Ghosts of Idiots Past

My recent foray into finishing some of my old Warhammer figs resulted in my going through some of my old Warhammer folders looking for examples of Banners.  Included in the pile was some old printouts from an Email trail from a dishonest trader who stole, among other things, my WFB 3rd edition Dwarf army.

In 1998 I was drifting away from GW and really wanted to get into more Napoleonics.  I made several trades online in the old rec.games.miniatures.historical group without problems.  I was offloading all of my WH40K and WFB non-humans as well as some old books.  I ran into Richard J. Remaglia Jr from McKees Rock Pennsylvania on the site.  We worked out a trade for a bunch of painted 15mm Prussians, and I happily bundled up about $1500 in old lead and sent it out.

Weeks later, after no responses, it started.  He sent an email claiming to be his own mother indicating that he had died in a car accident.  Not to go into all of the details, but it turns out this guy was serious garbage.  He had stolen from others through various email addresses and seemingly gotten away with it.  After several bouts he promised to send back my stuff, but nothing ever became of it.  I filed a Mail fraud claim in Moscow ID, but nothing became of that as well.  It was the early ages of the information age, and I had gotten burned.  It was a lot of money for a 20-something in the 90's (The postage was about $65), but the crime itself left me pretty bitter.  (I believe the quote is something like "A liberal is a conservative who hasn't been mugged yet.")

Why bring this up now?  Well, Ian asked in the comments if I will start playing games with my Warhammer Empire army again.  This got me thinking about what happened to my other armies.  Frankly, I miss them.  I traded away a lot of unpainted lead in the 90's, but also all of my Painted figures.  I did this when I was young and stupid.  I didn't appreciate what my painted stuff represented back then.  Today, I am more of a collector than a player (not by choice so much as circumstance), and I regret the gaps I have created in my timeline, as it were.  While I collected many different fantasy and 40k armies back in the day, it is that Dwarf army I miss most.  They were from back when GW still worked in more 'austere' proportions and the dwarfs looked like short Normans/Vikings.  The flame cannon was a little thing with a crew that had the trepidation touching the thing off sculpted into their features.

So with that here is my long-shot:  If anyone out there purchased some GW/Citadel painted dwarfs from a Richard J Remaglia aka 'Rich Ramali' (who may or may not have been using Cannae216@aol.com or Rich1815@aol.com at the time) from Pennsylvania USA (any time after 1998), I would love to buy them back.  Thanks

Comments

  1. Ouch. That really is a worst nightmare come true. The worst I've had to deal with is some careless packaging resulting in figure damage and the dealer being unwilling to even apologise, blaming the mail service.

    I've sworn to myself not to sell any of my painted figures ever again. Even though my early painting doesn't really impress, I miss that orc army and maybe even those space marines. For unpainted stuff, I consider liberating them if I'm pretty sure I'll never paint them.

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  2. OOch that was a bag thing, glad I got you thinking though.

    I will look through my stuff as I still have a few old GW dwarfs, only early this year did I get rid of a bunch. All stripped and ready to go. If I have some, they are yours if you want them (I will get some pics)

    In ASL (the board game) a lot of guys sell up and then years later try and buy replacements often paying 2-5x + what they paid for it the first time.

    Ian

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    1. Thanks for the offer, but this is less about the sculpts and more about the old paint jobs. I currently have 15mm and 6mm dwarves.

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  3. Definitely a most unfortunate tale of woe. I finally gave away my original 25mm Scruby Napoleonic figures in the late 1990's, but otherwise I pretty much still have every figure I have painted - and that is now well up over 10,0000 figures. They sometimes sit idle for a time, but inevitably the right situation comes up, and there they are in miniature battle once more!

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    1. I consider most of my unused old figs to just be on standby until
      1: My son is old enough to try that game
      2: I retire and get some free time

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