JimSelzer | 27 Apr 2021 10:46 p.m. PST |
I have tons of old figures i don't think they would be of any value…. is anyone recycling them? mixture of lead tin and pewter can you get scrap prices for them? I basically just want to clear them out old prinz august figures and other odds and end I have gathered over the years skinny 18/20mm |
Darrell B D Day | 27 Apr 2021 10:54 p.m. PST |
I have hundreds of bad painted ancients and "Renaissance" (is that still a thing?) – mainly mini figs – that have probably been made obsolete by research in the intervening years. They are perhaps acceptable for fantasy games but even the 25mm are too small and weedy to fit with current ranges. I hate to think of them as scrap – I put a lot of effort into those crappy paint jobs and card bases. So I'm interested to see what responses and suggestions show up here. DBDD |
John the OFM | 27 Apr 2021 11:27 p.m. PST |
They're not worth anything as scrap either. A friend who runs a miniatures company told me that the metal mix would be so inconsistent that he would be afraid to use it. As you yourself said, it's a mix of lead and pewter. |
DD Top | 28 Apr 2021 1:46 a.m. PST |
They could be recycled. But, as John suggests, any company doing it would have to throw quality control out of the window. |
Timbo W | 28 Apr 2021 1:47 a.m. PST |
Try ebaying them, just because you're not happy with them doesn't mean someone else won't be. |
IUsedToBeSomeone | 28 Apr 2021 2:20 a.m. PST |
There are people collecting old minifigs armies. They are worth something. I am on the lookout for some hoplite period armies and would take Minifigs if they were cheap enough… John is right, scrap is such a bad mix of metals from different companies that it isn't worth trying to cast with. People who are home casting might buy it. You could try selling it by weight on ebay. Mike
|
nickinsomerset | 28 Apr 2021 2:27 a.m. PST |
There is growing momentum for folks collecting old MInifigs stuff and a regular event on the wargames guild/FB is Minifigs Monday. I have been collecting old Minifigs S&S stuff to recreate the armies I "almost" had as a youth in the 70s, whilst Caliver do most of the range sadly they are missing a few, mainly Cav, figures, Tally Ho! |
Fighting 15s | 28 Apr 2021 2:44 a.m. PST |
One thing to remember is the current price of metal. Even at the currently high prices for pewter, it still costs only 2.8p per gramme (plus VAT). (I'm sorry I can't give US prices for comparison! And that price is 40% higher than when I last bought metal, thanks to recent market manipulation.) So if you have a skinny 18mm/20mm figure, there's 5g tops in one of those, or 14p of metal if it were clean and pure; a 28mm foot figure might be 28p of metal. For tin-lead alloys, the value is even less. You're better off finding the right market for the figures and selling to people who want them, because scrap value per figure is negligible, more so for mixed metal. |
Arjuna | 28 Apr 2021 2:45 a.m. PST |
If it were really 'tons' you could make some bucks at a scrap metal or refinery. The raw material price for tin and lead went up in the last year and will probably rise for some time. For raw tin it was about 80%, lead about 20%. Melted to ingots, at a refinery they would even make a XRF spectroscopy and tell you how much of what is in your scrap metal mix and price it accordingly. At least for tin. At a scrap yard, they probably save themselve the hassle and offer you 50c per pound, if they are nice. If not, they would probably charge you a doller per pound to dispose of hazardous material for you.
So it really depends how much you have. A few years ago I sold about 200 pounds of 94% tin from an inheritance in my family to a refinery in a city I live in Germany. It was worth the effort. Old miniature scrap? Probably not. |
korsun0 | 28 Apr 2021 3:38 a.m. PST |
I've melted old ones down in the past to make figures for myself; the mix is very hit and miss. Some figures were good, some not. Melting temperatures were not constant and other issues. I'll add my voice to the Minifigs crowd if you have any of the strip 15mm ancients, of any nationality, I'm interested. |
Dagwood | 28 Apr 2021 7:05 a.m. PST |
I am currently trying to decide between keeping with old-style 25mm Ancient Saxons and Normans, or changing to new-style 28mm Ancient Saxons and Normans. With Gripping Beast plastics selling at only around 50p a figure, that would reduce the price I would be willing to pay for the old metal, but I might still go up to 40p per figure, say. Some old figures are difficult to sell, I am thinking of Carthaginian Libyan spearmen where the current ideas of what they looked like are very different from the older ideas. (Even then, I could still do with another 8 !!) So people will buy them on E-Bay, if thay are not priced too high. PS Do you have any Saxons or Normans for sale ?? |
cavcrazy | 28 Apr 2021 7:18 a.m. PST |
I couldn't imagine just throwing away old figures. I have some Minifigs S range Napoleonic cavalry sitting in a box and when I find someone who can use them I rejoice in the fact that somebody will enjoy them. |
Saber6 | 28 Apr 2021 9:14 a.m. PST |
What scales and period? Painted (even painted badly)? You might see who you can donate them to locally, or take them to a Con and see what walks away. Figures will get used, as targets if nothing else |
Col Durnford | 28 Apr 2021 9:23 a.m. PST |
Maybe we need a new category on the marketplace called "Free to a good home – you pay postage". I would hate to think of unloved figures being dumped when someone would be delighted to have them. |
Grelber | 28 Apr 2021 10:05 a.m. PST |
