79018 - The Lonely Mountain

[fossilrock]

Now that that is settled, are there perhaps any other sets from  the 2014 Hobbit wave that are missing people´s attention and will likely be the real sleepers? It´s always easier for a cheaper set to double or triple in price, after all.

I think Dol Guldur Battle is another set that no one talks about, has great minifigures, is a fun build and when combined with the Dol Guldur Ambush, and the Witch King Battle is a very nice display set.  

With the recent TRU coupons, I couldn't resist and bought one more.  I plan on putting together a lot of those 3 sets sometime well into the future.  I feel I may double, or triple my money on it… The worst case scenario I have great bricks for a giant LOTR moc.

[pete411]

I started the same discussion about this set back in March. I don't think that the surprise retirement in Europe does that much for this set. There was no demand for it before and I don't see much demand for it going forward other than for the Smaug minifig. I'm predicting a slow climb to $200 as soon as the patient resellers lock up all of the stock and price collusion is established. Even then, sales for this set will be a trickle. As the movies stretched out into three episodes, the interest level in the franchise waned significantly. I mean come on, even Lego got sick of it and outright cancelled the DLC for the third episode of the game and nobody seemed to notice or care. 

It's definitely worth buying a few sets and sitting back to see what happens but expectations should be curbed.

Edited June 29, 2015 by pete411

[botchy123]

Many (perhaps all) of the minifig's do however have unique printing? Let's call it 'half exclusive' minifigs? ;-)

 

Nope, 100% of the minifigures are exclusive to this set.

[colossus]

I don't have this set so I'll look at it from a buyer's perspective.  I still have the chance today to go out and buy it for RRP - and as much as I love the LOTR lore I can't justify paying RRP for it.  For that price I could MOC my own Smaug.

The only people who will be buying this at inflated rates post EOL would be obsessive LOTR fans - and those would have to be new fans of the series as I doubt any new movies will be popping up in the next 10 years.  Will there be enough 15-20 year olds who currently don't know about this set or don't have the resources that will decide in 3 years that they must have the set - I doubt that.

If you can find a beat up box for $50 it's a no brainer.  I might get one just for myself with the ToysRUs discount.

[botchy123]

 

If you can find a beat up box for $50 it's a no brainer. 

Yes, your right.

[Val-E]

I guess people are gettting excited as there is nothing else retiring worth noting (except for 70728 maybe), This set might be on a parallel with Kingdoms Joust growth, just less in circulation but also even more specific target audience.

[bricketycricket]

People are excited because this set looks like it will have a short lifespan, with limited opportunities for discounts, and thus the supply may be relatively low. That said, I do think some people are a little too hot on this set, but it's probably worth the gamble to own in small quantities. At the very least, the parts value is there with the dragon, figs, and lots of gold and sand green elements.

[Ed Mack]

People are excited because this set looks like it will have a short lifespan, with limited opportunities for discounts, and thus the supply may be relatively low. That said, I do think some people are a little too hot on this set, but it's probably worth the gamble to own in small quantities. At the very least, the parts value is there with the dragon, figs, and lots of gold and sand green elements.

I agree.  This set is no sleeper, regardless of short run or not.  

[zskid00]

I think some investors (myself included) are still optimistic about LOTR/Hobbit sets.  It has similarities to the Castle and Kingdoms themes but is different and unique enough to separate itself from the recurring medieval playsets and will likely never be revisited.  Retired set performance hasn't been stellar so far, but I think these are good sets to hold for a while longer.  I'm banking on people (AFOLs in particular) missing this theme when it's gone entirely.  Or maybe they will just forget about it and move on to something else.

Edited June 29, 2015 by zskid00

[Ciglione]

I think some investors (myself included) are still optimistic about LOTR/Hobbit sets.  It has similarities to the Castle and Kingdoms themes but is different and unique enough to separate itself from the recurring medieval playsets and will likely never be revisited.  Retired set performance hasn't been stellar so far, but I think these are good sets to hold for a while longer.  I'm banking on people (AFOLs in particular) missing this theme when it's gone entirely.  Or maybe they will just forget about it and move on to something else.

