10188 - UCS: Death Star

[KShine]

2 minutes ago, exciter1 said:

I feel very fortunate the Amazon scammers were not as prevalent in the big LEGO set market as they are now.  I was able to get rid of my 10+ over a 2-3 week period and squeeked out a profit.

People tend to over hype these things - Do you really think that the Amazon situation has suddenly gotten that much worse?

If so, I wonder if the gating has removed the low hanging fruit (easiest targets for the scammers) - which only left the fewer ungated sellers (which would increase the scammer odds).

[exciter1]

People tend to over hype these things - Do you really think that the Amazon situation has suddenly gotten that much worse?
If so, I wonder if the gating has removed the low hanging fruit (easiest targets for the scammers) - which only left the fewer ungated sellers (which would increase the scammer odds).

There are a dozen or more just from this small BP community who've been hit. More common than I'd like to see.

[KShine]

9 minutes ago, exciter1 said:

There are a dozen or more just from this small BP community who've been hit. More common than I'd like to see.

I still lean towards it being way over hyped.

Remember when everyone was convinced that all of their new & sealed sets had been unsealed, tampered with (removing minifigs, etc.), and then resealed.

The panic was so overwhelming that some users opened all of their sealed sets to confirm - The belief of many was that opened sets would bring a premium, since the odds of a sealed set being tampered with would eventually be so high that no one would ever want to buy a new & sealed set.

[Darth_Raichu]

45 minutes ago, KShine said:

People tend to over hype these things - Do you really think that the Amazon situation has suddenly gotten that much worse?

If so, I wonder if the gating has removed the low hanging fruit (easiest targets for the scammers) - which only left the fewer ungated sellers (which would increase the scammer odds).

Assuming fixed number of scammers. The percentage of sellers getting scammed increases when the number of seller decreases due to gating,

[Val-E]

44 minutes ago, KShine said:

I still lean towards it being way over hyped.

Remember when everyone was convinced that all of their new & sealed sets had been unsealed, tampered with (removing minifigs, etc.), and then resealed.

The panic was so overwhelming that some users opened all of their sealed sets to confirm - The belief of many was that opened sets would bring a premium, since the odds of a sealed set being tampered with would eventually be so high that no one would ever want to buy a new & sealed set.

Reselling breeds paranoia. If my seals have not been tampered with then TLG are planning remakes of my whole stash. If I sell them, the buyer will be scammer.

[KShine]

2 minutes ago, Val-E said:

Reselling breeds paranoia. If my seals have not been tampered with then TLG are planning remakes of my whole stash. If I sell them, the buyer will be scammer.

and your shipping carrier will inevitably destroy/lose it.

[Val-E]

2 minutes ago, KShine said:

and your shipping carrier will inevitably destroy/lose it.

and if it´s a face 2 face deal the notes will be fake and/or I will get stabbed/shot/asked to part exchange for used Chima having driven 100m

[Bold-Arrow]

FBM sellers have definitely been targeted on large sets lately , that is a established fact if you read the forums here and on Amazon . One member here is now banned from selling on Amazon all together and a few are hanging by a thread . Calling that paranoia is an insult to those folks who have done nothing wrong aside from being unable to provide proof of authenticity . 

[KShine]

I don't think anyone was looking to insult anyone (I certainly wasn't). I really don't know how widespread the Amazon issue is, and was just questioning it. 

[nolanfan34]

I have two 10188. One will get opened and built someday. I think I bought that one from LEGO Shop at Home after a work bonus one year long before I found this site, my son was probably 2 at the time. The other one I bought when it was doing "the dance". I'll probably just hold it long term as I have a hording/need one of everything sealed problem.

[feed]

I have one. I’m not even sure how it is I have one, as I have no recollection of buying it, and I was never enamoured of it.   I may build it, sell it, use the box as a coffee table or something.   Likely I’ll forget I have it.  

[marcandre]

It's not overhyped.

2 hours ago, KShine said:

I still lean towards it being way over hyped.

It's not overhyped. My metrics are a mess from people claiming large sets were fake. Amazon refunded the buyers, did not charge me, but trashed my metrics. Makes no sense at all.  Amazon is a mess right now. Check out all the fake listings for the Switch. Dozens, maybe hundreds listed for $150-200. I'm done selling there, at least in the near future. 

 

Sorry for thread derail. 

Edited March 30, 2017 by marcandre

[CyberVinnie]

2 hours ago, nolanfan34 said:

I have two 10188. One will get opened and built someday. I think I bought that one from LEGO Shop at Home after a work bonus one year long before I found this site, my son was probably 2 at the time. The other one I bought when it was doing "the dance". I'll probably just hold it long term as I have a hording/need one of everything sealed problem.

You and I are kindred spirits.    I have two also - one to build, one to hoard.

[LegoEdison]

2 hours ago, marcandre said:

My metrics are a mess from people claiming large sets were fake. Amazon refunded the buyers, did not charge me, but trashed my metrics.

my metrics is a mess due to those scam as well. being a small seller, i have no way to sell 100+ item to make it right. i just sell as normal (4-5 sales a week, take off all expense item).... ignore the short period matrix being a mess. my matrix is back to normal now and no one from Amazon ever contact me about my matrix. 

[HandyHand]

Now this is a prime example of the effect on the price of a retired UCS set of re-releasing it more or less exactly the same as a new UCS set:

Current offer (as of today, 7th of June 2017), half a year after official retirement of this set!

[Val-E]

Good to see the Lego tax works in reverse in your country too!

