Welcome to this weeks Musings!

After an absence of a couple of weeks, partly due to Alex’s “Fembruary challenge”, my brothers visit and posting another installment of TIM’s Ebay Adventure, a return to conventional musings.  I’m sure you can’t wait so without further ado let’s get started!

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Its An Age Thing …

For the first time in a long time I have not done any modelling or painting at all.  No I have not lost interest in the hobby and neither have I been doing other things.  In fact I’ve been doing absolutely bugger all.  Why?  Well I managed to do my back in and for the best part of a week now I’ve been barely able to move.  So how did you manage to do that then TIM?  You may well ask.  There are two theories.

The first theory, and for anyone anywhere in the world who reads this blog this is the true explanation, I put my back out making love to She Who Must Be Obeyed.  It’s high time I realized my limitations and restricted myself to no more than four times a night but what can I say, I’m one of life’s givers.

The second theory, and one which has no credibility whatsoever, is that I managed to damage my back lifting the garden strimmer.

A painful trip to the doctor led to the conclusion I had a swollen disc which in turn was trapping a nerve.  I left with a prescription for some heavy duty pain killers and a couple of sheets of exercises to be done as often as possible.

Two days in and I elected to abandon the prescribed pain killers due to side effects.  Had it not been for SWMBO  I would have still been taking them but like most women and unlike most men she chose to read the prescription information leaflet.  Apparently if symptoms such as stomach pain and nausea occur you should stop taking the medication immediately.

The exercises offer a different kind of challenge.  Assuming I can actually make it to the floor in the first instance they are in fact motivational.  I’m not sure it was what the doctor had intended but I feel that if I can achieve the various positions shown on the leaflet then hope remains that I could still make it as a porn star.

Fortunately, and thanks to the aid of a whoopee cushion, I am able to sit with the laptop and blog for short periods.

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Display Cases

Over the last few months I’ve really gotten into painting 28mm figures just as figures, not as part of a vignette or diorama.  Two main reasons for this, one being that I’ve been selling some on eBay, the other that I’ve simply loved doing them.  Knowing my boredom threshold I’m sure I will move on to something different in due course but for now I’m enjoying what I’m doing which after all is what it is all about.

The thing is I have started to build up a reasonable number of figures, not for selling but for my own collection and as a consequence I found myself confronted with the familiar question – to display or not to display?  I decided that if I could find the right thing to display the figures in then that would be the route I would take until such times as there was no further available display space.  I know when I’ve reached that particular tipping point because She Who Must Be Obeyed will typically say something along the lines of “well you needn’t think you are putting that anywhere!”.

I managed to find the ideal item on eBay so I bought a couple.  At £15.00 each and with free postage I thought they were good value.

Each one can hold 32 figures on 25mm bases so I bought a couple which should keep me going for a little while.

I then bought two more just to be on the safe side!

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Sorry, Wrong Number!

Talking about eBay I’ve just put these up for sale.  Not sure how I managed to make such a mistake, must be another age thing.

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Thought for the week? 

Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?

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This week TIM has been listening to …

Elton John and Tiny Dancer.

Having just bought the DVD for “Bohemian Rhapsody” (and watched it twice already!) I’m now looking forward to the release of Rocket Man at the cinema.  Naturally I could have gone with any number of songs by Elton but went for the official music video for Tiny Dancer.  Partly because the early sequences features by coincidence my yellow sports car and and young blond girl I used to go out with.

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This week TIM has been watching …

Fawlty Towers.  With little else to do but sit around uncomfortably I thought I would work my way through the Fawlty Towers boxed set.  Over the years there has been some very fine comedies.  Some have stood the test of time while others haven’t.  This one certainly has.

Below is a link to some top moments.

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Until next time.

TIM

 

 

… continued from part 3.

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Background

Several months ago I decided I would, after much deliberation, try to sell some models on Ebay.  This is the continuation of my journey!

A Lesson Learnt

Things on Ebay were going well, slowly but more than good enough to make me happy.  I should have realised a bump in the road was inevitable.

At the end of November I received an offer for two of my figures from a potential buyer.  The offer for each figure was £17.00, they were up for sale at £20.00.  As it was a new buyer I chose to accept his offer in the hope of obtaining further business in the future.  I then received the following message back from him.

 

Now the written word is never the best way to communicate in the sense that it can be open to emotional interpretation.  Now it might just be me but his note really pissed me off.  When it comes to swearing I like a good “fuck” every now and then (who doesn’t?) but it’s very, very rare for me to use the “C” word.  I thought the last piece about sending in separate packages was both sarcastic and unnecessary.  Unnecessary because the guy had an eBay score of over 1300 which to my mind says he knew enough to ask about combined postage without the need to be rude.

