Individual Models?

[Emberlost]

So I have a question for Wyrd (or anyone here on the forums that may know). Is Wyrd going to release the new models as individual blisters? For example, looking through the wave 2 Neverborn stats, I find a model named Vasilisa, who to me looks to be a good match for a henchman for Collodi. But I don't see an existing model for it. So do I have to wait for the plastic Collodi to be released to get one, or will I eventually be able to buy just Vasilisa? Or the Enslaved Nephilim totem from the Ortegas box?

 

I ask because I'm concerned that the current generation of metal minis are just going to sit on shelves, collecting dust, and retailers are going to find them harder and harder to sell. Being able to buy the missing models separately will help there.

[Ierocis]

Unless people prefer some of the metal ones over the plastic or cannot handle the tiny fiddley bits of a new plastic model. Might still buy  metal then... like this guy.

[Fetid Strumpet]

Wyrd has said they currently have no plans to release all models in boxed sets seperately.

Currently if you want Barbaros, or vasilisa, or, kang, or heck even the new sculpts of sybelle, Mortimer, or Sebastian the only way to get them is to buy the boxed set, or find them on the after purchase bits market.

[Clement]

They left the door open in the newer plastics (sybelle is in her own frame instead of scattered all over like the 10 thunders stuff). But we have been told that one of the goals in this edition was cut back on item numbers, so at this point in time its only going to be full boxes.

[RagingRodian]

I am not quite sure why plastics being sold individually would make a difference when it comes to selling the metals.

Actually, being able to buy the metals individually outside of crew boxes is a selling point compared to the plastics. There are also a lot of players that actually like the old metals, and the metals are a better long term investment for your miniatures collection than the plastics are.

[Mako]

There are also a lot of players that actually like the old metals, and the metals are a better long term investment for your miniatures collection than the plastics are.

 

I get the whole liking the old metals thing, but how are they an investment? I've never thought of any miniatures as an investment, even rare ones like McVey etc!

[Mister Shine]

My financial planner looked at me funny when I dropped my 2e Terminators on his desk :/

[RagingRodian]

I get the whole liking the old metals thing, but how are they an investment? I've never thought of any miniatures as an investment, even rare ones like McVey etc!

Simple, and I am surprised you hadn't realized this yourself (as someone that has sold models before). Unless you are a master painter, and you have painted the plastics well, the value of plastics plummets as soon as you clip, assemble, prime, or paint them. Metal, on the other hand, is always able to be easily stripped and repainted. Metal figures consistently have a higher resale value. I have bought and sold a huge amount of models over 20+ years- this has always consistently been true. Another 20 years from now I should have no trouble selling the metal I buy today.

When you collection moves into the realm of being worth thousands of dollars you start thinking about these things more. Selling off part of my collection got me through a period of unemployment and helped me with the down payment/moving expenses for my house.

[Mako]

Ahhh. See, I usually sell stuff I just want gone, so I don't really care about the price! Or I keep it, hoping I will get round to it eventually...

 

Or it's painted, in which case the material is less of an issue.

 

Makes sense though, if you do a lot of resell.

[Mister Shine]

I scrubbed down a genestealer once that must have has 5 or 6 different owners. The layers of paint made a neat tiedye effect when scrubbed.

 

On topic; I think its been said that minions will get their own boxes, masters and their big neat model will be starter only.

[Rwwin]

Unless you are a master painter, and you have painted the plastics well, the value of plastics plummets as soon as you clip, assemble, prime, or paint them. Metal, on the other hand, is always able to be easily stripped and repainted. Metal figures consistently have a higher resale value. I have bought and sold a huge amount of models over 20+ years- this has always consistently been true. Another 20 years from now I should have no trouble selling the metal I buy today.

 

I would take exception to this as a blanket rule.  I've been funding much of my new miniature purchases by selling my old figures on ebay for years.  I'll strip off my old paint, prime the figures grey and sell them off that way in-stead of selling them off "bare".  I have found that the "value" I get depends much more on the rarity of the figure and the quality of the picture you take rather than whether they are plastic or metal.  As an example I sold a squad of old (and rare) plastic genestealer hybrids that brought in more than than my entire metal lizardman army did.

