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10 year collector, new to the site

belljohn
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belljohn BRICKULATOR

belljohn

Posted
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Hi everyone, my name is Brook and I am 38 living in Wisconsin.  I would like to relate a story about how I started collecting legos for investing.

 

Six years ago, my two sons were 8 and 6 and my oldest was just getting into Star Wars and legos.  What better way to relive my young lego days than you buy him a whole storm trooper army.  I loved the battle pack idea, so I bought 20 from lego and started to give him one on each day of the twelve days of Christmas.  My plan derailed on the second day when he looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, "Dad, I already have this."

 

After 3 years, the box of the 18 remaining Storm Trooper Battle Packs sat in the basement.  One day I can across them, and looked online to see if I could sell them.  Ebay had them selling for $30-$40 each.  "Holy hand basket," I thought.  "That's crazy." After fees, I turned $180 into $350.

 

I was hooked into buying and selling Legos after that.  I of course, made a few mistakes in the beginning.  Here are the rules I follow when buying investment legos.

 

1.  Don't buy opened sets for investing.  It takes way too much time to verify all the pieces are there.

 

2.  Buy retired opened sets to give to the kids for presents.  Best opened set: Luke's X-Wing with Yoda's hut for my son.

 

3.  Don't hold onto sets that may be reissued.  My best gain was on the original Jabba's Sail Barge that I bought for $80 in 2009 and sold for $370 in 2011.  I have noticed the price has dropped significantly in the last year.  Same thing on the Republic Attack Gunship (7676).  I bought at 2 at $95 and sold them at $320.  Now it is around $200.

 

4.  Don't buy sets that have already appreciated 100% (at least not for Star Wars).  I know there are a lot exceptions to this one, but it is related directly to my point above.  It is too easy to buy at the peak, and there are many sets about to retire that will appreciate much faster.

 

5.  Buy sets that have a huge collector fan base outside of Lego.  I completely missed the boat on the first round of Batman legos.  My son did get a Mr. Freeze $10 set that is over $100 now.  Too bad he doesn't have all the pieces.  I am not missing out this time around.  The creator sets have me stumped on who is pushing the prices so high.  However, I have jumped on the band wagon for those too.

 

As you can see from my list, I don't hold onto any set for more than 5 years.  Since I never open my legos, my kids and wife made me promise I would open my Christmas present last year.  It was fun to build my new Battle of Helms Deep, and now it is packed away until next Christmas, so I can look forward to building it again.

 

The sets I am excited about buying on Cyber Monday:

 

VW Camper Van

Any of the first Lord of the Rings issues left

Any of the super heroes sets

Any of the Creator buildings

 

Thanks for reading.  I look forward to learning from you all.

 

Brook

  • Like 1
Guest brickcrazyhouse

Guest brickcrazyhouse

Posted
Posted

welcome your story parallels this sites creator's almost completely.  This is a great place to look up going prices and to keep track of set that are box up and stacked. I'm really glad you weren't a 10 year old, that has better grammar and research/analysis skills.

akohns BRICK ANALYST

akohns

Posted
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Welcome. Many good points for investors looking to spend the least amount of time with the highest profits (usually people with busy full time jobs that don't leave room for actually pieceing sets together or parting sets out).

comicblast BRICK TRADER

comicblast

Posted
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Welcome to BrickPicker! That is an amazing first post, and thanks for the tips! It's awesome to hear about your success as a LEGO investor, and that you acknowledge that the minus's of investing. Sometimes people start out with the misconception that LEGO investing is all $$ and  :money:

Guest eightbrick

Guest eightbrick

Posted
Posted

That was a really enjoyable post, thanks for sharing your story and welcome to the community Brook!

belljohn BRICKULATOR

belljohn

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Thanks for all the welcomes.  Much more than I expected.  I live just south of Madison, WI in Stoughton.  All this love makes me want to spend hours digging through my huge box of parts and put together my first lego set, the Classic Castle #375, all in yellow.  Or maybe the Space Command Center #493.

 

Great community.

 

Brook

Guest TabbyBoy

Guest TabbyBoy

Posted
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Welcome!

 

i only joined myself a few months ago even though my first volume purchase was 44 VW Beetles (10187) from John Lewis when they were on sale a few years back.  I wasn't really into Lego then but, I had to have one of these (still have it built) and something inside me told me to buy all they had in that branch as I just knew they were special.  The profit from selling 40 of those has actually financed the Brickfolio that you see below with a few quid left over.  It's a shame that I didn't have the same gut feeling about the 10179 as I'd be retired by now! ;-(

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