Bad luck and garbage bins

Before we begin, another entry to the Miniature Galleries has been added, this time featuring the Wolfen of Yllia, plus I went back and edited some of the previously posted armies. Progress has been slower than what I hoped for because life got a bit chaotic lately, but I'll keep on truckin'!

Back in September in my "Lucky finds and bargain bins" post I touched on a couple of instances in my Confrontation collecting journey which I found inspiring and worthy of sharing. Truth be told, most of my collection is bound to end up on the blog, but these little vignettes are definitely some of the moments which made the journey thrilling. I think I'm lucky enough to say that most of my Confrontation acquisitions have been positive experiences. Sure, I broke some serious bank on several occasions, a mistake I'll definitely make again, but it's still a good hobby investment when you consider factors like the game's age and the inevitable scarcity of NIB product, its sheer rarity and rise of value as a result. 

What I'm trying to say is that this is a hobby after all and as such it is a luxury. True collectors need to be ready to break the bank on occasion, especially when that special rare piece pops up out of nowhere and you just pull the trigger regardless of a potentially outrageous price. In all honesty, I'm currently in such a mood, since I found a truly rare piece hidden in one corner of the internet, but it is three times the amount of what models of that size go for... but that's another story, hopefully.

However, on certain other occasions, contrary to that previous blog post, are those times when you've pulled the trigger and are just out of luck, or you hit a certain collecting frustration that you end up making some mistakes. And in those moments, the luxury feels like a nuisance. So with all that said, this is what this post will be about, thus I welcome you to my shit show.

This is probably a bit too dramatic, as I've never been burned too much. It's more that I've brought myself into situations where I just ended up scratching my head and wondering what the hell I was thinking. One such situation stems from the string of successful local purchases. As you've seen in my first collection post, a series of various blisters, boxes, and card packs randomly popped up on my radar locally, all of which I ended up buying. This kind of became a thing, to the point where I'd see some Confrontation locally and I'd just buy it without question. Which has been fine, up to a point when it wasn't. 

On that occasion, the first of my blunders, I saw an ad for a Dirz Neuromancer for some fraction of a blister price and it seemed to be in order. Listed as "unused", the one photo posted in the ad showed the see-through side of the blister, the miniature definitely seemed unused and the stamp said it was the English version. So far so good. Not so good when it arrived though! The blister was clearly open before, since the sword was already glued to the mini and there was some tiny amount of glue residue elsewhere, the card was missing, and the biggest insult of all was the included round base... Long story short, the seller was kind enough to just return the money back to me and actually let me keep the miniature, as he made it kind of obvious that he doesn't need it back, so I guess a curse also came in the blister but he decided not to disclose this information. Regardless, this hasn't been so damaging since I got my money back but the whole ordeal just made me feel bad.

The longer you stare...

...the more painful it gets.

Didn't learn from the bad experience though! Next time a Confrontation auction popped up I slapped that BID button faster than you could blink... Just thinking about it makes my eye twitch a little. It was this second hand lot of used miniatures featuring some Sessairs and a bit of Cadwallon. Eventually I got it after a small bidding war, so I cashed out some 30 euros for Kelen, Guardians of the Moor, Kelian Durak and the Cadwallon Militia. Which doesn't sound too terrible, but some pieces of the Militia were missing, the bases were terribly treated by the previous owner, there were no cards, and some of the minis had some bent weapons and/or truly bad paint slapped on them... not to mention poor Kelian Durak being so badly set on the base that his weapon had to be bent in order to fit. This auction definitely deflated my spirits at the time and it made me become more aware and hesitant about second hand lots. Maybe it's just me being spoiled by good luck with NIB products previously, but used miniatures really need to be either something truly special, at a very low price per model, or in nigh pristine condition to get me excited. And I definitely learned from this experience, though luckily that specific lesson cost me cheaply.

Send help...

Other times, there are factors which are seemingly out of your control. A while back I stumbled upon a decent stash of items on eBay from a seller in the UK and I ended up winning a few blisters. Since the seller had a bunch of stuff I wrote to them and asked if they have things that have yet to be listed, because chances are that I'd be interested and can offer a reasonable price for any potential items. They said "no". Items arrive some weeks later and then boom, the person puts some more listings up. Bit frustrating, but still interesting, so I bid again, win again, ask again, get a "no" again. Items arrive, they list stuff again. Obviously, they don't owe me anything, nor am I feeling entitled to anything, but this just felt like I'm being strung around to no obvious benefit to either of us... the items I won on the second auction I got at a lower price than what I would offer the seller have they said that they have stuff in their backlog, so the seller lost money, and I had to pay shipping and import taxes, again, so I lost money. Either way, I stopped looking at that particular seller after that second purchase, even though they kept listing stuff. Could be that they were periodically plundering their stash, but still I think this is bad practice for both parties involved and sometimes it is just wiser to step away.

Another "out of my control" situation happened last summer when I purchased quite a hefty used second hand lot of miniatures. I won't cover this story too much here since it is currently sitting in my drafts waiting to be published as one of my Collection Update posts, but that one I list as a "bad" experience since the minis were poorly packaged and various pieces came broken. I don't blame the seller, because they did what they could, but it is one of those situations where you simply have to accept that things can't always go according to plan. I'll take the punches and, if nothing else, it'll be a cool process to salvage that army. But more on that in another post. 

One more "interesting" adventure happened when I stumbled upon a fairly obscure website which had a lot of Rackham product listed. I got in touch with the store and of course it turned out that most of the product was out of stock. For some of the items which they did supposedly have there were some weird communication failures coming from the store, so in the end I backed out of the purchase. Fairly strange encounter, but I guess the depths of the internet hold many a thing best left untouched.

And I guess that's it for my bad experiences. Quite unimpressive, I'll admit. But looking back at collecting Confrontation thus far, as well as collecting many other things in other hobbies, I haven't had any major blunders, nor have I lost lots of money due to poor choices, though I'm not entirely sure why that is. Truth be told, as I've mentioned before, Confrontation is in a very healthy and safe spot. There's a lot of product circulating in a relatively small community, so the chance of a scam is at a minimum. In most cases you don't have to venture far and wide to find models, as even being on the outskirts of the community you are bound to find what you're looking for eventually. I feel like one of the big benefits when collecting Rackham games is that the company is dead and people often decide to give up and sell their collections simply because they aren't playing or interacting with it anymore. And also when you think about it, in the grand scheme of things the years when Rackham was active aren't that far away in the past and there are much older games and products which are still circulating today.

The market is alive, is all I'm saying. And if you do end up being burned a few times, chin up and wise up, because the hunt goes ever on and on.

Kelian Durak preventing me from making further mistakes...