Your luckiest Oldhammer find?

Evil Eye

Evil Eye

Vassal
As I'm sure we're all too aware, retro Warhammer can be rather pricey. However, sometimes you get lucky and find a really good deal on something. So as the title implies, what have been some of your best finds on the aftermarket?

For me, I recently managed to win an auction for a very good condition and complete early pressing box of 6E Clanrats, with not a single piece missing or even removed from the sprue, all the bases, the metal command parts and even a movement tray!
6E ClanratsBox.jpg
6E ClanratsContents.jpg
The price? £23! Probably helped nobody else bid on it but, hey, I'll take it! I know the old monkey/rat-goblin Clanrats are a bit of an acquired taste but I kind of love them, and getting this in felt like opening a time capsule.

Other past finds included an unopened 3E Tyranid battleforce and an almost complete box of RT Eldar Guardians, packaged with a whole trove of extra metal Eldar goodies.

Anyway, what fortunate finds have you fellows made?
 
I'm sure there are still bargains to be had though harder to find as more people are aware of old stuff potentially being valuable.

Most of my notable scores are pretty ancient history now: a cheap boxed Citadel Giant from a well-known games store, an undercover Osrim Chardz in a small lot of undercoated Dwarf crossbowmen for about a tenner from eBay & a bunch of Citadel/TSR AD&D blisters from Dragonmeet for £3 a pop.
 
Apologies to anyone who already heard this firsthand this past weekend...

My best find is easily when I found first printings of Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness and Warhammer Siege in the History section of a used bookstore (or maybe it was the Arts and Crafts area?). I believe I paid US$10 for the pair which, even in 1997-98, was a steal considering their immaculate conditions. Here they are, on my favorite shelf in the house!

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That was almost 30 years ago though; like @Citizen Sade said, deals like that rarely happen now.
 
@Evil Eye lovely idea for a thread.

Those books are in lovely condition. Alas much of the red has leached out of my LOTD so the colour is no where near as rich as that.

Mine would actually be a childhood find. Wanting the polystyrene Mighty Fortress, but alas it was no longer sold in GW stores, then we found it in a small gaming shop whilst on holiday in Wales and after much pleading and agreement over the spending of Birthday/Christmas money it was procured. That one actually got painted and used quite a bit (my brother still has it). The other bits I wanted from the shop, but wasn't able to buy were some of the older terminators with the separate carapace (I have plenty now). I do have a non-citadel ogre (probably more like 20mm scale) type beastie I painted up as a black orc in my cabinet from there still.

Also we do have a WD mega score recently achieved by @Brother Meredith which belongs in this list!
 
Very very occasionally strike lucky in 'local' antiques stores in my wandering with kids up here (good excuse for searching lead minis in 'toys' or collectables). Back in April found an old Citadel limited edition LE1 Chaos 'Death Jester' mini for a quid, good nick as well. Had luck before finding an old Runequest Broo & later some some 1/2 orcs. All for a squid each...Mind some tat mixed in or Lead rotted stuff. Keep your eyes peeled people, it can happen.
 
does looking through a box of old miniatures picked up at a boot sale years ago, and then finding Kaleb Daark on horse back count? cost me nothing and I made money selling the other figures ^_^ (shared with the guy who paid whatever cheap price at the bootsale in the 90s though)
 
Yeah, the Lead and steel leadpile was a treasure trove, picked up a whole bunch of stuff in there, including a fighter I liked that I didn't even realise was a McDeath character until I got home, lol.

I think my best single find was a mint copy of The Book of the Astronomican for a couple of quid at Partizan, it was in with a bunch of White Dwarfs, I queried the seller and told him it was worth more, but he was like "it's just an old magazine, £2 mate."

That's not including all the stuff I bought in the legendary early 2000s 'fell off the back of a lorry' incident. :lol:
 
Brother Meredith said:
Oh and all the ogres & GS patriarch from Lead & Steel for a quid each was pretty mind blowing!
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That's the genestealer patriarch seated on a throne isn't it? I got the running one (maybe came out a year or two later?), but now sort of wish I'd picked up the seated one. Not enough seated miniatures taking their thrones to war! Would look great next to Calgar on his throne!
 
summerone said:
Would look great next to Calgar on his throne!
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And this week's challenge is the Patriarch seated opposite Calgar playing chess, with the pieces made using only the metal epic scale marines that came as blister pack extras. Shouldn't be hard to put that lot together... or I guess if you have inconvenienced dwarf you could make a toilet/bathroom/washroom diorama with each in a stall - maybe add in the old grudge bearer and a couple from the Nurgle Palanquins?
 
Great find!


I have two that spring to mind - one was a complete copy of heroquest for £2 from a charity shop. I saw it through the window, tucked away in the jigsaw puzzles, as I was coming home from college about 10 years ago. Snapped that right up.

Then last year as my partner and I were driving back from sheffield we passed a charity shop and out of the corner of my eye, at 30MPH, I swear I saw a copy of battle masters on a shelf behind the counter. I asked my partner to stop and she, with rightful annoyance, agreed. £10 later I had a complete copy of battlemasters with not a single thing missing.

When I used to work at dark sphere we did buy ins and trade ins of miniatures by weight in exchange for store credit, and before we sold it on to wherever it went ( never got a straight answer) we were allowed to buy anything we wanted at weight cost. alot of the time it was basically scrap - bits from new sprues, innumerable 2000's era space marines, but one massive collection came in once just PACKED with old lead. I got several complete citadel box sets (chaos warriors, knights of law, dwarf rangers, thorogrim, etc ) and loads of random vintage stuff, lots of mk1 rhinos, etc etc plus a literal suitcase full of useful bits. I even have a complete unit of ricos republican guard. I think i spent about £100 in total on what now seems like £1000 of old lead. If I hadn't been a student at the time and didn't need the money for things like rent and food, I'd probably have just bought the lot.

When I was a kid getting into warhammer in the early 2000's someone gave their old stuff to the local RSPCA shop so at one point I had complete boxes of necromuda, space marine, and warhammer quest, with lots of expansions and extras,plus a big stack of old rulebooks including a 1st run rogue trader, but when I thought I was too cool for it all a few years later I sold it to buy music gear.
 
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