41999 - 4x4 Crawler Exclusive Edition

[Miami Bomb Squad]

I've been following this set for awhile now.

As of today, I think its the first time there are less than 50 sellers/sets on ebay.  (49) to be exact
4 sets are going for $370-$395
8 @$400
24 between $400 - $500
13 over $500

 

And over at BL, only 10 sets are under $400 and it doesn't include shipping. 

This set should be primed to hit $500 by Christmas.  Maybe a little bit more.

 

[MartinP]

I've been following this set for awhile now.

As of today, I think its the first time there are less than 50 sellers/sets on ebay.  (49) to be exact

4 sets are going for $370-$395

8 @$400

24 between $400 - $500

13 over $500

 

And over at BL, only 10 sets are under $400 and it doesn't include shipping. 

This set should be primed to hit $500 by Christmas.  Maybe a little bit more.

I can't see this set hitting $500 by Christmas. $425-$450 is more reasonable for me. Maybe I'm being to conservative, but it hasn't done much through out the year, when I expected some steady growth.

[Miami Bomb Squad]

The better indicator is BL, they have low commissions and shipping is not included. 
Its been Inching upwards every month.
 

[spener90]

I can't see this set hitting $500 by Christmas. $425-$450 is more reasonable for me. Maybe I'm being to conservative, but it hasn't done much through out the year, when I expected some steady growth.

Honestly, it depends on what the 9398 is going for.  If that sells out this christmas, then we could se $500.  I think just over $400 is reasonable to expect though.

[exciter1]

I can't see this set hitting $500 by Christmas. $425-$450 is more reasonable for me. Maybe I'm being to conservative, but it hasn't done much through out the year, when I expected some steady growth.

 

It's hard to expect steady growth, when it shot to the moon out of the gate.

[Ed Mack]

It's going to take some time to weed out more resellers. Technic sets sell and appreciate slower than other themes.

[TheDarkness]

The pricing shot out like a cannon then hit the wall. Now is just the waiting game, you either fold and take your profit or ride it out. The difference is we know there is at least one large batch aside to be released on the world's market at some point. I don't think it will be doing much other than crawl (pun intended) until 9398 goes. 

 

[Sauromosis]

Good point...the natural appreciation had to catch up with the artificial price bump.

Something I keep thinking about is that lego was going to do three or four of these limited runs per year but they seemed to stop.

[jaylay]

Patience my friends, must be!

[JRandall]

When it comes to this set I think that everyone who eventually found out about it and wanted one has probably purchased one.  I believe that more iconic sets such as the Unimog will appreciate much greater over time considering how famous the Jeep itself is from World Wars and the Mercedes Benz logo.. sure the Crawler is limited edition but with the great new Technic builds they continue to release a fan/collector will only purchase so many of these sets.  A kid who has a choice of one or two sets probably isn't going to go back to the limited crawler but instead will opt for something more recent.  Maybe this set hits $400 in another 6 months to a year but even then there are probably dozens of these still held by resellers and how many buyers will be looking for this particular set in another year when numerous more sets have been released. This set has not sold for $400 within America in the last few months, many around $330-360 after fees and before shipping. If you purchased them originally for $200 Holiday season is probably a good time to offload them all imo and move on to something else.

[jaychen]

To be honest I think this set will bring good return when 9398 retires. It should be able to hit $500 within a year when that happens. We just need more patience as no one wants to pay high price for similar counterpart (9398) is still around. =)

[comicblast]

To be honest I think this set will bring good return when 9398 retires. It should be able to hit $500 within a year when that happens. We just need more patience as no one wants to pay high price for similar counterpart (9398) is still around. =)

But will anyone want to pay a high price for 41999 if 9398 never gets to $500? IMO, 9398 will have to be worth just about what 41999 is worth for 41999 to appreciate any more dramatically.

[jerryherb]

41999 is sweet. its packaging is so much nicer and more massive than 9398 even though its more compact, does it not also have lights? every single one has an individual numbered plate. would be nice to have a registry of the sets already built. im sure the first and the last one are going to be worth top dollar.

