Ral Partha Gold-Plated Miniature Discussion • Collecting Appraisal • The Acaeum

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Ral Partha Gold-Plated Miniature Discussion
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dbartman
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Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 9:29 pm

I recently picked up a couple of the Ral Partha gold-plated miniatures in a lot (thanks to Jason Zavoda for posting it).

I thought it might be a good off-topic discussion, since there doesn't appear to be a lot of information on them out there. Here are a couple of photos of each of them:

Ral Partha Gold-Plated Wizard Miniature - Front

Ral Partha Gold-Plated Wizard Miniature - Bottom

Ral Partha Gold-Plated Unknown Miniature - Front

Ral Partha Gold-Plated Unknown Miniature - Bottom

The first miniature is ES1 - Evil Wizard, Casting Spell

The second miniature seems to be from the "Children of the Night" series. It is visible in the 1986 catalog, next to the picture of 13-031 - Two-Headed Ogre With Lunch, but, there is no description or number assigned to it.

Some questions:

1. Anyone else have these, or any of the others that were produced?
2. Does anyone know what the unknown miniature is called? It looks like a modern miniature, possibly an alchemist, or maybe a sculpt of the miniature maker himself holding a crucible of molten lead?
3. Estimated value or past sales prices?
4. Any information on numbers produced of each?
5. Were these in random box sets, ordered with a special voucher included in some sets, or distributed through some other method?

There is quite a bit of information available on the Grenadier gold-plated miniatures but not on Ral Partha's.

Anyone have some knowledge to impart?

Blackmoor
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Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 11:48 pm

1. Anyone else have these, or any of the others that were produced?

I have the Wizard, I did not know that other one existed!!

3. Estimated value or past sales prices?

I got mine on ebay for $30 4 or 5 years ago

4. Any information on numbers produced of each?

Don't know the answer but they were very limited

5. Were these in random box sets, ordered with a special voucher included in some sets, or distributed through some other method?

No voucher but if you joined the Ral Partha club they sent one for free, these are more common than the Grendier random inserted ones!

Games can get you through times of no money but money can not get you through times of no games!!

TollHouseGolem
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Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2013 12:51 am

2. That is Ral the Caster, also known in real life as John Winkler, one of RP's chief mini casters. Winkler's character (Ral-Partha) became the company name.

Image:RP-CollClu02.jpg - Lost Minis Wiki

Collectors Club - Lost Minis Wiki

And some background info here, thanks to a thread from 2008 on the Yahoo! RP collectors group:

Grey Beard Gamer's Arx Plumbum: Arx Aurum

I was not aware there was a gold-plated version of Ral the Caster. Now I am!

"We dwarves are natural sprinters. Very dangerous over short distances!"
My lead-centric blog: http://theleaddragon.blogspot.com/
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Invincible Overlord
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Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2013 10:21 am

I thought that there was a previous thread (from maybe 2-3 years ago...) on this subject, discussing a total of three different gold-plated mini's...

RPGâ€™s, D&D in particular has had a major influence in my life. Itâ€™s bonded me together with life long friends...itâ€™s that bond in life not just as friends, but in our jokes, our mannerisms, and what we find funny. Invincible Overlord

grodog
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Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2013 11:53 am

Invincible Overlord wrote in Ral Partha Gold-Plated Miniature Discussion:I thought that there was a previous thread (from maybe 2-3 years ago...) on this subject, discussing a total of three different gold-plated mini's...

That was my recollection as well, Andy. Perhaps as part of the Grenadier gold figures threads?

Allan Grohe ([email protected])
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dbartman
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Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2013 12:12 pm

I did find this thread prior to posting but it really didn't have much to contribute on Ral Partha miniatures.

Grenadier Gold Plated Orc Shaman

There were also a smattering of discussions under other topics:

The former Non-TSR Recent Fun Finds Thread â€¢ Page 52 â€¢ Collecting General - Non TSR â€¢ The Acaeum

Shipping price from US to Canada â€¢ Collecting General - Non TSR â€¢ The Acaeum

dbartman
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Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2013 12:22 pm

I also found this interesting read from TollHouseGolem's links:

Ral Partha: Origins

CWL
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Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2013 11:41 pm

I'm late to this discussion, but I recall the history of the gold-plated RP ES1 Evil Wizard miniature.

It was a special offer "freebie" that was given away to anyone (first 50-100?) that purchased their newly-released dragon miniature directly from RP. I don't recall which model of dragon but it was really expensive at the time (something like $29.95). This was around 1980.

I still have that wizard figure around somewhere, but the dragon casting is long gone.

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