mscheaf Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 If you are a believer in the codes, then yes. It also could mean that the set will be available in the short term. This added interest in this set could make LEGO change plans. We can be our own worst enemy in terms of set EOL. The GE could be an example of this. I believe hoarders are shooting them selves in the foot each time the panic buy out a set. Like you said. What if it was going to be retired but, hey, look at sales now, we should make more. Secondary market demand is pretty much steady. Why are we trying to increase secondary market supply so dang much? Greed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zurno Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 I believe hoarders are shooting them selves in the foot each time the panic buy out a set. Like you said. What if it was going to be retired but, hey, look at sales now, we should make more. Secondary market demand is pretty much steady. Why are we trying to increase secondary market supply so dang much? Greed?Everyone wants a bigger piece of the pie? So then the pie keeps getting larger, lol. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No More Monkeys Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 I believe hoarders are shooting them selves in the foot each time the panic buy out a set. Like you said. What if it was going to be retired but, hey, look at sales now, we should make more. Secondary market demand is pretty much steady. Why are we trying to increase secondary market supply so dang much? Greed? In this case, 38R4 was done _before_ panic buy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No More Monkeys Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 What's confusing is - if TLC made 38R4, why TH orders at LEGO Shop at Home are still on backorder? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baldilocks Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 If it was a small batch, they may have made them specifically for Double VIP and sold them through already. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bold-Arrow Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 Wasn't there a new HH batch that's wasn't followed with a mass stocking? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baldilocks Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 (edited) If it is really done, they may be making a new small batch to fill these unexpected back orders. Like MSCHEAF said, we could be shooting ourselves in the foot. They may need to keep making batches, kinda like they have with the GE because they keep going into back order and need to fill current orders. Edited October 8, 2014 by baldilocks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonysbricks Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 The SSD retired(for all intents and purposes) in a few months from my original cryptic post when I told people they "were stupid" for flipping the set for $100. Remember all the hub bub about my political incorrectness? The SSD became harder to acquire in the months following my statements, eventually retiring officially. That is correct, but it was April 2013 when the comments started on "this may be the last time you can buy this". The brickshow video about it retiring was pointed to as further evidence that the sources inside lego were agreeing an correct that it was retiring. I think this is a case where your sources had bad info or TLG just changed their mind because they had extra capacity. I headed your advice 6 months later (triple vip, 2 promos, giddy-up) and cannot be more happy with the results. When you and some of the other seasoned vets talk I listen. You have a good source and years of experience. But this is a case where even though the signs pointed to X, sources also confirmed X, and Y happened. I even watched SSD and DS stay mainly OOS on amazon for what seemed like Oct - Jan with little fanfare. For the record, I don't believe your comments have anything to do with driving affiliate sales. The smart business move if to give people the best info you have and keep them coming back year after year, not burning them on a few sets as a cash in. So when it comes to the TH, history tells me this is going to be around for years. But your info and looking at big picture of what makes sense to TLG the company tells me this is a prime candidate to disappear. I am 50/50 on what's going to happen. But I figure I can make a few bucks on the short term shortage either way. The point here is that while you have one of the best inside tracks into what's happening with sets retiring, bad info, unexpected stock movements, and TLG changing their mind can all throw curves into the mix. While it's not a bad idea to make small corrections to one's course, it is also not be the best idea to run full steam with those rumors and ride their own strategy off the rails. When inventory is completely wiped in less than a day, you have to wonder if this was the track most people were trying to follow 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exciter1 Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 For the SSD and any other advice/opinions Ed offers up, I think he has BrickPicker members best interests in mind. Driving affiliate participation by doctoring up speculation is never discussed and as he said, why would he hint at something when a set is sold out at a majority of the retailers BrickPicker has affiliates with anyway? Obviously, at the core, he appears to be more an avid collector and only a part-time investor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mscheaf Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 I know at least some of the 38R4s made it to B&M. Wonder if this code has came from a retailer yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cissi Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 The SSD retired(for all intents and purposes) in a