Would you buy a 500 or 1000 blank tile lot?

[chr15lynn]

If you add up the number of tiles required to make all the different fan-made expansions, you would need somewhere in excess of 500+ tiles  (All the Fishermen & Forests expansions add up to 500 alone!).

I can get chipboard pads (the same cardboard used to make the tiles) pre-cut into tile shaped squares (45mmx45mm - the same as the actual tiles).  However, they would not be printed on either side and I have to buy a minimum of 50,000pcs!  So, I would ideally want to sell them in 50 x 1000tile batches.  With any luck people might be interested in this idea so they can make their own tiles?

I have printed off several full page sticker sheets of custom tile artwork, stuck them to the chipboard and then cut them out individually with an xacto knife and ruler (which is very time consuming!) but the tiles look great - minus the fact they don't have the C on the back....
But I'd really like it if the tiles were pre-cut for me!

The cost to buy official blank tiles from HiG is about $0.11usd each ($0.138cdn)  -  not including international postage to Canada/US and being limited to buying 60 tiles.
The cost to buy these pre-cut blank chipboard tiles is about $0.10usd each ($0.125cdn)  -  with no international postage (I can ship within Canada and the US) and having to buy a minimum of either 500 or 1000 tiles.


Question:
Would you be interested in buying pre-cut blank tiles in a 'lot' of either 500pcs or 1000pcs?

[bufferm44]

...I have to buy a minimum of 50,000pcs!

...The cost to buy these pre-cut blank chipboard tiles is about $0.10usd each...

5000 US$ for tiles... hm... For that price you can buy 100 presses/cutters 

[chr15lynn]

I guess one question is, how much is your time worth?  How many hours would it take to cut out 1000 tiles?

I would be buying these from China - from a supplier I deal with.  Keep in mind I have to pay local freight in China to get the shipment to the port, then the ocean shipment, any duties/taxes (yes, the government wants their share  : ) local delivery from the port to my warehouse and then there's the time to count/sort them and store them....warehousing isn't free either!

I might be able to get the price down a bit if I can consolidate the tiles with another shipment I bring in....but I don't expect another shipment from China until fall (maybe august).  If I can consolidate it and I'm bringing other goods in, this might bring the cost down a fair bit.

Anyway, if anyone is interested, let me know and I'll do my best to get the price down 



 

[CKorfmann]

I might be interested.  I'm not sure how my wife will feel though since I bought a car yesterday and paid $2000 more than we agreed.  (I made a booboo at a car auction.  Those guys are hard to understand!)  I guess it might make a difference if I could sell the tiles.  I'm sure this must have come up.  I'll post another thread to ask this question.

[Lakoda]

sold!

edit: I'd only need 500 though.

[chr15lynn]

56 reads and only a few replies?   
I thought there would be more interest here.....

Also, I've re-negotiated a bit better price with my supplier and costed the ocean transportation as a consolidation with other goods I'm importing.  The price would be closer to $0.06usd each (instead of 0.10) and $0.75cdn (instead of 0.125).
At $60us and $75cdn for 1000 blank tiles....that's still a pretty good deal at nearly half what the official tiles cost!

I need 48 people at 1000 each (i'm going to buy 2000    )   Any more people interested?


Thanks

[bufferm44]

I think the main problem is - nobody has ever seen one of these tiles. quality? exact size? ...

Before I had my cutter I asked some stores about offered tiles and they sent me demo tiles (printed with something else), some were so bad from quality...

Don't pay thousands of $, invest 300 for YOUR stuff (e.g. a press, good paper, and some money for the local printing shop who has a good laser printer...), then you don't have the problem that you have to sell blank tiles for the rest of your life to get back the money...

 

[Novelty]

So are you selling blank tiles bufferm44???

[CKorfmann]

Is that what you do Buff?  Do you have them printed?

[bufferm44]

Honestly, i did not think about selling blank/printed tiles yet. Selling complete printed tiles with the "C" on the back and using cut and paste of the roads, castles, etc. on the front will surely bring me some trouble with the law and HiG...

It was also discussed here:

http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/forum/index.php?topic=851.0


The other problem is that all the people here are scattered all over the world which makes the shipping very expensive...

The one and only thing I could do is maybe selling completely (!) blank tiles (grey/grey or white/white). The shop from which i bought the figures can create a figure for the machine and can press grey tiles, this would much cheaper than $500 for some thousand tiles, if some of you are interested i can ask for a price.

I also can press some with my cutter, but not thousands, after that I need new arms 

I don't know the prices of shipping from USA to USA or from USA to canada, it will be a good idea to have one contact partner for me who distributes tiles in "his" country...

Germany -> USA will cost about 34 EUR (5kg) and 44 EUR (10kg) - with the german DHL.

http://www.dhl.de/dhl?lang=de_DE&skin=hi&xmlFile=3001853

I now have been working in prepress buisiness for over 10 years and I'm sure that I could offer tiles in 100-units for about 5$-10$, or maybe less than $5 if many are interested (not incl. shipping) but I don't think that enough people are interested in that.

IF enough are interested - post here, I will ask for a price...

[bufferm44]

Here cou can see the tiles in compare with the originals, from left to right:

Original, self pressed, original blank from HiG:




Klick here for a high resolution:

http://tobi12321.to.ohost.de/ccs/tiles_macro.jpg

[meepleater]

I may be interested, not sure yet... but I would really like to make more fan-made expansions than I can at the moment...

[Gantry]

I am interested certainly, but at what commitment level I cannot say atm... I would be more interested in smaller batches, with 1000 they'd honestly sit in a box forever.  Now with 100, that is easier to swallow.

[metoth]

It is possible that I would be interested but certainly not as many as 1000 or even 500.  There are a few expansions that I would be interested in printing, but I would not want to add 500 more tiles to my Carcassonne game.  Frankly, if I add too much more, the game won't fit on our dining room table.   

[bufferm44]

OK, just for your information the prices I got yesterday:


Pressing blank tiles (grey/grey):

Tiles:   4000 - 260 EUR (1= 0,06 EUR, 100= 6,50 EUR, 500= 32,50 EUR)
Tiles: 10000 - 385 EUR (1= 0,04 EUR, 100= 3,84 EUR, 500= 19,21 EUR)
Tiles: 20000 - 590 EUR (1= 0,03 EUR, 100= 2,96 EUR, 500= 14,78 EUR)
Tiles: 40000 - 958 EUR (1= 0,02 EUR, 100= 2,40 EUR, 500= 11,98 EUR)

Shipping not included, TAX - I don'n know anything about paying TAX while shipping thousands of blank tiles from Germany to USA or Canada...

I think that are good prices, but I also think there are not enough people interested