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    Brickpicker blog articles on LEGO investing, news, reviews, evaluations, discounts and more...
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    • ZULU
      LEGO Seasonal sets have proven over the years to be solid performers in the LEGO secondary market.  From the "Winter Village" series to the Holiday polybags to the small promotional sets that LEGO gives away with purchases, Christmas themed sets perform very well.  Let's take a closer look at a few of the Christmas themed LEGO sets.
      On a personal note...My favorite time of the year is almost here...and I'm 200% ready for it!
      The Christmas cards are sent. The house is decorated. The lights are in the tree. All the friends are coming to the party...
      I have stored twenty bottles of Vranken-Pommery Monopole in the basement. A 7 course menu has been prepared by my wife.  The wish lists have been sent. I have bags of salt against snowfall, logs for the open fire, fireworks for midnight...
      What did I forget?  
      Oh no!
      I forgot to hoard Christmas LEGO sets!!!  
       
      The success of the Winter Village collection is undeniable. They take third place  in the hall of fame of the Brickpicker CAGR-Index, after CUUSOO/Ideas and Mixels, with a stellar average price increase of 56%! The data looks fantastic. Please have a look at the table below:

      (Source: BrickLink, Ebay)
      In green you see what retirement does to these sets: Prices go UP FAST.  Obviously any price indication is only meaningful if there are enough quantities (6 months accumulated) sold. This is definitely the case: the 6 month volume has exceeded the hundred mark handsomely as is highlighted in the orange box (column 3). If this continues at the same pace, in half a year's time, there won't be a lot of inventory left of the Winter Toy Shop, nor the Winter Post Office. People are ready to pay the full price. If you look at the numbers highlighted by the red box, you'll see that on Ebay, some auctions went more than triple the MSRP price. Again, these maximum selling prices are confirmed on Bricklink too. It seems for example that somebody in September (2014) wanted to complete his collection and bought the Winter Village Toy Shop at 199.9 Euros, more than three times MSRP. You might wonder how to interpret the column named 'Sticky price'. This is a price level at which there are still a lot of offer. If you would be looking to load off some Winter sets quickly, setting your price 5% lower would be the smart way to get a quick sale. Now, why are the Winter series so popular?
       
      asy: they tick a lot of boxes:
      1. They are beautiful, very colorful and clearly follow a story line of Christmas: a Toy Shop to get presents, a Post Office to send all the postcards and packs, a Bakery to get your bagels and croissants, a nice Winter Cottage in the woods covered by a thick layer of snow and a cosy hearth, a Village Market with a carousel for the children, and finally Santa himself who will visit that splendid town throwing the presents in all the chimneys. Every parent can create a great scene under the family Christmas Tree.
       
      This as a matter of fact, has become our family ritual every year. In December we build the latest Christmas LEGO set and its extras (2 minis). Without going into a full set review, I can tell you the sled and reindeer are just magnificent. I'm not sure how we can integrate the factory in the Village setup yet. Probably, we'll have to get Santa's home up a mountain a little out of the town. We'll see.
      2. It's all fitting together - a collection!
      White roofs, a light brick in each large building, decorated street lights, large chimneys, lots of singing, presents, minifigures in the snow... LEGO brings Christmas into your home.
      Take a look at the picture below. I've just 'dumped' all my Winter buildings together and it already looks fantastic. Image what effect you get when you put some effort in it? (Which will happen in December - the article came a little too soon) You'll see: once you have one set, you get pulled into wanting all the others too. And this makes this series so powerful as an investment. The more releases, the better it becomes.

      3. Playability - light bricks! A perfect gift for the children and their parents
      I've already mentioned it, but it's important: The Winter Village sets are built for young and old. They each have a story embedded on the box. Who makes the toys? When will the Christmas cards arrive? Can we get a mug of hot chocolate and a croissant? Is dad still outside cutting logs, and grandpa reading his newspaper next to a great fireplace? Can we go to the fairground? Were does Santa Live? Find the light brick! All those presents!
      4. Display Value
      Evey year we have lots of friends and family coming over. And they are all impressed by the toys. They are full of detail with plenty of mini-builds (from a mini-saxophone to a rotating carousel) and techniques (chimneys, large snow-covered roofs...) When I was a kid, we had the cradle with baby Jesus surrounded by his parents in a shed with some decorative animals. Thirty years later, a whole jolly town surrounds that little barn. We add candles and the houses of the 10193 Medieval Market Village. But I'm sure you could be creative with the fairground mixer (10244) too (which reflects in the dark but might need some 'retrofitting'). And maybe the Constitution Train (79111) would work too?  With some white bricks on the roof and wagons, the outcome could look splendid indeed.
      5. End of Line: Get your LEGO below MSRP!
      I'm sure you've read it already somewhere, but just to be complete: each sets gets 2 years of seasonal shelf life. Every year you can easily find them from October until February. thereafter they can disappear quickly. This also means there are never more than two Christmas LEGO boxes on the shelves during the Winter backed by two bonus promotion sets which you can only get in a LEGO shop or on S@H during a short window of time.
      In terms of investment timing, I keep a close eye on discounts and bonus sets. And as you see in the table above, the seasonal bonus sets are popular items so it might be wise to invest in 'waves. The first good opportunity is during double VIP points seasons. The second starts when bonus sets are available. And finally you wait for that third chance of a discount during the January sales period. (stock dependent)
      One great effect of the systematic (short) 2 year life cycle, is that the value increase of the LEGO Winter sets after EOL date is swift and doesn't get diluted by time. Other larger and popular themes suffer from extensions. That predictability allows you to get your investment timing perfectly right to optimize the working capital and CAGR per year.
      Concluding remarks?
      Personally, I think the case is simple. Christmas LEGO is great for building and investing. Sets are beautiful, the CAGR is great, demand is structural, and visibility high. Packing and shipping is easy with boxes just the right size. And the price points also perfect: not too low, not too high. Until now, the sets haven't been hoarded too much and I personally hope it will stay this way.
      Christmas is about sharing, so I hope this article has also convinced you about the attractive investment proposition of this LEGO Winter Village series. Good luck with it in 2015! 
    • Alpinemaps
      Seemingly out of nowhere, Mixels have taken hold.  These small polybags have become popular enough, that a smart investor needs to consider whether adding Mixels to their portfolio makes sense.
      What are Mixels?
      LEGO says, "Mixels features a world of colorful creatures who can mix and combine with each other, with hilarious and surprising results."  Mixels are a collaboration between LEGO and Cartoon Network.  This includes the LEGO toys, but also includes a variety of multimedia approaches, including apps, websites, and cartoon shorts, ranging from 30 seconds to 5 minutes in length. The cartoon shorts premiered on Cartoon Network on February 12, 2014.  The cartoon was created by John Fang (Ben 10) and Dave Smith (Powerpuff Girls), and the characters are voiced by well-known American voice actors, such as Jess Harnell (Animaniacs), Tom Kenny (SpongeBob Squarepants), and Billy West (Futurama). Mixels involve a number of different tribes, each with a different color scheme and representing a different ability.  They all inhabit a land of fantasy and adventure. Using mysterious cubits, Mixels can: [table id=46 /]
      Mixels Series
      Series 1 was released in March 2014, and consists of the Infernite (Red), Cragsters (Gray), and Electroid (Yellow) tribes. Series 2 was released in May 2014, and consists of the Frosticons (Blue), the Fang Gang (Orange), and the Flexers (Brown) tribes. Series 3 was released in September 2014, and consists of the Glorp Corp (Green), the Spikels (Tan), and the Wiztastics (Purple) tribes. Series 4 will be released in February 2015, and will consist of two new tribes, Orbitronz (Light Green) and Glowkies (Dark Blue), along with three new Infernites (Red). Each Mixel has an RRP of $4.99, £2.99, €3.99 and consists of between 48 and 72 pieces. [table id=48 /]
      What's in the box?
      Each box of Mixels consists of 30 packs.  Each box has four complete sets of one tribe, and three complete sets of the other two tribes.  This allows for building of three complete sets of Mixels for any particular Series.  For Series 1, the Infernites (Red) tribe had four sets.  For Series 2, the Forsticons (Blue) tribe had four sets.
      Members of the Gray, Red, and Yellow Tribes from Series 1
      Investment history
       
      Complete Sets
      Series 1 of Mixels started disappearing from store shelves to make room for Series 2 and Series 3 around August/September 2014.  Although you could still find them in some stores at RRP, eBay prices saw complete sets of Series 1 going for $65-$70.  By the end of September, prices were hitting $85-$90.  By the end of October, prices had risen to $105.  As of the middle of November, Series 1 sets are consistently selling at $120.
      Tribes
      With such a consistent and even distribution of characters in each box, you would expect to find sales to be similar for all three tribes.  However, that is not the case.  Yellow tribe seems to be the most sought after.   Yellow tribe commands anywhere between $50-$60.  Red tribe, despite being packed four to a case (versus three to a case as the other two tribes), is consistently coming in at $40 per set.  Gray tribe comes in around $30 per set.
      Individuals
      As you might expect, individual Mixels prices reflect the tribe sets.  Individual Yellow tribe members, especially 41508 Volectro are the hardest to find, and therefore command a premium on the secondary market.  The other Yellow tribe members are also difficult to find, which causes a similar spike in their price, although not as much as Volectro.  Prices are around $15-$20 per individual. Red tribe members, despite the four versus three per case, as individuals are similar to the sets.  Individual tribe members are going for $10-$15 per individual. Gray tribe members, much like the sets, are easiest to obtain.  Most Gray tribe members are available around $10 per individual.
      Creativity
      Mixels allow for an incredible amount of MOC'ing.  LEGO encourages a lot of creativity with the Mixels line.  On the Mixels website, LEGO has published instructions on how to MIX, MAX, and MURP a number of different versions of Mixels.  Not only can you do that within an individual tribe, but LEGO has shown you how to do it between multiple tribes.