[MartinP]

41999 is sweet. its packaging is so much nicer and more massive than 9398 even though its more compact, does it not also have lights? every single one has an individual numbered plate. would be nice to have a registry of the sets already built. im sure the first and the last one are going to be worth top dollar.

The set with License #00001, is probably in the Lego vault, where the set with License #20000 is anybody's guess. Some collector or investor probably has it, but they would be worth substantially more that sets with random license plates.

[jeff_14]

I sold 7 of my 8 and made $100 profit on each, not counting the free Christmas sets I got with them that are still waiting for resale in a few months. I'll hold the last one for some time to see if there's any further appreciation but am quite happy to have made $700 easy peasy in less than a year. I could give the last one away and still be up almost $500 thanks to this set. 

[Mos_Eisley]

I've said it before and I'll say it again - the only reason this set jumped as high as it did as fast as it did was because one buyer was buying the majority of the sets that were available for sale. He created an artificial demand for those months around the release. Had he not been buying everything that got listed, the price wouldn't have been $400+ during that time.

[M4x18]

Cheapest in Spain is currently in an auction at 360

[JRandall]

I've said it before and I'll say it again - the only reason this set jumped as high as it did as fast as it did was because one buyer was buying the majority of the sets that were available for sale. He created an artificial demand for those months around the release. Had he not been buying everything that got listed, the price wouldn't have been $400+ during that time.

For all anyone knows, one buyer has 3-4000 of these stashed away waiting to sell, something like that would keep the limited market for a technic vehicle like this at $300-350 forever if not take it back down to $250-300

[El Guapo]

For all anyone knows, one buyer has 3-4000 of these stashed away waiting to sell, something like that would keep the limited market for a technic vehicle like this at $300-350 forever if not take it back down to $250-300

Wouldn't one seller controlling that much of the market keep prices up?  Since they could essentially control the flow of available inventory.  I am thinking of how debeers controlled the diamond market during the 80's and kept the prices artificially high.

[fabioso79]

For all anyone knows, one buyer has 3-4000 of these stashed away waiting to sell, something like that would keep the limited market for a technic vehicle like this at $300-350 forever if not take it back down to $250-300

 

I have a different opinion about this.

Let's assume somebody is keeping a significant amount of a limited product AND that he doesn't need cash but sees the 41999 as a intermediate term investment (5 years if referred to "regular" investments).

 

Price did not drop in the last year or so AND we are currently seeing offer getting lower which , in theory , would mean that as soon as we go on clearing (limited!) availability of MISB sets on the market price should increase.

 

Subject stated above haven't felt the urge to sell them in the last year (that would have dumped the price!).

Why would he flood the market with them after he managed to survive the first though period ?

 

If I were the subject above , I would place them on the market in very limited quantity in accordance to the less and less availability hoping to manage a price increase.

Let's remember that we have assumed that somebody is keeping a significant stake of this limited run item : he will be getting the main source of 41999 as other investors are letting theirs go making it easier for him to control the market.

Whoever is now keeping some 41999 is an investor that did not have the interest/urge to sell under a certain price. They will have the same interest in driving the price up.

 

 

moreover the "basic" crawler is still widely available at discount . sooner or later this set will EOL and it'll start -hopefully- to well appreciate in the secondary market making the 41999 appreciate even further.

9398 is sold at MRSP of 170

[JRandall]

I think the price will slowly drop considering you have thousands of Regular crawlers on the market and when a kid wants one of those and can get it on sale in the next year before EOL for $170 or less on sale he will buy that instead of the $300+ 41999. That's assuming it even retires next year.   I was able to buy them off ebay from TRU for B1G1 half earlier this year..  That doesn't even take into account that 20,000 of the limited edition models were made.. There will be some people who will want one of the limited edition models but that amount is going to continue to decrease as they have already been purchasing them.  I just don't see how this set will increase anymore, maybe I'm wrong but I'd be money I'm not given the circumstances with a duplicate set that will be 1/3 the price before it EOLs and this set has stabilized in price for the entire year if not decreased.