few months from my original cryptic post when I told people they "were stupid" for flipping the set for $100. Remember all the hub bub about my political incorrectness? The SSD became harder to acquire in the months following my statements, eventually retiring officially. As you know many sets are retired for months before they are actually declared a retired product, so some people chose to procrastinate and ignore warnings and never bought one. I feel this could be a similar situation. Ed, you still didn't answer my question! Did you keep a spreadsheet yourself sort of telling yourself that when or what month you started seeing the EOL sign and the date they really went OOS everywhere? I do not mean to ask you to post your chart if you have one. Just if I were you, I will probably want to keep myself a record. I guess a bit like what stock analysts are doing. Pure curiosity. But I guess a bit off topic. lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mack Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 Ed, you still didn't answer my question! Did you keep a spreadsheet yourself sort of telling yourself that when or what month you started seeing the EOL sign and the date they really went OOS everywhere? I do not mean to ask you to post your chart if you have one. Just if I were you, I will probably want to keep myself a record. I guess a bit like what stock analysts are doing. Pure curiosity. But I guess a bit off topic. lol Ed's spreadsheet is in his brain. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miami Bomb Squad Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 Exciter1 and Ghostdad May be on to something here. So, I opened up my TH yesterday and wouldn't you know it, It came with a Fortune Cookie. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cissi Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 Ed's spreadsheet is in his brain. But I feel more fun with precision. Say, instead of 'several months before', he knows his prediction is, hypothetically, 4 months for SSD and 7 months for HH. I'm not experienced enough to predict stuff to have this statistics myself but wondering if experienced ones like you guys would have done this. So then one can have a mean and standard deviation of the period from prediction to EOL. It'll be fun IMO. Just remembered several months back or even last year that people were talking about the retirement of DS and some made fun of the Brick Show prediction, which was being a year old back then and still hanging around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerryherb Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 ....and sold out again at LEGO Shop at Home Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oneknightr Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 I had the page up while I was trying to figure out if I should buy another. I was fearing the ban hammer as I just ordered one from LEGO Shop at Home yesterday. Would they ban me for buying TH yesterday and then another today? Just asking just in case it goes back into stock later today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zskid00 Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 This sold out song and dance sure has all the signs of retirement. It could have a brief pre-retirement period (like SSD) or a long one (like GE), but it sure doesn't seem like the TH will be around much longer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trekgate502 Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 This sold out song and dance sure has all the signs of retirement. It could have a brief pre-retirement period (like SSD) or a long one (like GE), but it sure doesn't seem like the TH will be around much longer. zskid I was low $ on ebay for one I was going to flip until I saw your 2 pop up. Hope they move out and then I'll flip the one. VBG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No More Monkeys Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 This sold out song and dance sure has all the signs of retirement. It could have a brief pre-retirement period (like SSD) or a long one (like GE), but it sure doesn't seem like the TH will be around much longer. That song and dance might be a bit deceptive during double VIP and holiday promo, especially if sold out happens during double vip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChristopherJB Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 As I stated before, do what you will. Either way, I think you should buy this set as soon as possible. If you are a believer in short term retirement or retirement in a year, my advice is similar. Same goes for the Pet Shop and a handful of other exclusives that have been around awhile. Buy them now and let it ride. Regardless, you know many of these older exclusives are history within the next year, so why play the EOL game and procrastinate? As for inside information(if I had any hypothetically), there are rules that I try to would try to adhere by and I out of respect to possible other parties and their investing interests, I would not just blurt out everything I know. Nothing is set in stone. LEGO can change plans at will. What I do know is some people on this forum speak to the right LEGO employees and are dead on in their assessments, while others get false info. You just have to figure out which are correct. Good luck. Not that I'm disagreeing with you but it seems like every set is a must buy. The problem is allocating the funds. TH, PS and HH are winners, but eventually, people will only have so much to spend. I saw the TH many times on target and never pulled the trigger. I got $100 worth of gift card from Walmart, checked in the TH and changed my mind. If we all jump into lego this month, there would be no capital left for cyber Monday. You all saw how it went last year. Lots of great sets went down 50%. Loading up 20 AT-TE at $39 and reselling them all at $89 was much profitable than pouring money into one TH. if anyone here is lacking funds, my advice is hold up as you'll find other ways of making money off lego. This TH is a bigger risk than ramping up on the family house at $35 during thanksgiving. There seems to be a lot of newbies or forgetful people that need a reminder about cyber Monday. Less than two months to go. Make your wish list and prepare your trigger fingers. I'm not against purchasing the TH, these big exclusives can make a killing EOL. SSD is a perfect example. Personal preference, I rather start stocking up the AA instead of this. That's a guaranteed triple. