Ideas #005: 21104 - NASA Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover

[trekgate502]

With the comments on runs of 20 or 30,000 units, how do we know any of that?  I thought this set was announced as a limited edition set of 10,000.

If they were to go over that they would have done like Minecraft and told everyone they have decided to do additional runs.

Did I miss some news announcements by Lego or is this all speculation that they went over the 10,000?

I am assuming they didn't whether it is 1 or 3 runs.  I have no idea on any factual basis, other than glad I got 15 of them stashed and kicking myself for selling 10 of them at $65 each.

[Alcarin]

With the comments on runs of 20 or 30,000 units, how do we know any of that?  I thought this set was announced as a limited edition set of 10,000.

If they were to go over that they would have done like Minecraft and told everyone they have decided to do additional runs.

Did I miss some news announcements by Lego or is this all speculation that they went over the 10,000?

I am assuming they didn't whether it is 1 or 3 runs.  I have no idea on any factual basis, other than glad I got 15 of them stashed and kicking myself for selling 10 of them at $65 each.

 

If its truly a limited 10.000 edition and so many peopel hoarded it, then to me it says there is not enough demand on it.... like the Crawler  

[Ed Mack]

With the comments on runs of 20 or 30,000 units, how do we know any of that?  I thought this set was announced as a limited edition set of 10,000.

If they were to go over that they would have done like Minecraft and told everyone they have decided to do additional runs.

Did I miss some news announcements by Lego or is this all speculation that they went over the 10,000?

I am assuming they didn't whether it is 1 or 3 runs.  I have no idea on any factual basis, other than glad I got 15 of them stashed and kicking myself for selling 10 of them at $65 each.

The set was labeled as "limited."  There is no way to know what that means.  

[stephen_rockefeller]

Why would kick yourself for selling for over 2

[MartinP]

The set was labeled as "limited."  There is no way to know what that means.  

The only thing we have to go off of is that the 41999 was a limited edition set, and that they made 20,000 of those. Maybe limited for Lego is 20,000 units. We really don't know until or if that kind of information is released.

[M4x18]

If its truly a limited 10.000 edition and so many peopel hoarded it, then to me it says there is not enough demand on it.... like the Crawler

Nobody knew how "limited" this was. We still don't know that today.

What do you define as a hoarder for this set? How many hoarders do you call "so many"?

From what I have read, there was a limit of 1 for US LEGO Shop at Home customers, some had to resort to secondary market.

And I have read that a small number under 10 have over 100 units.

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[Alcarin]

Nobody knew how "limited" this was. We still don't know that today.

What do you define as a hoarder for this set? How many hoarders do you call "so many"?

From what I have read, there was a limit of 1 for US LEGO Shop at Home customers, some had to resort to secondary market.

And I have read that a small number under 10 have over 100 units.

Sent from my iPhone using Brickpicker

 

Usually only a portion of members or ''investors'' overall speaks about their portfolios....maybe something under 10 have 100+, but another 500 have 100+ that are quiet....

 

Not everyone is like emazers who writes he has 42 (making up) SSD, 50 hH etc etc......

 

If i make a poll how many own Helm's Deep you think we will reach 1000 sets? I doubt it, but I bet there are still way more than 1000 stored in worldwide peoples closets basements, storage units etc.....

 

And as far as I know limit 1 was ''only'' for US, did not Canadians get limit 5 ? 

[trekgate502]

The set was labeled as "limited."  There is no way to know what that means.  

 

Ed thanks.  I thought someone had mentioned in the original press release or the lego catalog it specifically mentioned 10,000 units.  It must have been just that it said limited.

[Pseudoty]

Ed thanks.  I thought someone had mentioned in the original press release or the lego catalog it specifically mentioned 10,000 units.  It must have been just that it said limited.

The Marina Bay Sands was limited to 10,000 units all produced in one run. Unless someone can check their hoarded stash of MBS and provide more then one production code on the label then it is almost safe to say with that set one production run equals 10,000 units.

No we can not say that this is the same for the Rover but we do know there was three production runs I would not think that anyone of them would be less then 10,000 but since there are 3 rovers to a case and 10,000 Is not divisible by 3 well then who knows.