[Miami Bomb Squad]

Apples to Oranges.
The 4x4 Crawler (off road truck body 4x4) is not the same as the Limited Edition Crawler (Muscle car body 4x4).
That's like saying why would someone buy the Caf

[JRandall]

Wouldn't one seller controlling that much of the market keep prices up?  Since they could essentially control the flow of available inventory.  I am thinking of how debeers controlled the diamond market during the 80's and kept the prices artificially high.

Not currently, because on Bricklink, Amazon, and Ebay there are dozens of sellers with listings, not to mention the used listings selling on Ebay to people that don't want to pay a premium.  The concern is if the price stays at the $340-380 range currently, it will go down quite a bit if a larger seller needs to clear his out and needs to sell dozens or hundreds he has in inventory.  There currently 134 listings for 41999 Limited Crawler on Bricklink alone with the cheapest going for $359..  I count 3 of those sellers that have 60 sets among just themselves out of 134 listings, not counting Ebay or Amazon. There has only been 114 sold listings since December 11th for 41999, now of course a few of those listings included 2 sets which means someone else may be purchasing them to invest in..  So in 9 months there's only been 114-125 or so 41999 sold on Ebay... in 9 months..   Assuming even a low number like 2,000(10%) of total production is stashed away to sell that means it would take  (125/9= 13.888 per month sold)   so lets say 14 sets sold per month on Ebay,  So 2,000 sets as a low number from investors would take  (2,000 total sets / 14 sets sold on ebay per month = 142.8 months = Nearly 12 years....)

 

So if only 10% of the 20,000 limited crawlers were purchased as investments when released 1 year ago and are no longer available, at the current rate they've sold since the beginning of December 2013, it would take almost 12 years to sell that 2,000 sets.  This is assuming that only 2,000 sets were stored away as investments and not 4,000 sets or 8,000 sets out of the 20,000.   Give how many people are on BP and how many Lego shops are out there I'd assume the number purchased to sell later may be as high as 15-20%.

 

Take these numbers for what they are worth, but if you've got more than 1 or 2 of these you probably want to get rid of it while you're $150 above your purchase cost.

[nolanfan34]

I think this is a case where a lot of people are just overthinking it. Yes, it had an artificial bump at the beginning. It's a limited set with a defined quantity. Yes, there's a similar set but it's slightly different. The market keeps expanding (particularly east). Collectors pay stupid prices for limited stuff all the time, even with similar type items available. 

 

It's not rocket science, you can either sell now and make money on it (completely viable), or hold it longer and make more money in the future (also viable). I'd be happy to side bet anyone who thinks this set has a BP value lower than it does today 1 year from now. The fact people are paying $700 for a SSD when they could have gotten one for $400 a couple months ago - even on these forums - also shows people change their minds and doesn't mean if they passed on it in the past they won't decide they want one in the future.

[jaychen]

I think this is a case where a lot of people are just overthinking it. Yes, it had an artificial bump at the beginning. It's a limited set with a defined quantity. Yes, there's a similar set but it's slightly different. The market keeps expanding (particularly east). Collectors pay stupid prices for limited stuff all the time, even with similar type items available.

It's not rocket science, you can either sell now and make money on it (completely viable), or hold it longer and make more money in the future (also viable). I'd be happy to side bet anyone who thinks this set has a BP value lower than it does today 1 year from now. The fact people are paying $700 for a SSD when they could have gotten one for $400 a couple months ago - even on these forums - also shows people change their minds and doesn't mean if they passed on it in the past they won't decide they want one in the future.

I agree too. If we assume SSD has the same quantity produced as 41999. Both audience that paying high price are adult collectors. Only difference is Star Wars audience are larger. I Dun see y 41999 will not raise in price.

Also we are only assuming online transaction here. We have no clear indication of offline sales. Take it will a pinch of salt. I am just analyzing from my point of view. Friendly debate. :-)