How to calculate the replacement value on assembled models

[CodeMaster]

Hi everyone.

It's been a while since I've been on this forum (not for lack of interest, but lack of time). I had taken a break from modeling when work and personal life got way too busy for any one person. Then in May of this year, I got a job offer I couldn't turn down, so I moved to the US (DC area to be precise) from sunny Saskatchewan. When my wife and family came down in July, we hired a moving company to pack our household and paid for insurance against item breakage.

As I'm sure you can all guess by now, a number of items were broken during transport, including most of my assembled models. I'm sure I can repair most of them, but I have included them in the insurance claim with the other items that were also broken during transport.

My question to the group is: How should I go about assigning value to the assembled models. I can find the cost of the kits to replace (the ones that are still available anyway), but what about the other materials and the time it took to complete the kit? I want to be reasonable with the value, but I also want to show that there is more to these than just the initial kit, like some of my other collectables (which were also damaged).

Any advice you have is greatly appreciated.

 

[Elm City Hobbies]

Geez, that's tough. I have a few friends that build models on commission and have quizzed them about what to charge for commission work, but don't know if that would apply to this the same way.

Even when it comes to the unbuilt kits, yeah, if it is still in production, then basically the MSRP value of the kit, but what if the kit is no longer in production? Some insurance companies will take the value as seen on Ebay, but that doesn't mean what they are selling them for, just what they want.

I know I have a few pick up truck kits in my stash that I could put on Ebay tomorrow and likely get $100 each for, simply because they haven't been re-issued in 25+yrs and are hard to come by, but if they house burnt down tomorrow, I don't know if my insurance company would agree with my assessment.

 

[adampolo13]

Hey CodeMaster,

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you may be surprised to find out that the moving company may not pay you what you think they should. Most all moving companies pay damange based on the weight rather than "replacement cost" or "actual cash value" as you might expect. Before going through the exercise of assigning damaged items value, I'd read the contract you signed before the shipping company moved everything.

 

[CodeMaster]

We got replacement value insurance from our movers. They've asked us to provide replacment costs for the damaged items, so far the hardest thing has been to find replacements for some furniture including my hobby/computer desk. I think in the end I'll probably have to look at ebay and try to find some rough equivalents of the assembled models I have, and come up with realistic estimates for the ones I can't find.

 

[WebbyNZ]

I would think its fair to value them at the cost of the kit plus materials and time, what is your time worth, that's hard to say. How much would a commission builder charge per hour?

And even if you figure that out, I wish you the best of luck getting your claim through.