Brickfolio and Price Guide FAQs (Site Update)

[jaisonline]

Jeff is working on it along with many other things.  I think some folks need to remember, our owners & mods have lives outside of brickpicker. we have spouses, kids , regular jobs,  houses, etc...    this is also a free web site, so jeff and ed don't have hired workers "standing ready to go" to work on items when they can't.

That's why folks should use the brickfolio export feature often.  The good news is that no data is lost.  It's all there. Just give Jeff as much time as he needs.

[Zelgazra]

9 hours ago, Huskers1236 said:

@Jeff Mack

Wanted to give a heads up on set 75139 Battle on Takodana.  Brickfolio doesn't seem to have it in the database as I didn't get any results when attempting to add sets.  It let me add it, but it doesn't know what it is.  Thanks.

Similar issue with the Microfighters 3 in 1 packs available from Costco last fall. 66533 and 66534 have no selling data, but they have been around longer than Jan 1st.  

[Alpinemaps]

1 hour ago, Zelgazra said:

Similar issue with the Microfighters 3 in 1 packs available from Costco last fall. 66533 and 66534 have no selling data, but they have been around longer than Jan 1st.  

There's a couple of issues with multipacks. There's what you mention, but other things, like Mixels tribes, are also missing.  Jeff's been made aware, and hopefully things will be fixed in the next update.

[Zelgazra]

4 hours ago, Alpinemaps said:

There's a couple of issues with multipacks. There's what you mention, but other things, like Mixels tribes, are also missing.  Jeff's been made aware, and hopefully things will be fixed in the next update.

Seems like a decent enough sized handful of those set numbers have sold as those set numbers, enough to probably compile some data. Do mixels have separate numbers for a whole tribe vs individuals of that tribe? I could see how it would get messy if there's no separate "pack" numbers, but these Star Wars packs are a unique 3 in 1 sku/set number. Anyway, easy enough to just look these up on sold listings, but I was curious why they lack data.  

[Alpinemaps]

21 minutes ago, Zelgazra said:

Seems like a decent enough sized handful of those set numbers have sold as those set numbers, enough to probably compile some data. Do mixels have separate numbers for a whole tribe vs individuals of that tribe? I could see how it would get messy if there's no separate "pack" numbers, but these Star Wars packs are a unique 3 in 1 sku/set number. Anyway, easy enough to just look these up on sold listings, but I was curious why they lack data.  

They do.  For Mixels, there's a set number for each individual, a set number for the tribe (group of three of the same color in a series), and a set number for all 9 from the series.  Very similar to the individual sets and the "packs" like you are describing.

[loki221978]

Hey all!

I was trying to enter CMF 15 into my brickfolio and I noticed that it shows all of the id numbers (ie 71011-1) but instead of the name it just has {}.  will this be fixed in the next update?

[MarleyMoose]

I can't find the 40166 Legoland Train in the Price Guide. Thought I'd give a heads up.

[beni]

Hi,

I'm new in lego investment.

Is normal that the last prices are from december?

 

regards

 

 

[Jeff Mack]

6 hours ago, beni said:

Hi,

I'm new in lego investment.

Is normal that the last prices are from december?

 

regards

 

 

Its just been lack of time for me due to work and other responsibilities.  I have been working on it little by little.  I hope to have the update live by this weekend.  Thanks for your patience.

[Zelgazra]

13 minutes ago, Jeff Mack said:

Its just been lack of time for me due to work and other responsibilities.  I have been working on it little by little.

Is there any particular reason (besides the above mentioned lack of time) you haven't explored writing a program to do the bulk of the data parsing (right term?) for you in the background? To my understanding there are several fairly skilled programmers on this forum that might have more free time to lend a hand with such an endeavour. Not trying to volunteer anybody, just asking/stating. 

[Jeff Mack]

1 minute ago, Zelgazra said:

Is there any particular reason (besides the above mentioned lack of time) you haven't explored writing a program to do the bulk of the data parsing (right term?) for you in the background? To my understanding there are several fairly skilled programmers on this forum that might have more free time to lend a hand with such an endeavour. Not trying to volunteer anybody, just asking/stating. 

I can assure you that I am already doing that. I have been working at this for 5 years filtering out tons of different keywords for 12,000+ listings.  Multiply that by 300,000+ listings every month and its not as straight forward as you think.    Do you know how many people throw numbers and BS names in the listing titles.  Its not easy handling stuff where you have a listing  like "Zombies 9465 MISB 447/pcs with minifigures 2012"  Or the people that put 10188/10179 Star Wars Han/Chewy, but then they put a price of $400, so then its hard to know if its 10188 but they were actually selling a used 10179 with missing pieces and all sorts of garbage and no indicator of new/used.

 

 

[Zelgazra]

12 minutes ago, Jeff Mack said:

I can assure you that I am already doing that...