      Mixels MEGA Max MOC - Tyrannosaurus Mix 1 by TheOneVeyronian on Flickr

      Mixel Mega Mix! by Andrew Lee on Flickr Mixels have allowed imaginations to run wild.  The part/color combinations are a little unique.  The combinations are endless, and really encourage the initial design as a starting point, rather than an endpoint.
      Why so scarce?
      Mixels compare well against other LEGO products.  The price per piece is between $.07 and $.10.  There are 524 parts in the Series 1 set.  At $45, that is about on par with other similarly sized sets.  21108 Ghostbusters Ecto-1 is $49.99 for 508 parts, 4209 Fire Plane is 522 pieces for $59.99 and 76028 Darkseid Invasion, coming in 2015, is 545 pieces at $59.99. The desirability of certain colors appears to be driving the market.  Yellow appears to be the most desirable of Series 1, which would explain why the individual sets of Yellow are the hardest to come by.  And other there are more Red tribe available than any other color, Red tribe appears to be more desirable than Gray. The same seems to hold true for Series 2 as well.  Blue tribe is more available than any other tribe, but appears to be the most desirable of the three tribes.  Blue tends to be the most scarce of the three Series 2 tribes. With 3 series coming out per year, past Mixels sets could easily be forgotten.  But the collector mentality has seemed to grab hold; consumers want to complete full collections of Mixels. Just like the 3-in-1 Creator Sets, many consumers will want to have multiple sets, to allow them to display the different versions. LEGO encourages this, by including past series in the new series (Infernites in Series 1 and 4).  By publishing instructions MIX'ing and MAX'ing multiple tribes, LEGO will continue to help drive the desirability of the older sets. And at the end of the day, these sets just look cool.  And combining them just make them look cooler.
      Outlook for Series 2 and 3
      Series 2 is quickly disappearing from stores.  Some outlets, such as Toys R Us and Target still have limited supplies.  As supplies become limited, prices should continue to rise.  Already, sales on eBay show pricing between $60 and $85 for complete sets.  As these disappear from primary sources, you should continue to see prices climb.  Series 4, while expected to debut in February 2015, may arrive on shelves as early as late December 2014.  At that point, any remaining Series 2 will disappear quickly.
      Best ways to Acquire
      As with all LEGO investing, don't wait to acquire product.  However, Mixels do allow you some safety with your acquisition methods.  As with the CMF line, you have insight to the general availability of the line;  you can expect that the line will debut at a certain time, and will begin to disappear around the time the next Series debuts.  This provides plenty of opportunity to pick up product on sale when those opportunities presents themselves.
      2015 and Beyond
      [table id=47 /] Mixels are here to stay.  They won't be disappearing anytime soon.  With an endless array of combinations, Mixels should remain popular with kids and adults. Note:  All pricing accurate as of November 2014. Sources: Mixels Official Website - LEGO.com The Mixel Invasion Has Begun! Wikipedia - Mixels
    • steelmelt
      After reading an earlier thread, I want to make a thread chronicling my own transition from LEGO “investor” to LEGO “seller.”  I have received a ton of great advice on this site and have learned a few things along the way.  I started the buying side of this in November 2012 and have completed my first several sales (November 2014).  I want to point out some of the things that I learned here and did right and some things I didn't know and did wrong.  Some of this information may be very basic for many of the advanced LEGO investors on the site, but some of the information might be able to help some of the novices out there nonetheless.
      BACKGROUND:
      A lot of the posts on the Brickpicker site, particularly those from the seller's side, seem to be from larger scale reseller types who have really been successful in creating a small business of LEGO buying and reselling.  While those posts are often helpful, I first off want to say, that's not me and it is not my goal.  I have a secure full-time middle class job which I enjoy.  This is more of a hobby in which I can make a little money from, rather than a true investment that I'm going to send my kids to college with or pay for a retirement  home when I get older.  Those life priorities I have paid for by conventional means.  My goal is to pay for LEGO sets that I buy for myself and my future kids with profits that I earn from selling other sets...and maybe earn a little extra cash on the side.  The time I spend doing this is recreational to me and I won't be breaking down my hourly wage from how much I make from it.  That being said, this has been much more fun than reading my 401k statements every quarter and I think I have the potential to do much better job if it was a competition.  My ROI(Return on Investment) goal is to (on average) double my money on the sets I sell.  I knew I would not spend more than $10k on this investment between the sets I want to keep and the sets I want to sell.  The cash I used was sitting in the bank and was not my emergency savings.  I only say that because I see people going into debt to buy LEGO sets on the site and that is a horrible idea.  I also am not a "flipper," nor a "parter outer."  My strategy from the get go was to hold and sell after EOL(End Of Line).
      BUYING LESSON #1 (WHAT TO BUY):  CHOOSE WISELY...DO NOT BUY TWO OF THE SAME THING JUST BECAUSE YOU WANT ONE TO BUILD AND ONE TO RESELL.  THE SET MIGHT BE A BAD INVESTMENT.
      As a child in the late 80's through the late 90's I played mostly with City Sets, though also played with a few Space, Kingdoms, Pirates, Western sets.  I don't recall any licensed sets back then.  Like Will Ferrell in The LEGO Movie, I had a whole city on a table (as a kid). After coming out of the "dark ages," one of the things that concerned me was that sets I would want to build later on would be EOL and would cost me a fortune.  So many of my initial sets purchased were bought so I did not have to pay a ransom for them later on.  Many of sets I bought two of...one for me and one for an “investment.”  I'm pretty sure it has been suggested on here that you can't go wrong on buying sets you like and want to play with.  Well if you are like me and like playing with City and other “generic” sets, that's a bad idea.  I'm going to probably hit my goal on many of these City sets I have, but it will take a while and the ROI will be weak.  I wouldn't say I was addicted to buying (liked the linked thread above), but in the beginning, I certainly did go on a buying frenzy on the outset.  I would have been better off separating “play” set buys from “investment” set buys.  Sometimes they are the same, but many times they are not.
      BUYING LESSON #2 (EOL): DON'T BUY NEW RELEASES AND TRY TO BUY AS CLOSE TO EOL AS POSSIBLE.
      My first major buys: An Ultimate Collector's Series Imperial Shuttle and a 10188 Death Star.  The Imperial Shuttle went EOL and has doubled in price and the Death Star wouldn't even make up the selling fees if I sold it today.  EOL, or in other words...when a set retires, means everything to my investing strategy.  Buying towards the end of EOL is critical.  In the beginning I bought several newly released sets and it's going to take me a long time to make money on them compared to the Imperial Shuttle which I bought right before EOL.  Obviously, buying towards the end of EOL is a crap shoot, but I could have done more research and at least not bought new releases.  In the future I will probably make many of my buys after the products have been out a couple of years.  In some cases this may be too late or too early, but it should be better than buying new releases or stuff after one year.
      BUYING LESSON #3 (SPACE):  SPACE COSTS MONEY, LACK OF SPACE CAN LIMIT SIZE OF INVESTMENT INVENTORY, FORCING TOUGH CHOICES.
      I have a decent sized home and had a bedroom mostly used for storage.  The closest was the kind with the two sliding doors, maybe 4 feet deep by 8 feet wide.  I filled it with about $8k in LEGO sets in 6 months.  Thankfully it is in a cool dark area and had shelving.  If I was paying for space, that would kill any profit I would be making as a small investor.  My space was available and free and I think that is what keeps this type of “investment” profitable.  If everyone had an empty closet lying around, there would be so much more competition.  That being said, when my closet started getting full, I slowed my buying down and really started getting more focused on buying the sets I could make the most money off of.  The lack of space made me a smarter buyer.  My Brickfolio is at about $9K in purchases and I didn't feel the need to go all the way to my $10K initial goal.
      BUYING LESSON #4 (SET SIZE):  MEDIUM TO LARGE SIZED SETS ARE THE BEST FOR MY STRATEGY.
      For various reasons, I bought a lot of small sets ($20-$40).  As I progressed into the selling phase, I see why this is an issue.  They don't make as much money and take more of your time.  That being said, I'm also not a fan of the really big sets.  They make me nervous as a small time seller.  If I put all my money in a $400 SSD and get robbed by someone on Ebay, I'm done.  I also don't think sets with that much value will increase as much percentage wise as a $100 set.  Also with a large set you take up a lot of space and capital with fewer sets (see my Death star).  The amount of people able to pay $300 for a set, vs $1200, is huge in my honest opinion.  My goal in the future is to focus on investment sets in the initial $80-$200 range.  That maximizes my time, storage space, and if I get burned, the sting won't be so bad.
      BUYING LESSON #5 (SALES VS MSRP):  FOCUS ON QUALITY SETS, NOT ITEMS ON SALE.
      So I always love looking at all the sales info on here and have geared many of my buys to LEGO sets that are on sale.  My particular area is a densely populated area of Southern California, so my best sale items are online (no clearance racks here).  Most of my purchases have been discounted buys from Amazon.  These sales have slowed over the last year, but in the beginning they were plentiful.  But this led more to my buying even more City sets or other sets that are not going to have a high ROI.  I waited a long time for the Haunted House to have some kind of discount.  I got one for $10 under MSRP on Amazon at one point and decided to wait for a better sale to get more.  Well it's EOL and I only have one.  Huge mistake.  I should have ponied up MSRP for a couple more.  I would have been better off on focusing on what sets were going to have a high ROI, not what sets I could get the best discount on.
      BUYING LESSON #6 (WHAT TO BUY):  BUY COOL SETS THAT ARE UNIQUE.
      Do not buy sets that will be re-released (most City).  The safe bets are Modulars, licensed sets, UCS sets, Creator Houses, Trains and adult themed stuff.  Try and go for sets that are neat and more unique. There is money to be made in every theme, but if you are trying to maximize your profits and time, do your research.
      THE TRANSITION:
      So over the last year I have slowed down on the buying.  I figured I would start the selling phase next Christmas, but thanks to the new Jurassic Park Movie, I had to unload my Dino Theme this year.  I had 10 Dino sets that needed to be sold before they are re-released.  I am lucky in that in this particular situation of re-releases that I had a large advanced notice the Jurassic Park theme was coming out with the movie next year and the last Dino sets have been EOL over a year.
