Thursday 18 April 2013

eBay Job Lots: Worth the Risk?

I have been intrigued by other members of the Movement and their success with job lots on eBay. Now you may be wondering what I mean by this. I am sure that many of you are aware of the impressive haul that Stone Cold Lead made over at the Bloodforum, if not, have a quick read of this thread http://bloodforum.treps.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=489 and cry with envy.

Suitably inspired, Orlygg thought that he would have a go, so I typed in Warhammer job lot into eBay's search engine and trawled through the piles of space marine clippings to find some choice lots. Now I wanted to test the theory of getting quite a bit of Old School goodness for a small price, with a little help from the leadhead's guardian angel of the poorly listed lot. In the end, I ended up paying £3.66, including P&P for this little lot.


Thirty five 80s Citadel shields are not to be sniffed at, even at the price I paid, especially elf shields. But I also found that I now owned three more Dark Future guns, very useful for my Road Warriors project once I begin it again in the future. And then there was the RT pistol, which I do not have an example of, and a few old SM parts. It was the three miniatures that caught my interest the most. An RT Orc, and a very characterful one too, a plastic psychostyrene dwarf and a Citadel ninja circa 1985.  I reckon I could easily double my money cleaning up and relisting the metal models, not that I would of course.

So what do others think? Have I just exhibited beginner's luck and am I now doomed to buy crap from eBay in the foreseeable future, or is there lead in them eBay hills?

And dear reader, do you have any tales of job lot luck, or indeed disaster, that you can share with your fellow old school addicts?

Right, I'm off to eBay.

Orlygg.

14 comments:

  1. sometimes you get lucky sometimes you get junk. I recently bought a job lot for a total of £12 although not oop products. I picked up goblin spider riders, a troop of night goblins. 20 oop snotlings and a few other bits and bobs. its a hit and miss thing really. which I only went for based on the snotlings. but probably ended up with about £60 worth of kit. its a little like blind auctions. you have to be in it to win it! :)

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  2. A good haul and that Ork is one of the better RT Ork poses so I would keep him, I would try stripping the dwarf as i think it is a different type of plastic and less durable, you forgot to mention the Rhino headlight, some Marauder Goblin shields too, if you ever need RT guns for your collection I have Gazzillians, let me know what you need
    J

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    1. I meant I wouldn't try stripping the dwarf

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    2. Glad you put that correction in! I was just about to shout "NOOOOOOOOOO". :D

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  3. Frequent purchases on Ebay have helped me own again many of the old 80's and late 90's figures I used to own as a kid. My most recent lead hauls were super lovely Jes Goodwin Skaven sculpts. Why I ever let my original skaven go, I have no idea?

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  4. Clearly the best bargains were back in the early 2000's so I won't bore you with the treasures won for under a tenner back then. Best recent job lot contained 80's Great unclean one, a few 80's warriors, two metal Necromunda gangs, 90's Great unclean one, chaos dragon, giant flesh hound with rider chap (forgot name), flesh hounds, Scalia, Slann priest and temple guard, screaming bell, various plastics chaos, lizards, brets. All for less than £13.

    Best recent only 80's: my third lot of Rudlugs in box, 80's wyvern in box, Fantasy regiments Orcs and goblins in box, champions for both units, lead goblins all for less than £30.

    Now you expect me to give away my search tips, not in this climate!

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  5. PS the psycho-styrene Dwarves are well worth getting a unit of. Less so the drastic plastic orcs(note not the fantasy regiments ones, the earlier plastics)

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  6. Recently i picked up a job lot for 30 odd quid. The highlights were a whirlwind, minus the boar centaur but a friend gave me one in a big jar of our old figures recently. 4 nice old chaos sorcerers with familiars, half a dozen marauder dark elves, an orc war wyvern minus rider and one of it's claws, a couple of Bob Olley pestigors, and a few early skaven sculpts ans old c-series (i think) adveturers/clerics etc.
    The rest was mostly trashy plastic heroquest skaven.

    Prices are mostly OTT on ebay, I've turned my attention to car boot sales and second hand bookstores, where I recently picked up slaves to darkness for a fiver.

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  7. Slaves for a fiver!! I paid 45 quid last summer. Darn it. Yet to bother with job lots but now after reading this I'm off to dabble :-)

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    1. Haha, yeah.
      And slaves is the cheaper one of the two. I'm glad I found my lost and damned in among my cyberpunk 2020 and old merp books last year in my mum's shed. I don't fancy paying 100 quid for it on ebay.
      Second hand bookstores have all but disappeared in Belfast, which is a shame, as one or two I used to visit were great for picking up old white dwarf, dragon, games-master issues etc.
      An old friend of mine is sitting on a potential gold mine that includes the old citadel chaos battering ram, he recently got back into 40k after 20 years or so, and I stupidly told him the battering ram was probably worth a small fortune now ;)

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  8. I bought a bunch of plastic chaos warriors and in that lot were 5 metal chaos champions. A real bargain for the $25 AUD :)

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  9. I miss trawling for junk lots. Its fun looking for gems among all the badly painted tat. Then groaning at just how badly painted and assembled they are when they arrive. Rip off the rubbish bases, pop any superglued joints, then in the dettol dip for a day or two. And finally the sense of satisfaction at having a nice (usually) shiny new mini for the collection.

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  10. I live on Job lots and mixed lots, and forever getting bargains. My tip is too just type warhammer and ending soonest.

    This is my latest bargain mixed lot:
    http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/190823138106?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

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  11. Glad to hear that there is mileage to the job lot approach. Bring and Buy is my new preferred method, especially after Salute.

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