Insuring one's collection…

[Autodidact-O-Saurus]

My gaming inventory system is coming along nicely. Since it started out as a way for me to provide a replacement cost for a book collection, I’m now thinking about extending that to my gaming stuff. Finding the retail value of unpainted (still in production) figures is easy enough these days. But how do you value one’s painting and basing?

There are a couple of companies that specialize in insuring collections but I doubt any of them are used to dealing with wargaming collections. Once I have a well documented collection I’ll be approaching them to see how much an insurance rider or separate policy would be.  Still, I’d like to be able to base my value estimates on real world prices. What is the typical commercial price for painting and basing 28mm figures these days?

TIA

Self taught, persistently behind the times, never up to date. AKA ~ jeff
More verbosity: http://petiteguerre.blogspot.com/

[Mike]

Autodidact-O-Saurus wrote:

What is the typical commercial price for painting and basing 28mm figures these days?

Often depends on colour scheme, Naps and complicated camo often command more.
But anywhere between £5.00 to £10.00 for what I guess most would class as TableTop Mass Battle standard.
Character models to a high standard, £150 + per model

[Fredd Bloggs]

One thing to remember is to include your paints and brushes etc in the list, you can easily have £300 or more worth without even realising.

[Deleted User]

I can’t imagine how insuring these will work. Monetary value of the minis and equipments is easy enough but man all those hours I spent scuplting, converting and painting is truely priceless.

[Phil Dutré]

If your question is “How much can I sell such figures for?”, that’s difficult to answer. Depending on the period, painting and basing style, nobody might be interested. Entire painted wargaming armies are very much a personal project, and difficult to sell, in my opinion, unless you want to get rid of them at bottom rock prices. And the larger the number of figures, the lower the price per figure. The older the figures, the lower the price, unless the figures are so old and from a sought-after manufacturer such that they become vintage. I would also expect plastic to be cheaper than metal.

If your question is “What value should I ensure them for?”, doesn’t that depend on how much premium you are willing to pay?

If your question is “How much would it cost me to replace them in case of losing them?”, that’s again a different price appraisal.

In my experience, looking at the price people are asking at 2nd hand sales etc, many wargamers grossly overestimate what others are willing to pay for their figures.

For a single, 28mm character model, painted to high standards, properly based, etc, I might go as high to 10 euro, 15 in very exceptional cases.

But for an entire army of 500 rank-and-file troops, sold as an army, good but not exceptional painting, perhaps 1 or 2 euro per figure is a more realistic price. Perhaps not what the seller is expecting, but that’s what buyers want to give …

[irishserb]

I’ve had a couple occasions over the years to quote work for models for the purpose of insurance claims.  One was a remote control ship damaged by a shipping company, the other was a display model that was water damaged.  In both cases, an insurance company required the quote to pay a claim, so I quoted a price for doing the work.

You might simply get a couple of quotes of pricing methods from established, professional figure painters and use that as a guide to estimate value across the scope of your collection.

 

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