      SELLING LESSON #1 (POSTING FOR SALE): PAY CLOSE ATTENTION WHEN POSTING ITEMS ON EBAY...USE GOOD PHOTOS...MAKE THE POSTING CLEAN.
      Your sets are not unique snowflakes.  There are multiples of sets for sale of basically anything that has been released in the last few years. I use eBay's Buy It Now and would consider myself a novice in using it.  I would rather avoid the risk of an auction at this point and can sit on some sets for a while.  While there are other ways to sell, this seems the most logical for me as a small time seller.  I have never sold anything on eBay before, though I have been buying for years.  There have been numerous threads on the fees, so I won't go into that.  I don't post until I can make my net profit goal on sets and I figure fees into that.  I would not describe eBay as hard to use, but it can be annoying.  If you are posting numerous sets, it seems the settings reset to random things each time you try to make a new post (auction or BIN, shipping, payment types, posting time frames, etc).  I had to be very careful and edit some things later on.  One of my other part-time hobbies is photography.  For less than five bucks I set up a light box for product photography.  I already had the flashes and other stuff. I you don't have photo equipment you can still buy some cheap white posters and do this with a small camera.  I see a lot of crummy cell phone pics on eBay and as a buyer, I would shy away from those.  I posted over a few days before Black Friday.  Next year I will post earlier for the holidays.  I am not using a script and have a very short listing, but in the future I might move to a script.  However, I see a lot of messy, cluttered, and ugly listings out there.  Some of the posts dealing with eBay have put a healthy fear into me, so I do not accept returns and do not ship internationally.
      SELLING LESSON #2 (GETTING PAID): UPGRADE TO A PAYPAL BUSINESS ACCOUNT BEFORE YOU START...USE THE “IMMEDITATE PAYMENT REQUIRED” FEATURE.
      Now when people say moving from investor to seller is not fun, they forget about the best part...getting paid.  Watching the money drop into your Paypal account...and tripling your money after a year and a half, is pretty awesome.  But there are issues.  Deciding on what to price a set takes some time and research.  I have my collection in my Brickfolio and that helps, but every set is in different condition so all those variables have to be accounted for.  Between used sets, parted out sets and people posting sets for ridiculous amounts way above the norm, I decided to price my sets towards mid range to make it easier. My first sale was a Buy It Now and the seller never paid.  No email saying my kid did it, nothing.  Not a major issue except it takes my product off sale for almost a week.  Another listing a buyer took a couple of days to pay.  During my research I discovered you can set your items to “Immediate Payment Required” for Buy It Now  sales.  I never saw this option when setting up my eBay listings.  Further research showed it was under the advanced item listing AND I needed to have an active PayPal Business account for it to even be offered.  I will be using “Immediate Payment Required” from now on. My next problem was PayPal.  I have used it for a while to buy stuff, but never received money from it.  After my first sale, I got an email from PayPal saying they would not accept the credit card to a “personal account,”  which is what I had.  Apparently this is not true anymore, but PayPal still sends out the email.  I tried to research the difference between PayPal personal and business they don't say much and the fees are supposed to be the same.  I eventually upgraded to a business account on PayPal.  Also note there is a three week delay when you actually get the money.
      SELLING LESSON #3 (SHIPPING AND HANDELING): KEEP THE PACKING MATERIALS YOU GET...HAVE THE MATERIALS READY TO GO BEFORE YOU POST...GET A SCALE.
      This is where things get a little more challenging for me and makes me nervous.  I chose to charge separate for S&H on eBay.  I chose the “standard shipping” option and made up my own fixed rate.  I pretty much guessed at the rates for my first group of sales.  Most of the guesses were close, except for the boxes.  KEEP YOUR BOXES.  I can not stress this enough.  I had boxes saved, but not ones for the larger sets.  So as soon as I made my first sale I wandered on over to Office Max for shipping supplies.  They had four box sizes. That was it.  Target was worse. I had to go to a UPS store for large shipping boxes and I paid $5 for each of the boxes for my larger sets.  Way too much.  Had I saved my boxes I would be $10 richer now.  I have also located a shipping store in my area now that will be better in price and selection for future sales.  I should have had the packing materials ready to go before I posted the items.  I bought a box re-sizer mention on these forums for my next batch to cut down on size and hopefully cost.  Additionally, I didn't have a postal scale, so I used the bathroom scale and rounded up the weight on the box to be sure it was OK.  I would rather do that then stand in line at the post office, but have since ordered a postal scale for less than $40.  I used the eBay USPS shipping function to make, pay for, and print shipping labels.  I liked this feature.  Still being scared of getting burned, I bought insurance and signature confirmation and then took photos of the items in the packing material.  I used mostly bubble wrap bought on sale to package my sales.
      CONCLUSION:
      In the end with my first batch of sales and after expenses, I more than doubled my investment money (On the Dino theme).  So I'm on track.  Had I done some of these things above, I could have done much better, but I consider this a success and this didn't feel like real or hard work.  Hopefully, some of you learn from my mistakes and maybe some of the more seasoned LEGO investor/resellers have some advice to offer on things I noted above.  I would consider myself still novice and have a lot to learn.  I realize everyone might do things a little differently and I am certainly open to suggestions.  Good luck with your LEGO investments.
    • Jeff Mack
      LEGO has officially announced 10246 Detective’s Office and said that it could be released in January 2015.  Here are some details and pricing for the set.
      Ages 16+. 2,262 pieces. US $159.99 - CA $199.99 - DE 149.99€ - UK £132.99 - DK 1399.00 DKK *Euro pricing varies by country. Please visit shop.LEGO.com for regional pricing.
      Discover a world of mystery and adventure with the awesome LEGO® Creator Expert Detective’s Office, featuring unique elements and surprises. Step through the open archway and into the barbershop, where seated customers are pampered in the reflection of a large wall mirror, while next door, competitors play pool and darts beneath the comforting whir of a rotating ceiling fan. Venture to the first floor and you’ll find the detective’s office, his desk strewn with clues, a safe containing valuable evidence and a concealed wall compartment. Then visit the adjacent bathroom, featuring a classic pull-chain toilet, before taking the stairway to the well-equipped kitchen, from where you can access the roof terrace, complete with large water tower. This latest addition to the LEGO Modular Building series is packed with unsurpassed detail and hidden surprises. Easy-to-remove roof and ceilings provide access to the delightful interior, while the exterior of the building features a decorative roofline and a beautifully designed façade. Can you solve the smuggling mystery? Includes 6 minifigures with assorted accessories: Detective Ace Brickman, Al the barber, dart player, pool player, police woman and a mysterious lady in red.
      Includes 6 minifigures with assorted accessories: Detective Ace Brickman, Al the barber, dart player, pool player, police woman and a mysterious lady in red. Features a pool hall, barbershop, detective’s office, bathroom, kitchen, water tower and a cat. Detective’s office features a desk, assorted clues, brick-built lamp, filing cabinet, fan, safe, painting, concealed wall compartment, newspaper, menu, wanted poster and a wall lamp. Pool hall features a hinged, rotatable ceiling fan, pool table, printed dartboard, pool cues, pool balls and a drinking glass. Barbershop features never-before-seen scissors and reflective mirror element, 2 wall lamps, barber’s chair, hinged cabinet, 2 mannequin heads and a broom. Bathroom features a detailed pull-chain toilet. Kitchen features a stove, barrel, table, cabinet, refrigerator, wall clock and a rolling pin. Accessories include Ace Brickman’s brimmed hat, briefcase, magnifying glass and a police hat. Detach the roof and floors for easy access. Search for hidden clues. Help Ace Brickman solve the mystery! Special elements include never-before-seen scissors and reflective mirror element, printed dartboard, wanted poster, 1x1 round plate with hole in black, painter’s roller in black, designing element 1x2x2 in dark gray, 1x2 bricks in light blue, 1x3 tiles in brown and a 32x32 base plate in brown. Detective’s Office measures over 10” (27cm) high, 9” (25cm) wide and 9” (25cm) deep. Collect and build an entire town with the LEGO® Creator Expert Modular Building series: 10232 Palace Cinema and 10243 Parisian Restaurant.  
    • Neosphinx
      Preview of  10243-1 Parisian Restaurant
      Deciding to build the Parisian Restaurant was mainly due to the positive response it received in a Brickpicker forum topic. Many people chose the 10243-1 as their favourite Modular Building Series(MBS) set. I did not know a lot about it and what better way to build the set to see if those people had a point in picking this set. It was released in January 2014 and is still widely available at the moment of writing. The Parisian Restaurant is the ninth set to come out under the Creator subtheme following 10232-1 Palace Cinema. When looking at the brick count, with its 2469 pieces, it is the second largest modular building up to date, with 10224-1 Town Hall, 2766 pieces, having the most bricks. The set is priced by TLC at 159.99€/159.99$ (The prices for Europe vary from 149.99€ for France and Germany to 159.99€ for Belgium and the Netherlands. It is the third modular I will be building and the second to be reviewed. My hopes for this one are high, again mainly due to the comments it has received from fellow Brickpickers.
      Theme
      The Modular Building Series is a sub-theme of Creator and was introduced in 2007 and spans 9 sets at this moment. There are rumours that a Detective Agency will make its entry soon to be the 10th modular building. The prices of the buildings vary between  100 and 200 Euro. 10243-1 Parisian Restaurant has seen a price change for the low countries as said above, but for most other countries, it stays at the level of eg. 10218-1 Pet Shop and 10211-1 Grand Emporium.  The theme is very popular with AFOLs and even though they are not cheap, the popularity increases every day. There does seem to be a notable change in the line up for the MBS. If what is generally is expected is correct, two Modular Buildings will disappear at the same time with only one replacing them. If this is just a one-off or the intention is to make the assortment smaller, is still a guess for many.
      Packaging
                   
