"Should You Disclose?" Topic

Imagine that you're negotiating to buy a second-hand army from a friend of yours. Your friend is proud of his paint jobs, but you think they look substandard. You intend to put the figures in paint stripper as soon as you buy them.

Should you tell your friend about your intentions, prior to purchase?

Yes, but find a way to soften the blow. "I'm doing an Imagi-Nation" or "I want the painting styles to match with all my figres" or "I'm going to try to master a new technique." If he backs out of the sale, its only fair.

Unless they are OOP rare and much sought after figures I can't immagine why anyone would want to strip a whole army.

In terms of time and effort they will turn out to VERY expensive figures in the long run.

I think I'd rather keep the mate than upset him by rubbishing his proud posessions – even if I was prepared to strip them/re-paint them. Figures I can get by the bucket-load, mates are a much rarer commodity.

If you bought them second hand off the internet or at a flea market. Strip away.

If it was my friend, I would not do that to him. I would either buy the figures to use as is (or maybe improve the paint job)or not get them at all. Re-basing is no problem.

He has invested a piece of himself in those figures. You often see gamers put "to a good home" on their ads. I have told my spouse and daughter who gets the figures the I PERSONALLY painted if something happened to me. My daughter has told me that she is claiming certain figures for herself!!

The best analogy I can give is the lake house my wife's grandfather owns. He had always planned on giving it to his son. His son let it be known that he planned on bulldozing the property and selling it. This hurt the grandfather who built most of the house, a cottage and a garage. He has spent more than 50 summers there (his is 93). He is reconsidering who gets the property now.

Hear, hear Gildas! And mates who play miniature wargames are as rare as hen's teeth in many parts of the US!!

If you think your mate will be upset then don't buy them.

There is the possibilty though that your mate knows he is not as good a painter as you are..

If I sell something, I cease to have a say in what happens to the item. If the buyer decides to strip, repaint or stomp on the miniatures, it is not my problem.
However, if he is a friend, I would disclose.

What Gildas said.

Eric

I guy I used to work with told me about his sister's wedding. His mother let his sister wear her wedding dress (sister did not have a lot of money I think was the reason). Sister took the dress but did not wear it, instead she used it to make a sail for the small raft/boat they decided to use to get to the middle of a lake to take their vows.

Stripping paint pails to insignificance…

It doesn't pass the "need to know" test as far as the seller is concerned.

BTW, why strip them down when you can just as easily paint over the old paint work? Less time and effort that way.

Putting things in the paint stripper is far more work than it's worth.

Bill, that is so ice cold!

I agree with OFM.

I would probably disclose, as they're going to find out anyway, though I'd probably couch it in terms of "I want to do a different paint scheme" or somesuch. On the other hand, if I knew he was emotionally invested or was selling them "to a good home" I would probably go no further than touching up the paintjobs.

I've stripped models bought from a friend without telling them, but they were bought from someone who was getting out of the hobby anyway, so it never came up.

I completely disagree that stripping models is more hassle than it's worth. About half the models I buy are used models whose paintjob I remove. Paying significantly less for poorly painted models has probably saved me 50%-%70 or more on those figures.

Simple green followed by a little elbow grease is very little effort to exchange for getting cheap minis.

Not if I don't have to. Any one of my freinds is worth far more then my entire collection. And if I have to, 21eRegt suggests some good excuses to use.

If I sell something they belong to the guy I sold them too and he can melt them down if he wants to. Same with stuff I buy. I get the concept of "ownership" even if the other guy does not.

Honestly, I don't think anyone who is that linked to his figures would sell anything to me.

I hasten to add to those who have sold or given me figures in the past that I have never seen the need to do such a thing yet; in case you do care.

I cannot imagine anyone painting worse than me so find the circumstance impossible to imagine.

x42

I wouldnt strip them. I might touch them up a bit but that would be all.

Wouldn't buy painted figures if I wanted to paint them.

You bought them, do what you want.

Most of my friends are better painters than I am. Point is moot.

I have asked in the past if they minded if I repainted or touched them up. Literally the one time I didn't the guy freaked out and I'd still be hearing about it if I'd not left working at the store. It was just a Nightbringer with a crap paint job but it turns out he was proud of it.

It would have to be either an incredible bargain or a OOP army that I wanted badly.

But to actually answer your question, assuming that you had already decided in favour of stripping the figures, I would tell him in advance. My argument would be that I wanted them painted in my style and he would be free to back out of the sale if that was objectionable to him.

It actually happened to me once, in a way. Someone offered a very low price for a painted figure of mine with the argument that he had to strip all the paint and had to paint it all over, hence he did not even want to pay the retail price. So I pointed him towards the retailer and wished him lots of luck with his future negotiations….

If someone bought something of mine they can do what they want with them, I have the money. If they want to make sinkers out of them that's their decision, probably a waste of money for them.

I can see that besides serious wargamers, we have some serious painters here too.