Ed can't you just call your connections in Denmark ;)

[@rtisan]

People seem to forget the obvious as well, that 10, 20, 30`000 set isn`t all that much. Really. It`s not. Not by a long shot. Lego is a multi-billion $ company, even the latter is not even $1mil at US MSRP. If people have 5k of these stashed collectively, it`s not a lot, there will be value. All we need is demand to drive sales, not limited edition. Focusing on how many units are produced of a product is not as relevant as understanding and projecting how much demand there will be for those units. If Lego make 1,000,000 Rovers but 20,000,000 consumers wanted them, 20:1 will drive prices up. Likewise if Lego made 1,000,000 but only 100k people wanted it, then the price would come down. When buying people should be focusing more so on questions like "will there be demand?" not on "Limited Edition". A lot of the time they go hand in hand, but not always. As far as Lego goes, look at 41999. It`s still selling quite high, but not nearly as high as some predicated it would be a year ago. Also a limited edition set, but not very many people give a damn about buying it. They`de rather buy the set it was based on for 1/2 the price. 

[grackleflint]

They`de rather buy the set it was based on for 1/2 the price.

And price also affects demand. How many of us want to buy Rovers at $75? Or SSD's at $650? Like the 41999, how much of the demand is from resellers vs collectors?

[imirish11]

And price also affects demand. How many of us want to buy Rovers at $75? Or SSD's at $650? Like the 41999, how much of the demand is from resellers vs collectors?

He means price affects quantity demanded! My Econ profs were always sticklers about this little detail.

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[Ed Mack]

Ed thanks. I thought someone had mentioned in the original press release or the lego catalog it specifically mentioned 10,000 units. It must have been just that it said limited.

The catalog had the term "limited" notation. It was similar to the "hard to find" notation. There were no actual numbers mentioned, unlike the 41999 or Marina Bay Sands, which were pegged at 20,000 and 10,000 respectively.

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[Perijove]

I'm 99% sure the Curiosity rover is gone for good.  I've checked with the powers responsible multiple times, just to be sure.  The remaining 1% uncertainty is just a result of my own naive hope, because I wouldn't mind having a few (many) more rovers myself.  They admitted to underestimating the demand for this set and that it would be taken into consideration for future releases.   I must admit I'm a bit jealous of those who claim to have 100+ rovers, not because I'm interested in reselling, but so I could leisurely give them away for the rest of my life.  I've never sold a LEGO set and have no immediate plans to start, but I couldn't help taking an interest in a discussion thread about a LEGO set that I designed.  Anyway, It's been interesting to use the tools here to track the interest in my set.  Hopefully all the stored sets in your closets eventually find good homes, even if the buyers, such as myself, have to pay a bit more for them now. 

[Jojoyojimbi]

I'm 99% sure the Curiosity rover is gone for good.  I've checked with the powers responsible multiple times, just to be sure.  The remaining 1% uncertainty is just a result of my own naive hope, because I wouldn't mind having a few (many) more rovers myself.  They admitted to underestimating the demand for this set and that it would be taken into consideration for future releases.   I must admit I'm a bit jealous of those who claim to have 100+ rovers, not because I'm interested in reselling, but so I could leisurely give them away for the rest of my life.  I've never sold a LEGO set and have no immediate plans to start, but I couldn't help taking an interest in a discussion thread about a LEGO set that I designed.  Anyway, It's been interesting to use the tools here to track the interest in my set.  Hopefully all the stored sets in your closets eventually find good homes, even if the buyers, such as myself, have to pay a bit more for them now. 

 

 

if you did have 100s of them you could probably ensure you get more for all of them than we ever could with a simple autograph from the designer

[stephen_rockefeller]

I'm 99% sure the Curiosity rover is gone for good.  I've checked with the powers responsible multiple times, just to be sure.  The remaining 1% uncertainty is just a result of my own naive hope, because I wouldn't mind having a few (many) more rovers myself.  They admitted to underestimating the demand for this set and that it would be taken into consideration for future releases.   I must admit I'm a bit jealous of those who claim to have 100+ rovers, not because I'm interested in reselling, but so I could leisurely give them away for the rest of my life.  I've never sold a LEGO set and have no immediate plans to start, but I couldn't help taking an interest in a discussion thread about a LEGO set that I designed.  Anyway, It's been interesting to use the tools here to track the interest in my set.  Hopefully all the stored sets in your closets eventually find good homes, even if the buyers, such as myself, have to pay a bit more for them now.

we have a celebrity among us and we didn't even know it! Welcome to the forums!!!

