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This reminds me of investing in stock. Buying the Lego exclusives that can only be bought online or Lego brand stores seems like a solid investment, like Coca Cola or Johnson and Johnson. Solid performers at a solid pace given time. I like the smaller investments and view them as a riskier investment with greater breakout return value. Every portfolio needs a little diversity and for myself a little bit of fun. I understand Emazers calculated approach but what he talks about is way out of my league. I'm small time and always will be and that's alright with me.

Not to poop on anyone's "big set" parade, I just want to point something out to members. Jeff ran some quick data for an article that is being done on the site and came up with this interesting tidbit: Here are the TOP 5 RETURN ON INVESTMENT SETS: 10190-1: Market Street $89.99(MSRP) http://www.brickpicker.com/bpms/set.cfm?set=10190-1 1413.42% Value Up 10123-1: Cloud City $99.99 http://www.brickpicker.com/bpms/set.cfm?set=10123-1 759.72% Value Up 4766-1: Graveyard Duel $29.99 http://www.brickpicker.com/bpms/set.cfm?set=4766-1 737.18% Value Up 10026-1: Special Edition Naboo Starfighter $39.99 http://www.brickpicker.com/bpms/set.cfm?set=10026-1 663.87% Value Up 10182-1: Cafe Corner $139.99 http://www.brickpicker.com/bpms/set.cfm?set=10182-1 599.05% Value Up Besides the Cafe Corner, the top growth sets are medium to smaller sets. Large sets might reach higher price points, but from a pure % growth standpoint, smaller and medium sets are proven to be just as good, if not better investments. Some Holiday polybags are the best performers out there. To be quite honest, I believe Jeff removed a small set or two for effect because this was going into an article. I will see if Jeff remembers what small and "boring" sets he removed. Diversification is the key. If every person has 20 Haunted Houses, how valuable will that set ever become? As Ed said, it's about picking the "right" sets. Many successful investors dabble only in smaller sets and medium sets. Good luck...

I am posting this as I been getting alot of E-mail from people saying they really screwed up by buying hundreds of the small cheap sets, instead of getting the Big and exclusive sets. Now I guess Everybody on here would get as many old Exclusives as they could afford at the regular Retail price right now if that had a chance. Like the Remote AT-AT, Imperial Flagship, Carousel, Cafe Corner, Green Grocer, Dubai, Statue Of Liberty, Eiffel Tower, Imperial Shuttle,Diagon Alley, 10195 SW Dropship, SW 8129 AT AT and there are more, but the point of this is so most screwed up and missed the Train on Most of these. So I am telling you that you don't have to screw up this time. Everybody wants the Haunted House, Tower Bridge on one of Amazon's Flash sale, well if you are on the computer at that time and you get 2 thats great, but its only 2, and that goes for all the other exclusives we are all hoping for a flash sale,But don't hold your breath.Thats why buying some of these exclusives at retail for me is still a deal, But it looks to me if most of you who can't save 30% or more on the sets you won't buy it. And the ones that said that on the older exclusives I listed should be pissed off at thereself for not buy at retail. If you would of just bought 5 of each you would of cleaned up. Well its going to be the same situation on the exclusives out now. I am 64 years old and spent about 24 grand on Lego last year, and looks like this year will be at or more, because in about 5-6 years I should have hundreds of thousands of Lego ready for selling, So $179 haunted house from 2014 sold for $500 and up in 2019 and I have 49 left, thats why if you have to pay full retail do it, get those HH, TB, Batman Arkham, Death Star, SSDS, Fire Brigade,GE, Town hall, Pet Shop, Ewok Village, ETC.So After I make a few hundred grand I will most likely be done selling Lego, I think I no what I am doing on selling lego I have made lots of money selling them, so much I paid Cash for a new car in 2004 and another brand new car in 2008 in cash.I will be investing 90% of my Money on the Lego sets that I think will do good,"AND THERE ALWAYS BE EXCLUSIVES,AND THERE WILL ALWAYS BE PEOPLE THAT WILL BE BUYING AND PAYING BIG BUCKS FOR THE RIGHT SETS." But for you new investors who want to make serious money you have to spend money not $50 or $500 I mean thousands to get started, and the hard part after you spend thousands you have to way a few years. And for you guys riding around all day looking for cheap sales well good luck, but the big money is not going to be made doing that, now if you are making money flipping and buying the big and exclusive sets well thats great. Ed

Ugh, the enter button and paragraphs were invented for a reason...

Put me back in 2007 and I would be buying 8 Market Streets instead of one 10179 MF...

