-20% off GWs prices.

 

So if you’re selling models that are new/still on sprue they really need to beat that, particularly when you factor in postage costs.

[m0nolith]

Like everyone else has stated, Ebay is the best indicator of what the going rate for a model is and how well its painted.

After looking at a few dozen sales you start getting an sense of how much is what when it comes to quality of paint job or assembly.

 

Facebook is the fastest way to sell tho. The only problem is that asshats who don't understand what the going rate of things insist on telling you that your price doesn't match that price they have in their head that is based on absolutely nothing. 

[Eddie Orlock]

So looking at selling some models to a guy and the question got brought up what is the going rate? Where is the Car Max for Warhammer?

Bottom line is it always comes down to what a willing buyer and a willing seller can agree upon. In my case, if it's in-print I'm unlikely in even an ideal case to offer any more than 60% of current retail price if you're demanding cash, and that's assuming BNIB. If we're bartering you'll do better. Once it's actually OoP, and I've vetted that, we can start talking about obscurity premiums if it's actually hard to find on the secondary market and can't be easily re-implemented with modern materials.

Curious what people think. To start with I broke up into categories you would see models.

 

Like New (In box, just out of box, still on sprue, maybe primered on sprue...)

We're in the range of 60% to 25% depending on my confidence in the vendor and the completeness of the kit and if I think the prime is quality or just there to conceal chicanery.

Assemled

This might be hubris, but I genuinely think I do a better job of building the models for use than most. I get better joint fits and what not. So I discount for this, especially if I've not had the chance to fondle the figures for fettling. I also find that the kind of folk who tend to flog assembled plastic don't tend to emotionally invest in it, and this shows through in the lack of care they put into this kind of thing, which means I'm going to expect to have to carefully tear the kit down before re-building it and this is a lot of labour. So, this condition probably caps out at around 25% and can drop as low as 10% or less depending on model materials.

Assembled and Primered

When I see this I get suspicious. A fresh coat of flat black can bury the kinds of defects that would easily give re-casts away in pictures. It also makes it harder to visually inspect for joint quality. Probably caps at 10%

Painted (This one gets complicated. Does it just have one coat? Painted to owners discretion?)

I pretty much never paint to standard schemes, and even when I do your work won't be a good style match for mine. Which means that I pretty much view your paint as a liability and impediment to the surface finish I wish to achieve. How much I discount for this depends on how hard I think it will be to remove or overpaint, but at this point we're starting to talk scrap material costs for pricing, unless the parts are in an easily stripped medium like good quality metal.

Those are all the categories I could think of.

 

Also, does anyone have luck selling old books and/or White Dwarfs?

Not specifically, but a thing to note when studying eBay for pricing is that you need to look past what the offers are and dig into the background for what actually sold at that price. There are some truly absurdly valued listings that haunt places like that that would mislead the naive.

[Trevak Dal]

A caveat for assembly is if plastic glue was used or not. That's a real chore to cut up-i bought some Lascannon Devs that used to be long fangs and had to scrap a lot of them except the Lascannons because of the plastic glue.

 

I've thought about justifying getting a airbrush by "i could paint up ready to play armies at table standard and sell them at cost + 5% on a opening bid"

 

Obviously doing the meta stuff.

[Beams]

God, nothing's worse than people selling kits for more than what you would pay for them on GWs website on eBay. That's basically par for the course on Penitent Engines.

 

But seriously, I'm not paying any more than 75% of the market price for new in box off of any site other than GWs and if it's already built and painted, I won't buy it for more than. 40% because I then have to strip it, remove mold lines and try and fix all the problems the seller caused.

[azn.gamer]

A little late to replying, but from my own experience as a buyer of bits & kits I'll share my experiences.

• New in Box: basically retail
• New on Sprue without anything missing: if it's the most recent kit, almost retail - I expect no more than a 15% discount here typically unless maybe it's an OOP Tactical Marine kit
• New on Sprue individual pieces: depends on the bit
• New loose: I recently paid $18 for a Primaris Inceptor b/c I'm kit-bashing and did not want / need the entire box set, but this varies; ie. Tactical SM heads are ~$1.50 + shipping

I don't buy anything assembled or painted b/c I'm in the hobby for the modeling and kit-bashing.  In the rare cases I find something that's OOP and very limited; Games Day or anniversary models those vary widely in price.