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Just in case you all missed the memo, the Lego market is a complete bust, stop buying sets, let them rot on the shelves, they are worthless. Sell your inventories while you still can, try to recoup your investments and move on with your lives! (cracks knuckles)...just thinning the herd

yeah. next time i'll go with charmin toilet paper.

Just took a chance on a Tower Bridge from a 0 feedback seller on eBay. He had actual photos of the set and it all looked legit. I used the 10% off eBay coupon which made it $209. Plus I earned $16 in eBay bucks.

But that takes all the fun out of searching through all the different Lego sets available to buy!

There is an easier way to do it - its difficult to get used to but here goes: First, add all the parts you need to a wanted list. You to go to "Wanted list" and then put in the part number and select the color, number of them you need, new/used, etc (I always unclick the stupid email thing) and hit "add". Once you have added all your parts, there is a tab in the wanted list section called "show by in-store count". Go to that and arrange it by "unique lots". This now shows you the sellers with the most different parts from your wanted list. Clock on their store and it should show you all the parts they have you need. Click the button that says "auto-fill cart" in the top right corner and it will add all those parts to your cart. Once you buy them, remove them from the wanted list and start the process over again until you have them all. Obviously when you buy you want to look at minimums and shipping and where they are at. Usually it takes me 2 stores or so to do 20-30 parts so its not too bad.

By the time you are alerted (assuming that you are looking for a really good price) - it will very likely be gone. What you really need to do is install an OCD program into your brain - then you can just sit there refreshing the screen, until you find what you are looking for

A betting pool, eh? Sounds like fun. Alrighty then, I added one to the thread based on hourly increments. Go crazy folks. :)

Are Megan Fox and Michael Bay sleeping together? First she tries to ruin Transformers, and now she is April O'Neil? There is no other explanation for it. Don't get me wrong, Megan Fox is very easy on the eyes, but that's where it stops. She belongs on calendars, not in movies.

Please. Tin hats are so two hours ago. I've moved on to selling prozac on the beach to everyone who can't get over the good old days.

The problem is that the number of sellers on ebay(and everywhere else) is increasing at a faster rate than the sales growth. But there's no point in discussing it, everyone will believe what they want.

I'm the very definition of a "lurker" but I just wanted to throw something out there.... All this talk of how BP being to blame for all the new sellers out there is way off base. The number of resellers was growing long before BP got off the ground. Here's a (relatively) quick timeline for you all: In 2005, I didn't need to wake up before the sun to hit a clearance isle at Walmart - I could stroll in any time before the next weekend and basically be assured to find everything. I'm pretty certain that not even once was an isle wiped out before I got there. By 2009, it was starting to pick up a bit. Most of the Walmarts in populated areas would be wiped within a day or two of a decent clearance though the more rural ones would still linger a bit more. You would now occasional run into AFOLs in the isle as well, which was certainly strange at first! Also at this time, prices of bulk lots of Craigslist skyrocketed. For those who weren't around in the 2000s, back then you could pick up 50lbs for $100 nearly every week! And most lots were not cherrypicked by the sellers - loads of minifigs, near complete expensive sets, rare pieces were basically always included. Now $100 might get you 20lbs with no minis :/ By 2011/2012, places like Brickset and toysnbricks and whatnot were attracting people to their forums to discuss reselling and investing. Boom. Any part of the cat still lingering in the bag finally jumped out into the open. Clearance was now a crapshoot of getting lucky and hitting a Walmart before somebody else. Besides, these days most of the desirable sets don't even make it clearance. LEGO is popular enough now where most good sets sell out at full price. Honest, I don't even go hunting anymore. My closest 2 targets and that's it for me. I live in NYC (no walmarts in the city) and the tolls and gas required to hunt through Jersey for the off chance of finding something is just not worth it anymore. Now Brickpicker comes along and makes what used to require 10 minutes of research now take only 5. Honestly? So what? The market had ALREADY changed. Many people, new and experienced both, just did not see it. It's not like it is very difficult to notice that a LEGO set doubles it's price after a year. Like I said, 10 minutes on eBAy and how many of you started investing for yourselfs? It doesn't take a genius to flip LEGO guys... The "Good Old Days" sure were easy but they're long gone my friends. But that is no reason to fret. Find a way to adapt and survive or start dumping you stuff now. It most definitely will be more difficult as time goes on but I can assure you that as long as TLG is around there will be an aftermarket of some sorts for parts, minis, and sets. Whether you make any money in the changing aftermarket is entirely on you. Blaming others, deserving or not, doesn't help you move forward. Now....Back to lurking comfortably --Gary edited for typo

http://community.brickpicker.com/topic/4904-slave-1-help-me-choose/

Welcome to the forums Brick Lady!

Welcome!

Secret to ebay success .. own a unikitty building factory

Yeah, the mods should probably move all of the posts except 3 (original, the guess about GTC, confirmation about GTC) to the "lego investing bubble...". Though that seems like a lot of work...

Picked up a sealed box of Movie Minifigs. Cashier: "You're gonna buy a WHOLE BOX?!?!?!?"

That's an interesting idea for White Cloud City.

After nearly 6 days of not being able to build, i completed more sections today although it doesn't appear like much in the picture. - the landing ramp, underside of the escape pod opposite the ramp, 2 additional lower areas under the front (bow) mandibles, and 4 small sections that has greebling (visible through the top and lower circles in bow mandibles). - it's now entirely two heavy for carrying w/ one arm. - Now on step 68.1 of 97. - also added paper towels to the picture for size scaling.

