10179: The Worst Thing to Ever Happen to Lego Investing

[landphieran]

To summarize...

Camp 1 : Set A,B,C that retired 6 months ago, is only making me 20$. #NotLikeTheOldDays #RIPLegoInvesting #StupidQFLLs 

Camp 2 : Generally veteran sellers with presumably large cash reserves.
#PatienceIsKey #ThirtyDollarsIsDolla's #BuyinIsEverything

[Darth_Raichu]

18 minutes ago, feed said:

Nothing has a guarantee return. As return offered is a function of the risk of return, and if you think you’ve found something that does, then it’s mis-priced.  What to look for is a risk/return ratio that is favourable.  When actually gambling and I once was a semi-professional gambler (before the online books got sharp) the aim was to look for mispriced odds. Where the odds offered are out of line with the probably of the event occurring and even then you only have to be right 51% of the time, assuming you get your units correctly managed.  

Anyway, the current risk/return ratio on Lego is still incredibly favourable, in many cases the worse-case scenario is a no or low loss risk weighted against a sizeable upside opportunity.  And the reason for this is that Lego “investing” is rarely more than retail arbitrage with Lego as a vehicle to monetize the marketing incentives and discounts offered by big box retailers trying desperately to compete with each other and Amazon.
 

But that's not what Emazers said

 

[pins79]

Everyone's waiting on Emazers to chime in...

I've personally started to sell a large part of my LEGO stash, without really buying much recently.  At one point I think I had about $100K in LEGO, which is not a lot compared to the big time investors on here, but still not small.  I was disappointed by the rehash of the Toy Shop and if this new Death Star is similar to the old DS, I'm out entirely as an investor.  I will still buy the large sets for my own collection since my son loves LEGO, but I won't be investing like I used to do.  I hope the guys at LEGO really think through this whole remake scenario.  I can potentially see a retraction in the market if they in fact start doing remakes with regularity, as they will lose a lot of the investors.  I collect Sideshow statues, pinball machines, Hot Toys, etc and I can tell you that remakes will hurt the collectible market.  I remember when Medieval Madness pinball machine was going for $20K...all of a sudden, company started making them for $8k, and it killed the value of the original.  Anyway, we will see what happens.

[lodibricks]

Any theme but Chima still beats my IRA.
I agree the values are getting slower to climb, but patience is the biggest test here.

[pete411]

Like Phil B, I rarely buy Lego for investing these days unless I get a hefty discount (40% and up). If you think something isn't hoarded, think again. I recently sent some Ant-Man sets into FBA thinking that there was a clear path to $80+ but boy was I wrong. Somebody parked 350 units last week and the price has stagnated. 350 units! How the hell does one seller buy up that many? What concerns me most about the current market is the number of sellers. Even before retirement, lots of sets have 100-200 sellers on Amazon. That was unheard of a couple of years ago. Most of these sellers are not Lego aficionados like you or I. They heard about the returns on Lego and they are treating it as a commodity and they buy IN MASS. They'll eventually crash the market and then move on to something else. 

[exciter1]

[Darth_Raichu]

1 hour ago, pete411 said:

Like Phil B, I rarely buy Lego for investing these days unless I get a hefty discount (40% and up). If you think something isn't hoarded, think again. I recently sent some Ant-Man sets into FBA thinking that there was a clear path to $80+ but boy was I wrong. Somebody parked 350 units last week and the price has stagnated. 350 units! How the hell does one seller buy up that many? What concerns me most about the current market is the number of sellers. Even before retirement, lots of sets have 100-200 sellers on Amazon. That was unheard of a couple of years ago. Most of these sellers are not Lego aficionados like you or I. They heard about the returns on Lego and they are treating it as a commodity and they buy IN MASS. They'll eventually crash the market and then move on to something else. 

Yup, and most of these people have better networks to grab things AND they are not afraid to sell for $1 - $2 /set profit

 

So when can I merge this thread with the bubble thread again? 

[thoroakenfelder]

I like the original premise of this thread. I liked the point of view it represented. Whether I agreed with it or not, there was a certain point of view that sparked some debate. It did sort of devolve along the way, but at least there was something new (ish) being said.

[KShine]

7 minutes ago, thoroakenfelder said:

I like the original premise of this thread. I liked the point of view it represented. Whether I agreed with it or not, there was a certain point of view that sparked some debate. It did sort of devolve along the way, but at least there was something new (ish) being said.

I wouldn't say that it has devolved - it was already sent in that direction just by calling the thread 10179: The Worst Thing to Ever Happen to Lego Investing.

It could have just as easily been called 10179: The Best Thing to Ever Happen to Lego Investing, but it wasn't.

The negativity was already in place - All that was left was for people to come in and start debating what was worst (and various other complaints).

[Will 4]

6 hours ago, KShine said:

Sometimes, it seems as if there are posters whose sole purpose in life is trying to make my head explode.

Reports coming in that Scrooge McDuck has thrown away the gold in his vault to replace it Lego bricks as they are more valuable than gold

[Alfiepops]

14 minutes ago, Will 4 said:

Reports coming in that Scrooge McDuck has thrown away the gold in his vault to replace it Lego bricks as they are more valuable than gold

Stupid duck.

[doon73]

6 hours ago, Fenix_2k1 said:

I'm guessing this may be a regional thing.  In the UK, the cleared shelf phenomenon is definitely a new thing. It's only become prevalent here in the last year. 

Last time I got anything on the clearance shelf was Jan 15 so I agree with your point. Saying that I know there's someone on here who lives in the same town as me so that's probably the reason why (and the clearance stuff I got was when I was out of town). I just don't make an effort anymore with the clearance stuff, if I see it fine but no wild goose chases for me anymore. 

[ironbrick]

7 hours ago, pins79 said:

Everyone's waiting on Emazers to chime in...

I've personally started to sell a large part of my LEGO stash, without really buying much recently.  At one point I think I had about $100K in LEGO, which is not a lot compared to the big time investors on here, but still not small.  I was disappointed by the rehash of the Toy Shop and if this new Death Star is similar to the old DS, I'm out entirely as an investor.  I will still buy the large sets for my own collection since my son loves LEGO, but I won't be investing like I used to do.  I hope the guys at LEGO really think through this whole remake scenario.  I can potentially see a retraction in the market if they in fact start doing remakes with regularity, as they will lose a lot of the investors.  I collect Sideshow statues, pinball machines, Hot Toys, etc and I can tell you that remakes will hurt the collectible market.  I remember when Medieval Madness pinball machine was going for $20K...all of a sudden, company started making them for $8k, and it killed the value of the original.  Anyway, we will see what happens.

First to address the gambling versus investing commentary...

Couldn't we just call it what it really is; speculating? I am sorry, but this doesn't exactly qualify as investing in my humble opinion. 

I don't think Lego cares too much about the health of the secondary market. As I said earlier in this thread; being popular and being speculative are not mutually exclusive. If Lego can make a decent profit with re-releases why should they not engage in producing them? Because a group of speculators chose to buy mass quantities of their product who hope to make a profit when the proverbial sets they are hoarding retire? This was the same sentiment echoed by countless other speculators from mass produced toys, comic books, Beanie Babies, and Amiibo. Make no mistake the market has already changed. Thanks in part to mass media coverage and The Lego Group's own self awareness of the situation so called Lego investing is changing at a rapid pace. Just wait until all those newly hoarded sets hit the market en masse in the coming years. It is already happening...