A little napoleonic ebay advice needed

[Dr. The Viking]

Hi guys

I'm considering trying to finance some of my projects by selling some napoleonics painted and based for black powder. Just curious as to which basing regime would be the best to go with to cater for the largest crowd?

Is there even a market for buying painted stuff?

And mods I hope I placed this appropriately. .. couldn't quite figure it out.

[matakishi]

Is there even a market for buying painted stuff?

I was looking at painted 28mm Napoleonic stuff on eBay recently and there is certainly a market and the buyers don't seem particular about the quality either. There was silly money being paid for very sub par paint jobs.

Ignoring the people actually selling off their old collections,
Some people sell 'armies' a set of infantry, cavalry and a gun or two obviously painted to sell, often individually based.
Small groups of individually based skirmishers are popular as are guns and crew (multi based) or officers/ADCs on horseback either singular or in pairs. Basically, anything you can drop into an existing army without needing to change it. Wagons and limbers are popular too.

The big units, often a speed painted box of plastics described as 'beautifully' or 'expertly' painted based on the plastic bases that are supplied with them (Rendera?), seem to be a popular option too judging by the number available.

It's worth having an extended look sometime, it's an odd market.

[Elk101]

The only painted figures I have bought were Napoleonic French cavalry from eBay. They were reasonably priced and the riders were very well painted. I hated the horses and completely repainted them. What I was looking for was a unit I could drop into my army so nothing crazily priced or nothing beautiful painted and priced accordingly. I just wanted to quickly add to a force. I seem to recall they were based in twos but I pulled temperature off and individually based them.

I'd definitely sell them on a unit base if it were me.

[Gary Peach]

Basing...

40 X 40 In 4s seems the present popular basing for infantry. (Make sure the colours are in the 'right' place on the bases.
20 x 20 for single
50 x 50 for cavalry also seems popular.

28 Infantry figure units.  4 Grenadier, 4 Lights (Voltiguers) 4 command (optional to unit type).
12 Cavalry
the 4 Lights could be on 20 x 20 for deployment, or 4 added figures to swap out for deployment.

Hope that helps.

Ebay is hit and miss fr selling, some sell for silly money as others said, when some really good paint work goes for very little.  Make sure the pictures are good.  Close-ups, and pictures of single 4 figure bases.  Dont take them with a cluttered background, or a dark 1, the lighter the better, and also try some pictures 'on table' too.

[robh]

What scale are the figures you want to sell?  and how well painted are they? I am assuming 28mm tabletop quality here but answer will vary accordingly.

First off, if they are cheap enough they will sell regardless so price them appropriately.

As the pieces you have are based for Black Powder your "ideal market" would be Black Powder players wanting to increase the size or variation of their existing force. So make sure you sell in units appropriate to those rules (correct number of elite company figures per centre company, correct flags etc).

You will also get interest from people who game Napoleonics in 28mm with different rule sets so make sure you write a section on how to rebase your figures for other rule sets (how you glued them to the base, whether your bases are card or plastic, with or without magnets).

A lot (maybe the majority) of ebay buyers are late hitters or snipers so don't have the time to enter in discussions with a seller to answer questions like these, give them the information to make a late impulse bid in your listing.

Also consider listing them here first and even more so on TMP, where there seem to be quite a few people willing to buy painted figures in surprisingly large quantities.

edit: If they are that rare thing 20mm well painted Napoleonic figures PM me first!

[Lowtardog]

If not based already, dont base them, as broken bayonets will be your curse if based