armor sizing if smelted

[garhkal]

Say a group of adventurers, after slaying a group of gnolls, collected up
14 suits of gnoll size chain
8 suits of gnoll size splint
and 4 suits of gnoll size banded mail.

THEN They have a smelter, to melt it all down in, so they could sell said metal to an armorer.. How much value would that metal bring in?

[Halaster Blackcloak]

I guess there would be a few steps to take, after deciding on a few factors.

First, what metals are these armors made of? Iron wouldn't be worth as much as steel, steel would not be worth as much as say meteoric iron or Damascus steel, none of those would be worth as much as mithril, etc. So I'd say first you'd have to divide the armor by metal type. Then you'd have to weight it all and decide on the price of each metal - x # of gp per pound of iron, x # gp per pound of steel, etc.

But wouldn't it be more lucrative to simply sell the armor as is? Seems to me anyone smelting down the armor to recover the cost of the materials would lose money compared to simply selling the actual finished armor instead. First the seller loses money because he has to pay the smelter for his services. So that's a loss right there. Then, the seller only gets the value of the raw material - and even then, no dealer pays full price to buy material. If the smelter is paying full market price for the metal, then he has to increase his price on finished products in order to sell it. This is why buyers buy wholesale and then up the price when they resell it. After that, we gotta remember that the sellers will profit only from the price of the actual pounds of metal sold. Even if sold at exact market value, they wouldn't get anywhere near the price they would get selling the armor itself. For example...

A fighter wants a suit of chain mail. He goes out and buys the metal. He then has to take it to a blacksmith to forge it. Now he has to pay the blacksmith to forge it. He has two costs to cover. So the armor has the combined value of the base metals used (material cost) and the services of the blacksmith (labor cost). There's no way anyone could sell the metal used to make the armor for more than (or even for the same price as) the armor itself is worth because that defies all laws of economics.

[garhkal]

I was thinking of some of the monsters i've made for my current adnd group, i made PART of their monetary value of treasure, WAS their good quality armor and weaponry... So if the party sold them, or smelted them down to USE once they get their OWN armorer forge up and running, how much 'raw material' (which iirc is 50% of the cost of making a suit), they could get...

[Halaster Blackcloak]

That's my point though. You can never get as much profit from the raw material as you can for the finished product. It defies all laws of economics.

So for example, I can take my Glock or Sig Sauer and one of my knives and melt them down and sell them for the value of the steel, but no way in hell will I get anywhere near as much as I could by selling those items intact. Right now, steel sells for about 35¢/lb. (rounded up) in the USA. A Glock 19 weighs in at a little less than 1.5 lbs. I have a knife that weighs 1 lb. Let're pretend for simple math (so I don't need to do 4 hrs of research) that the Glock is 100% steel, every single ounce is solid steel. That and my one knife combined would weigh 2.5 lbs. At 35¢/lb. that comes to 87¢. That's what I'd get if I both the knife and Glock were solid steel. The knife alone, a Cold Steel blade, I could sell used on ebay and easily get $50. The Glock would sell used in this condition for roughly $400-$500. Let's say $400, low ball it. Add $50 for the knife.

I could sell it for material for $0.87
I could sell the finished products for $450.00

It's not even in the same universe. So I don't see why anyone would try to melt down armor to sell for scrap metal when they can get far more for the whole armor. Same for swords, maces, etc.

Now I think I see what you're saying. If the material counts as 50% of the cost of armor, and they find armor and swords and what not in a treasure hoard, those materials are "free", so if melted down and recast, they'd only be paying half the price of the armor. So let's say a suit of armor costs 100 gp, and half the cost is materials. They find treasure that contains armor, swords, etc. If they melt it down and have an armorer make it into new armor or swords, they'd be paying only 50 gp, which is half the price of the completed armor. But they're still losing money because the original armor was free, the remade armor costs 50 gp (labor cost). Or they could simply sell the armor for 100 gp and buy another set for 100 gp, which is sorta meaningless. So I can't understand any reason to melt down already manufactured arms and armor simply to re-create it from scratch. It's just a waste in every way.

[garhkal]

So would 40% of book cost, for 'selling armor back' be more than adequate for 'coin'?

[Halaster Blackcloak]

You kinda lost me there.

[garhkal]

IF they kept the armor found, AS IS, and say sold it off to an armorer, how much should they get?? 40%? 50%. MORE since it's large size?? LESS??
Make it variable, say 20% +1d6 x5%?

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Hard to say. If the armorer is going to re-sell it, then he'd have to offer a lot less than the price he's going to sell it at. So maybe he'd pay 40% (40 gp, then re-sell it at 100 gp, for example). If he's buying it to use himself (maybe he's a fighter), then he'll offer something below market value and haggle for the best price he can get. If he's going to melt it down to make other items out of the metal, then I'd think he would offer less than the per-pound value of the metal.

[garhkal]

So the 20 to 50%, is a good option for how much they could get...

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Yeah, I'd think that range would work fine.