       
      The Packaging is better designed compared to 10224-1 Town Hall. The background has a nice sky blue color with some real life house printed on it. The front also has the Creator series logo and the Expert badge on it that also was on the previous Modular. On the top right you can find how the back of the restaurant looks like. The front also shows us the height and width of the building. Comparing it to the Town Hall (50cm x 25,5cm), it does seem a bit small with its 30cm x 25 cm. That is 20 centimeter smaller and that does disappoint me slightly. With it having the second most pieces of all Modulars, I would have thought it to be larger. Then again, we still need to see what the actual build will be once finished and if it blends in with the rest of the Modulars I have on display. The back of the box  shows us on the left side the different floors. On the top we can see the different rooms. At first sight, it does look good. It has many interesting features and especially the kitchen area seems to be a very detailed room. On the bottom to the right you have a display with other modular houses. It has the 10232-1 Palace Cinema and more important, the 10224-1 Town Hall. I find this important as it seems the set will be retiring soon. It looks very large compared with the other modular buildings displayed and this may have a positive effect on the price of the Town Hall on the aftermarket. In all, I like the design of the box. With the bright color, it is very inviting and the Expert badge does give it something special. It is much more compact than others I have had in my hands so far, especially then of its big brother Town Hall. I think it is a good evolution, saving on packaging material and shipping costs.
      Content
      So after opening the box and pouring out the content on the table, you're left with something like this.
      4 x # 1 bags 6 x # 2 bags 4 x # 3 bags 4 x # 4 bags 1 dark gray plate 16x8 1 ground plate light gray I had expected more bags to be present in the box with that amount of pieces so again, somewhat disappointing. Not the wow feeling like with the Town Hall. Not scoring that well so far, but again, the medals are given at the finish line.
      Build Experience
      Build Part 1: Ground Floor

      One thing that you can say about the first part. A lot of small pieces. I can imagine now how this is the second largest Modular Building Series set if you look at brick-count but small pieces are not always fun to build. Of course a building needs detail and that is what these small pieces are for. It takes usually longer to sort them too. The good thing about them is that you actually get quite a lot of extra pieces. I will add a picture of them later in the review.
                     
      The floors look much better than the other modular buildings I worked on so far apart from 71006-1 the Simpsons House, but technically that is not a Modular Building Series house. It's some work, but the tiles in the kitchen and the beautiful plank floor in the dining area give 10243-1 Parisian Restaurant an authentic feeling. The red carpet part is a great detail too and found in many restaurants of that kind.
      I added the picture on the left to show what in my opinion is an error. It is the part that says Chez. Brilliant in my opinion but totally useless in this setup as you can't even see it when everything has been built around it (see picture on the right when finishing up part 1). Writing only chez  on the floor is the equivalent of writing At while the name of the place is At Albert (chez Albert) so I don't see the added value in this creation. I know designers sometimes want to put some fancy LEGO-brick-made lettering in their creations, but you shouldn't put something in to.... put something in! Preferred imo would be a mosaic with 1x1 alternating gray and dark blue stones. It's just a small detail, and in no way does it make this first part less beautiful than it is, but for me, it is simply something that has not been well thought.
      The little black chains are such an excellent detail. And so are the lamps that are on the dining tables. It is a very special technique involving a flat  round tile with a hole in it that I have not seen before. The kitchen is very nice too, and will be discussed in part two of this build. Because you're working with so many small pieces, the duration of the build takes a little longer than usual. I'm an average builder. I don't build Lego to set a speed record.
      Duration of the build: 53 minutes
      Build Part 2: Ground Floor Finishing

      Now we're getting there. Look at those beautiful green pieces you get in this part. This time not that many small pieces in it so I assume the build would go much smoother. This part is the finishing up of the ground floor. So far, 12243 made a fine impression. I am anxious to see now what it would give with the walls build.
      Start the clock...
                   
      Looking at the front, you can see the immense detail. Some nice printed pieces like the name of the restaurant and menu card, no stickers at all so that's a big plus  (most of the modulars are stickerless). As said before, the little chains are a nice addition in combination with the colorful flowers. The plants on the right side are quite special too. I had not seen that leaf piece before. The  decorative ornaments next to the windows are not my favourite. I don't know what exactly bothers me about the front but it is simply too busy for me.
      The back on the other hand is kept very simple and that is more how I like it. Here the eye-catcher is the blue trash container. Not only does it look good but it has various goodies on the inside. And like you find near many restaurants... a rat. The ivy is a good addition. The added flower brings a subtle color accent.
                   
      On the inside you have the dining area, with 2 tables and 4 chairs. The wine  cabinet is a creative and esthetically pleasing piece of furniture. Colors are alright. I find the dining area relatively small. In fact the entire depth of 10243 should be a few studs more. Two tables on the inside  of a Parisian Restaurant is too little. This is Paris, not Monaco where the weather is much better and people don't mind sitting outside.
      Then there is my least favourite part of the entire build. The curtains... an absolute disaster. They kept on breaking (at least 10 times!) and then I put the pieces on wrong and... It was a catastrophe and I hope not to see this constructions again in future MBS.
      Building the stair part was also not what it was supposed to be. It felt very fragile.
      But thankfully, there is also the kitchen and when you look at that, you just nod and see it's fine! It holds so many details. I absolutely adored the dough roller they created, hanging next to the other kitchen utilities. The refrigerator with the printed (!) milk carton in it is simple but gorgeous. The dishes on the sink are a nice touch. The turkey and pie are nice pieces to have in your collection. The printed thermometer part is a nice add. You also receive 1 pot and a pan as cooking gear. And this of course al placed on the tiled blue and white floor. This is a very nice pearl and the designers did well on it.
      The building of part 2 went very slowly and difficult. I had no real fun on it. It was even frustrating at times (curtains). The end result on the other hand is pretty nice. Duration of the build: 1 hour 34 frustrating minutes
      Build Part 3: First Floor

      Again a bunch of the green pieces. The rest of the colors are very standard. Some blue accent pieces. In all, nothing all too special.              
      The front of the first floor is very nice. The windows have a good building technique. Just a shame that the arch piece used above the windows is just not wide enough. The 'crosses' on in the top white part are very good and innovative ideas. I appreciated a front terrace for the Town Hall as it  was a very nice building and sometimes, for certain occasions, the Mayor would want to speak to his people but in this setup, I don't see the added value. On the contrary, because of adding this, you make the room even smaller than it is. The back has a well worked out stairway. The door on the left is what you see in many city houses. You can't really call it a terrace but you can be outside. It's hard to find real outstanding points in this. It is very plain and combined with the ground floor, it works out well for me.
                    
