"Off the Wall Armies (aka Gray Cat Castings)" Topic

Particularly GW, but perhaps wargames miniatures in general.

So, wargames got real big in the 90s.

The 70-80s saw SciFi and fantasy emerge and strengthen.

Historical had been around a while, but the 90s saw it became mainstream with hobby shops, toy shops, even LOTR in odd places by 2001.

So if you were 10-20 when you got into it, 70-2000, means your 44-64.

Now, my point…

Where are all the miniatures going?

Into people's collections.

What happens in 20-40 years when the people above fall off the perch?

Bust.

There must be a point that the amount of second hand minis on the market over supplies demand, killing sales of new minis, and thus the industry.

There was the comic boom and bust in the 80-90s, where millions were bought for investment, until people tried to sell them.

DvDs have a beyond saturated secondary market. But new films and TV keep new ones coming.

New minis may always be made, but why buy a new box of whatever, when there are a heap available second hand for sale at a fraction of the price?

Also remember, that many people never get around to opening packets, so a lot of the second hand product may be as new.

The wheels are going to fall off at some point.

Nice job…

Irregular Wars Wargaming Blog

link

Armand

You are operating under the assumption that people want to buy used miniatures-- and old miniatures -- instead of new miniatures, which I don't believe is correct.

Old miniatures can be an extremely hard sell. I bet a fair number of them end up in the trash, or are otherwise unused.

A fair number of gamers won't buy painted

figs, so they are not you audience unless you are selling for pennies on the dollar because they are going to strip the paint off whatever you sell them.

A lot of gamers like new and shiney. The sale of second hand estate sale figures isn't even going to be a discernable blip in new figure sales.

My 2 cents.

Multiple Bug attacks!

H Man, first you examine reality, and then you formulate a theory to explain it--not the other way around. I'm 72, surrounded by dead and nearly dead wargamers and their collections--working on my fifth set of collections in nine years--but it's doing no harm to Perry, Victrix or Old Glory, not even to mention GW.

The wheels have pretty well come off the USED figure market: they aren't usually sculpted or painted to current standard, the scales are not the current ones, basing is for old rules, many periods are shadows of their former glory, it's hard to fill gaps and--especially in the F&SF market--they aren't the official franchise of the rules set. Shop around, and you can buy painted 25-30mm figures for $1 USD each for infantry, which is about what you'd have paid in the 1980's. I'll be selling them at that price at next year's flea markets.

And people will walk right past me to buy new from dealers.

(By the way, hobby shops were stocking historicals by the early 1970's, and LOTR figures are a good 20-25 years earlier than you think. MINE are that old. How old are you?)

LOTR Minifigs, Custom Cast and Heritage were all around by the early 80's at the latest. Historicals were around from the 70's. I have no idea about what will happen. But I doubt that there won't be some folks who still want to buy. Several lines of old figs still hold a premium price today and are actively sought by buyers.

Thanks.

John