Author Topic: Kulmbach 2017  (Read 9836 times)

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gerhard

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Re: Kulmbach 2017
« Reply #46 on: September 02, 2017, 09:00:10 AM »
Hello Hannibal
Thats what I mean. Why pay collectors € 11,50 for 2 1/72 round figures (or your example € 70,-- for one 75 mm round).
If there are flat figure Lovers, they will pay a realistic Price for good (interesting) new figures.
Maybe the flat figure should go modern. (Rockbands, Science Fiction, Modern soldiers, Fantasy, Movie or Computer Game based figures, modern Sportsmen, Comic Heroes.... - I know the Copyright Problems - but Andrea Min. 54mm round made Cpt. Kirk and named it "Space Commander") I think there are enough Napoleonics, 7 Years War and Knights on the Market.

Brian

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Re: Kulmbach 2017
« Reply #45 on: September 02, 2017, 06:42:07 AM »

Figures are expensive to produce and the collector is not willing to pay for the work involved.
That is just how it is  :( and the reason I can't produce a set of 30mm, as much as I would love too the cost is just to much.


3D figures are coming but don't hold your breath, their having problems so will be a while yet!!       

Hannibal

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Re: Kulmbach 2017
« Reply #44 on: September 02, 2017, 04:56:31 AM »
Going et Gerald comments, "But I have already spoken with collectors who said 1 € for a 30mm figure is too expensive."  This is stupid and collectrslive in another planet, where they benzine still cost 15 cents a liter, a read even less and waken up in our wolrld very expensive !!
Ronde bosse painters are ready to buy 75mm fgures for 30 to 50 euros unpainted to paint them ... this is 60 to 100 deutch mark !!  ... I wold have never bought such a model for such a prohibitive price.
Flats must restate their selling price to an acceptable level, higher, ...or disappear. We rarely find nowadays armies on tables of hundreds of flats as before, but doramas more sophisticated, or sanyetes of 2/3 characters or single pieces, painted with more care, where the time for painting against the material (the flat) itself are higher.  Ifa flat would cost 5 euros or 7 euros, it would not stop people painting them nowadays.  The selling price found on ebay's include a depreciated mould, aged, .  But a new mould, high quality should give flats charged at higher price to users.
Going to China i a big mistake, like clothes, electronic, toys = it is giving up again our know-how, artistic talents, tradition, manpower, salaries to foreigners for their own benefit, until we become plants in our house, ordering everithing by a laptop, travelling on TC screens, holding meetings from home in video, we don't even need legs anymore !! (le futuristic view of some people f what will a hulan look like in 500 years !!).
We must keep, sherish, protect this art here, within Europe as a sign of our culture, our values and pay for it.
Tomorrow, wih 3D printing, even colouring on computer, a painted flat will cost ... centimes; 98% will go in the pocket of the conceptor in California, and we will have no longer any interest, because each flat will be the same as millions others, like a coin of metal !!! Instead of being built, painted by an artist well known in our own country instead by little hands among thousands of (young) chinese or russian girls, producing them in large series "aall the same" ...).
Do we want quality, value, ...or low cost an massive productions, low quality and poor looking ?
I have my answer, but I am not a collector .... I don't need to keep 20,000 flats in my home in boxes and drawers; only a few framed and exposed ... because I painted them myself!
I would even pay 10 euros for such a 30 mm flat, but no paint an army of 300, which would tak a good part of my life n one single subject ....
Everyone to find his passion ... and pay for it on his way!
Michel
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Men are a bit like God: everything they can do, they do it. Or they will do it.  (Jean d'Ormesson)

gerhard

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Re: Kulmbach 2017
« Reply #43 on: September 02, 2017, 03:26:13 AM »
One Comparison

30 mm flats  german Editor: 1 foot 1 horse (30 years war) Price: € 3,20
1/72 round figures, german Editor: 1 foot 1 horse (30 years war) Price: € 11,50
So, if the 1/72 figures are buyed, there are collectors interested in historical figures, who pays 3,5 times more.
(one cause may be: round figures (in my opinion) are easier to paint)

Gerald

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Re: Kulmbach 2017
« Reply #42 on: September 02, 2017, 12:59:07 AM »
But ..... Frank, does that mean that 30mm flats have never been profitable ?
Or is the change from large series paintings to single pieces detailed painting the cause of this slow death?

