"Unpainted grandmanner?" Topic

I must be very dumb, I can't find unpainted options on the grand manor shop.
I know I've ordered unpainted before.

Only wargaming standard and collectors standard, with no options for none.

Never mind, found their news update.
No more unpainted stuff…

I think they stopped doing unpainted a few months ago. I nearly bought an unpainted windmill while I still could, and then didn't.

Looks like I left it too late to buy their Brown Water Boats then, sob.

Looks like the company only wants to sell to a limited number of affluent clients. Time will tell whether or not the strategy will work.

I bought all the unpainted sets of their African villages before they changed their policy. Their stuff is great and their painted buildings are gorgeous but a they are bit more than I want to pay.

I was just looking at some of the Roman stuff on the GM site before I noticed this topic. It appears the Roman stuff is available as unpainted resin.

His policies keep changing…I'll bet when he gets slow he'll sell the unpainted. Wait and see….

Long Valley Gamer, agree. Watch his site for changes.

I purchased a Limited Edition piece he stated would only have 40 pieces cast. Later, he changed his mind and reintroduced the piece. I felt that if he represented a piece as Limited Edition, it should not be reintroduced after the original lot had sold.

I'm sorry but this is a terrible strategy on their part.

Why would I care if a terrain piece is "limited edition"? I just want to be able to get it and use it for games.

These aren't David Winter Cottages, they're just historical resin. There's nothing inherently "collectible" about them, not in the sense of what collectible usually means.

Having only painted pieces is an even WORSE idea. His prices are high enough for the unpainted stuff, the painted prices are simply ludicrous.

I would have bought way more stuff from him if his unpainted prices had been maybe 20% less than they were. But there's no way I'm going to pay to have someone else paint resin houses. Painting them is the easiest part since they're already built.

Here's one example of why he's going to go out of business if he tries to sell only painted stuff.

This is for ONE average sized timber-framed house. Not a set of four or five village house. ONE house.

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Wargaming standard paint job works out to about $182.00 USD??? "Collectible" standard paint job is $273.00 USD??? So a decent 5-building village will run you around $750.00 USD-$1000.00 to have it painted for you?

God, I could paint a village of 5 buildings to a collectible standard in about 2-3 hours.

This guy makes Games Workshop terrain prices look like a tag sale.

Are you kidding me? For a SINGLE building? Who is this guy's market, wargaming hedge fund managers?

This one I thought had to be a typo.

You get two, TWO short pieces of earthworks which make a piece maybe a foot long or more, that's it. Not a set of four or five pieces. TWO.

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Painted to a collector's standard, $236.00 USD??? For a little over 12" of earthworks?

Look, I get that it's the convenience of having them painted but there's no standard of painting you can paint generic earthworks that makes two pieces worth over $200.00 USD for two pieces. That's Twilight Zone pricing.

Please tell me who in their right mind would pay that when I can get four of these pieces from Acheson for $28.00 USD and paint them myself in about an hour?:

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American Mill House Barn for AWI/ACW…painted to a collectible standard…$398.00. Uh WUT?

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$398.00 USD ??????

…so just for ha ha's I added all three of the above items to his shopping cart.

$909.00 USD total – for a single timber-framed house, two pieces of eathworks, and a single American mill house barn.

Yeah this guy's going to stay in business.

He's managed to stay in business for many years – and his stuff is still the best on the market – so he must be doing something right?

Well I would never wish anyone to fail, I'm very happy for him that's he's managed to stay in business all these years.

I'm just glad there's enough gamers out there who have $1,000 USD lying around for five 28mm buildings.

No way this guy's getting my money. His painted prices are sheer robbery. His "Hartwell Tavern" AWI set is $800.00 USD for two buildings and some walls. I know I'm a broken record here, but seriously let that sink in for a minute. WHO actually bought that for $800.00 USD? I mean…give me a half hour and some craft paints and I'll show anyone how to paint those pieces to a "collectible" standard in no time. I mean it's ridiculous.

I would seriously like to be able to see some kind of statistical list showing the demographics of who this guy's customer base is.

Even his unpainted prices are out of whack. He's good for like small accessory-type stuff. But the moment you look at anything that's a normal-sized building he's charging $200 USD per building. Unpainted.

Even Tabletop World which does medieval resin to an amazingly high degree of quality and detail, perhaps among the best out there charges less for a cottage-sized building. Their cottages and townhouses range from like $40 USD-$80 depending on the size and the detail puts Grand Manner's stuff to shame. If Grand Manner sold those same medieval pieces they'd be $300 USD a piece.

I am in the camp of – this is his business, he can run it how he likes.

One possible explanation is that time may be a limiting factor for him. Consider this:
What if he can only produce 5 buildings a day and only wants to spend one day a week on the business. Also consider it costs him $100 USD per building to make (time and materials).
If he sells it for $400 USD, he would make $300 USD per building profit which would make him $1,500 USD a week assuming he could find 5 customers per week at this price. (Let's not argue about this assumption).

Lets say he then decides to drop the price to $150 USD and finds 25 customers/week at this price. He would make $50 USD per building or $1,250 USD (25 x $50 USD) per week profit. This is less profit for him in a week and he would have to spend five days a week running his business instead of one. That may not fit his lifestyle.

I am not saying that the above numbers are correct, or that time is the limiting factor for his business. What I am saying is that there may be a perfectly logical reason for him to run his business this way. His business, his choice.

I recently made 3 buildings from scratch for my 28mm Italian wars project. Because I built them from scratch, they were exactly what I wanted. However, when I went into the project I thought that building them myself would save money. With all the time and materials involved, I am not sure that it turned out that way in the end. Still – I do have some buildings that I like.

Not looking for an argument, just putting the possibility out there that there may be a perfectly logical reason for him running his business this way.

Baranovich,

If his prices are too high then don't buy from him – pretty simple.

Lots of people do buy from Grand Manner and Dave has run a successful company for 20 years…

I can't afford to buy a Ferrari but that doesn't mean I spend my time slagging off their business model.

"…give me a half hour and some craft paints and I'll show anyone how to paint those pieces to a "collectible" standard in no time. "
You've clearly never seen his work close up – it's stunning. And as Black Hat Miniatures just said – if you don't like it, don't buy it.