Loser Analysis: Home One Mon Calamari Star Cruiser

So here we have one of the worst performers in the Star Wars LEGO theme, and that is something that many would not have expected while the set was still being sold at retail. The Home One was part of a particular sub-theme (I guess we could call it that) named the Fan's Choice Anniversry Edition. This consisted of a fan voting period that would select the first SW to be produced under that label and, in theory, be part of a limited run exclusive to Toys R Us. The winner ended up being Home One, but my guess is the fans did not really expect this type set when they first learnt about the news. To understand what I mean, here is what I believe most fans expected to get, either as play-set (like ISD 6211) or as a display piece:

And here is what they got:

Pretty disappointing, if you ask me. It is very important that new investors take a look at this set and learn to really think well about their investment decision instead of just following the crowd and all the hype that surrounds it. Learn from this set to have some clear guidelines as to what kind of set you invest in. If you are very disappointed about a set, chances are a lot of other collectors are too, and that may be a sign to just let it go a move on to the next one. In order to achieve this, let's examine some of the negative aspects as well as the performance numbers of the set.

As you can see from the chart above this set has performed very badly since it's release and subsequent retirement. If you had purchased this set at retail price and sold in at this moment you would realize a loss of around 22 %, or around $ 25. What has caused this set to perform this way? after all this is a Star Wars set of a somewhat popular ship that was after all elected to be produced by the fans. I will try to explain the reasons to the best of my ability and maybe give you some sort of prediction about where this set will probably be going in the future.

To me, the main reason this set has underperformed so much is that, when you think about the real Home One Cruiser the first thing that comes into your head is the image of the huge ship as it was displayed on the movies and this is probably what some voters expected to get, even if at a reduced scale. Instead, the end product ended up being a play set that showcases the inside of the ship, while keeping in mind that the only real look we got at any of that in the movies was the command center, that is also included in the set. The rest of the set however, is just what could be considered a pretty generic ship hangar with an A-Wing that frankly does not bring anything to the table as far as making this set more accurate or interesting. So, I think disappointment over the look set is the real driver of such bad performance.

Second to that, I would probably say that the overpricing has to share some of the blame as well. At a retail of $ 109.99 the set you get in exchange does not even give the sense you are getting your money's worth! As said before, you are getting a pretty generic looking playset that has almost no value as a display piece and even though it has some nice play features and minifigs it really is not unique in any way, shape or form. One of the things that make LEGO sets so popular is that most of them have a close resemblance to the elements/structures they are based in, and thus people are most of the time ok with paying some extra money to own something they remember or consider good looking. In this case, you are basically spending $ 110 for the half of the set you remember from the movies, because the A-Wing and hangar you will probably find cheaper on some other sets anyway.

Lastly, the most popular minifig on the set that could have helped some reduce the drop in value was re-released by LEGO, and apparently the rest of the characters exclusive to this set are of no enough interest to people to shell out even a lower amount than what it originally retailed for.

With all that out of the way, let me tell you my expectations for the future. Let's take a look at the charts from the past 12 months:

As much as I want this set to recover and be a great investment in the future I really see no way this is going to happen, and if for some reason it does, I still think the profit margin will be so low that you are better off putting your money on some of the great sets out there before this one. We have to think about what could possibly make this set recover in the first place when it has already been 4 years after it was released. Any ideas yet? me neither. Even if this exact same ship makes a comeback in the upcoming episodes, this set will continue to be a disappointment as far as a recreation of the real Home One is concerned, that won't ever change. Even more, assuming that the issue is that investors stocked up on this set so much that the market is just saturated, for how long will it stay that way? I mean, it has already been a couple of years after retirement and you don't see even a slight increase in the price for this set MISB.

Something even more worrying is the following. If you take a look at the eBay trends for December, a month when sets usually spike in value, this set turns out to be the complete opposite. According to Brickpicker data, on the month of December the number of Home Ones sold spiked up to its highest point in the whole year, with a total of 59 units sold (18 more than November and 38 more than October). We would expect that with the increased demand for this set over the holidays the price should at least increase a couple of bucks, but this set somehow managed to decrease in price in December! If you base on the charts, the set New was selling for around $ 82 pretty consistently over the whole year, while in December that value went down to $ 71. It has since gone back to close to $ 85.

What does this tell you? even in the month of highest activity, this set manages to perform even worse than the rest of the year. This may be a direct consequence of investors trying to get rid of all the inventory of this model they may be holding up, but that makes you wonder for how long this will continue and if it will ever stop being that way on the first place.

This set will be going nowhere price wise in the next couple of years, and you'll be really lucky if you manage to get retail for it in 3 or 4 years. And for those of you that currently own the set, take a look at the December data and maybe think about selling your stock well before then to try and cut your losses as much as possible.

Thanks for reading