       
      The inside of the studio is simple but well worked out. You have the kitchenette at  your right with plenty of  space to put in utensils. A dining area with one seat. On the right you have the leather chair. Too bad the seating area is light gray. I would have made it a darker sand color or the same as the rest of chair, otherwise great minibuild. There is a fire-place, again nothing to fancy but certainly an asset to the studio. My absolute favorite is the bed. It's not particularly difficult to construct. It folds up into the wall. Never saw one of those beds except for in the movies but it's ubercool. The underside is made of some sort of new piece making the bed entire smooth when clapped in the wall. The doors are somewhat weird. They are not in a straight line with the walls, but instead are more to the inside them making the available room even smaller. As said, I would have  replaced the front balcony door with another series of windows. There is no need for 2 terraces in a small studio like this. This part was a more fun part to build. At least you had the feeling of advancing. Duration of the build: 1 hour 10 minutes
      Build Part 4: The Roof
       
      Again the green bricks and addition now the dark blue ones for the roof. Another great color which I look forwards to of seeing built. They seem to match quite well with the green ones.
                     
      The build so far has not been such a success and I was hoping that the roof would make it fun... and it actually did. The front of the roof is absolutely stunning. It shows the beautiful color combination with the white and gray. The ornaments are a piece of beauty and everything seems to match perfectly.  The ridge beneath the ornaments are very special too. Both ornaments and ridge will be shown in detail in the building techniques section.Most of the other modulars so far have had a flat roof and this is a nice exception. I love how they played with the three dimensional roof tiles. Without any doubt, 102431-1 has the most beautiful roof I have seen in any modular thus far.
      Over to the back, you can see the roof constructed in the same way as the front, with 3 windows in them and the flowers beneath. To the right you have the door and a plant in a special red pot. The pieces used here are pretty new and they work out well for this purpose. The chimneys are a welcome addition too. I have not seen them in Town Hall or Grand Emporium.

      Because of the rather special construction of the roof, it does not open up like other MBS where you can just take the entire roof off. Instead you can tilt the backside of the roof, it is attached with hinges, to gain access to the attic chamber. The attic chamber itself is a studio for an artist. You have 2 paintings, an easel, and a color palette. It has a nice old-fashioned stove too. The door is somewhat weirdly placed. You can't take off the part above the door so it's difficult to make your minifigures 'enter' the studio. In all, it does look good for what it is meant to be.
       
       
      I would also like to comment on the paintings. Before I bought the 10243-1 Parisian Restaurant, I looked at a review about it (Brickshow) and the guy commented about the paintings, that the painter really was not good at it because it were all squares. Well, just to point out, this way of painting is called Neoclassicism and one of the great painters of that style is Pieter Cornelius Mondrian. One of his paintings got really known because of the former L'oréal logo which I am sure you will recognize if you look at the actual painting at the left.
      This has entire nothing to do with LEGO of course, but I simply needed to put this in it because of the comment of a collegue reviewer.
      Wether it is nice or, not I leave in the middle. What is important, is that even a bunch of squares can be a work of art.
      Duration of the build: 57 minutes
      Building Techniques
                 
      The most interesting building techniques are how the ridge on the roof is constructed and how the ornaments above the ridge are done. The ridge is really a piece of innovative thinking. No new pieces were used for it and it was constructed with Indian feathers. I don't know if the color has been used before but the end result is something not many could have constructed. Perhaps it would have een been better if the feather bricks were the same sort of blue used in the roof, but perhaps that would be overdoing it. It was the most interesting part of the build and I could surely think of using it in one of my own builds later on. Thumbs up for the designers.
      The ornament used in the roof is also something really special. Here, there is the introduction of the sea shell, the white croissant, the mini slope and the short wheel arch. All relatively new pieces and they blend very well. At the left, you see half an ornament constructed. This building technique is less impressive than the ridge because of the newer pieces used, but the end-result is something wow. In fact, the entire roof area was of very high quality. This type of ornaments can be used easily in other builds too. The white croissant could have been used in the Town Hall too but I assume the reason why it has not been, is because it simply had not been designed yet. Nothing keeps you from replacing the current normal colored one with a pair of these. Only sad part is, there are only 4 included with the 10241-1 Parisian Restaurant. Overall again a very good job of the designers!
       
       
       
      Minifigures
                 
      The minifigures all have the traditional yellow heads. A plus for me since I grew up knowing nothing else. All the pants are generic pieces that can be found in plenty of other sets. We have 2 females and 3 males.
      The Scooter Woman: For this torso, again there is worked with the black areas and lines, creating somewhat a more curved body for the female. The black and blue combo works well. It has pretty good detail. Nice necklace and the opened up shirt at the top. Has back printing but nothing all too special. Can found in 11 other sets besides this one. The hair with pigtail is not such a common one so a compliment to every inventory.
      The Artist: This Yoko Ono type of woman has a very nice torso. It is my favourite of this bunch of minifigures. It actually is a kimono with some good details. Some nice back printing too with the small dragon. It has been in 3 other sets besides this one. The wig has been around since 2006 and has been in 20 sets apart from 10243. That can be considered as an uncommon one.
      Ring Guy: Has a fairly uncommon torso. I thought the Mayor of Town Hall had the same but not sure. I like it a lot. The striping, the little pen in the pocket. Very great detail and back printed. Always nice to add one of those to the inventory. The wig is actually a Luke Skywalker one so relatively rare in other-then-Star Wars-sets. The ring he's holding is a very nice detail!
      The Chef: Has been around since 2001. Time for an update.
      The Waiter: The torso has been around since 2006 and has been in 17 other sets. It doesn't seem to be a regular waiter's uniform but it is due for some updating too. The dark brown wig is very common. His accessory, the shield with the bottle on, and how he has to hold it just seems awkward.
      Unique Pieces
      I must say there have been some very interesting pieces in this set. I took some pictures of the ones that stood out for me.               
      9 pieces are strictly unique to this set. Note that they are all from  2014. 4 pieces are available in 1 other set besides 10225-1 Town Hall. 25 pieces are available in this set and 5 or less other sets.               
      Also notable is that there are 34 1x3 and 26 1x8 olive-green bricks present exclusive to this set. For a complete overview of the pieces, you can take a look at the Brickset inventory.
      Value For Money
       
        
      With a price of 159.99€ (NL,BE) or 159.99$ it hovers around the normal prices of a modular set. What you should keep in mind is that it has a lot of small pieces and that is why the Price/gram for this one is less interesting than 10224-1 Town Hall. The total pieces of set 10243-1 is 2469 while it weighs 2610 grams.
       
      Price/Piece comes to 6.44c/piece Price/Gram comes to 6.09c/gram If you would look at the price/piece you would say it's great value, but with the price/gram included, it seems a lot less. Of course it remains a good value, but it simply shows you can't always judge good value by the price/piece scale. Very few reductions have been done on the 10243 so far so with a reduction of 10-15% on MSRP, I would consider this a good buy.
      (DIS)Play
      For display in a single setup, it looks good. It has nice colors, A great roof and some eye-catchers. For display in a multiple set-up it is too small imo. Not all houses should be big ones, but it seems tiny next to the Town Hall and the roof part is about the same height as Grand Emporium without the bill boards. The 10218-1 Pet Shop is even smaller, but there you have the full width used and it's deeper too then 10243-1. It is probably my biggest issue I have with this set. The size.
                  
      As for play set. The same goes. It are very small rooms to play with and agreed, I have larger fingers, but even for smaller hands, the attic or studio will be difficult to play with. Of course the MBS are not designed as play set but it would have helped should the building have been deeper and taken the entire width.
      Growth Potential
      Like all Modular Building Series sets, this one will undoubtedly do well in the secondary market too. It is too early to tell since it has been released in January 2014. It does seem to sell rather well when I look at the Brickpicker forum. I estimate that it will do slightly better a year after EOL then 10211-1 Grand Emporium . TLC is in the middle of changing the MBS rules of EOL, so I think that will be the deciding factor of 10243-1's success.
      I hope you enjoyed reading this review as much as I have writing it and building the set. Comments are always welcome!
       
    • Neosphinx
      Preview of 31026-1 Bike Shop & Cafe
      It is with mixed feelings that I start the review about this set.  The set is a fairly new set (May 2014) and it's a part of the Creator series. It would fit in perfectly with a City setup and there is a possibility to use the parts for a MOC.  The MSRP is 79.99€ in Europe($89.99 in the US) and has 1023 pieces. The mixed feelings come from the fact that when I choose sets to review, I choose them on basis of display ability.  At first sight, it does not look bad, but it seems tiny compared to the Modular building series.  It is only because of a significant price cut (52€/piece), that I bought 2 sets of the 31026-1 Bike Shop & Cafe.  This set is a part of the 3-in-1 type of creator sets so manuals for 3 different builds are included.
      Theme
      The Creator theme is a very vast collection of different types of builds.  It ranges from creatures to vehicles and buildings.  They are in general more detailed than City Sets and therefore also suited for AFOL's and MOC.  The sets were meant to be without minifigures in the beginning but when the theme evolved, some sets were released with minifigures and this included the 31026-1, which has 3 of them. The difficulty for building can be rated from very easy to relatively difficult.
      Packaging
                 
      The packaging is simple. You have the LEGO Creator logo on it.  Then a picture of the street where you can see a scene with the 2 buildings and minifigures in action.  Below that you have the 2 other pictures of the sets you can build.  Actually the scene does remind a lot of what you can find on City sets. The back of the set shows the back of the buildings with the interior and once more, the 2 other setups with larger pictures.
      Content

      In the box, we can find 8 separate bags, 2 light gray plates and a bag containing the manuals. The bags are not numbered as with other sets due to its 3-in-1 nature.  I can't say I have the "wow" feeling when I look at these bags. The set is a 1k+ pieces one so I had expected more of it for some reason.
      Build Experience

      You can see on the picture above that 31026-1 Bike Shop & Cafe has a lot of different colors, especially the dark red and light blue which  are very special to have as building accents.  In terms of color variety it did impress me.  Once you sort the lot, you realize you do have quite a nice variety of useful building bricks.
      Build Part 1: The Bike Shop
                  
      It's tiny! Is something you would say when you start building the Bike Shop. Agreed, it can not be the same as building 10224-1 The Town Hall, but it looks surprisingly well.  The ground floor has the beautiful blue walls and also the funky green slopes above the big window. The window arches are beautifully done and the grooves in the first floor walls combined with the gray accents really turned out well!  The locking mechanism feels sturdy.