[RagingRodian]

I would take exception to this as a blanket rule.  I've been funding much of my new miniature purchases by selling my old figures on ebay for years.  I'll strip off my old paint, prime the figures grey and sell them off that way in-stead of selling them off "bare".  I have found that the "value" I get depends much more on the rarity of the figure and the quality of the picture you take rather than whether they are plastic or metal.  As an example I sold a squad of old (and rare) plastic genestealer hybrids that brought in more than than my entire metal lizardman army did.

Good pictures are a given. Sucky pictures, sucky results. That is true across the board.

The process by which you are stripping, repriming, and reselling will always favor metal. Plastics just aren't as easy to strip. It is a disadvantage of the material, and resale prices reflect that.

As to your example, you are showing an exception. For one, you are comparing selling 40K to Warhammer figures. Secondly, the plastic hybrids were very, very rare and were mostly from the old Space Hulk Genestealer expansion from 20 years ago- and have never been made again since. Even not knowing how you sold them and for how much I wouldn't doubt you got a good price for the Hybrids. However, as a fellow owner of those Hybrids as well as the lead Genestealers, Patriarchs, and Familiars from that era I can also get a good price for the metal figures too. I can tell you that I will get more for my Hybrids on the sprue vs the assembled ones, but that people really don't care if the metals have been "used". For a more apples to apples example from the same era, last time I checked my lead Genestealers were worth more than my plastic Genestealers from the same time period. I would be very curious, if you happen to have complete versions of them, how much you would get for lead Hybrids compared to your plastic ones? Last time I checked the lead ones went for pretty good money too, and commanded more than the plastics.

As a general rule for reselling and retained value metal is still going to do better than plastic.

To bring it back to resale values for Wyrd's metals and plastics we should look at the long term again. First off- a disclaimer....if you are looking at buying plastics now, keeping them mint in box, and trying to resell them later to make a profit more power to you. But a short talk with your financial planner will tell you there are far better ways to make money over 20 years than stashing mint in box plastic miniatures in your basement. People use and play with their figures (or at least I do). Figures are going to get damaged along the way. Plastics, especially scrawny plastics (which is the Wyrd style) are going to get broken along with metals. Just going by the plastics that I am already seeing getting broken during play how many of the Wyrd plastics in people's collections will still be in one piece in 20 years? That is also going to hurt their value.

I was previously the Event Coordinator for GW here in the USA. I used to pack, unpack, and repack literally thousands of plastic and metal miniatures, and I used to see how other miniatures were packed by other people. Sure, we'd get back a few chipped metals or big metal figures that left in one compartment but came back in two (I still maintain that some metal models should never have been made in metal...). They were fixed, if not fixable they were easily stripped or remelted and reused. Perk of the material. The plastics also broke, especially the scrawny ones like Dark Eldar, skeletons, stuff like that. We also got some of those figures back with warped/bent parts (spears were good for that...). The plastics were rarely fixed because they just weren't worth fixing. The metals tended to break along glued lines- which made reassembly fairly straightforwards. The plastics tended to snap off at weak points, not necessarily at glued points, so reassembly was fiddly and had mixed results.

[Rwwin]

I'll concede that I cherry picked my own largest experience of disparity between metal and plastic, but I still hold from my own experience that the material a figure is made from is not the driving factor on price.  I guess to your points on the weaknesses of plastic, while your points are true, there are plenty of examples of thin-limbed and fragile metal Wyrd figures (brass arachnid I'm looking at you!) that won't stand up well to the rigors of stripping and painting as well as the chunkier figures.  I believe that it's more a mater of the figure design than the material.

 

In that respect, the trend toward realistic proportions and many tiny, tiny parts on the plastic kits is more of a problem than the plastic itself.   Old school "heroic" plastic figures strip and repaint just fine.

 

 First off- a disclaimer....if you are looking at buying plastics now, keeping them mint in box, and trying to resell them later to make a profit more power to you. But a short talk with your financial planner will tell you there are far better ways to make money over 20 years than stashing mint in box plastic miniatures in your basement. 

 

I think on that we can agree.    However, there was a point 2007-2009 that the value of my little toy soldiers were outperforming any "real" investment vehicle I had.