How many legos in this pic/ CL

[Dogcliff]

New AFOL here, My son the doctor got me started last fall.  Spent a few hundred $ on new sets already.  The Craigslist  item HERE caught my attention, but I have no reference point for valuing the lot.  $700 seems high.  So, what do you think I should offer,  and why.

 

Thanks,

 

Cliff in Anchorage

 

Edited June 27, 2016 by Dogcliff

[gregpj]

12 hours ago, Dogcliff said:

New AFOL here, My son the doctor got me started last fall.  Spent a few hundred $ on new sets already.  The Craigslist  item HERE caught my attention, but I have no reference point for valuing the lot.  $700 seems high.  So, what do you think I should offer,  and why.

 

Thanks,

 

Cliff in Anchorage

 

Hi Cliff and welcome... without knowing what's in those bins, it's pretty much impossible to say what it's worth. If you're really interested, you should ask the seller two questions:

- Could they tell you what the set #s are from the instructions books.
- Do they reasonably believe the sets are complete?

Otherwise that's a big ol' $700 gamble. The drawers look fairly full, but you can't ever be 100% certain from a picture.
 

[Phil B]

12 hours ago, Dogcliff said:

New AFOL here, My son the doctor got me started last fall.  Spent a few hundred $ on new sets already.  The Craigslist  item HERE caught my attention, but I have no reference point for valuing the lot.  $700 seems high.  So, what do you think I should offer,  and why.

 

Thanks,

 

Cliff in Anchorage

 

Welcome Cliff! The sets on display are run-of-the-mill sets (I see 2 police stations, a tree house, a chopper, the arctic base camp and a creator house). The few boxes I see are for small $10-$20 sets (the box that's lying flat seems to be the small Jurassic World set but not sure). The top instruction manual seems to be a Hobbit set. So to me this looks like a typical kid's collection, nothing special. $700 seems expensive - definitely someone who has heard that LEGO is now worth a lot and is trying to capitalize.

Personally (but I'm not a bulk lot buyer) I would not get even close to the $700 they ask. $250 maybe - as the sets are nothing special, I'd treat this like a bulk brick lot and would go with $5-$10 per pound of bricks. There's maybe 25 pounds of bricks there....

[KShine]

Just say no.

The seller claims 1,000 (which is likely an exaggeration), and would still want 700 (so there is a very low likelihood of a great deal ever happening) - nothing good will come of this.

There are always great deals - there is no need to have any doubt about a purchase.

[thoroakenfelder]

It looks to me that the parents are expecting to get back near what they spent without putting in the effort to organize it into sets. not anywhere close IMO.

If you're interested in going into Bulk, I wrote a primer on it.

 

[Zelgazra]

Those drawers are packed... There's easily well more than 25 pounds there. Not saying it's worth anywhere close to $700, but who knows how long this child's play-span was. If there's current sets in there like the Scooby and JW set, it's possible this guy is ~15 now... and has been collecting since he was 5 or 6 like everyone else.... those tubs could be filled with HP and PotC... and well more than 25lbs of it. There COULD be $700 worth there. You just need more information. If they're local enough, I'd ask if you can go visit them and have a look yourself. Then again, if you're new yourself, that might not be a huge help as you need to have an idea of what you're keeping an eye out for. Just saying I wouldn't throw this listing in the bin like many of the others here are suggesting. 

[Dogcliff]

Informative blog, thoroakenfelder.  You have given me a glance of what I may be in for.  A bit of background about me...In the present stage of my growing lego addiction, I have been buying sets to build.  Try to get 'em on sale when I can (why pay retail)?  So the next logical step would be to find a bulk lot with mostly sets, build 'em, and resell a few to help recoup my investment.  Guess I'm looking to build my inventory of both sets and pieces,and explore some new to me themes, at a real break from retail.  Not yet a collector or investor.  But as many of you suggested, $700 seems real high.  I agree.  

[justapilgrim]

the family house on top is an easy $50- $70 used. I base my bulk like this on the minifigures. if you can recognize them it's easy to guess what is in there. they are also easy to sell without having to build the set

[thoroakenfelder]

On ‎6‎/‎27‎/‎2016 at 1:06 PM, Zelgazra said:

Those drawers are packed... There's easily well more than 25 pounds there. Not saying it's worth anywhere close to $700, but who knows how long this child's play-span was. If there's current sets in there like the Scooby and JW set, it's possible this guy is ~15 now... and has been collecting since he was 5 or 6 like everyone else.... those tubs could be filled with HP and PotC... and well more than 25lbs of it. There COULD be $700 worth there. You just need more information. If they're local enough, I'd ask if you can go visit them and have a look yourself. Then again, if you're new yourself, that might not be a huge help as you need to have an idea of what you're keeping an eye out for. Just saying I wouldn't throw this listing in the bin like many of the others here are suggesting. 

Where's the value of spending $700 on $700 worth of sets that you also need to spend a lot of time sorting out from drawers of random bulk? 25 lbs of bulk LEGO for $700 is about $28 per pound. In order to recoup the money he'd be looking at I'd guess 20 hours of sorting plus the time it would take to sell all the sets. There's no value. If you go to amazon and buy $700 worth of random sets, you'd at least be saving the time it takes to sort them all.