      There are some nice interior details.  For one  you have the kitchenette on the first floor. Very well done.  I liked the golden tap.  So absolutely vintage.  It resembles somewhat the kitchen of my first studio.  On the roof, which can be reached by ladders and a hatch, there is a little terrace with a barbecue set. Typical for small urban houses. It is my favorite part of the structure. In general, the Bike Shop part made a good impression with its build, pieces and techniques.  Because of the small size of this structure, the building goes relatively easy.
      There were some issues with stability in the beginning, I broke a wall down when building, but in all, it was pleasant to build. It would fit well in a LEGO City setup folded out.  For use in a Modular Building Series, it is too small in combination with the existing buildings.  It is a relatively easy build so the younger ones will be able to have fun building this too.
      Duration of the build: 54 minutes
      Build Part 2: The Car
                  
      It is nothing really special this car.  It has a pair of rims  that I have not seen before.  The hood is quite nicely done with the different elevations but for the rest, it is an ordinary small yellow car.
      Duration of the build: 7 minutes
      Build Part 3: The Café
                    
      The Cafe seems to be larger than the Bike Shop.  The ground floor is the café.  The first floor holds a relax area and the roof has a nice botanic garden.  On the outside there is a small terrace to enjoy a cup of espresso. When you look at the outside, you see the colors dark red, sand brown and blue.  I like all 3 colors and the sand brown does go well with both the blue and the red.  Combining all three colors in the building is daring and does not work for me.  When the building is clapped out (in play-mode), it would look good in a City setup.  The curtains look pretty good from the outside. You can see a construction for a lamp and espresso-machine which are both well designed.
      Duration of the build: 51 minutes I see this building especially as a showcase for colors and building techniques.  It shows you some ways to decorate windows, and how  to break up walls to give them some life.  It also shows how to construct certain items, like a workbench or a espresso-machine.
       Important also is that the café has 11 windows and 3 doors and it is about the same for the Bike Shop.
       Windows and doors are expensive if you have to buy them in pieces from s@h or Bricklink which certainly adds value to this set. In all, I like the building experience of this set. It is over 1000 pieces but it builds relatively fast.
      Building Techniques
      I think the entire set is a building technique at itself. Plenty of things are demonstrated
      Arches above windows Placement of windows next to doors Locking mechanism Combining windows Decorating outer walls Roof decoration Special items Etc... This set has some great building techniques. Definitely feel like I learned something while building this.
      Minifigures
                   
      The Suited Guy: The head is released in 2014 and already can be found in 4 different sets.It is pretty common as is the rest of this body. The torso dates from 2006 even and has appeared in 18 sets so far.  I am a bit disappointed that they have not yet updates this torso to have back printing.  The pants for Suited Guy and the rest of the minifigures are all very common unpainted ones.
      Leisure Girl: Leisure girls hair is a new mold from 2014  and is unique to this set so far... but undoubtedly it will turn up in City sets to follow since it worked out well. She has a funny torso.  The lines drawn give her a more female look but kind of a superhero-female look. Nice abs!  The back has some printing too, also with the lines and black area.  I wonder if these are just the pockets of the jacket she's wearing.  Again a lost opportunity to add some more value to this new minifigure by adding some printing on the pants or perhaps even with a different color.
      Bike Shop Employee: Mediocre minifigure. Don't have anything for or against it. If you look at these minifigures and compare them with the ones from the modular building series, you will find them disappointing.  The uniqueness and quantity.  It is hard to rate this section.  Creator series are not focused on minifigures so in essence, 3 minifigures is very good compared  to other sets of its kind.  But on the other hand, if you look at the price, you would probably have expected some more.
      Unique Pieces

      The amount of 'nice' pieces in this set was pretty good for a set of this size.  It is not overwhelming but certainly approved what I found.
      3 pieces are strictly unique to this set. 1 piece is available in 1 other set besides Bike Shop & Cafe 18 pieces are available in this set and 5 or less other sets. Some printed pieces like the calculator, the screen and bank notes are always nice.  There are no stickers in this set.  My favourite part is the gold tap.  The special green slope is found in other sets too, but it is the first appearance in a Creator set.  The wheels and the orange translucent cap, I just chose because I liked them, nothing really special about them. For a complete overview, you can check out Brickset.
      Value For the Money
       
      With a price of 79.99€ or $89.99 it is an expensive set for the Creator series but still acceptable.  It is also one of the larger Creator sets.  The price has not fluctuated yet but as seen it can be bought for around 60€ at this moment.  Already a nice drop from MSRP. The total pieces of this set is 1023 while it weighs 1700 grams.
      Price/Piece comes to 7.82c/piece Price/Gram comes to 4.71c/gram Here  we have a nice difference between the Price/Piece and the Price/Gram.  The manual comes in triple so it adds to the weight of the set.  It is not a bad value when you look at the contents.  
      Plenty of windows and doors and some good colors.
      Display

      I don't think there is much to display.  Sure, it are both nice buildings, but they are too small to put them in a lineup with buildings from the Modular Building Series.  Perhaps if you take a few of 31026-1 to even out the difference in pieces, you might make something of it.  The 10224-1 Town Hall has about 2700 pieces compared to the about 1000 pieces of 31026-1.  So add 1,5 more of them to this and you could have a building that could stand well in this street. However, if you want to give your kid a nice extension to their City village, this is the item to get. If you fold out the buildings, you get a very nice length of buildings. And who knows, you might learn something when you help them build it. It has SOME minifigures and a very nice array of bricks so fun guaranteed.
      The price between 60 and 70€makes it a  good holiday gift buy.
      Growth Potential:
      I don't believe this has that much growth potential.  It is a good set, but just not for investing.  I think everybody should have one, but none will pay you "top dollar" to get one.  I also think there will be other similar sets coming out in the next few years and they will be equally or better priced. I think 31026-1 was marketed wrong.
      This is not a real Creator set, nor is it a Modular Building Series.  It is also not a City set or anything else.  Perhaps it can go to 120% of its MSRP but it is doubtful.
      I hope you enjoyed reading this review as much as I have writing it and building the set. Comments are always welcome!
    • Fcbarcelona101
      One of the most exciting times for a LEGO investor results from visiting LEGO S@H (LEGO's online storefront), looking for a particular set and suddenly realize there is a tag with the following message: "Retired Product"; Expectation and hope suddenly becomes joy.
      If you are reading this article, odds are you are already familiar with the concept of EOL (End Of Line), but just in case I think it would be appropriate to summarize what it means. LEGO produces different sets along the year, and each design has a planned life cycle that only the company Execs. are aware of. Once this cycle is completed, the set goes out of production to make room for a new design, usually meaning that to acquire the already retired set a prospective buyer will need to go to the secondary market (Us!). As with anything, this decrease in supply will, hopefully, translate into an increase in set value and help the investor get a decent return of his/her investment.    
      What is the problem, then? If we know that sets retire after a couple years of being in production why do we even worry about exactly when this will happen?; Well, that's the million dollar question, LEGO is now known for being very secretive AND not really consistent when it comes time to retire a particular set. This means that while an specific modular might retire 2 years after introduced, the next may last 3 or 4 years before it is pulled out of the shelves.
      Having no concrete knowledge of when a set is retiring transforms into a dilemma for almost every single investor. With limited funds and an objective of maximizing profits and turnover, purchasing sets that are as close to retirement as possible becomes the most efficient way to be successful. Of course, this means that, occasionally , some investors will completely miss out on a popular set that retired before they expected OR will be left holding onto sets that will not retire for 2 or 3 more years! Tying their money, and space, for such a long period of time is definitely not the best way to make their business as efficient as possible.
      But, how can we as investors have any clue about when a particular set is to be retired? Well, there is really no clear cut answer. Even though there are some clues and events that may indicate a set is nearing retirement, there is usually an understandable controversy surrounding every single one of the "leading indicators". My point is that, while I tried to collect and summarize some of the possible signs suggesting retirement, none of these should really be taking as the one and only guide when developing an investing strategy. My objective is only to list them and give mostly new investors an idea of some of the things we talk about more deeply in the forums.
      LEADING INDICATORS:

