Blister Sisters: The Tenth Commandment of Collecting Citadel Miniatures

As some of you will be aware, I am a new father. As is dutiful for a husband, I offered to do the ever challenging 'night feeds'. My daughter feeds at about 10pm and then later at around 2am. My wife thinks that I am an angel for doing this, and to be honest, I love it. The days are largely the domain of the 'mother-in-law', or the 'sister-in-law' (I have two) or the 'baby friends', or the grandparents... I don't get much of a look in really. But at night time, its just me and her.

Lovely.

One side effect of keeping irregular hours is the extra time I find it creates. My son is usually asleep by 7:30 and the wife likes to be in bed around this time too (she does a feed at this time) which leaves me several hours to do whatever I want. 

Some may say, sleep man, sleep! 

I prefer to miniature paint into the night!

It is on one of those late night haunts that I had the thought for this post. I want to talk about blisters. Not the blisters you get on a toe or finger, but the glorious card and plastic beauties that used to captivate us back in the day. I am sure you remember the wondrous walls of blisters that used to hang in shops circa 1988? They seemed to go on for ever and had a range of eye-catching and colourful designs. The complete opposite to the depressing and uninspiring grey and reds for recent times. 

Though, blisters are getting fewer and far between these days.

This got me thinking, rather humorously, about what the Ten Commandments of collecting Citadel Miniatures would be (there is a link with blisters, just wait a see).

1. Thou Shalt Collect No Other Lead But Me.

2. Thou Shalt Make Carved Images Out Of Green Stuff When Necessary. 

3. Thou Shalt Not Covet Another Man's Lead.

4. Thou Shalt Not Steal Another Man's Lead.

5. Thou Shalt Keep The Books Slaves to Darkness and The Lost and the Damned Holy.

6. Thou Shalt Always Search Ebay for 'Warhammer 80s'.

7. Thou Shalt Keep Sabbath Days Free To Trawl The Internet For 'Bargains'.

8. Thou Shalt Soak The Miniatures in Dettol And Nitro Moors.

9. Thou Shalt Collect Great Piles Of Lead And Tell Spouse Its An Investment.

10. Thou Shalt Not Open Original Blister Packs.

Would you do it? Tear open the dusty cardboard of an old blister pack? I have been tempted (and in the distant past, been guilty of doing so) but have resolved myself never to do so again. The way I see it, the blister pack you hold in your hand may be the ONLY sealed pack of those miniatures in existence. How could you possible destroy that!? I am going to make a prediction now; in the future, 20 or 30 years, these babies are going to go for BIG money on the miniatures scene. After all, we leadheads will all be retired and have nothing better to do than spend our pensions on beauties like I've posted below.

I love the luminous green of the Orc and Goblin range. In this case, labelled 'Gobbo's' Very apt considering the way they were painted back then. This was my first ever blister I bought on eBay with a view of never opening it. 

Another cheap buy. These two thugs are missing from my painting collection. I think I spent a couple of quid on these. The artwork is really striking don't you think? Blue and white cheques would make a perfect design to beautify a human fighter one day. 

These archers really tempt me. I am desperate to build a unit of skeleton archers and have six loose. Obviously, I've Iiftear open this package I'll have enough for a unit but I just cannot bring myself to do so. These cost me a fiver as a 'Buy it Now' a while back. 

Some ghouls, including the Death on the Reik version, which set me back a fiver from the same seller as the archers. I have no ghouls in my loose collection at all. Something I need to rectify soon for my undead!

My prize blister. Realm of Chaos. I still get as excited about this stuff as I did back in the late 80s when it was released. RoC is what makes Warhammer 3rd so, so special to me as a collector. Such a fantastic range of models were released, some of which still stand up against the most modern of miniatures. Bizarrely, I bid on this but never won. A week or so later, without having paid any money, this blister turned up on my door mat! Must have been the work of the dark gods some how, eh?

Apparently, by the mid 80s the Citadel Miniatures Factory was selling over a million miniatures a month. There was a group of ladies who worked in the packaging department who used the packing machines to put these blisters together. They were named 'The Blister Sisters' by the rest of the staff and this post is dedicated to the wonderful job that they did.

Now, how many blisters have you got unopened stashed away in your collection? And would you break the Tenth Commandment of Citadel Collecting and open them?

Orlygg.