How much is painting worth?

[Primarch]

I'm currently mulling over selling off some more 40K minis to make some space in my hobby room and get some cash to spend on other projects. Currently the minis in question are half done at best and need a fair amount of work putting in to make them tabletop standard.
So, do I put in the hours of work to make them all pretty and hope to get a better price, sell them as is, or strip them with simple green?
There are pros and cons to each I guess, my painting isn't all that stellar, but it isn't dreadful. I do have a lot of other things I could be doing though.
What do you guys think?

[kojibear]

Hey mate.

Well, after selling both unpainted and painted stuff, there is no doubt that it is faster to sell the unpainted stuff.

With painted minis you can ask for a slightly higher price for a decent paint job, but the difference can sometimes be quite marginal. That being said, when I was willing to wait, eventually I could sell my painted stuff for about the price I wanted, I just had to wait for the right buyer to come along. Often this would take a few months with multiple re-listings.

Sometimes after multiple re-listings without a drop in price, interested buyers would contact me and ask for a cheaper price. In these cases I was usually successful in negotiating with them to find a price that would work for both of us. There are people out there who really want a fully painted army ready to go, you just need to wait a little longer to find one.

[Primarch]

Hey mate.

Well, after selling both unpainted and painted stuff, there is no doubt that it is faster to sell the unpainted stuff.

With painted minis you can ask for a slightly higher price for a decent paint job, but the difference can sometimes be quite marginal. That being said, when I was willing to wait, eventually I could sell my painted stuff for about the price I wanted, I just had to wait for the right buyer to come along. Often this would take a few months with multiple re-listings.

Sometimes after multiple re-listings without a drop in price, interested buyers would contact me and ask for a cheaper price. In these cases I was usually successful in negotiating with them to find a price that would work for both of us. There are people out there who really want a fully painted army ready to go, you just need to wait a little longer to find one.

It's more a question of is it worth spending my time doing the actual work to get them fully painted. I have other stuff that I could be working on (like everyone else I guess). So it really comes down to 'how much is my time worth?'

[YellowStreak]

Hard to say I guess, but stripping them would be a lot less effort right? Is any additional $$$ from the extra work to finish them going to make up for the time it takes?

[kojibear]

If you have a painted army - like your crimson fists for example - all painted and ready to go, and you had a few extra things that you wanted to sell with them, then painting those extra few things up may not be a bad idea and worth the time as selling half painted painted armies is quite hard from the looks of things - well unless the models are just base coated only.

I reckon going either all painted or all unpainted is a good bet.

[job]

My 2-cents are that I see this hobby as a net financial loss. There are a few who can make this hobby pay, but if I want to make money, I could make it a lot faster working than I could ever from assembling and painting. If I want to reduce my collection, I see it as a way to make space in my cupboards and closet. If I make some coin as I get rid of them, it is coincidental and nice.

Personally, if I am going to paint, I paint things for either the hobby and/or to enjoy in my collection. I wouldn't want to devote the time into models that I would never have time to enjoy.

But, if you do decide to paint up a full army the way you've done for your Naps, Crimson Fists, or your BA armies, I'm sure you could fetch a decent price.

And Simple Greening the models is a good way to fetch a better price with relatively little work.

[DarkElves>All]

On ebay there seems to be a huge mark-up between unassembled/stripped minis and professionally painted minis.

... & badly painted/assembled minis can be worth less that stripped ones!

Ergo:

- find cheap Chinese/SE asian professional mini painter online
- send him your stuff you want to sell
- rcv back in the post
- put up on ebay
- profit

[The Other Dave]

In my experience with eBay, nobody's going to really pay any extra for painted minis unless they're painted *really* well, but the difference between half-painted and stripped minis is negligible. (Extensive bad conversions and thick gloppy paint jobs notwithstanding.) So I'd put them up as-is and save yourself the trouble of either painting or stripping, with the mindset (and acknowledgement in the listing) that whoever buys them is going to be stripping and repainting them.

[YellowStreak]

My 2-cents are that I see this hobby as a net financial loss.

Whaaaat? You mean this isn't a sound financial investment for my future?

[Admiral-Badruck]

It is a bit of a waiting game. I think painted and ready to go sells but not for much more than you can get the models new and to be sure it will take more time to find a buyer.