      1- Retiring Soon Tag
      Clearly, one of the most telling events in a set's life is when LEGO S@H assigns the tag "Retiring Soon". Even though it may seem that this event pretty much guarantees a sooner than later retirement, the process is definitely not as straightforward. One of the things that may happen is a set with the tag lingering on the shelves and online storefront for months after the tag has been assigned. This could be a way for LEGO to "Clearance" a set without actually lowering the price, basically pushing potential buyers to make a purchase before the set goes away forever. Another thing to consider is that most of the products that retire never even get the tag assigned to them at all. Think of the Haunted House model that according to the majority of the investors is as close to official retirement as it is going to get. The set never had the Retiring Soon tag, it basically went from being In Stock, to Backorder and finally to Sold Out. This is a more common transition, especially with the larger exclusives.
      2- Sudden, and deep, discount in official LEGO outlets
      As above, this is another sign that most of the sets do not ever show. However, opposite to the Retiring Soon tag, once a set experiences a deep discount from LEGO stores and S@H (think 30% or more), it is almost a certainty that it will be retired within the next couple of weeks. As you can imagine, once a set is discounted in this manner it goes to Sold Out status in a matter of days if not hours. [img url="http://community.brickpicker.com/uploads/2014/10/Untitled1.png" cks="responsive"]   The image above shows sets with both the Retiring Soon tag and the "Sale Price" discount.
      3- LEGO Limits
      This is one of the most controversial items on the list, and for good reason. As most of the members in the forums know, LEGO is known by limiting the amount of a same set you can purchase, especially the hard to find exclusives. Most of the time, the limits start at 5 per household and seem to be lowered as a set is nearing retirement, usually to 2 or 1. Having said that, there really is no clear evidence indicating that this pattern actually correlates to going EOL, and several sets a year completely deviate from this perceived pattern.
      4- Time on the Shelves
      Again, a very difficult sign to interpret. It seems that in years past LEGO was a little more predictable when it came to figuring out how long a particular set would be available for. Estimates and comments seem to place the average availability of a set at around 2 years, but as most of you know LEGO seems to have been extending the life of popular sets for 4 or more years!. However, with some exceptions *cough, DS*, once a set has been available for 3 or more years and is sharing shelf space with newer and similar models (think Modulars), it is pretty safe to assume that retirement will come sooner rather than later, making it OK to start stocking up.
      5- Production Run Codes
      For an introduction to Production codes, please go HERE This somewhat recent discovery can also be considered helpful to help determine potential EOL. If we as investors see a set available in 2015 that has been showing some of the other signs of retirement, and discover that the production codes indicate current inventory came from several months ago, it could lead us to believe that LEGO has stopped production of the set and is simply waiting for the last batch to be completely sold out. As with any of the other indicators, tread carefully when using production codes.
      6- Retired Product Tag
      Finally, the Holy Grail of LEGO investing. Once a set is assigned this tag on LEGO S@H, its death is official. This is the tag that generates more joy and excitement among the community members and, other than being able to find the set at other retailers (notably TRU & B&N), it means that any opportunity to acquire this set is pretty much gone.

       
      Finally!
      In the end, the point is that there is no sure way to determine if a set is nearing its retirement. The best we can all do is take a look at all of these signs in aggregate and share our opinions in the forums hoping for that beautiful day when the Retired Product tag shows up in LEGO S@H. Thanks for reading.  
    • Neosphinx
      LEGO, officially known as The LEGO Group,  is currently the #1 toy maker in the world.  But did you know at one time, it was on its knees and at the edge of bankruptcy?  This article speaks of the Danish toy maker and how they pulled just the right strings to make this remarkable and educational toy a success in a declining toy market.  It's the story about the "Eye of the Lego Tiger" and how a company went from one extreme to the other and back again.
      Past
      Days of Glory
      Once upon a time before 1992, Ole "Man" Kirk Kristiansen bought a plastic molding device and created... a brick.  This brick was special as it had the ability to stick to another brick without any glue involved!  Instead, it had an interlockable mechanism.  And so the story of what binds all the people on this forum begins. All it takes is an original idea.  Well... an original or a stolen one.  Tracking down the actual birth of the modern brick is rather difficult.
      I would say that the current LEGO brick is an invention perfected by many companies and of which The LEGO Group came out strongest in the end.  I will not bore the reader more with any information as it is not relevant for the rest of the article.
      Some Facts:
      In 1944 Automated Binding Bricks are born.      In 1963 the material became ABS.  In  1978 the minifig saw the light. In 1979 Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen became the president of TLG. Various subthemes are launched. In 1994 the Company grows to 8.880 employees It were golden years for The LEGO Group and their 'Brick'.
      Days of Defeat
      The decay had started.  For many years, LEGO had prospered but it was about to come to and end soon.  From 1992 onto 2004, things didn't go exactly as planned.  Black Wednesday at its finest. The main causes for this were:
      Shrinking customer base in the European and American region. Home entertainment revolution. Bad response to the market change Weak dollar, strong US competition for building bricks market. LEGOland Parks were not profitable. Portfolio became no longer manageable. Strong cheap Chinese competition. Two consecutive losses in 2003-2004 caused the company to be on the edge of bankruptcy.  In 2004, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen resigned and appointed JØrgen Vig Knudstorp as CEO.
      Present
      From 2005 to the current day, TLG has changed dramatically and attempted to bring back what they had lost the 12 difficult years before.  The economy was getting on its feet again and after a lot of hard and/or costly decisions, it got to the point where it is now.
        Back to the Core
      The company philosophy changed and it was decided to focus more on the core activities.  It is why the LEGOland theme parks were sold to a theme park organizer.  At a certain time, they were making nothing and everything.
      Desperate times ask for desperate measures
      There was a drastic cut on costs by outsourcing distribution and production.  Distribution moved to Central-Europe, Production plants were added in Mexico and the Czech Republic and took over some  of Billund's production. A plant in the US closed, another in Switzerland.  Some distribution centers here and there. Quite some people's jobs got outsourced to other 'cheaper' countries.  It was one of the darkest moments in LEGO history. However, financially, it was a very successful (and necessary) move.  The factories keep on expanding due to the heavy demand.  In Mexico, during the month of June, the expansion of the factory was a fact and more than 1.000 new jobs can be created.  An extra factory has been inaugurated in March in Hungary. So bad news for some, good news for others.
      Batman to the rescue!
      The licensed theme sets are a large success with the huge amounts of movies coming out.  However, TLG do not count those as being one of their core products so it is possible that after they gained enough ground with the public, the licensed themes will be built off.  The reason is simple, licensed themes only work when a film comes out.  Because of this, the revenue on these items becomes very erratic.  And erratically selling products are something any company would try to avoid. TLG also rebooted the Duplo theme which also proved to be a very successful move.  In fact they have tried to break open the consumer market and trying hard to gain over the favor of selected target audiences. There are 29 different active themes on the moment of writing and the main themes are:
      LEGO Duplo LEGO City LEGO Technic LEGO Star Wars (Licensed) LEGO Friends If you look at the current lineup for themes, you will find a theme for babies, toddlers, young boys,  young girls and AFOLS.  It is amazing to see that with 1 product, so many people can be reached.
      Barbie who?
      The company has moved up in the ranks and as of writing, it occupies first place with revenue sales 30 million dollars over Mattel after it had hopped over Hasbro in 2012.  Of course Mattel will still release a bunch of their products late in the year so there is a possibility Mattel will strike back.  But it seems unlikely that they will ever be able to stop the TLG behemoth from taking over the lead eventually.  If you look at the numbers, it is very impressing.  Over the last 6 years, TLG managed to triple their revenue. Of course the release of The LEGO Movie helped them reach this goal.  Globally the movie has been a great success.  Perhaps an idea  for Mattel to do a movie feat. Barbie and Ken… But let me tell you that Barbie is not KO yet.  Certain companies work better under pressure of not being the undisputed # 1 anymore. Other companies fail to react consequently or react as a headless chicken.
      The Future?
      There is still a lot of potential for TLG to expand.  If you look at the demographic situation, there are 2 billion Chinese people and over 1 billion people in India that can become potential customers. The situation in 2011 was as following graph displays.  Of course, now in 2014, things have changed already for eg. China, but it does show LEGO's business plan for expansion during the next couple of years.