Now I’m not the kind of guy who can simply ignore such things so I wrote him what I thought was a polite reply.  Tempting as it was to tell him to fuck off I wanted to protect my 100% feedback score.

 

New message to:

Hi Ian, Thank you for the prompt payment. I am unable to get to the post office today but will do so tomorrow and confirm to you that the figures have been sent together with tracking details. Selling figures on eBay is a relatively new experience so I appreciate your feedback regarding combined postage. So far my approach has been to provide buyers with the opportunity to make an offer, such as you have done today “or” combine postage when asked to do so. Based on my selling experiences to date this is the first query I have had as all my customers have been happy to pay the postage where I have accepted their offer. Unfortunately offering both is not financially viable as far as I am concerned given purchase costs, painting time and postage and packing expenses. That said I’ve no desire to see you disappointed so I will combine postage for your purchase and enclose a cheque for £3.95 along with the figures which I trust will be acceptable to you. I hope you are happy with the figures when they arrive and if you are interested in buying more in the future please do contact me to discuss pricing and postage. Kind regards and best wishes, David

I never heard back from him and he has never left feedback, neither have I for that matter either.  Although I did not like this guys style and I would be very reluctant to ever deal with him again the fact is he got me thinking.  Should I in my description make mention to combined postage and should I offer it?  In all honesty I never thought anyone would buy more than one figure at a time.

After some deliberation I decided morally I ought to combine postage whenever I can just as long as I cover my costs.  I amended the wording on my listings to cover UK and Overseas postage and then got in touch with the guy from Manchester who bought seven of my figures.  As he had paid the postage on each figure and hadn’t made me an offer either I was now feeling a little guilty.  Some might argue business is business but as we were only talking about a few pounds I thought it would make for a good will gesture.

I sent him an email in December saying I had forgotten to reduce postage and asked if he wanted me to send him a cheque or make a deduction from any other purchase if there was something I had listed which was of interest to him.  The last bit was a little tongue in cheek but to my complete surprise he came back to thank me and promptly bought another seven figures!

I made several other sales in December in the lead up to Christmas, the best of which was eight figures sold to a Doctor in Germany.

Generally things were going well and my gross income at the middle of December stood at just over £1000.00, the vast majority of which had been earned following my second eBay foray which began in September.  I was pleased with how things were going but couldn’t help but think how best to try to improve things.  It was time to sit down and reflect once again on the way forward.

Being realistic I hadn’t had many customers.  Although I had sold a reasonable number of figures the majority had been purchased by three people.  Unlike other sellers I had never had more than one bid on an item to help push the price up and although I was pleased with the sales there were weeks in between when nothing happened at all.  I was also focused solely on Artizan figures, mainly wild west which in itself was not a problem but the range is limited and if these guys had already bought them then why would they buy more of the same figure?

The Next Step Forward

Anticipating that the middle to end of December would be quiet I decided this would be a great time to search for some new figures, take advantage of Christmas savings such as free postage and get some figures painted to replace those I’d sold.  January was also likely to be slow too so this felt like the best use of my time.

It was quite a while ago that I first discovered the wild west figures produced by Knuckleduster.  The figures looked great but as far as I could see there was no UK distributor.  Whilst it was possible to buy them from the States it was expensive to do so.  Buying them on Ebay was an option but the ones I found were retailing at about £8.00 a figure including postage.  nevertheless I thought I would email Knuckleduster on the off chance to see if they had a UK distributor.  A swift reply followed to say that they did.

I checked out the site and was delighted to learn that they carried the whole range of figures.  Each figure retailed at £3.50 but if you spent £20.00 or more postage was free.  I placed an order for three individual figures but bought two of each one making six in total.  I decided that I would very much like to collect these figures for myself as well as trying to sell them.  With well over a hundred figures in the range Ì had plenty to keep me going and to sell if there was a market for them.  By purchasing two of the same figure each time I could keep the better one for myself and sell the other!  Also, painting them both at the same time would be quicker.  It was worth a go that’s for sure.

Another decision I made was to paint a few Hasslefree figures and chose fantasy humans as the genre.  Once again I bought two of each figure as I was keen to have these as well for my own collection.

All I had to do now was wait for things to be delivered and then to start painting!

Things were going well and I was happy with the progress I was now making right up to the point when a friend said “are you keeping records for your tax return?”.  “Tax, you’ve got to be kidding me?”.   “No I’m not, there’s a new law, you ought to check it out”.

