Many Mithril Pages @ Faerylands

I agree with you George! To me this is ridiculous! If this keeps up then it is off to collect something else. (I really hate saying this at all!)

Holger (forgive me if the name is incorrect)..

I wish it was only a 40% increase.  Going from 5.50 to 9.99 is actually an 82% increase - almost double!

Granted, they are nice figures..  but still..  too expensive

Of course, maybe their logic is that they have enough avid collectors who will "pony up the dough" regardless of the cost.. a risky gambit I dare say..

Excellent story George! Ken is a great guy! I met him originally on ebay. I bought one of his auctions, but he sent me the wrong mini. I contacted him on ebay to fix the problem and we have been in contact ever since. He has given me minis too and I wish that I lived near both of you guys because I like to wargame too, but I am just a lonely Texas guy who lives far away!
Especially with that Helm's Deep I am making if we lived in the same area we could wargame and paint together. (And learn tips from each other as well)

Well, I usually make up my own rules and games to play. I can tell you more later if you want.
Also, I PM you a message.

"By the way, his wife must be a very patient woman to let him have so many models in their home on display!" True enough; I'm a lucky man in this respect!  Thanks George and Jason for your kind words.  I'm still blushing...I'd love to met all of you in person.
I have to weigh in on the pricing issue here.  I think it is the new higher metal prices more than price gouging of the faithful.  It is my understanding that the price of certain component metals of 'white metal' have increased by more than 20%.  Still this represents a huge and unaffordable increase.  I agree with a petition, or perhaps an 'open letter' to express our concerns.  If I were in business I might at least respond and explain to customers.  Personally, I was planning to buy several sets of these before I experienced what we yanks call 'sticker shock'

Last edited by Kenakko (Thu, May28 2009 6:06am)

I am not good at writing up open letters I admit so I'd need some help in its redaction...

Anyways, there are counter-measures that can ben taken from the  community to show mithril our disapointment...

Many among us are Gold Fellowship members, and though this release is regular, and would affect occasional customers, we GF members have been supporting Mithril, somewhat financially, over the years, by suggesting, voting AND buying our own suggestions, sometimes at very high prices... This amount of money and the contribution for Mithril has never been rewarded in terms of price reduction for the regular releases (after all, we had, at first a "contract" to buy at least 9 figurines per year) We spend more money, willingly, on Mithril and without any positive side effect...

I cannot touch the whole mithril customer pool with the MMP board but maybe we could spread the words outside on the official mailboard community... Indeed that will never touch the retailers and people who MIGHT buy in retailers without the option to protest the way we currently do... So it is up to us to do what's possible...

I'd call for a boycot (even if temporary) of the new releases until a reasonnable explanation or solutions or offers are made from the Mithril side... in addition to this boycot... today being the last day for May GF Votes, I'd also call for a blackout of all suggestions and votes for June in the GF... I know this is a strong move but that would also reflect this idea :
"with the price increase, there is no need to suggest , vote and thus produce GF figurines that would reach such a high price that we could not even buy what we suggest or vote for... so better not suggesting at all"
This would explain Mithril we are very disapointed if there was absolutly no suggestion or no vote for a single month : a "black month" for the fellowship that would be strong... (and would help Chris catch up with the backlog at the sametime, somehow)

if Mithril was honest enough with us telling us they are experiencing bad times, financially and have difficulties maintaining the brand, we all could understand and look for solutions altogether... but they remain silent and do not communicate and almost double their prices.... that's really not a good idea...

so well, if people here have talents in writing correct english "open letters" and submit some of the ideas I suppose here, that would be cool to do it so and we add our names at the bottom and pass it to Mithril ASAP...

There is nothing left to add, Master Gildor. Well spoken.

@ George and Ken: having a mithril-enthusiast in your neighborhood or near by - well, these are paradisiac circumstances !
What would I give for that . . .
Hey fellows, I live in Bochum, Germany, please visit me . . .

Another thought.
The change in the quality of the metal can´t be proof of the price increase. If we analyze the weight of the figure of the new serie-m (taking into account an average size of the single human race) and compared with previous series, we can see that  has remained virtually the last editions.
The Rangers of Ithilien-------20 gr. per figure
The Village of Bree-------30 gr. per figure
.
.
.
The Corsairs of Umbar-------50 gr. per figure
Knights of Dol Amroth-------45 gr. per figure
Helm´s Deep Part.1-------50 gr. per figure

The almost double the price of individual figures can not be justified by the change in the alloy.
Indeed, one might ask, for example, why a pirate of Umbar weighs more twice than a ranger of Ithilien ..... Do they also have been winning with shipping ?.... Sorry for my comment, but I am quite surprised. Hopefully I'm wrong, but it could be that Mithril is economically quite worse than we imagine .....

It is as I thought... I received an answer from Chris Tubb (and it is not often that the Man answers THAT quickly after a mail because he is rather busy)
He is (and was) not aware of Mithril "politics" and pricings and he is trying to contact Lars Edman about this but so far he has not managed to get hold on him... He will re-contact me as soon as he has an answer to this "crisis" ... he feels very concerned too about this problem... He was clearly not consulted on this case...

(when I tell you that Chris has not his word or vision on what's going on at Mithril enterprise...)

More to come, I hope...

It's not taxes - there are some movements to increase Irish taxes, which got parlously low during the "tiger" years - they had things like regional hospitals closing due to lack of funding. They have been talking about some sort of tax increase, but that would not typically involve 100% price markups.

And no, the EU hasn't punished Ireland for voting No. Not yet at any rate. They wouldn't even punish Ireland - just be slower to dole out goodies to Ireland.

So that's not it either. Likely its something to do with the economy though. The Irish economy tanked. Iceland, Ireland and Spain are Europe's basket cases right now. If I were to speculate wildly, I'd say that Mithril got its operating credit from maybe Allied Irish Bank (I seem to remember that being the branch mentioned) and AIB is highly screwed. AIB cannot provide cheap credit for small businesses anymore --> sudden increase in operating costs for small businesses --> increase in price.

Also, possibly far simpler, Mithril used to make 5000 copies of every M model. They made 2500 copies of the LR models. They make 200 or so copies of an MS model. I bet Mithril are only making 1000-1500 copies of these M models and are charging accordingly.

I am not sure what to say about all of this, so I will remain silent for now.

I just hope this situation gets rectified.

But hopefully Mithril does not have any problems, they only became greedy.
Everything is ok then.

Last edited by hsf62 (Thu, May28 2009 3:03pm)

Huooommmrhuoomm ... all this nearly left me speechless. I just officially supported the boycot Master Gildor suggested on the GF-board and of course I will support anything else to make clear that this price policy to me is abolutely INACCEPTABLE.
Rhuoomm ... and believe me that I'm more than angry because of two reasons:

First I think it is an absolutely miserable behaviour NOT to inform those people who have that 'autoshipment' in time about such a radical explosion of prices (unfortunately it was me who years ago successfully suggested that idea).

Second, I tried to support the company, maybe more than some others, because I do LIKE what The Man does. I supported the MX-Frumgar financially, then I submissioned the MX-Imrahil on my own, and at the moment there's even another MX I submissioned on its way. A rather massive one, by the way. (Of that one not a single piece will be sold if I transfer the rise in costs we witnessed to such an MX.)

This makes me more than angry, believe me ..... rrrrrrrhoooommm!

Huoommm ... as at the moment I'm in contact with The Man, I will try to point out our concerns to him .... as Master Gildor already did .... huom.