      Here we can see the Russian market that has matured more, the Brazilian and Mexican market that are on their way to maturity and the Chinese market in their child shoes.  India is currently not even in the womb yet.
      Russia
      Since 2007 until the beginning of this year, revenue for Russia has tenfolded.  It did however take quite some time for it to come this far.  LEGO started already in 1985 with its Russian story.  Back then, Russia was still part of the Soviet Union. TLG found its place and started to make its connections with retailers and distributors.  It is when the Soviet Union fell and the middle class became larger, that the little LEGO bricks were taken in the heart of the Russians.  Since then, the market has very much matured and gave room for other endeavours like China.
      Americas
      Bringing a factory to Mexico was a very smart move of TLG.  It brought capacity to supply the largest LEGO market and boosted the sales for LEGO in South America.  It was their primary focus for enlarging their customer base.  The North American market is still growing and with the logistics part simplified, the revenue in North-America increases.  South-America benefits from this too, albeit in lesser degree since LEGO still is relatively expensive.
      China
      TLG is at this moment investing strongly in the Chinese market.  I think this one will be the most significant market for LEGO in the near future.  Dare I say more important than the US and EU combined? A factory is planned to be operational in 2017 (Jiaxing – Zhejiang Province) bundled with a distribution center in Shanghai.  This investment is a necessity for TLC to make as their product is really too expensive – sometimes even double the price - in comparison with the US and EU prices.  The huge distribution costs played a very important role in this. However, even with the factory not in place yet, TLG managed to have an increase of sales of around 50% in the first half of the year so it offers some good perspective for the future. It is not the first time that TLG tried to get its foot in to crack open the Chinese door.  Before the changing of the millennium, they made an attempt, but it was unsuccessful due to their diversified business model and expensive toys.  Cheap knock-offs were produced and the Chinese shoppers at that moment did not hesitate to go for the lower-quality copy.  With the coming of the factory, the prices of LEGO will drop and this will also have its effect on the LEGO-counterfeit. The choice of investing in China rather than India is an obvious one.  TLG’s product speaks to the philosophy of Chinese parents more than a Barbie doll.   Creativity is of high importance to them so they don’t have to compete with Mattel.  Building bricks are just bound to continue being successful in China if the price is right and the marketing well executed.
      India
      India seems a Mattel stronghold.  In 2013 Funskool Toys was the largest toy producer with Mattel following as second with 20%.  Hasbro is good for 9% and the TLG share in India is 4%.  So this is an opportunity still for the company.  However, there seems to see more profit in China at this moment. As soon as TLG feels comfortable in China, I am sure India will be the next target.  The question however remains if LEGO bricks can ever top the success of Barbie there.  If LEGO keeps on pumping out Friends sets, I’m sure they have a chance to succeed.
      So what will be TLG's next move?
      The future seems bright for TLG.  It has been a difficult journey but they managed to find a succesful formula to bring their products.  Hard sacrifices were made by outsourcing a large part of their activities.  This combined with the 'there's a theme for everyone' lineup helps them become the biggest toy maker in the world.  For how long this will last is of course the most important question.   What goes up...
      Resources:
      http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/Automatic_Binding_Brick http://euromonitor.typepad.com/files/sampledeck-corporate-strategies-in-emerging-toy-markets.pdf http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/02/daily-chart-8 http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/859023.shtml http://aboutus.lego.com/en-us/news-room/2014/september/interim-result-2014 http://www.nbcnews.com/id/13442193/ns/business-us_business/t/lego-lay-end-us-production http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/why-lego-succeeded-while-jysk-failed-in-russia/490394.html  
    • Lenjon
      A Look at the Arctic Sub-theme 
      With summer almost here it's time to take a look at the new sets and analyze their investment potential. One of the most intriguing sub-themes out there this season is the Arctic themed line of sets from the City theme. Unlike most other city sub-themes that are available this wave and have new sets released regularly or every other year (such as Police, Traffic or Trains) the Arctic line hasn't been seen since 2000 (under the Town theme) and in those fourteen years of growth the standards for minifigures, sets and pieces themselves have been raised. So now the question is how can we find out if the 2014 Arctic sets will perform well?  
       
      Analyzing the Arctic Sub-theme
      Now unfortunately due to incomplete data and the age of the latter it's difficult to accurately compare the 2014 Arctic sets to their 2000 counterparts, but even though Arctic is the odd one out when compared to the other City sub-themes of this wave we can take a look at some of the other irregular sub-themes released in the past few years which in this case will consist of the Farm (2009-2010), Space (2011) and Mining (2012) sub-themes. By using Brickpicker's lot calculator we can find the current total cost of each sub-theme.
      So far the Farm sets (7684 7634 7635 7636 7637 7566) have done much better than the other examples, even when taking into consideration the fact that it's had more appreciation time than the other two, with a retail total of approximately $205, a current sale total of $502.12 (almost two and a half times retail) and a return of $297.12 U.S.
      The 2011 Space sets (3365 3366 3367 3368) have done ok (though again not nearly as well as Farm) with retail total approximately $125, a current sale total of $157.19 and a return of $32.19 U.S.
      The 2012 Mining sets (4200 4201 4202 4203 4204) have seen the least return, but have also had the least amount of time to appreciate, with a retail total approximately $205, a current sale total of $221.77 and a return of only $16.77 U.S.
      Now the following is going to be mostly speculation but it's still backed by some facts. The 2014 Arctic sets will almost certainly do better than the Mining sub-theme and will probably perform a better than the 2011 Space sets but not as good as the Farm sub-theme. Why draw this conclusion? The Arctic sets seem pretty neat with lots of cool pieces, unlike the mostly dull Mining sub-theme which were also designed, for the most part, very similarly to the construction sub-theme. The Space sub-theme sets were well made and interesting enough but they were unfortunately in an over-saturated market for that genre of sets. The Arctic sets, like the Farm ones, are interesting (of particular note are the huskies and polar bears) with most of the sets having a unique design and reside in a market segment with no genre competition, however the latter line of sets are more suitable to the other City sets than the former.  
       
      Investment Prediction
      So based on the recent performance and comparing the interestingness of other recent City sub-themes I predict that in five years the 2014 Arctic sets will have at least reached an average price of 75% over retail.
    • Grolim
      This blog follows on from my previous blogs presenting the top 20 sets in terms of secondary market price growth according to the data we have available here on Brickpicker.  This update will be based on values as at the end of Mar-14.  This means comparisons in the “Last Rank” column of the tables will be comparing movements from the Feb-14 positions. Again, here are some notes on the scope before I begin:
      I have not restricted the qualifying sets by size or age or any other dimension Information is based on US prices only Not all sets across all themes are included as I have little interest in Bionicle/Hero Factory for example so have only gathered data on a few of those sets.  (I just didn’t have the willpower to gather all the data for them really).  Most of the rest are covered though. I tried to look at as many sets as possible, but there is a chance a few may have been missed, if you spot some that should/could be included please let me know One Month Growth (change in Market Price from last month)
      An entirely new set of entrants again as we have become used to given volatility in prices when only looking at a change from 1 month to the next.  None of the movers from Feb-13 have popped up again here.  Interestingly for those who follow the 9465 Zombies phenomenon it just missed out on the top 20 coming in at 21st with 21.76% monthly growth in what could be a second wind?
      It will be interesting to see if any of these sets can maintain some of this growth longer term.  Which leads us nicely onto our next time period:  
      Six Month Growth (change in Market Price from September 2013 )
      Another list with quite a few new entrants.  Plenty of recently retired sets enjoying that initial post EOL price bump.  8092 Luke’s Landspeeder has seen excellent consistent growth since it went EOL about 6 months ago.  9490 and 6866 improve up the leaderboard with continued strong growth.  9447 jumps straight in at number 6 as a result of topping the 1 month chart.  
      One Year Growth (change in Market Price from March 2013)

      Black Phantom slips down 3 from last months top spot which is taken over by Butterfly Beauty Shop on the back of a further 22.6% growth in the month (made 19th on the 1 month table).  Who said Prince of Persia is a poor theme for investment? Well 7571 enters the chart with a great year of growth behind it to dispel that myth, or is it just the exception to the rule?
      Plenty of other great sets on this list that you’d have done well to buy at market price one year ago.  
      Two Year Growth (change in Market Price from March 2012)

      Now into the two year time frame we begin to remove some of the short term fluctuations that can occur with some of the narrower time periods.
      Fire Lord and Level Crossing switch spots at the top after Level Crossing gained another 17.2% in the month.  Dino Defense rockets up to number 3 after a superb 38.8% monthly increase (3rd on the monthly chart).
      We can now start to see some of the performers in the shorter time periods that were presented in previous articles begin to push their way through onto the 2 year growth table, like the Rocka XL, Butterfly Beauty Shop, and Black Phantom.  
      Retail Growth (change in Market Price from Retail MSRP)

      Now for the full measure of growth from the retail value of the set.  Obviously a set with a $0 listed retail price like all the promo giveaways etc are excluded as we can’t divide by zero, so that has weeded out a few of the small polybags or very very old sets for which we have no retail data.  But the list is still dominated by cheap sets that have increased by large multiples.
      Not much to report here with a mostly static table.  6846 jumps in at the bottom but has little or no volumes to speak of. The 1626 Angel takes top spot with a crazy 20,477% growth over retail thanks to 1 recent sale of $250 and another 2 years ago of $280 all from a set that cost $1.30 when released back in 1989.
      Perhaps the first “real” contender is 10190 Market Street, such an impressive result for a set in just 6 years.  Much better than another set from the same year that people often point to as the pinnacle of Lego investing…  
      Conclusions
      These top 20 tables lists all the absolute best investment decisions you could have made if you had perfect future knowledge.  There is a large portion of under the radar sets and “sleeper” hits.  We sometimes become a little circular in discussing the popular sets for investing (Modulars, UCS, etc) and lose sight of the fact that many of the best investments to be had right now are probably some of the least discussed sets.  It does mean there are plenty more topics ripe for discussion on the forums and in blogs.      


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