FUCK!

To be continued…

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TIM

 

… continued from part 2.

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Background

Several months ago I decided I would, after much deliberation, try to sell some models on Ebay.  This is the continuation of my journey!

Ebay Listing

To get things started I decided upon painting and selling some Artizan miniatures, figures from their old west range.  Three of their figures sell for £6.00 but add the cost of postage and the figures work out at about £2.50 each if you buy a few packs to spread the cost of the £3.50 postage.  Financially I wasn’t going to go under if this little eBay adventure didn’t work out.  Worst case scenario I would simply end up with a few figures I would have happily bought, painted and kept anyway.

Painted, based and varnished they were ready for listing.

I still wasn’t sure what the best price was to list a figure at or how best to list it but completely out of the blue settled on £15.00 for each figure and went down the standard auction route.  The way I saw it I had to start somewhere and one way or another I’d learn something from the experience.  I drafted a brief description and said in it that I would be willing to paint a specific figure if there were others which were of interest.  A bit bold but I was feeling confident at the time so went with it.  In April 2018 I pressed the go button and then spent the next few hours checking how many bids I’d received.  Needless to say sod all happened!

Not only did nothing happen in the first few hours but nothing happened during the 7 day listing period.  I did have some views and I did have a couple of the figures “watched” but nothing sold.  The listings duly expired but were automatically relisted by eBay.  I chose not to keep an eye on them, adopting instead a “watched pot never boils” approach.   I got lucky.

I woke one morning to find that I had opening bids on six figures.  On closer inspection they were all from the same guy in France.  He also sent me a message to say he wouldn’t bid higher but was interested in having some figures painted.  I can’t say I was bothered if he didn’t bid higher, either way I had sold the figures, but the fact he was interested in having some figures painted was exciting.  He also wanted the figures sent in one batch but didn’t want to pay Ebay postage costs.  This final bit was a little lost on me.  I understood what he meant by combining the postage but not the eBay cost element.  As there were a few days before the auction ended I investigated a little further.

It turns out that when you list on eBay postage for overseas buyers automatically defaults to their Global Shipping Program.  The program works as follows.  The UK seller, in this case me, posts to a central address in the UK at the cost of UK postage.  eBay then post overseas.  The Cost of posting overseas is higher and presumably increased by eBay as well to cover their involvement and it is this cost that the overseas buyer sees on their countries eBay.  As it would be cheaper for me to send direct to (in this case) France the buyer would save money on postage.  There are some incentives for using the eBay method as a seller but if it puts a buyer off then what’s the point?  Fortunately you can simply switch the Global Shipping program option off and then raise your own invoice to send to the buyer which includes your own overseas postage and packing cost.

The auction ended with no further bids so I raised an invoice, packaged the figures, calculated the cost of sending to Paris, France and posted them care of Royal Mail.  I then sent an email to the guy in France with tracking details and told him to let me know what figures he was interested in.  A few days later I received very positive feedback on eBay from the buyer in respect of the quality of the figures but never heard from him again.  I was disappointed but looked on the positive side, I’d sold six figures for a gross income of £90.00.  In the words of Del Boy Trotter, this time next year I’ll be a millionaire!

Selling six figures was great but now I needed to replace them on eBay.  Figures were duly painted and listed at the same price and using the same basic auction option.  Nothing happened during the first week, or the second or the third.  In fact nothing happened in the fourth, fifth or sixth either.  I needed to rethink my approach.  After a good start things had ground to a halt.  Had I got the price wrong? Were the figures not good enough?  We’re they painted well enough but not what anybody wanted?

I decided not to relist the figures when the auction ended.  I needed to think more about what I was doing and why.

If I’m being honest I was at a low point.  Others were selling their figures but I wasn’t.   In fairness I could accept that the high quality figures were selling but other figures which I didn’t think were well painted at all were selling also.  I decided to give up but despite having made the decision to do so couldn’t stop thinking about what I could do differently.  Was my pricing right?  Were the photos good enough?  Should I write a better description?  Were they listed in the right category for people to see?

EBay Listing – Take 2!

In September I decided to give eBay another go.  I spent time trying to get the photos right.  Because the camera exaggerates I wanted images which were more representative of what the eye naturally sees.  I wrote a better description and left out a link I had previously included to my blog so people could see my gallery.  Calling myself The Imperfect Modeller might not be the best name when it comes to selling!  I increased my auction starting prices from £15.00 to £20.00 but allowed potential buyers to make offers.  Was that enough?  Time would tell.  It was now a case of listing the figures and being patient.  If there were buyers out there then I needed to give them time to discover my figures.