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChristopherJB Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 That song and dance might be a bit deceptive during double VIP and holiday promo, especially if sold out happens during double vip That's what I'm thinking also. PS is going in and out as well. From past behaviour, I don't see the TH done. It is now running out of steam unlike the SSD mass panic buy where being listed at target for inflated prices led to panic buying. If target lists the TH at $275 and there's a mass panic buy, then I might believe this is on its way out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Mack Posted October 8, 2014 Author Share Posted October 8, 2014 That is correct, but it was April 2013 when the comments started on "this may be the last time you can buy this". The brickshow video about it retiring was pointed to as further evidence that the sources inside lego were agreeing an correct that it was retiring. I think this is a case where your sources had bad info or TLG just changed their mind because they had extra capacity. I headed your advice 6 months later (triple vip, 2 promos, giddy-up) and cannot be more happy with the results. When you and some of the other seasoned vets talk I listen. You have a good source and years of experience. But this is a case where even though the signs pointed to X, sources also confirmed X, and Y happened. I even watched SSD and DS stay mainly OOS on amazon for what seemed like Oct - Jan with little fanfare. For the record, I don't believe your comments have anything to do with driving affiliate sales. The smart business move if to give people the best info you have and keep them coming back year after year, not burning them on a few sets as a cash in. So when it comes to the TH, history tells me this is going to be around for years. But your info and looking at big picture of what makes sense to TLG the company tells me this is a prime candidate to disappear. I am 50/50 on what's going to happen. But I figure I can make a few bucks on the short term shortage either way. The point here is that while you have one of the best inside tracks into what's happening with sets retiring, bad info, unexpected stock movements, and TLG changing their mind can all throw curves into the mix. While it's not a bad idea to make small corrections to one's course, it is also not be the best idea to run full steam with those rumors and ride their own strategy off the rails. When inventory is completely wiped in less than a day, you have to wonder if this was the track most people were trying to follow Let's get the affiliate thing out of the way first...I know of three sets right now that are on the guaranteed short list but I won't say anything because it might affect future information coming my way, even at the expense of tremendous affiliate sales. As for the SSD, yes, I told people every chance I could to buy a SSD at Double and Triple VIP points, but I only mentioned something on the site when my source confirmed what I already knew was true. It took months for the final SSD to be sold and even longer to be marked as retired from the time I heard the SSD was marked as retired within the system. This is a slow process at times. As for the Town Hall, it would make perfect sense for this set to be around for another year or so. But my gut and a little bird tells me that this set could make an early exit. Does that mean one month? Three months? A year? Who knows for sure, but buying a few right now as a hedge is smart IMO. It takes a long time for all the sets to be cleared out of inventories and if there was a recent run, even longer. Point is, many people on this site think day to day. I think month to month and year to year. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cissi Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 If target lists the TH at $275 and there's a mass panic buy, then I might believe this is on its way out. This assumption wouldn't apply to HH. It's still MSRP and it's out most of the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
biniou Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 (edited) Can Someone explain to me why threre are so much exclusieve sets are sold out in the US? While these sets are still widely availeble here in Europe. Even HH I can still buy at my local Lego shop for retail Price. Double VIP points at LEGO Shop at Home Errr we have the same VIP points in europe. So that's not the reason why these sets are still available in EU and sold out in the US of A. In this case, 38R4 was done _before_ panic buy Smart point. What's confusing is - if TLC made 38R4, why TH orders at LEGO Shop at Home are still on backorder? Maybe they produced (quite) few sets on september, they finally didn't made enough, so they will produce some more sets, because it's (still) not done. But what's interesting is the fact they seem to have produce few boxes in september... it looks like they don't want to stock this set anymore... Edited October 8, 2014 by biniou Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No More Monkeys Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 ... Obviously, at the core, he appears to be more an avid collector and only a part-time investor. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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