[DarthDrake]

Just want to say @Perijove that your set is awesome. I'm a big Space fan and the Rover is a prized part of my collection. I was only able to pick up 2, and I'll always hold onto one.

[Perijove]

if you did have 100s of them you could probably ensure you get more for all of them than we ever could with a simple autograph from the designer

I have definitely done my fair share of autographs (I signed a box earlier today at our monthly LUG meeting), even though I don't think I have a very impressive signature.  Just recently, I sent a signed set to the Brickworld convention in Chigago to be sold in the charity auction.  It was fetched a price of $500, which I thought was pretty cool.  I bet some of you guys are drooling over that last sentence right now, haha. 

[Jojoyojimbi]

actually guys, we have a perfect way here to determine now how many were produced, the cuusoo program pays the percentage to the designer, how many units did you get royalties for perijove, we've been debating whether it's 10k, 20k, 30k, etc

 

course i understand if you don't want to discuss dollar amounts and such

[comicblast]

I have definitely done my fair share of autographs (I signed a box earlier today at our monthly LUG meeting), even though I don't think I have a very impressive signature.  Just recently, I sent a signed set to the Brickworld convention in Chigago to be sold in the charity auction.  It was fetched a price of $500, which I thought was pretty cool.  I bet some of you guys are drooling over that last sentence right now, haha. 

Welcome to BrickPicker. How many sets did Lego give you? Obviously they won't produce them whenever you want... I would guess 15+?

 

In terms of CUUSOO/LEGO Ideas projects in general, I think Lego should just give the sets full production runs. Obviously the fans love the sets, and only the die-hard fans are voting for sets. What about the other millions of potential customers out there? There are common interests between both parties, so Cuusoo ideas would theoretically be popular with normal consumers, right?

[Perijove]

actually guys, we have a perfect way here to determine now how many were produced, the cuusoo program pays the percentage to the designer, how many units did you get royalties for perijove, we've been debating whether it's 10k, 20k, 30k, etc

 

course i understand if you don't want to discuss dollar amounts and such

All I know for sure is that CUUSOO/Ideas sets are produced in batches of 10,000.  I thought maybe they did 20,000, but earlier in this thread you guys mentioned that there were three different production codes, which would indicate 30,000 sets.  I'm afraid a royalty figure wouldn't be of much help because I only get 1% of net sales, which is some unknown fraction of the sale price.

[grackleflint]

Or if he could give us some insight into why LEGO won't do more production runs in spite of it being sold out in and in apparently high demand. Licensing? Since the Rover isn't strictly a commercial property, you would think that licensing wouldn't be an issue. Scheduling issues? Capacity? Too many other products?

[Perijove]

Welcome to BrickPicker. How many sets did Lego give you? Obviously they won't produce them whenever you want... I would guess 15+?

 

In terms of CUUSOO/LEGO Ideas projects in general, I think Lego should just give the sets full production runs. Obviously the fans love the sets, and only the die-hard fans are voting for sets. What about the other millions of potential customers out there? There are common interests between both parties, so Cuusoo ideas would theoretically be popular with normal consumers, right?

Your guess is too high, and I'll leave it at that.  I got them just before Christmas, so some of them were used as awesome Christmas presents for various family members.  I did my best to get as many as I could after that, but the limited availability and the 1 set restriction in the US made that difficult. 

 

It seems future Ideas sets will see larger production runs since they admitted underestimating the demand for my set.  All I know for sure is that LEGO works in mysterious ways.

[Perijove]

Or if he could give us some insight into why LEGO won't do more production runs in spite of it being sold out in and in apparently high demand. Licensing? Since the Rover isn't strictly a commercial property, you would think that licensing wouldn't be an issue. Scheduling issues? Capacity? Too many other products?

I have no idea why they stopped when they did.  There are no unique pieces, minifigs, printed parts, or stickers (you could easily BrickLink the set).  I doubt licensing would be an issue.  They were able to make more of the first Minecraft set after they sold out, but that is a whole different situation since they changed the title, removed the CUUSOO branding, expanded it with three more micro-worlds, and soon there will be minifigure scale sets.  As I said before, LEGO works in mysterious ways.   

[DoNotInsertIntoMouth]

1% of net sales seems like a crock of you know what honestly.

 

I mean Lego probably doesn't NEED ideas. But at the same time, these are voted on so you know you have the buyers before hand. I think its kind of silly.