12 minutes ago, justapilgrim said:

the family house on top is an easy $50- $70 used. I base my bulk like this on the minifigures. if you can recognize them it's easy to guess what is in there. they are also easy to sell without having to build the set

I remember getting that on clearance at the LEGO store for $55

[justapilgrim]

I have personally sold a few used ones, also the police stations are an easy $50 a pop used if complete with instructions, so easy to be $150 right out of the gate, the other $500+ would take a lot of work

[Dogcliff]

More from the seller...

 

and thanks for the warm welcome...

 

dc

[Phil B]

3 minutes ago, Dogcliff said:

More from the seller...

 

and thanks for the warm welcome...

 

dc

Good luck with the MegaBloks! 

[Zelgazra]

Yea. Still think it's way more than 25 lbs. That orange tower is easily 25 on it's own. Plus the green tower. Plus the built stuff on the table. All I said was it could be worth way more than $700, or could be worth $700. Still worth taking a real life look at in my opinion. Now that more instructions are posted, I'm less inclined to think it's filled with valuable HP goodies and the like though; looks like more recent stuff. 

[weitzel78]

I've sold a few bulk lots, usually try to pay around $100. Best return was $1,600 but that took around 50 transactions. Your talking about a good 20-40 hours to part it out, sell and ship it. If you paid $100 and sold it for $700, your looking at $15-30/hr. IMHO they are asking the parted out retail price, and I doubt they would consider a reasonable offer.

Now if you want that particular combination of sets for your own collection, then a $300 offer would be reasonable.

Edited June 28, 2016 by weitzel78

[Lowprofile]

The seller shows multiple instructions of the same set, it does not mean that it has that set 2 times. So not close to worth the asking price.

[Thumper]

Hard to guess, how do retail prices in Anchorage or Fairbanks Alaska really compare to those in the lower 48?  ... All I remember is a case of 24 cokes was nearly 20 bucks rather then the usual $7 around here. so $700 from your frame of reference might be equivalent to our $250 taking into account availability and regional opportunity costs etc.

There's some good parts & colours in the lot, but nothing uncommon to push up the price where there's a couple dozen local bulk Lego-lot listings a week to choose from. 

[Ed Mack]

This is not a $700 lot IMO.

[exciter1]

40 minutes ago, Thumper said:

Hard to guess, how do retail prices in Anchorage or Fairbanks Alaska really compare to those in the lower 48?  ... All I remember is a case of 24 cokes was nearly 20 bucks rather then the usual $7 around here. so $700 from your frame of reference might be equivalent to our $250 taking into account availability and regional opportunity costs etc.

There's some good parts & colours in the lot, but nothing uncommon to push up the price where there's a couple dozen local bulk Lego-lot listings a week to choose from. 

I think $250 is reasonable.  signed - cheapskate

[jaisonline]

24 minutes ago, exciter1 said:

I think $250 is reasonable.  signed - cheapskate

you are more generous than me. i would offer $100 max.  the  monster fighter's vamp castle and that creator house might be incomplete. 

@Dogcliff , i would def ask the seller to open those 2 boxes of minifigs since that might be where the real value is or give an indication which sets included might be complete.  start with your offer price with that info and then the booklets.

 

[Curtis]

Take note that there are several 3-in-1 Creator sets there.  Where it might seem like there are 3 different sets, there's actually only 1 with 3 different options to build with the same pieces.  I see 3 Creator houses, a Deli Corner and a Log Cabin.  That's a total of 5 sets, not 15 like the instructions might imply.

[justapilgrim]

I have personally sold a few used ones, also the police stations are an easy $50 a pop used if complete with instructions, so easy to be $150 right out of the gate, the other $500+ would take a lot of work

one can make $150 with about zero effort selling 3 look to be complete sets. $250 is reasonable

[Dogcliff]

Thanks, all.  Had to let this one go...Next time!

 

dc

[randrace]

Informative blog, thoroakenfelder.  You have given me a glance of what I may be in for.  A bit of background about me...In the present stage of my growing lego addiction, I have been buying sets to build.  Try to get 'em on sale when I can (why pay retail)?  So the next logical step would be to find a bulk lot with mostly sets, build 'em, and resell a few to help recoup my investment.  Guess I'm looking to build my inventory of both sets and pieces,and explore some new to me themes, at a real break from retail.  Not yet a collector or investor.  But as many of you suggested, $700 seems real high.  I agree.  

My motivation for selling LEGO is like yours: to build up my personal collection of bricks. You should look into selling Minifigures. Buy a Superhero set right after it's release and sell the Minifigures on eBay. It's less time consuming than buying used bulk, and you get new bricks for yourself. For example, when Spiderman Bridge Battle came out, you could sell the figs and keep the bridge and cab and break even. I built a good chunk of my 2x4 brick collection selling Minecraft Minifigures. Happy collecting!