As it turned out I didn’t have to wait long.  A guy from Chester made a reasonable offer on three of my figures.  I accepted the offer and began to start painting some replacements.  I was encouraged but refused to get carried away this time around.

In October the same guy came back.  Not once but four times to buy some more.  In total I sold him seven figures that month but nothing to anyone else.  I was pleased with the sales and the money added up to a nice little sum.  It was also great to think that the chap liked my stuff enough to come back for more.  The only problem was he was just one guy.  There was no pleasing me!

November saw some more sales.  One customer purchased two figures, another bought one and a guy from Manchester bought seven.  Oddly none of them chose to make offers, choosing instead they all sold for £20.00 each.

I was on a roll but a bump in the road was just around the corner!

To be continued …

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TIM

Welcome to this weeks Musings!

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Cotton Reels!

As many of you are aware I am a domestic victim.  Despite this I bear no grudges against She Who Must Be Obeyed, so much so that I thought I would give her a shout out in this article.

Now I recently made an eBay purchase.  Nothing unusual in that but I bought something for modelling.  Nothing unusual in that either, except that what I acquired was 20 wooden cotton reels.

The inspiration for this was none other than SWMBO when she very recently said to me – “Would this be any good for your modelling?”.  What she held out to  me was a plastic cotton reel minus the cotton which she had just used up.  “Might be I said” and duly placed it on my work desk where it sat while I continued to search through my forgotten pile in the hope of finding something for Azazel’s (February) monthly challenge.

During my search I came across my set of Dad’s Army figures comprising 18 miniatures which I bought several months ago.  The figures aren’t really neglected as they have there position on the to do list but I have been putting them off until I could identify suitable bases.  What I’ve been looking out for but so far without success are small wooden plinths (for a reason that will become known when I get around to doing the first figure and posting details of it at some point in the future) identically sized and suitably priced.  Some wooden bases can be very, very expensive for what they are.

Then, thanks to SWMBO, I had a light bulb moment!

The cotton reel provided by SWMBO was perfect in height and size but unfortunately made of plastic.  Wood can be sanded, stained and varnished and looks so much better.  “Do they do these exactly the same but in wood?” I asked.  “Yes” she said “but you’ll probably have to buy old fashioned ones like your mother would have had.  “Check eBay”.  So I did and there I found lots of classic wooden cotton reels for sale in different sized lots.  A lot of 20 identical wooden cotton reels fitted the bill perfectly and were duly bought.  I can’t believe I got excited about winning an auction for cotton reels!

Now if that wasn’t enough good news there was an added bonus to be had.  All 20 of the cotton reels when they arrived had a considerable amount of cotton left on them.  The next step is to transfer the cotton to plastic bobbin’s and give them to SWMBO as a nice little surprise wedding anniversary present.  What more could she possibly want?  Yes, you’re quite right, I do indeed spoil that women.

So there we have it.  Twenty wooden plinths and the wife’s wedding anniversary present for under fifteen quid.  Happy days!

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Postage

Having placed a couple of orders for a few new items I was reminded at the online check out that Christmas is over.  In the lead up to Christmas the majority of retailers I now typically use were offering free postage albeit geared to a minimum spend.  Alas the festive period is over and once again it is possible to find myself doubling the cost of an item thanks to the cost of having it mailed.

When possible I try to make the order financially worthwhile but sometimes I simply do not want more than a single item and I’m not prepared to wait until Christmas comes around once again.  Sadly it’s just the way it goes.  It did however remind that – “Despite the high cost of living it remains popular!”

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This week TIM has been listening to …

Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of War of the Worlds.

Nice bit of background while doing some painting and I’d forgotten just how good this was.

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This week TIM has been watching …

Luther.

For one reason or another the last couple of series passed me.  Not entirely sure why but these days, thanks to various recording devices and the likes of BBC iPlayer, I prefer to watch a series once its finished so I can binge watch it.  The idea of waiting a week in between doesn’t cut if for me any more.  So I sat down whilst modelling and got myself up to date.

As with the previous series’ I enjoyed the villains getting  their comeuppance although I was struck by just how weird and perverted the various purveyors of the dastardly crimes were.  Then I got to reminding myself that I was watching fiction which in turn made me question the mind of the guy who wrote it.  In the end I was left wondering if the writer was a creative genius or some one who perhaps ought to be locked up just to be on the safe side!

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Remember …

In the darkest hours when modelling and painting aren’t going your way just remind yourself of the old saying …

“If at first you don’t succeed then perhaps skydiving is not for you!”

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Until next time.

TIM