Every collector knows the feeling:
“If I’d been five minutes later, it would’ve been gone.”
This was not that.
What happened with the Citadel Giant wasn’t a near miss, or good timing, or even great luck. It was a sequence of events that—taken together—should not realistically occur in the normal life cycle of a collecting hobby.
Here’s why.
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| THE Citadel Giant after the first pass of paint removal. |
Not One Improbability — A Chain of Them
Most rare finds hinge on one unlikely thing going right.
This required many, and every one of them had to succeed for the outcome to happen at all. Miss any step, and the chain collapses.
Think of them as “gates.” If even one stays closed, the Giant is never found.
I should add I was doing these in real time in about 20 minutes start to finish. Checking and referencing sites, is this a legitimate sale? What should I offer? All the while what amount I should offer as I raced the clock knowing that someone else might find it and get a claim in before me.
Primary Seller Gates (Shipment 1)
These gates describe everything that had to go right before the Giant was ever discovered.
Gate 1 — The Giant Had to Exist in the Wild
This was not a standard retail Citadel Giant. It was an internal-cast example pulled from legacy molds—never sold through normal channels and almost never seen publicly. Most collectors will never encounter one at all.
Gate 2 — The Owner Had to Let It Go
Owners of items this rare typically keep them, trade privately, or pass them quietly to other collectors. In this case, the owner chose to sell it openly instead.
Gate 3 — It Had to Be Listed in the "Wrong" Place
Rather than appearing on eBay or a specialist forum, the Giant was listed on Bonanza, a low-traffic marketplace that most collectors do not actively monitor.
Gate 4 — The Search Had to Use the “Wrong” Engine
The discovery depended on using DuckDuckGo instead of Google. DuckDuckGo indexes and ranks obscure listings differently, often surfacing results Google suppresses or ignores.
Gate 5 — The Listing Had to Sit Unnoticed
The Giant needed to remain unsold long enough to be discovered — not snapped up immediately, but not hidden forever either.
Gate 6 — DuckDuckGo Had to Index It at All
Low-authority marketplaces are not always indexed consistently. DuckDuckGo had to successfully ingest and surface the Bonanza listing.
Gate 7 — The Result Had to Appear in a Narrow Visibility Band
The listing landed deep in the results — far enough down to avoid early interception by other collectors, but not so deep that it was functionally invisible.
Gate 8 — A Nonstandard Search Phrase Had to Work
The search phrase used (“The Warhammer Giant 1983”) was conversational and imprecise. It did not match catalog-standard naming and would normally fail to surface an obscure Bonanza listing.
Yet it worked.
Gate 9 — The Timing Had to Be Right
The discovery happened late on a Friday night — a low-competition window when fewer collectors are actively searching.
Gate 10 — The Search Had to Be on Mobile
DuckDuckGo’s mobile search behaves differently from desktop, favoring natural-language phrasing and long-tail results. The search was performed on mobile, not desktop.
Gate 11 — A Deep Scroll Had to Happen
The listing appeared several pages down. Most users never scroll that far, but in this case, it happened.
Interlocking Market Gate
Gate 12 — No One Else Could Find It First
During the narrow window when the listing was discoverable, no other collector ran the same search, using the same engine, at the same time, and scrolled deep enough to see it.
If anyone had, the story ends there.
THE Citadel Giant, stripped down of paint.
Secondary Seller
Gates (Shipment 2 — The Parts That Shouldn’t Have Appeared
Together)
After the Giant was secured, a second, unrelated sequence unfolded — one that depended entirely on the first.
Gate 13 — Another Seller Had to Have Loose Giant Parts
A separate seller happened to possess multiple loose components from the same rare kit — something that is itself uncommon.
Gate 14 — A Casual Purchase Had to Spark a Question
A non-rare head variant was purchased, which prompted a simple follow-up inquiry: “Do you happen to have any other Giant parts?”
Gate 15 — The Rarest Head Had to Be There
The seller’s unlisted inventory included the Feral Beard head, the rarest of all Giant head variants.
Gate 16 — Multiple Rare Hands Had to Be There Too
That same unlisted inventory also contained both rare non-club right-hand variants — parts that almost never appear together.
Gate 17 — The Seller Had to Respond and Agree
The seller replied, confirmed the parts, and agreed to sell them — rather than ignoring the message or declining.
Gate 18 — All of This Had to Happen Quickly
The entire secondary sequence unfolded within six days of the original acquisition, before circumstances, attention, or availability changed.
And if this weren't enough? Two different sellers, two different locations and shipping methods. Two separate paths through customs and two different sets of delays in shipping? Both arrived at my door within hours of each other on the same day.
Why This Matters
Any one of these gates opening would be unremarkable. All of them opening? In order is not.
Add to this all of the gates are not weighed evenly. Some like 6,7,8,10 and 11 are beyond absurd that they worked out that way. Gate 6 in particular? I found the giant on page 5 of my search results. DuckDuckGo had indexed it just enough, but not too much to get to a "Goldilocks" zone for me to find it after being diligent enough to drill down.
This is why the story of the Citadel Giant isn’t just about finding a rare miniature. It’s about a fragile chain of conditions that almost never align, aligning once.
And then closing behind it.
Part III will deal with the math behind such an unlikely turn of events. When I said at the onset this "should not realistically occur in the normal life cycle of a collecting hobby?"
That's not even close to the true. You could run this time after time and the numbers become astronomically rare. I lived it and I still don't believe it really happened.
Note: His restoration progress will be taking place at Oldhammer.org for updates.
