Hi, just wondered if your buying second hand figures (metal heroes) e.g. on ebay how you would prefur to buy them/ what would influence you to spend more on them...

If you could please rank these from 1-5 (1 being the best) it would help a lot, thanks

brand new in box
undercoated black
undercoated white
silver (out of packaging but not used at all)
painted to an averagely good standard (but not pro painted)

In order from most preferred to least preferred

Silver
Black
White
In box
painted

but my primary motivator is cost. I prefer out of the box but no paint because such figs are going to be the cheapest and still give me control of how it gets painted. Actually painted is last because painted figs tend to sell for more and I am forced into the color scheme the seller chose (or going to the extra work to strip them).

Also worth noting that I would ONLY buy metal heroes used. I have had way too many bad experiences with used figs. I don't want to inherit someone else's problems.

I would have to go for painted, provided that there not one of the many idiots who paint legolas blue. I prefer painted mainly cos it's cheaper. Don't get me wrong I like painting but I find it more theraputic rather than a show of my talent because I am not very good and rarely put much time into anything besides metal models.

Recently I bought a job lot of 34 rohan warriors, theoden and merry, all of which were undercoated badly so could see his painting underneath and to be honest it seemed like painting that was just as good as mine, on the other hand you can receive really god-awfully painted minis...

I think sellers should, if they are selling minis they have painted, give an option to the buyer to undercoat them before they are sent or just send the minis as they are.

^But wouldn't that cost the buyer extra to have the undercoat re-applied? If I was selling, crappy painted miniatures, I wouldn't go out of my way to prime them again at my own time and expense to make the buyer happy. The buyer should do that himself in all fairness. A mini with a crappy paint job should be sold for less than a primed mini.

I'm not sure about an average good paint job (non professional) though. Gamers who are out there that just want an already averagely good painted army, because they can't paint themselves, should bring up the demand for these. I think an average quality painted mini (as long as the color scheme is right, no blue Legolas) should cost a bit more than all the rest that Legolas31 has listed, or at least the same as GW pricing being new in box. My opinion though.

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My Lotr backlog: 305/952[][][][][][][][][][]32% completed
Painting Lineup: Mumakil x2, Rohan Heroes x8, Haradrim, SKoDA

Badly painted metals on ebay are my absolute favourite.

Invariably someone in the UK is selling their children's abandoned models. I buy them, look aghast at the painting job and then dump them into the Simple Green. A few days/weeks later, out comes the scrubbing brush and grind-grind-grind. Takes a while, but its less money out for me.

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Dreaming of getting back to painting...any month now.