Value and desire: hobby purchases

With a fair few parcels arriving most days in the build up to Christmas, I can happily sneakily buy a few hobby purchases that arrive amongst the boxed gifts without much chance of the wife catching me! Aside from a few Contrast Paints I haven't bought anything at all over the past few months, but over the last week I have treated myself to two models from my Most Wanted List and, two pieces of 3D printed scenery and one laser cut one:

There was a fairly heated debate on the Oldhammer Trading Facebook page where someone had (I am led to believe) bought a job lot from another collector for a very reasonable price and then re-listed some of the unwanted models on the same page for a much higher price. He claims that he buys so many models that he could not remember the initial purchase price and lots of other people chimed in saying that he was wrong to increase their sale price.

Now these are vintage, lead Citadel models and the latter group of fellows were upset that he was using a Facebook page to inflate the price of the miniatures (he was called a "scalper" I believe) on a page where the proposed aim is to ensure that collectors get the old school miniatures they want for a reasonable (non-Ebay price). That's the context and I can certainly see both sides of the argument. But for me it is an interesting discussion on inherent value, demand and ownership.

For example. I have desperately wanted to own an iconic, Citadel Thrud model for many, many years. I have missed out on several Ebay auctions, trading pages notices etc, either due to being out-bid or sniped for the former or simply late in seeing the sales post for the latter. An upcoming painting competition which focuses on the sculpts of Bob Naismith made me really, really want to get his Thrud miniature even more, so I broke with my own philosophy and did a BIN on Ebay for £20. I quantify it by thinking what else I would easily spend £20 on? Well, the 5 Contrast paints I bought for a start. And the few pints I had on Friday night, or the quick stop at the Co-Op to buy some provisions for the kids packed lunches. So in context, £20 for something I really want and will spend a good amount of time on in the future, seems about a good price (even though I know I could probably get it cheaper if I persevered).

The second item is a model I've desired for almost as long, simply because of the dynamism of the sculpt; it's an old Citadel Fighter model named Cedric. Again the Naismith competition made me seek out a copy of it with greater fervour and I actually placed a request/advert for it on the afore-mentioned Oldhammer Trading page. Lots of likes and comments later (incidentally about how there is a 40k version with a bolt pistol, how someone once owned one and how someone else create a diorama with this one and the 40k version) and eventually someone came forward and said they had one spare. And here comes the question of value. It was quite clear that there was a demand for it, but the seller asked how much I would pay for it. What is it's value? Clearly I was keen to buy it, so should it be the same value as the Thrud? Well there's less lead so there must be less value! Don't be silly. Is it scarcer than Thrud? (there were a lot of Thruds on Ebay but none of Cedric), perhaps that's just a temporary scarcity, but they are both 30 years old? So I completed an advanced search on Ebay (where else to go?) of previously sold versions of the model and showed the seller the price ranges for which they had sold - which happened to be between £4 and £8. But this seemed too cheap compared to my Thrud purchase. So I completed my correspondence to the seller with the line: "but this is your model, so please price it as you see fit". He graciously offered it to me for £7.50 including postage. Thank you so much!

So I have both models, which in itself is great and actually when you think about it, some achievement. This all happened within a week of the concept of the idea ("I really want to buy Thrud and Cedric to make a diorama") to "can I find them and buy them for a price I can afford"? Now you may think that these prices are higher than your value of the miniatures but I really wanted them. And get them I did, two miniatures that are made of lead (intrinsically low value) and sculpted about 30 years ago. Amazing that they are still amongst us and that easy to get hold of - within a week! What would Bob Naismith think about the fact that his old Citadel sculpts are still of interest and hold a value that is much higher than the cost of their material. His hand as a skillful sculptor (and the association with GW) has clearly added value in this case.

The third, fourth and fifth pieces I've obtained in the Christmas post are two 3D sculpted scenery models, also purchased on Ebay for £8 combined and a laser cut house. They have been on my watch-list for some time, because I couldn't decide whether to scratch-build them or buy them. I love creating my own scenery and know that I could have done a good job and had fun in the process, but the other side of it is that it just takes so much time to build and paint, that I may never get it done behind the growing list of other projects I have. So in this case I decided that my time was more valuable and my desire stronger to own the scenery than make it.

But of course the value of a miniature does not just start at the desire of the buyer and end at the point of purchase. I hope to add some intrinsic value to the pieces of sculpted lead by painting them to the best of my ability and to set them both in a little diorama with some of my model-making skills. Does time+skill= extra value? I don't really care too much, but for me a painted mini on display or being gamed with is so much more valuable than an unpainted one lying bare in a collectors box. In fact going back to the original argument on Facebook, this was my written opinion:

"Surely the owner of the miniature can determine the model's value. It's monetary one, it's aesthetic one (to me being painted > not painted) and it's functional value (to me gaming/display > dormant, unused in a box)."

Jesus, that's slightly embarrassingly written, but then I always think that when I reflect upon what I write (which is quite often why I don't proofread, as sometimes, on relfection, I overthink and would actually prefer to delete the whole piece).
Anyway, I am also sympathetic that the Oldhammer Trading Page was set up to ensure people could be re-united with the models of their youth at an affordable cost, the setting of the price of a miniature has to be determined by the owner of the miniature. If there's no demand for it at the price set, then they can adjust it.