This is probably the main reason. But also that the costs rise.Energy is more expensive, the tin prices have risen. The costs for the engravers have risen .... etc.
But I have already spoken with collectors who said 1 € for a 30mm figure is too expensive. As Frank would say right now, the figure cost 5 € if you wanted to make money, but who would pay the? Hardly one and thus the problem would be there again. Or it would collect many masses again and buy 30 or 40 times the same figure.

Mike G

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Re: Kulmbach 2017
« Reply #41 on: September 01, 2017, 05:25:33 PM »
I also think that Flats today are underpriced. I don't think that prices have kept up with inflation, and the type of skilled labor required to produce a set must be extremely expensive as I recall Brian and Charles saying about the Crimea set. I would think for a set of any size to be produced today, it would have to. E designed, engraved and cast in Asia or a similar location where labor is much cheaper. Round model soldiers such as king &a country, Jenkins etc are all now produced in China or thereabouts. For new figures to be profitable, the hobby will have to keep up with the times.
New York

Hannibal

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Re: Kulmbach 2017
« Reply #40 on: September 01, 2017, 04:40:14 PM »
But ..... Frank, does that mean that 30mm flats have never been profitable ?
Or is the change from large series paintings to single pieces detailed painting the cause of this slow death?
Why has cost so dramatically increased then? cost of engraving, manpower, metal material?
I ampaiting few 30mm flats, never series, and wold be ready to pay few euros per piece instead of the 0.8 tp 1.8 euro, like 28mm round figures as expressed by Gerhard.  Or selling price should decrease for series only ?
It can be that 3D printing and engraving by software instead of artistic repate of a drawing might change the cost structure in the future, like diactating a letter , an typing it on a old mechanical typing ùachine has seen its cost decreasing by word processors and high speed printing, even only electronic storage paperlasss nowadays ??   But we have tolive this transition toay with a dilemma and har time, for editors and have passionate painters be forced to accept a higher acquisition price for the time being.
Good painters are anyways selling their piece with a confortable margin as passion, provided it is not your unique source of income.
... Interesting discussion !!  Collecting art is not for making profit, but to satisfy a passion, perhaps a vice !
Michel
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Men are a bit like God: everything they can do, they do it. Or they will do it.  (Jean d'Ormesson)

gerhard

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Re: Kulmbach 2017
« Reply #39 on: September 01, 2017, 03:52:15 PM »
O.K. it is good for the collectors that flats are cheap. But must they.
Look at the Prices for 1/72 resin figures. Around 2 to 3 € for one figure. (1/72 is about 24 mm high)
I think a 30 mm figure is worth a higher Price. (There are beautiful 1/72 figures, but the cannot reach a good flat)
Greetings
Gerhard

Tannenberg1410

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Re: Kulmbach 2017
« Reply #38 on: September 01, 2017, 02:46:43 PM »
Hello,

an interesting discusion for new flat figures. Today I got drawings for a little new scene that I would like to bring out. I was shocked when I saw the price of a drawing for a 30mm foot. The drawing costs 45,00 Euro per figure. Then the costs for the engraving and the stone are added. Since we move again around 100.00 for a figure. So it costs me a foot 145,00 Euro. If I sell the figure for 1.00 euro I have to sell 145 pieces alone to get the cost of the form again. I have not yet counted the tin, the current and my time.
Deshal it is understandable the less and less 30mm new figures come on the market.
We had said that there are hardly any tin shops in Germany. This is simply because you can not make money with tin figures. That is why in Germany the majority of pewter figures are only issued by collectors, since these do not have to live from the sale. If one had to calculate all costs incl. The expenditure for dispatch, so that one can live on, then a foot figure must cost 5,00. But that would not pay for a collector again.
Therefore, the editors bring only figures on the market, from which they think that the costs come back half way.
This was also the reason why I myself started to engrave. I wanted to have the one and the other figure for me. The cost of a few hundred euros each was too high for me because I knew that the figure is rarely sold.
Frank Dittmar
Asbacher Str. 18
98574 Schmalkalden

