"Mountain of Shame" Topic

I've been in a conversation with a fellow blogger, Legatus Hedlius, about our shameful accumulations of unpainted metal miniatures. By nature of a confession, I've photographed and estimated the numbers in my own "stash".

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and Legatus' is here:-

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If you have a similar guilty accumulation (and I am sure there are worse cases out there than us!), feel free to post it below, or link in the comments on my blog.

Cheers, Simon

I have quite a bit of unpainted stuff. Some of it I have lost interest in, but most of it I think I'd like to paint still. Time is against it though.

I should really try to shift some of it to someone who will paint it.

I have an estimated 11k+ unpainted 25/28/30mm miniatures (about half are catalogued so far). A mix of Foundry, Essex, Reaper, Minifigs, Gripping Beast, West Wind, Ral Partha, Mithril, Citadel, Pulp Miniatures, Ilyad, Freebooter, etc.

They are boxed up in "Really Useful Boxes" & various sweet/biscuit tins.

I will never paint them all, and I continue buying more…

About four years ago I bought all 8 WWI fleet packs from Navwar. An initial burst of enthusiasm resulted in prepping them for painting, and then- nothing.
As of now I have finished the RN, and the IJN are base-coated. But the other six packs are sitting quietly in a shoebox. The shame.

That's ALL?
I can, and do, line the walls of my fallout shelter. You can never have too much lead.

And what's this nonsense about cataloging???

I have a big box of 25mm MiniFig Napoleonics that has been sitting since the early 1980s. To compound the shame, many were purchased painted and since (at that time, I just knew)I obviously could paint better than anyone else they were all carefully stripped and primed grey. Rob.

Okay, after reading the responses here I can see I am a total amateur with my pittance of six unpainted fleet packs. I bow my head to all of you who REALLY know how to horde!

A lead mountain is a strange thing to be ashamed of. Without the hoards of unpainted metal in collectors hands, our merchants would go broke. This is a golden age for collectors and the backlog is a very important part of that.

What John The OFM said…

Eric

I think I first made a list of 'things I really have to paint' sometime in the mid 80s.

Probably a quarter of them are still on 'the list' but to be fair they have been vastly outnumbered by unpainted newcomers….

I dont feel so bad now about my unpainted stuff, thanks guys.

Catalogue? What is that? Who has time to count? Get out there and buy, buy, buy.

Remember what the wise man saith:

He who dies with the most toys wins!

2012 has been all about working through the backlog – it has been very gratifying. It has been "finish or sell" for a lot of stuff, and a lot is in the "will I ever get to this – do I need to hang on to it" category. I have whole matching armies that have not been out of the box(s) since they've been finished. There will be unfinished projects in 2013, but far less. No new armies in 2012, though I've added to existing ones Well, OK.. there was the splintered light stuff that I bought for a new project.

I planned to reduce the backlog this year, but it has grown by getting on for 400 minis. I blame those chaps at Aventine…

Cheers, Simon

I tried a while back to make a count for my figs…and an inventory, but both times the excel spreadsheet crashed. The second time it happened the computer went with it… I'm going to try again, but it's not looking pretty. I have a bag from Wargames LLC alone that weighs almost 10 pounds….

sigh…

I did a thorough count of my unpainted figures back in the late '90s. It was so depressing, I have never repeated the experience. I do keep count of the number I buy and the number I paint, and could add up the annual totals, though I don't know why I'd want to. Next year, I'm planning not to start new things, spend most of my money on books, pre-painted scenery, and paying others to paint the unpainted figures I have. Of course, such good intentions tend to start falling apart by August or September, but when I tried this before, this did result in catching up a bit.
Grelber

I have a huge mountain of unpainted lead, and recently came to the conclusion that with only about 20 good gaming years left, if I didn't get some help then some of it just wouldn't ever get painted. I found a painter who is in my price bracket and whose style matches mine (so far so good), but then I went and bought a brand new army and gave it to him to paint. Mmmm, there seems to be a major flaw in my methodology.

Bob.