For my 1,000 post, I thought it would be appropriate to provide the BP community with a Legends of Chima post! I have been monitoring the television ratings for Episodes 4-6 and thought I would share them. First, Episodes 1-3 averaged about 1.5 million viewers per episode. Here is the data for Episodes 4-6: 7/17, Episode 4 - The Joy Ride: #22 on cable, 1.01M (0.187M adults 18-49) 7/24, Episode 5 - Market Day: #15, 1.19M (0.197M adults 18-49) 7/31, Episode 6 - Attack on Eagle Spire: #20, 1.03M (.15M adults 18-49) These are good numbers for Cartoon Network, and appear to show the burgeoning popularity of this line. Look for the ratings to increase when kids start going back to school, roughly around 9/1, and ride that crest to a strong final episode. There are 20 new episodes in Season 1, so if they show the episodes consecutively, the season finale would be around November 6. Encouraging signs from the television show - we'll see if it starts to increase viewership in the next 3-4 weeks! And now, an emoticon to celebrate 1,000 posts. Burgers are on me...

Since $ Investments in Lego are determined by price AND quantity of units purchased, comparing % Growth or even % CAGR across different priced sets is not always the best indicator of where you should place your investments. Why? Because the leverage of that x% changes based on the denominator. 100% Growth on a $10 unit will net you $10, whereas 100% Growth on $100 will net you 10x the amount. The #1 KEY FACTOR is expected rate of INVENTORY TURNOVER, relative to your expected CAGR. If 10 units x $10 ea. grow at 100% in half the amount of time it takes 1 unit x $100 ea. to grow at 100%, then you will obviously have the ability to make more with the lower priced units, and vice versa. Why does inventory turnover matter? Because you value your time. % Growth per Annum is a very attractive statistic, but none of us live forever, so the 'A' in CAGR becomes important. At the Age of 64, Ed has fewer 'Annuals' left in his lifetime than some college kids saving up for the next keg party. The ultimate goal is to generate the biggest bankroll of cash in the shortest amount of time. What Ed points out is that these higher priced units have a MUCH HIGHER rate of inventory turnover, later in their lives...meaning in 2-4 years from now, Haunted House could turnover 10x per year at 100%, whereas if you were to instead have invested that $ in, say, Avenging Cycle's at $10 per unit, it could possibly take several years to turnover enough units to generate enough profit that those Haunted House's brought in just one year. This is just in example, and everyone's valuations will differ slightly, but the principles remain the same. Get the idea? 2 items with equal CAGR will not necessarily have the same RATE of INVENTORY TURNOVER. More importantly, how does the rate of inventory turnover change, as the desired CAGR changes? Could it be possible that cutting your Expected CAGR in half could triple the rate at which your inventory turns over? Thus, when comparing LEGO investments between forum members, opinions will always VARY, based on your Expected CAGR, Expected Rate of Inventory Turnover, and the number of Annuals you expect to have left in your working lifetime.

I think the key word you have here is "same". Just like traditional stock investing, I am sure everyone would have loved to have gotten in on Apple, Google, etc back in the day, but that time has come and gone. Things will never always be the same and people who have been doing this for a long time do have an advantage (obtained older sets that are already EOL). You just need to set your expectations and have a number as to what will make you happy when doing this.

For the shelf life some of the bigger sets are seeing these days I'm sure the investor that thought investing big into the GE, FB, and Live Star kick themselves on a regular basis seeing that they haven't had a return on any of their sets if they bought a year into their release. They've been out so long and aren't going to see a large return for another few years because of the rise of buyers of these sets for resale. I could buy a pet shop right now but if it's shelf life follows the FB and I have to wait a couple more years before it's not being sold anymore, and then wait years on top of that to make a profit, that formula might not work in a couple years from now. In my own mind, I wouldn't buy an Ewok village now because I may potentially have another three years to buy it and Lego advertises when sets retire, why would I start buying it now?

Big sets? Wait? So my Captain America's for 6.50 a piece aren't worth my time? I really don't see what all of the fuss is over the big sets. I dabble in everything. I've paid anything from $3.00 to $300 for a set. I sell some sets for $15, and some for as high as $500. You won't see me ever put all of my eggs in one basket, simply because this is a hobby for me. I want the confidence that if things did by chance fall apart, I wouldn't be stuck with 30 TB's (not suggesting the TB will flop, but I would hate being stuck with 30 expensive sets).

Can the new crawler get to 800? Doubt it. Haunted house get to 700....perhaps. Better off getting a potter train for 150 @ And selling for 400 in a couple years. Or a potters alley for a deuce and getting 500 in a couple years. I am thinking of buying these retired sets if the right deals pop up. If the camper or camel retire soon...I could see these at 400 in 4 years. Helms deep at 90 very well may see 360 in a couple few years. I could see a 40 dollar weathertop going for 160 in 2 years... new falcon for 99 might fetch 350 in a couple few years. We dont KNOW but with the sets above well bought...you will NOT lose money...which is the number one goal in speculative investing. Limit your losses.

