> Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 20:56:50 -0400
<snip>
> Then there's the guy trying to sell a Warhammer army for a $1,500
Hey, a friend of mine sold his Warhammer 40k army for over $900 US, and
another friend sold a WH40K army for *over* $1500. People will pay a
*lot*
for that stuff if it is painted well. Granted, both armies were tournament
winners, but still... That's just insane if you ask me. I've heard of serious
historical gamers spending that kind of money on armies at Historicon, so
maybe it's not so far off...
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> On Mon, 20 Aug 2001 16:36:27 -0400, adrian.johnson@sympatico.ca wrote:
> That's just insane if you ask me. I've heard of
To be honest, it really depends on the number of figures and the amount of
time it would spend to paint. A lot of people just don't have the time, and
time is, after all, money.
Or, look at it this way. $1500 for, say, 100 figures (which is a bit small for
an army of this price range) is only $15 per figure for a nice paint job. If
it takes the guy two hours to paint a figure, that's not much better than
working at Wal-Mart. $7.50 an hour. Oh, and that's assuming the painter
got the figures for free. His "wage" is probably closer to $5 an hour if it
takes him 2 hours per figure and there are only 100 figures.
(2 hours may be a little slow. I did two Pax Limpopo "pig stokers" last week
in one night, plus the pig. It took about 3 hours total, not including the
time to flock the bases and spray the figures. So, 1 to 1.5 hours is probably
closer to the mark, though I didn't do any blending. 1 hour per 30mm figure is
a pretty good rate, though, and the $5 per hour, at an average GW cost of $5
per figure, still stands for 200 figures.)
$1500 for a wholly painted army isn't overpriced, certainly when compared to
the cost of manufacturing a car. $1500 for Superbowl tickets, which happens,
is insane! For that painted army you're closer to the wages paid by the kid
slinging burgers at a fast food restaurant.
What it comes down to is the fact that the painter probably didn't make as
much money painting those figures as he could have doing practically anything
else. In those terms, the buyer got a bargain.
If you see the movie "Murder at 1600", the Bull Run battlefield miniatures in
the movie (which was shot in Toronto) was painted by a group of local
miniatures painters. (I know; I was asked to help, but didn't have the time
available.) The set up in that movie sold for about $50,000, if you want a
comparison of what some folk think the figures are worth.
> $1500 for a wholly painted army isn't overpriced, certainly when
Understood, but you have to remember, especially for Evil Empire(tm) armies,
there's usually someone around who does flavor of the month, gets bored, and
dumps what he's got to pick up the 'next big thing'. Usually at pennies on the
investment, and if you're REALLY lucky, he paints worth a
darn. You should see my Valhallans and NSL... ;->=