If I catalogued everything I really would get depressed!

Just think a minimum of £1.00 GBP a figure that an awful lot od money tied up doing nowt…

Beter not tell your better halves !

Eric

Eric, not so much tied up as invested; some of those Foundry minis only cost me around 40p… another 5 years of price rises like these, and I'll be able to retire! ;-)

Simon

I calculate that if you have been gaming for at least 20 years and spend 2000 dollars a year give or take. That means you probably have at least 15-20000 dollars worth of figs lying around. I believe that just based on inflation and increasing metal prices you'd have about that amount. If you have been gaming for 30 years and spend 3-4000 dollars a year you probably have a chunk of change lying around.

Thanks,

John

PLEASE tell my wife about these worse cases. She's threatened to torch the little guys!!! Sal Sr out!!!

I can sympathize with that! My wife once asked me, "why canīt you do one project at a time?" And she was serious!

I don't feel quite so bad now. A rough reckoning I'd have a couple of thousand 28mm figures put away for current projects.

Then I think, what about about those FOW armies that I have totally given up on, and the 20mm WW2 kits I've been collecting since 1984, and the 40k figures I've never done anything with, and those ECW Essex figures I bought in 1987. It goes on and on lol.

The clubs having a bring and buy soon so I might just bring a few things along to see if I can sell something off.

Dan.

I can sympathize with that! My wife once asked me, "why canīt you do one project at a time?" And she was serious!

All I have to do is point to one of her unfinished quilts.

I'm starting a support group, and would be happy to help you rid yourself of these burdens.

We gladly accept donations of unwanted miniatures, terrain, vessels, vehicles, spaceships, and buildings, in various scales.

Our primary interest is for unpainted items, but we will consider well-painted collections also, for the following periods: medieval; renaissance; pirate eras; Napoleonics; ACW; WWI through ultramodern aircraft; WWII and later land, sea, and air combat miniatures; Sci-Fi spacefighters, grav armor, and spaceships.

We also take surplus rules from non-smoking environments as well.

Note, we offer a safe, and non-judgmental environment, and will ensure your confidentiality, both from the general public, and the significant other.

Fortunately, my wife has no idea what a single figure costs (I always peel off the price labels) and anyway she spent £700.00 GBP on Christmas tree ornaments yesterday (or, rather, I did).

I have over 1,000 unpainted 32mm. I tried to catalog it all once. It didn't take.

I can sympathize with that! My wife once asked me, "why canīt you do one project at a time?" And she was serious!

Wargaming is one project; collecting, painting, and spending wads of hard earned are just elements thereof. Works for me….

Oh, and my perennial wish, if anyone has Minifigs Trajanic Roman 15mm strips lying around…..

korsun, I used to have some, years ago; recall them with affection. Long gone…

Legatus, tat's a lot of ornaments! Could you not have hung miniatures from the tree?

Cheers, Simon

Is that all? Goodness, that's barely a dent to my pile.

I have to agree with John and LW. That wouldn't even make a dent in my stock. The worst thing is forgetting what I actually have and getting all 'ooh shiney' about stuff… buying it, and then discovering i already had it… ooops.

At first I thought Canister and Grape had a "shame" problem, but, on reflection, he has painted far too high a proportion of his own minis. He has a terrifically neat lead mountain.

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Cheers, Simon

I reckon I'd have about 1200 1/72 or 28mm plastics in various states of incompleteness, and some 2500 15mm metals.

Clearly mine is only a hillock of disrepute…

Cheers,
Aaron

Isn't the first rule of the lead pile club not to talk about the lead pile club?

If you can remove items from your leadpile to count them without a landslide of lead killing you…..you don't have enough unpainted lead

I have a wargames room and a loft full of projects – 'nuff said.

Best to date is when we moved I discovered I ahd bought the same boxed set 4 times over…. I need a system!

Looking on the plus side, I decided to paint some Macedonian pikemen, yesterday. I found 473 in the lead pile, not counting the Hypaspists!

They should keep me going for a couple of weeks… :)

Simon