I buy almost every Friends set that comes out. My daughter is 7 and loves them. She can put them together with little trouble. I'm sure when she grows out of them I'll clean them up, make up what sets I can with whatever pieces are left and sell them on ebay. There's always going to be parents who are going to want these for their kids. I don't expect to get rich off them but I believe they will always have resale value and you can at least recoup a good portion of what you spent on them. You can say you're real man when you sit down and play Lego Friends with your daughter.

Pretty sure most of the Aussie members here would have already put in orders for this month's Crown Jewels of Lego LEGO Shop at Home - the Delorean and the 4x4 crawler, not sure how everyone's orders are tracking / processing / (dare I say) shipping etc, my experience so far has been....interesting. I'll start from the latest development. Just got an email today - "Your Lego order has been shipped!". Could it be? Could it really be that they've shipped 1 of my 2 orders, which are supposed to be on backorder? Heart pounding, hopes rising. Scrolling further down, I realized who was on his way - the brave little Galaxy Squad Orange Team member Jack Fireblade, and his trusty 4-legged mini mech. All by his lonesome self, on a long perilous voyage across oceans and continents. I just had to laugh. No doubt he will be welcomed with open arms and a well deserved rest and debriefing when (and if) he eventually arrives, though I do wonder why Grand Command had dispatched him so hastily...when he was supposed to be on security detail escorting an important load of cargo to which I have resigned to patiently wait for... Flashback to Aug 1st - D-Day. Onto LEGO Shop at Home like a flash, first thing in the morning. No sign of the Delorean. Checked the UK site. There it was, fresh and ready for the taking. Got sidetracked a bit browsing through the other new offerings. Back onto the Oz site - additional webpages for New listings had been added. Yes! Delorean - available now. Ordered just enough (3) to qualify for free shipping. Redeemed some VIP points. Order submit / confirm / set and engrave in stone. Confirmation email received after 5 minutes. Relief and contentment. Aug 2nd - checked on LEGO Shop at Home to see if it was sold out already. Saw that the crawler was also a top seller, decided to take a closer look and actually read the product description. Must confess that I'm not a Technic fan, so had ignored any prior news about this one, and was initially put off by the price. Suddenly realized the exclusivity of this thing, and the product image started to look much, much more attractive. Even the wife, who saw it as she walked past, said it looked impressive. Knew I had to put in an order, and I did. Receive an Important Update to your Order email on Saturday morning, 2 days after the order. "As you have ordered this product before, we will have to cancel one Delorean....limit of 5 per household..." Bewilderment, and then the silent swearing and cursing starts. Checked my order status on LEGO Shop at Home - sure enough, 1 cancelled, the other 2 on backorder, Jack Fireblade decommissioned and dismissed, and charged for shipping. Pretty sure that they had stuffed up my order somehow, tried hard to stay calm and rational all weekend, in anticipation of the possible confrontation on my hands at 8pm EST on Monday, when Grand Command becomes accessible to outer rim inhabitants. 8pm Monday - armed with original order confirmation on my screen, on the phone with Agnes (name changed to protect identity) from Customer Service. Agnes promises to call back in 5 after her discussion with the consortium known as Admin. True to her word, she rings back. "Admin says only 1 Galaxy mini-mech per household, so they took it off" I said that's not the main issue, and explain the whole situation. She says there's a new limit of 2 per household / customer worldwide. I tell her about the limit of 5 clearly stated on the Oz LEGO Shop at Home, she responds by saying she can't access that site and can only see what's on the US site. Sensing a cop-out and a brick wall forming, I go to plan B - and request for an order cancellation, explaining that I wasn't willing to pay for shipping if I can't order 3 (which I would have been willing to go through with if she had agreed to it, and then try to put in a new online order for 3 sets again). Agnes pauses. She then offers to put the 2 Deloreans onto my crawler order, so that I'll get free shipping. I'm not averse to this and ask about my VIP points redemption, which I want to make sure was being applied to this new bastardized order. Again, Agnes has to consult with the Admin high council. I request that she ask them about the order limit, and if the new rule is 2, then stating a limit of 5 on the Oz site is misleading for customers. As promised, the phone rings in 3-4 minutes. Apologies start flowing abundantly - Admin made a mistake, the cancellation email should never have been sent, the limit for Oz customers is 5, the order will be reverted to its original, VIP points redemption and all. Galaxy mini-mech on this order is unfortunately permanently discharged, but will be revived in my crawler order. Feeling of relief sets in, I assure Agnes that I understand its not her fault, she mentions human error and the crazy avalanche of orders that has struck them, and stresses that all my orders will be on backorder. I accept this (I have no issue with waiting, though slightly disappointed that Deloreans will be on backorder despite putting in an order when it was clearly tagged as available) and the conversation ends amicably. A final order status check online - back to Defcon 5, sanity restored - at least for now. I suppose not being on the frontlines of Lego customer orders and service, I can only imagine how crazy it is like at this time. I wonder if they might have underestimated the popularity of these 2 products, and are now struggling to cope with orders in real time, with customer reps unsure about the different order limits. Somehow, I seem to think that by now every Lego employee would probably not fail to forsee the immense demand these products generate, especially after events such as the Great Minecraft Sale and the Comic-Con Chronicles. Or is mine just one of a few expected human error type stuff-ups, and Agnes was momentarily distracted during key moments of the customer limit team briefing? Has your order experience been an eventful one as well? Or is it chugging along smoothly with no nasty surprises?