Buy expensive and sell cheap, what could go wrong?

[Sprocket77]

9 minutes ago, Val-E said:

Buy expensive and sell cheap, what could go wrong?

 

[fantomas007]

40 minutes ago, Haay said:

Now this is a prime example of the effect on the price of a retired UCS set of re-releasing it more or less exactly the same as a new UCS set:

Current offer (as of today, 7th of June 2017), half a year after official retirement of this set!

This is not good example for investment purposes. New DS is not a remake or a facelift version of 10188, it is SAME version with just updated figs and with some invisible bricks more. Everyone knew that new DS will ruin the investment potential of 10188. Even the new DS has bigger price, every AFOL is able to buy it at least with 20% discount for eur 400, so cheaper than the previous 10188 MSRP price (eur 420). Even if you bought 10188 for discounted price -20%, its eur 336, and if you want to have some profit + satisfy long shelf life in your storage, you must go to at least EUR 380. But everybody will rather pay eur 20 more for new version with new figs. So 10188 lost its potential first day after new DS was announced. Only idiot would keep 10188 sets, because they have ZERO potential for future. The only way how to save money was to sell all stock as soon as possible, even without a profit. Its absolutelly dead investment, even in horizon of 10-20 years - because new DS will perform better than 10188 in future.

 

[newbie77]

4 minutes ago, fantomas007 said:

This is not good example for investment purposes. New DS is not a remake or a facelift version of 10188, it is SAME version with just updated figs and with some invisible bricks more. Everyone knew that new DS will ruin the investment potential of 10188. Even the new DS has bigger price, every AFOL is able to buy it at least with 20% discount for eur 400, so cheaper than the previous 10188 MSRP price (eur 420). Even if you bought 10188 for discounted price -20%, its eur 336, and if you want to have some profit + satisfy long shelf life in your storage, you must go to at least EUR 380. But everybody will rather pay eur 20 more for new version with new figs. So 10188 lost its potential first day after new DS was announced. Only idiot would keep 10188 sets, because they have ZERO potential for future. The only way how to save money was to sell all stock as soon as possible, even without a profit. Its absolutelly dead investment, even in horizon of 10-20 years - because new DS will perform better than 10188 in future.

 

hindsight is 20/20

* if TLG starts making remake for each and every set in each and every successful theme then secondary market will decline with itself reducing TLG's total growth. 

* i am attributing about 10%-15% of total TLG sale are accumulated by resellers.

[fantomas007]

38 minutes ago, newbie77 said:

hindsight is 20/20

* if TLG starts making remake for each and every set in each and every successful theme then secondary market will decline with itself reducing TLG's total growth. 

* i am attributing about 10%-15% of total TLG sale are accumulated by resellers.

Yes, you are right, remakes and facelifts are killing the secondary market. But once a re-release set is produced, there is no need to see the performing of the old version and check the price , since the old version is dead - from the first day after the leak of pictures of new version.

[Val-E]

2 hours ago, fantomas007 said:

This is not good example for investment purposes. New DS is not a remake or a facelift version of 10188, it is SAME version with just updated figs and with some invisible bricks more. Everyone knew that new DS will ruin the investment potential of 10188. Even the new DS has bigger price, every AFOL is able to buy it at least with 20% discount for eur 400, so cheaper than the previous 10188 MSRP price (eur 420). Even if you bought 10188 for discounted price -20%, its eur 336, and if you want to have some profit + satisfy long shelf life in your storage, you must go to at least EUR 380. But everybody will rather pay eur 20 more for new version with new figs. So 10188 lost its potential first day after new DS was announced. Only idiot would keep 10188 sets, because they have ZERO potential for future. The only way how to save money was to sell all stock as soon as possible, even without a profit. Its absolutelly dead investment, even in horizon of 10-20 years - because new DS will perform better than 10188 in future.

 

I don´t agree. It´s a perfect example of what can and does happen and the risks of Lego investing. WTS 10249 was another prior example, so was 75105.

It´s just one of many scenarios but we cannot and should not ignore it.

We knew there would be a new DS about 9 months ahead but only 3 or 4 before was it clear it would the OT DS and not a R1 variant. The sell window had already expired by then as the price correction on many sets such as DS and Red 5 started in the spring of 2016 after TFA. To make good money people had about a 45 day window from SOLD OUT status in Europe and it is hard to shift sets of this price that quickly.

[labfreak7]

I have two of these and am hoping when both versions finally die, and stay sold out that I will be able to sell. I may need to bring mine to the nursing home in anticipation, but am hoping it will eventually happen. Still don't think it was a bad investment- if not for lego's laziness and greed, it would have been a winner.

[33Lego]

75105 didn't kill 7965;

It limits 7965's growth together with a lot of other factors.

[Ed Mack]

On 6/7/2017 at 11:41 AM, newbie77 said:

hindsight is 20/20

* if TLG starts making remake for each and every set in each and every successful theme then secondary market will decline with itself reducing TLG's total growth. 

* i am attributing about 10%-15% of total TLG sale are accumulated by resellers.

If The LEGO Group starts to remake every major set, they not only destroy the secondary markets, but themselves in the process.  There is nothing worse in the business world than a stagnant company that offers little in the way of new content, designs and ideas.  

[Val-E]

10 minutes ago, Ed Mack said:

If The LEGO Group starts to remake every major set, they not only destroy the secondary markets, but themselves in the process.  There is nothing worse in the business world than a stagnant company that offers little in the way of new content, designs and ideas.