Lockblock Posted July 29, 2014 Posted July 29, 2014 Greetings Brick-brothers and sisters! In my job as a US DoD civilian, I have the privileged of traveling the world. Everywhere I go, I am always on the lookout for our favorite plastic crack in the hope that I can find some hard to find sets at a good price that won't be prohibitively expensive to ship back home. I am currently deployed to the small country of Bahrain in the Arabian Gulf. I don't know if we have many members from the Middle East or South West Asia but I'd love to here from you. Children here obviously have toys but the working/service class is huge and the income gap, much like most of the Middle East, is vast. Bahrain's location relative to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia means that toy stores largely cater to the more affluent. The country of Bahrain is very small but boasts two major malls and an actual TRU. I understand different countries have different taxes, tariffs, exchange and inflation rates. I had no idea what to expect from the Middle East. I was in for quite the surprise. Enough prattle. I went to the TRU and cataloged some prices for comparison to what we pay in the West. I tried to get a good spread of sets for comparison. 1 Bahraini Dinar = 2.65 USD All prices are listed in USD. SSD $710.42 R2-D2 $318.21 Tower Bridge $421.63 Opera House $501.19 Silver Mine Shootout $169.45 Mindstorm 3 $790.24 Ghost Train $164.14 Microfighter $22.54 Horizon Express $182.71 Goblin King $211.88 Sail Barge $291.43 Yeah... Needless to say, I didn't find anything I would be bringing home. If anyone is looking for something hard to find, I'll certainly look but I don't see much meat left on any bones here. Not the most interesting post but I hope you at least found it interesting. My next trip is to various destination is West Africa. I look forward to searching those locales as well. Until then. 7 Quote
Neosphinx Posted July 29, 2014 Posted July 29, 2014 Those Middle Eastern prices are very good news for any investor that can buy Lego at "normal" prices. Quote
fuzzy_bricks Posted July 29, 2014 Posted July 29, 2014 You should try and research the prices at your next locale before you get there. Maybe you could pack a bunch of sets with you and sell them in the parking lot of the TRU. Did they actually have all those sets on the shelf? I would be ecstatic if the Silver Mine Shootout ever got close to that price. 1 Quote
Darth_Raichu Posted July 29, 2014 Posted July 29, 2014 If you can find it, get the Zombies set at $90 or lower. You can thank me later ;) Quote
Guest TabbyBoy Posted July 29, 2014 Posted July 29, 2014 I travel often to Tel Aviv and prices there are just as high. Quote
pickleboy Posted July 29, 2014 Posted July 29, 2014 When I went to Bahrain...I got all that for one camel and three goats (Two female and one male.) Quote
Neosphinx Posted July 29, 2014 Posted July 29, 2014 I travel often to Tel Aviv and prices there are just as high. Somehow I feel less bad that Quote
lodibricks Posted July 29, 2014 Posted July 29, 2014 That definitely makes me rethink international shipping on eBay. Wow. Quote
remy1492 Posted July 30, 2014 Posted July 30, 2014 Flown all around there. never got off base in bahrain though. I believe th prices. But gas in qatar is 29cents/liter so that makes up for it. 1 Quote
Curtis Posted July 30, 2014 Posted July 30, 2014 Uh...don't go to West Africa now...or anytime in the near future at least. Seriously, don't...it's not worth it. The fact that they are letting anyone travel to or from West Africa right now blows my mind. If your job depends on it, I would protest and then quit. That is, unless you are a 'doctor without borders.' Then please just quarantine yourself for the 21 days prior to returning home. One of the most recent victims was just 1 stop away from returning home to Minnesota. So sad for his family, but so lucky for America. Quote
Lockblock Posted July 30, 2014 Author Posted July 30, 2014 They did indeed have all of those sets and many more. They were just putting out all of the new Agents and Chima stuff too. I have never seen such well stocked shelves. I asked a salesperson if they ever had sales. He chuckled and just said "No, sir." Yeah, I'm concerned about ebola too! We'll see if my trip gets pushed back. Not keen to bring that home either. Quote
Curtis Posted July 30, 2014 Posted July 30, 2014 Yeah, I'm concerned about ebola too! We'll see if my trip gets pushed back. Not keen to bring that home either. Yeah...I hope for your sake...well, and everyone else's too, that it is pushed back. The WHO have used the term "out of control" which I was surprised with given the general aversion to causing panic. It seems that Liberia has also closed most all of its land borders and quarantined it's internal towns. If your trip is elective I'd totally pick a new destination. I mean granted, the LEGO might be crazy cheap right now, I'm just not sure the packaging would hold up to the amounts of bleach I would be comfortable dousing it with. I've been watching Ebola, and other infectious diseases for about 20 years now and what alarms me about this outbreak, other than it's obvious size and scope, is the behavior of the people this time around. The reports of entire communities shutting out healthcare workers due to misinformation is disastrous. You should read the book "The Hot Zone." That should help keep you off that plane to West Africa. ;) Quote
Lockblock Posted July 30, 2014 Author Posted July 30, 2014 I've been there (Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal) several times in the past (07-08), just wasn't into Lego then. I'm sure the almighty State Department will tell me if it's safe to go... Quote
@rtisan Posted July 30, 2014 Posted July 30, 2014 Wow, it`s a great market for those who are comfortable selling over seas. Look at the margins, sure there is much more risk and many other factors to consdier, but oh my the margins! Quote
eferna Posted July 30, 2014 Posted July 30, 2014 The prices here are ridiculously high and a lot of people still pay for them. When TRU has a sale here it almost never includes lego. I asked one of the employees and he said that Lego is a fast moving product and they dont need to put it on sale. There are a few other shops like Borders, Hamleys and The Toy Store that sells lego. There used be a lego store, but that closed down :-( Lego Minifigures can be bought at $3.99 ( taxes included) One of the store has a sealed Millenium Falcon 10179 for $ 5400 1 Quote
superbrickman Posted July 31, 2014 Posted July 31, 2014 LEGO prices in the Middle East have always been very high. As a kid growing up in India in the 1980s/1990s, Dubai was LEGO heaven for me since that was the closest place to India where I could find most LEGO sets. All my allowance money saved through the year... POOF, but again, I knew it wasn't close to what kids were paying in the U.S. and I was still GLAD to overpay. Now, if we had eBay back then... Quote
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