The (now deleted) thread on Facebook piqued my interest and tied in with the two models I have bought this week, hence the monologue of this blog post. Of course all of this philosophising means fuck all if my wife ever works out just how much I've actually spent on my models over the years, (although she is sympathetic to their importance to my down time, she simply cannot understand why I don't sell them off after I've painted them); I'd worry that the value of our relationship might be tested and imagine the ultimate ultimatum: "it's them or me!" Yikes.

So anyway, what's your most wanted miniature?

The addiction: holiday hobby purchases and how there's just not enough time

I've been away on holiday in Kefalonia for the past two weeks, which means a complete break from converting and painting, but of course not from planning and collecting, which may be the more time consuming part of the hobby anyway... In between reading books around the pool and testing my engineering skills when building sand castles and moats on the beach with the kids (and once without the kids),  and all the other usual family holiday shenanigans, I occasionally logged onto a weak and intermittent wifi connection and accumulated some stuff, ready for my return home to wet England....

And on my return I realised that I bought a whole lot more than I usually would over a fortnight period and that the excesses and addictions of my hobby are never more apparent than when I'm away from the physical models themselves.:

My trove of Oldhammer hobby goodness. I found it harder to keep check of my purchases whilst on holiday (the same goes for the amount of meals we ate out etc), my natural inclination to reign in any superfluous spending just disappears on holiday. The only saving grace is that these were all pretty cheap purchases and I console myself that there will be many future hours of enjoyment from them, even if storage for my hobby is becoming rather tight..

A blast from the past for me here; back in the day I borrowed this from the local library (as I did for most of my reading and I used to use up all of my maximum of eight loans - usually at least one of those would be a fighting fantasy book!) This purchase was entirely inspired by the excellent blogging at Somewhere the tea's getting cold where the narrative of the book have been recreated in a skirmish battle. How fuckin' cool and pure Oldhammer is that!

And even more background reading. The cover art reminds me,; I must try and get hold of that mohawked ogre. The wife's away for a few days next week, so this will be my bedtime reading and I n her absence I won't have to worry about funny comments about my reading material or awkward page turning of a larger book.. Can't wait to get stuck into this though..

Some detailed scenery for my dungeon tile project - these are all from  dark-art-studios and on display here are some sarcophagi, treasure chests/piles, barrels and skull piles. Really looking forward to painting these up and adding some character and narrative to my dungeon.

5" Greek cake pillars obviously. These are also for my dungeon project, I'm intending to use these in the throne room , some of them will probably become ruined by chopping and cutting. I'll likely get some smaller ones too and add models on top to make statues.

A .99p Goblin. It's one that I had leading my Gobbo unit back when I had my original 80's army. Obviously I needed him back, perhaps to lead a warband (which would then obviously lead to me re-purchasing my entire 80's O&G army... must stop my project ideas...)

However I'm also excited by the promise that these purchases provide, there's a whole load of hobby projects just waiting to be worked on here, mostly for my dungeon tiles but also just for some background reading too. Oh, but I'm back at work on Tuesday :( , so I guess they will all be joining the backlogged and lengthening queue then as term time comes around again and my new teaching job starts. Yikes, which distracts from which??

Ebay Adventures

I definitely spend more time than money on ebay (thankfully I don't win everything I bid on) and most of my small amount of purchases over the years are impulsive, ie a bargain or just something that I vaguely want to have in my collection. Sometimes this is a model that i once owned and then sold many years ago, or more often a miniature that I coveted from my youth. Often this is a model I saw in the pages of White Dwarf from an 'Eavy Metal article or painted for Golden Demon or of course showcased in the Realm of Chaos books or Warhammer Armies book.

I've never spent a good chunk of money in one go, until last week.... There are two miniatures which I have never owned and which I have always wanted, so I stopped making any small purchases and saved some money up to splash out on these two miniatures, both of which I knew from watching ebay would not go for a bargain (although one went for a lot less than I was expecting.

Here they are safely delivered and unpacked:

Yes the Marauder Giant and the Great Spined Dragon!! Both were won in auctions during the same week, oh how my nerves were frayed during those last few countdown minutes on ebay, would someone snipe me? No!

So the Marauder giant is missing his sword, but that does not bother me a great deal. He cost me £21 and I feel 15 again! I'm planning a paintscheme in homage to Paul Robins 1991 Golden Demon winning entry with the ripped leggings:

The Great Spined Dragon seems in pristine condition (I can't help but worry that it's a recast, but it seems not my untrained eye) and is a model that I have been pining for for some time. He cost me £57 which I think is a bargain (the missus wouldn't) and I get the impression the seller was disappointed with the final total as he did not respond to any of my communication... Anyway I plan to do a slightly less plague like, but still slightly "tatty" version of the model below (sans the rider).

I doubt either paintjob will happen in the near future as they join a quite lengthy paint queue, but for now I'm just so happy to have both models in my collection, at last.