I cannot imagine people forgetting about LOTR and Hobbit. Although me personally I would like to forget about them. This is not Lone Ranger we are talking about. These are quality sets. 

[siddji]

I ended up buying one today for $100 at ToysRus with the GC's bought using Ebay GC's. And coupons. I have 2 and will be content with that. One to Build and one to sell. I just love the set for the Dragon in it.

[pickleboy]

This was a great investment until the horde set its sights on it.  It will certainly go up but expect the wait time to be longer...

[freakchem]

Looks like this set is still everywhere at US. I've already got a couple from target with red card + discounted GC. That's the best rate I can get ight now. 

[Tpkuk]

Strange, Argos in the UK now have the full range of Hobbit sets in stock (online only) at RRP including lonely mountain.

They did stock them last Christmas, but stocks ran out in January - wonder if they've done a bulk deal with lego for all remaining stock?

[denosya]

I don't know if it is a famous store in UK, but asda.com cleared the 79017 sets at 30£ (-50%) a couple of weeks ago. 

(I was lucky to have a friend who lives in London so I had my sets shipped at his place). Just the minifigs are worth the 30£ in my opinion.

 

 

[Tpkuk]

Yeah Asda / George is part of Wal-Mart, got quite a few of 79017 & 79016 @ 50% off. They also had 79018 @ £50 but missed out on that one.

[denosya]

Yeah Asda / George is part of Wal-Mart, got quite a few of 79017 & 79016 @ 50% off. They also had 79018 @ £50 but missed out on that one.

Nice !!

[dcdfan]

It's nice when TRU restocks this in stores for us to use our coupons on...

[Jules_K]

This set has already hit 150% of RRP in Australia in the month since it retired, however these saw an almost non existent release in retail stores here (1 month only in Nov 2014) and they retired without any warning. The demand is not huge for this set but the supply is so small that it hasn't hampered the price increasing.

[BrickDesign]

The following question might be a little off topic:

If you had the choice, would you invest in The Lonely Mountain or Benny's Spaceship Spaceship Spaceship?

Please say as to why you would favour one set over the other from an investment point of view. Would you recommend buying multiples of one of the options only, or would you suggest buying a mixed selection, such as 1 LM and 3 BSSS, or 3 LM and 1 BSSS.

[matt1147]

Well my TRU must have been saving a couple cases in the back. Went today and they have 4 on the shelf minty fresh and marked at 129.99.

[Locutus001]

The following question might be a little off topic:

If you had the choice, would you invest in The Lonely Mountain or Benny's Spaceship Spaceship Spaceship?

Please say as to why you would favour one set over the other from an investment point of view. Would you recommend buying multiples of one of the options only, or would you suggest buying a mixed selection, such as 1 LM and 3 BSSS, or 3 LM and 1 BSSS.

I'd bet on The Lonely Mountain. If the Dragon is not re-released with another knights line the figure will make the set a winner. Other than that the set isn't that great... you get some nice colours and minifigs (even though I hate these small legs because they are not bendable).

As one of the major scences from The Hobbit triology it might have a fan base as well... who knows.

 

Spaceship... Never really liked that set. It has nothing going for it but The LEGO Movie. Maybe that's enough... again: Who knows.

 

More diversity leads to less risk, so I'm always in favor for that concept and wouldn't only buy 10 of one set without buying even one of another promising set.

On the other hand more risk might lead to higher gains. If I had invested all of my money on the SSD in retrospective this would have been nice. But I didn't.

But if I would have invested all of my money in the DS or worse... The Lone Ranger... or UCS B-Wing (and I did invest some money here...) this would be a big OUCH by now. (And I think most of us here can agree that neither The Lone Ranger nor the UCS B-Wing are that bad. These are pretty nice sets actually which look amazing just by themselves and even without the Movie would have been cool).

 

So if you have 500$ to spend (talking about "such as" meaning "this is what I am planing to do..." 3LM + 1BSSS I guess that is how much you want to invest) I'd go (at least!) for 3/1 in favor for LM.

[dcdfan]

This is sold out @ Target & Amazon.

[justapilgrim]

Unadvertised 20% off in lego stores

[gregpj]

A lonely mountain of 79018 sets at TRU Times Square two nights ago...didn't even bother to check the mark up.