Would the data become incredibly inaccurate if you just ignored allll those listings? Cull it down to the ~150,000 that are straight forward, and average off of that?... would the difference be that great that the brickfolio would be useless? In theory all those straightforward ones are the legit ones anyway. Maybe 5 years ago there was less reselling going on, so snatching every last listing was more important, but nowadays maybe less so? Just tossing ideas around. Not implying you don't know what you're doing (your reply comes off that way). 

[Jeff Mack]

6 minutes ago, Zelgazra said:

Would the data become incredibly inaccurate if you just ignored allll those listings? Cull it down to the ~150,000 that are straight forward, and average off of that?... would the difference be that great that the brickfolio would be useless? In theory all those straightforward ones are the legit ones anyway. Maybe 5 years ago there was less reselling going on, so snatching every last listing was more important, but nowadays maybe less so? Just tossing ideas around. Not implying you don't know what you're doing (your reply comes off that way). 

My point is, there is no way to really do this 100% fully automated and keep it accurate.  I get yelled at enough and get enough emails from the things that are slightly off or missed.  Right now I see I have ~564K listings that will be run.  They are already marked by my background processes, but they need to go through my filters to remove outliers, lots, etc.  It just takes time.  The past two weeks for me have been a lot more busy for me than usual, so its been harder to get it going on time.  It will get there.

[Roy vd M.]

Meanwhile if you are really interested in a certain set's current value, in the price guide you can scroll down a bit to the Ebay listings to get a pretty good idea, especially comparing those data to the current guide price. That's what I usually do.

[makr]

1 hour ago, Jeff Mack said:

Do you know how many people throw numbers and BS names in the listing titles.  Its not easy handling stuff where you have a listing  like "Zombies 9465 MISB 447/pcs with minifigures 2012"  Or the people that put 10188/10179 Star Wars Han/Chewy, but then they put a price of $400, so then its hard to know if its 10188 but they were actually selling a used 10179 with missing pieces and all sorts of garbage and no indicator of new/used.

 

 

Funny, this is actually something that gives me a headache when I manually search stuff on eBay. Once I actually read the whole description and looked at all the pictures I get the idea of what's actually offered, but even as a data scientist, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to do that reliably with an algorithm. It's not just that they give ambiguous information which is hard to categorise, but ever so often it's just plain wrong.

Edited February 17, 2016 by makromizer

[Entomogant]

Hi everyone.

I am also new to Lego investing in general and to Brickpicker especially. The price guide is incredibly helpful! Like beni i also wondered why the prices aren't updated as I assumed there is a background software that just grabs everything, caclulates the average and hopes for the best. 

Addtitionally filtering all the sales information for all the sets must be an enormous amount of work every month! Thanks a lot for that! 

Is it possible to help you with that? By outsourcing some filtering processes or filtering for LEGO themes or something like that?

[Jeff Mack]

Thanks for offer, if that is what you are doing, nothing will be outsourced.

[wobbl87]

will there be values for completed cmf series? watching auctions, the prices vary a fair bit so no idea how you manage this site!. any tips?

[comicblast]

will there be values for completed cmf series? watching auctions, the prices vary a fair bit so no idea how you manage this site!. any tips?

I suggest using going on eBay and use the "sold listing" filter.

[macpro76]

On that note, is there a way to see our brickfolio through this app?

[Retlon]

Just a heads up 76029, Iron Man vs Ultron isn't showing up in my collection after adding it to my brickfolio.

[bramp]

Eagerly awaiting a prices-update since dec '15

[mauro23]

There won't be in the next future... 

 

Reason is that the prices have decreased by 25% and to prevent that the bubble fully burst they are hold back. 

 

Edited February 26, 2016 by mauro23

[bramp]

That's odd.... whatever happened then?

EBay prices aren't dropping that hard are they?

10179 is still soaring $2500,- and higher?

And retail isn't dropping ever?

[stephen_rockefeller]

2 minutes ago, bramp said:

That's odd.... whatever happened then?

EBay prices aren't dropping that hard are they?

10179 is still soaring $2500,- and higher?

And retail isn't dropping ever?

Sarcasm my  dear Watson......sarcasm.

[Zelgazra]

Meanwhile, the Brickfolio update.....Can you imagine investing in the stock market using values that were 6-8 weeks old? Lol. 

The forum is great and all, but the real tool on this site is the Brickfolio. I had good impressions when I first signed up nearly a year ago, updates were prompt and timely month to month, right up until the site updates started happening at which point updates got derailed. Kind of a bummer really. I eagerly sign on every day and check to see if the Price Guide has been updated. Disappointment over and over. Maybe it's just me or maybe I'm the only one willing to speak up, but why such an excessive delay? It makes sense you might be tied up around Christmas time, but we're well clear of holiday season now. Why can't it happen faster? [Tons and tons of data to manually sift through, I know, you said already, which leads to...] Why aren't you willing to add some helpers to your 1 man crew to help the ever growing community get this valuable data quicker? Without the timely Brickfolio updates (and the data referenced therein), this is just another forum.  

Sorry, I'm getting sick with something and feeling a little grumbly today. This is not a personal attack on Jeff, but it's definitely directed at him for answers. We were told it would be updated "This Weekend" a week ago. So what gives?