Hannibal

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Re: Kulmbach 2017
« Reply #37 on: September 01, 2017, 01:41:24 PM »
we are so much focused to traditons and folklores, to keep them within our world 'patrimoine', but why can we not also illustrated folklores in flat figures ??
- carnavals
- large festivals
- olympic games (modern)
- modern sports attitudes and key players
In other words, leave also to our grand children images of our life and habits ... before they go away ...
- busts of key characters of the XXth and XXI century  as we do for modelism .... with cars, aircrafts
 
Michel
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Men are a bit like God: everything they can do, they do it. Or they will do it.  (Jean d'Ormesson)

gerhard

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Re: Kulmbach 2017
« Reply #36 on: September 01, 2017, 01:28:56 PM »
Hello Mike
Spaniards for 1700 you will find at Zinnfiguren Wilken (Spanish Succession Kuhn Figures) and Kieler of course. Spaniards for 1650 - 1700 at Zinnfiguren Fleesensee. (But I dont know how correct they are historically)
But I think there are no Sailors for this period (except some pirates from Graf and Hafer)

Mike G

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Re: Kulmbach 2017
« Reply #35 on: September 01, 2017, 11:56:55 AM »
All good suggestions but I don't know willie - I think I have many of the figures you mention below!  I think some spaniards from galleons of the 16th century might be nice and maybe some ships to recreate lepanto, and then again perhaps spaniards from 1700 or so. But this short list took me a long time to think of, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of it already exists!
New York

gerhard

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Re: Kulmbach 2017
« Reply #34 on: September 01, 2017, 11:35:15 AM »
Hello Mike

One great series I would like to see.
The Delhi Durbar of 1903 (or 1911).
It was done several times in toy soldiers. But I do not know flat figures in 30 mm.
This could be a very big series.
Smaller: Policemen for the time 1880 to 1950 (I think there are many Germans -but where are the british, French, american....)
There are many figures for townsfolk of that time. If you get the right policemen (oder other figures in uniforms of the Special Country, you have endless variations for vignettes or Dioramas)
Other things I would like: Authentic American Natives. (not Plains or Woodland - they exist) but there were 500 nations.
And some scottish civilians. (I am a big fan of Robert Louis Stevensons "Kidnapped"
Greetings Gerhard

Re: Kulmbach 2017
« Reply #33 on: September 01, 2017, 09:15:49 AM »
Mike let me help you :o There are Colonial Wars the Indian Army , British, French, Dutch, American, Italian, German, Belgium, Natives from all over the World. :o World War I  Belgium, Greece ,Serbia, Romania, Austro-Hungarian, Turkey,  Bulgaria, Japan, American.  Navies of the World 1600-2017 World War II  half the Armies have not been done in flats. I would like to see Early Iron Age Greek Warriors 1100-700 BC Sea Peoples of the bronze age Mediterranean 1400-1000 BC Artillery the big boys 8) Tanks, Trucks, Wagons :o , Wars in South America in the 19th century :P So Mike I hope this helps you out ;D Willie

Mike G

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Re: Kulmbach 2017
« Reply #32 on: September 01, 2017, 08:07:16 AM »
I suspect they may not be in Europe, but I bet there are many in Asia awaiting some entrepreneurial collector who aspires to be the next gottstein!


The real question is, what will be the subject of the next great series and who will commission it (i nominate Charles and Michel)?


Meanwhile I'm sitting here trying to think of what a great new series could be and am coming up blank. Has everything already been engraved?!
New York