75023 - Star Wars Advent Calendar 2013

[Achilles]

I actually smelled this coming but didn't have the capital to invest at the time. As soon as I saw the retailers were giving pretty deep discounts (30-40%) on these in November, I knew that they didn't want them hanging around after Christmas. I wanted to to pull the trigger on some, but just didn't have the funds avail at the time. Dems da breaks.

[glenbart]

The best deal in the u.k came nearly 2 week ago when these were half price. I had the same feeling too that the availability would not be like last year after Christmas, all depends on the numbers online. The first year SW calendar were still around at discount till mid-January, I had to pay

[stuturners]

As far as Lego investing goes I cant believe people missed this one.  A Star Wars Lego set on such a short limited run with exclusive figures is bound to be a great investment.  To be fair I knew this was a winner when it started selling out everywhere, I half thought it was investors bulk buying!

[ppsagehen]

I actually smelled this coming but didn't have the capital to invest at the time. As soon as I saw the retailers were giving pretty deep discounts (30-40%) on these in November, I knew that they didn't want them hanging around after Christmas. I wanted to to pull the trigger on some, but just didn't have the funds avail at the time. Dems da breaks.

 

Come now, the deep discounts were there in November last year too (probably because of 1. overproduction 2. they had inflated the price). I'd argue the shortfall was totally unpredictable. BTW I saw tons of these in toys R us germany in November. Tons.

[stackables]

Yeah, I call bs on people saying we should have seen this coming.  Last year sets were discounted heavily before Christmas too.  There were no indications that Lego was going to produce these in short supply.

[stuturners]

BS!  More like sour grapes someone missed out on a obvious set to get.  Its Star Wars, its on a v.limited run and its got exclusive figures, what is there to miss!  Even if they were discounted heavily you should have bought tons as the figures will part out for more, I know as thats what I did. 

 

If they were heavily discounted last year I would have bought tons again as a year later they are selling for more than retail, a sure fire winner in my book.  Its not too late anyway as they can still be had for good prices on ebay and they will be worth holding onto.

[stackables]

BS!  More like sour grapes someone missed out on a obvious set to get.  Its Star Wars, its on a v.limited run and its got exclusive figures, what is there to miss!  Even if they were discounted heavily you should have bought tons as the figures will part out for more, I know as thats what I did. 

 

If they were heavily discounted last year I would have bought tons again as a year later they are selling for more than retail, a sure fire winner in my book.  Its not too late anyway as they can still be had for good prices on ebay and they will be worth holding onto.

Please explain why the previous 2 star wars calendars are not even going for retail price? I didn't see any posts in Oct/Nov stating buy these up right now because they are going to be limited. 

[ppsagehen]

BS!  More like sour grapes someone missed out on a obvious set to get.  Its Star Wars, its on a v.limited run and its got exclusive figures, what is there to miss!  Even if they were discounted heavily you should have bought tons as the figures will part out for more, I know as thats what I did. 

 

If they were heavily discounted last year I would have bought tons again as a year later they are selling for more than retail, a sure fire winner in my book.  Its not too late anyway as they can still be had for good prices on ebay and they will be worth holding onto.

Do I wish that I could've picked these up for my kids? Yes.

Did anybody know they would be in short supply (our point)? Nope. Sorry, not even you.

Any by the way, I don't think this year's was actually as attractive as previous years.

[MartinP]

Do I wish that I could've picked these up for my kids? Yes.

Did anybody know they would be in short supply (our point)? Nope. Sorry, not even you.

Any by the way, I don't think this year's was actually as attractive as previous years.

I think that there was speculation that there would be not as many produced this year because of the sales last year, but it was all speculation. I saw last years Advent Calender all over stores heavily discounted. Now, this year, TLG produces less because of the previous years sales and the demand for the set is very high.

[seapotato]

I found a banged up Friends calendar at my Target yesterday, regular price. Checked the prices on ebay, only going for about $50 so didn't think it was worth it.

[glenbart]

The "speculation"..... Whether Lego made more of these sets than last year is something we don't know. What we do know is that last years sales of this set was a disaster for retailers (one up side, we may never see a set with jar jar binks again, they may finally get the message). Anyway, following last years poor performance of this set it would be very unlikely we would see it happen again, with most advent calendars (1st December-24th December) being sold in January, February, March. A retiler that would have lost money on this set is not going to do it again. In the previous two years, this set wasn't really discounted till after Christmas, they discounted it earlier this year, even on the Lego shop. Something like this is actually very predictable. Medium sized retailers probably would not have bought as many if any at all, I got mine last year from Clas Olsen, not known for selling Lego, people going to their website looking for this Lego set would have been 0. I missed out getting these sets half priced by an hour so, am I bothered? No.

[glenbart]

Also, you must also put into the fray that 3rd time round, more people know there is going to be a star wars advent calendar up for sale and go out and buy them, thus more being sold quickly... I never knew there was a star wars advent calendar till January 2012 or that there had actually been city and castle ones being sold before that.

[DoNotInsertIntoMouth]

Come now, the deep discounts were there in November last year too (probably because of 1. overproduction 2. they had inflated the price). I'd argue the shortfall was totally unpredictable. BTW I saw tons of these in toys R us germany in November. Tons.

 

Definitely agree - I saw these everywhere. What made it different than the last one?

 

BS!  More like sour grapes someone missed out on a obvious set to get.  Its Star Wars, its on a v.limited run and its got exclusive figures, what is there to miss!  Even if they were discounted heavily you should have bought tons as the figures will part out for more, I know as thats what I did. 

 

If they were heavily discounted last year I would have bought tons again as a year later they are selling for more than retail, a sure fire winner in my book.  Its not too late anyway as they can still be had for good prices on ebay and they will be worth holding onto.

 

I am afraid you are absolutely wrong here bug. The one last year had the same type of stuff - I have all the figures from both and these aren't any better  - except maybe the boy boba fett.

 

You obviously didn't see the last set of these sitting in stores (still) for months and months. 

 

And by the way, I can name plenty of star wars with short production runs and exclusive figures that didn't do well. They make about 100 million a year so these happen. On top of that, you still don't know what this set will do in the future. The advent calendars are going to keep appealing to people? I don't know.

 

I know you like saying "I told you so", but I am afraid you aren't some investing sage here - you got lucky. Which is good for you - we all do sometimes. But calling this obvious and being disrespectful to others because they missed out is petty.

[lowillsw]

These advent calendars are essentially garbage from an investment standpoint.  The micro builds are made of common pieces where you can easily put together with all the extra small pieces you accumulate from building all your big sets.  The only thing that is worth squat is santa figure, the resale value of Santa Yoda and Santa Darth Maul goes for 10 bucks on its own.  

 

You need to have some balls to load up on these this year.  The excess stock and the sum of all part value less than retail with previous editions puts the odds totally against you in making a profit.  If you made some $$ on it, good for you.  With the sales this year, the money was better spend elsewhere.

[Alcarin]

Do I wish that I could've picked these up for my kids? Yes.

Did anybody know they would be in short supply (our point)? Nope. Sorry, not even you.

Any by the way, I don't think this year's was actually as attractive as previous years.

 

Nobody knows anything really.... so just like you say (for example) helm's Deep is sure winner and slackers missing out would be their fault its the same here..... just this time you or someone else is on the other end....

 

Luckily those are still sitting on my local shop shelves.... friends and city all bought up but SW is priced at 30