I have old Minifigs and other things that I didn't get enough of to make it worth selling. So they sit around in boxes in the back of the closet. Maybe it's time to haul them out, do an inventory, and see if I can sell them here on TMP. Hidden away even deeper (hand me my pith helmet and torch!) there may be lists of the old Minifig figures. Grelber |
Arjuna | 28 Apr 2021 10:46 a.m. PST |
|
SHaT1984 | 28 Apr 2021 4:18 p.m. PST |
>>A friend who runs a miniatures company told me that the metal mix would be so inconsistent that he would be afraid to use it. Just goes to prove everything thats wrong in this consumerist society now. The 'mix' has always been the same, varying by a greater or smaller proportion based on cost, use and consumer needs. Absolutely no surprise to me actually. The greed and ignorance knows no bounds, and to hell with ecology, recycling and waste reduction. I just purchased part of an old collection because I can recycle the figures; were I a bit younger I'd redesign and remaster a few more for extensive use and resale. And on the quality front- a manufacturing jeweller was more than happy to utilise ex-figures for his prototyping masters. -d |
John the OFM | 28 Apr 2021 7:23 p.m. PST |
Oh, that's just so wrong. The manufacturer has to be able to calibrate to the degree the temperature, depending on the alloy mix. He can't afford the time to "dial in" the proper conditions for that alloy, or MIX OF ALLOYS. It's a non-starter. But, be my guest. Throw in Utopia instead of reality. Look. For many years I was the "recycling manager" at my favorite previous employer. I immediately discovered that anyone who accepted recycled … trash would only accept PURE material. |
IUsedToBeSomeone | 29 Apr 2021 3:13 a.m. PST |
SHat1984, I agree with John I really don't think you know what you are talking about. Different metal alloys have very different flow properties and moulds cut to work with one alloy and on one machine can be a real PITA to cast using a different alloy. Pewter flows well but has a lot less weight so can need a lighter pressure and more speed to fill a mould cut for a lead-heavy metal which will just fill a cavity. Not knowing what is in the metal you are casting with means a lot of failed casting and having to experiment with different speeds, termperatures, etc. This isn't something you want to have to do in a commercial organisation. Mike |
Darrell B D Day | 29 Apr 2021 9:28 a.m. PST |
Some old figures are difficult to sell, I am thinking of Carthaginian Libyan spearmen You have summed up my predicament with frightening precision. Not to mention my unlikely 3rd century Romans, complete with cataphract battering Palestinian club men (embarrassing conversions with lots of milliput). DBDD |
John the OFM | 29 Apr 2021 2:09 p.m. PST |
Yeah. Those Carthaginian Libyan spear men. I had two units, combining Minifigs and Ral Partha. I believe that Grenadier also made them. But they were in a WRG book, so they had to be accurate. I called them my Zulu Hoplites. Lovely in mass. Inaccurate as anything. |
John the OFM | 29 Apr 2021 2:17 p.m. PST |
Let's not forget that "back in the day", quite a few manufacturers used "recycled" scrap lead, like tire weights. This was the source of a lot of my lead rot casualties. Now they know better. God alone knows what metals were in Ralidium alloy. Trade secret! Brittle as anything, and impossible to bend back into shape. I accidentally purchased (should have known better) a few recast units. Just from clanking them together, you could tell the metals were different. Prince August sells metal suitable for home casting. I tried to use old figures and the results were pathetic. This is of course unsuitable for spin casting, without having molds dedicated especially for that alloy. No. Recycling old figures can't be done. And let's not even bring up painted figures or with glue. Or lead rot infected figures. |
Fighting 15s | 30 Apr 2021 5:39 a.m. PST |
Recycling old figures can't be done. It can be done on a batch basis, but only with figures from the same manufacturer and if that the manufacturer kept using the same alloy during its production life. And then you have the issue of quantity: potentially worth it if someone handed over 20kg of Minifigs in pewter, not 100g. Otherwise, the problem with a mix of metals isn't so much about pressure requirements or flow properties when casting, although as Mike says they are a PITA, but about ductility, shrinkage, sinkage and cavities. The wrong mix of tin and lead can produce an alloy that is full of blemishes, or brittle. There are standard alloy compositions for a reason – they're the ones that work. I think most of the work on tin-lead alloys had been done when I finished my materials science degree in the early 1980s. Alloy producers that collect dross pots from manufacturers are probably the best option for handling scrap because they are used to reclaiming metal from a mix of returned metal and balancing out the constituents to produce a standard, if lower grade, casting alloy. I can only say from experience that you don't get very much back from a dross pot financially: about £6.00 GBP for a pot of dross I could barely lift. As I said above, there is a better deal to be had in selling old figures to people who want them. |
JimSelzer | 01 May 2021 2:32 a.m. PST |
well thanks for the input my guess is I will try to sort by type era or maker 1st then go from there |
Dagwood | 01 May 2021 10:26 a.m. PST |
The Libyan spearmen were a wildly extrapolated mixture of NKE-era Libyans and late Mediaeval Moroccan red leather, but weren't they better than nothing ? Unfortunate timing, just before the discovery of a couple of tombs that showed what they really (probably) looked like. I keep mine for the "Early" version. I still need a few more !! |