I guess you haven't been on Bricklink that has been around for quite a few years and has had a price guide as well. I think they are still doing quite well. The world of LEGO is not just sellers. eBay and Bricklink sell millions of dollars of product a month, Brick Classifieds will not change this. People also should realize that more people that know of Brickpicker and can be here when BrickClassifieds launches means that many more eyes on your listings.

Jeff is on his way to England. I will look on my Ipad at home and see if there is something that you are missing. Otherwise, he will take a look tomorrow.

I know the TB EOL has been endlessly speculated on, but it's out of stock at LEGO Shop at Home, out of stock at Amazon, and Target.com has bumped their price up to $299.09. What's going on??

Yeah, I'm not going to run out and wait on line for them. LOL. Maybe if STAR TREK was a new theme, then I might get excited.

Excellent point. Different strokes for different folks is my point. What works for one investor might not be an option for another. I love large exclusive sets as well, but I also have quite a few smaller sets thrown in. Small sets can make money for people on a budget or limited with space. But remember one thing, if every Tom, Dick, Harry or Ed buys the same large sets(...and this I know they do!), how much will the growth be affected by an overabundance of a particular large and exclusive set?

That is the key for smaller investors. Emazers may be ok with spending $24k last year and let it sit for 4 years to make $48k profit (assuming 300% ROI and all those sets retire this year), but I ain't got that kind of money Good for him to make the model works, but it took him several years to get all wheels running. Moreover, that was back in the day when LEGO investing was known only to the select few. With the increased competitions, how much longer will it take for new investors to make the same ROI percentage by following emazers' model ?

Here I am adding this as well. It may give a more current perspective with recent sets. Again many of these sets are small to medium.

Here is the full list of the top performing sets from retail (% increase): As you can see, well over half are small to medium sets. My point is that there are many ways to invest. Big and exclusive sets work for some people and not for others, but do not ignore small and medium sized sets in your Brickfoilio, it is a huge mistake.

Let's see; 1 - They have not heard of amazon or LEGO Shop at Home 2 - Yes, see one above 3 - Oh yes!!! As sellers we love 'em. As buyers they are a right pain in the wozzit Yes but my point is that these two were UK bidders, I checked. I could understand it if they were from countries where Lego is scarce but here. No excuse. Do your homework. But I refer to point 3 above. and

When I started out, I was buying these small sets at small discounts and trying to sell them - doing a bunch of work for $10. Honestly though the point is this: Time is money. People say - well this $10 set has an AMAZING ROI!!! But each set you sell takes a listing. Whereas, if you bought a set with worse CAGR, but for $400, you are making money off of one listing. Time is an important factor in all of this. Big sets are where it is at.

Great post. What people need to realize is that everyone's goals and resources are very different. Emazers strategy works for him, and that's great, but we can't all be expected to follow it when our circumstances are extremely different from him in some cases. This is why some people invest in hedge funds, while others focus on index funds. Different risk/return profiles and investment goals.

If I remember correctly, when I registered mine it asks you where you are from.

This has to be the best statement I have ever read. Well done, sir.

I don't think it will happen with anything currently widely available in the 4 years allowed. The only chance for those kinds of returns will have to be a limited run set that sneaks in and out of production like The Zombies.

Tower Bride, anyone agree?

That....tune....ROCKS!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtMGoU9NcMo

Yes! You have to yell it... In unison

fellas,

This thread title caused me to sing this in my head: "For those who buy in bulk....we salute you!"

That's a bummer that it's been confirmed. I don't think that Lego has ever decided to make sets for a show so controversial. --> terrible.

I'll let you know when it happens. It might be sometime in August and maybe towards the end of the month.

Here guys, I am calling the WHAAAAAMBULANCE for you