Welcome aboard! Having an agreeable spouse certainly does make this easier! I got lucky in that area too!

Welcome to Brickpicker!!

Don't feel so bad...I started this hobby just over a yr ago but took a break from Sept-Dec and totally missed the FB retirement as well. Luckily Sandwraithx157 hooked me up with one in a trade and I'll save it to build later. Hard to crack open a set you only have ONE of Lots of great sets potentially retiring this year and there will be some surprises sprinkled in I'm sure - just time it right with sales/budget

This Target store keeps restocking 21002 at $5.98. I think I've picked up over 50 now. Slow movers, but at 70% off, it's impossible to leave em on the shelf.

Well it wouldn't be 'hard to find' if they made it easy for you!

It depends on location...at this point with very low inventory/availability...even $10 over retail, minus 20% plus taxes is still a good deal. Great investment set.

In the UK FB retailed at 99.99 and are being sold on eBay for approximately 200. Some bought them at John Lewis when they were 89.99 so pretty close to doubling your money

Look at the current value of the set right now. It is around $250. The set retails for $150, and the set has only been retired for about four months. The set will most likely double in value from the retail price by the end of the year. It is bound to increase to about $300 by the end of the year.

Assuming LEGO still has the license when this came out, it would be silly of them not to have at least 1 Black Widow set. I couldn't really see them not doing one, especially a smaller/cheaper one than Quinjet. If for some reason they don't make sets for the Black Widow movie; there's a good chance she'd be in an Avengers 2 set anyways. But who knows!

Haha. Anyway, I took care of the embedding bit for you. Usually it just requires the video address in between two media tags when posted like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJusMpZu-eM

We don't know that for sure. It's just an estimated guess right now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4emcNAf5lY

Ah fudge, here we go with the tree houses again.... :lol:

The sets all arrived safely from Amazon and LEGO Shop at Home. We are picking up the minifig shelf next week and plan to give everything to Gavin next weekend! I'll post pics here. (edited for typo)

To me it looks like it would fit any western scene, just replace the figs or make them unrecognizable from the movie are you're golden!

They should promote the complaint thread on front page of the site. The banner for Daily Thread must be replaced with a banner leading to Complain Thread and/or the Fruitcakes thread. Also, the ticker should include only the sets with negative changes

I don't think anyone is denying that sales are up. I think it is just the profit on those sales is slimmer and how the pie is split up with so many more new sellers.

Darn it Legodog. Now you are just taunting the nonbelievers by giving them facts. :p

For anyone wanting to do additional research you can signup for a 7 day free trial on terapeak.com. While BP obviously has access to much more info than you will find in the free trial it is still a wealth of information if you would like to investigate this all further on your own. It seems you can go farther back in Amazon data than eBay. Here is an eye opening stat for everyone. Amazon unique merchants selling LEGO in January 2013: 47,518 Amazon unique merchants selling LEGO in January 2014: 151,622 I am still messing with all the settings terapeak has to offer so I will report back once I figure out how it all works.

Why should the LEGO secondary market be any different than running an ordinary business these days? If you ignore the LA-LA LAND known as the stock market and the disconnected vision of the world it gives some people, you will realize that small to medium businesses in the US(and I'm sure all over the world as well) are struggling to make money. I have owned a brick and mortar business for 20 years and it is more difficult than ever to grind out any profit at all, so I am not surprised by the negative attitude of some members. Many people were spoiled with insane returns early on in the eBay/LEGO reselling days. I cannot blame them for being upset. The Money Train has derailed. That being said, there is still enough potential for people to "grind" out a nice profit. The Asian market is expanding and The LEGO Group continues to show strong profits. Heck, sometimes, there is still a way to make a short term, kick butt profit flipping certain sets like the AS, Minecraft, Crawler and others. I am truly sorry that some believe this site will destroy the secondary market. While the added exposure might bring more people into the hobby/business, it will also bring added buyers as well. The added exposure will help increase brand recognition and keep the values high. More and more people will realize that LEGO bricks are valuable and they will treat them as such. What I can promise you is that Jeff and I will help any person who wants to get involved in this undertaking by offering a quality forum to ask questions and to give people some tools to help research and track investment choices. The new Daily Deals that will be released shortly will help people save money and the Brick Classifieds will help members save money selling their sets on an active marketplace by charging little(1-2%), if any fee to do so. For those who are willing to put in some work and research, the future looks promising...

I bet you do

Thank you Mr. Happy. The Russian army will be coming soon to collect your sets. You better move to Greenland while you have a chance. Sent from my iPhone using Brickpicker

IMO it is really kind of pointless to compare LEGO to other commodities such as beanie babies and baseball cards because LEGO is not like said commodities. With most things you buy it is one product. With a LEGO set you are buying one thing that contains100's of seperate elements each with their own value. And all of those elements will combine with other elements. Elements from 30 years ago will still work with elements today. And a rich and vibrant culture has developed around this. To the point were people can make good money just selling their custom builds. How many other products can put a claim to this. I really can't think of any. This combined with a company who have a reputation for producing a quality product and who are careful to not flood the market makes me feel very secure about having a spare bedroom full of expensive boxes of fun.

I'll put it out there. I have. I have also sold. Though I do not do exclusively what Emazers does I do do it to an extent and have been doing it more. It's more of a guarantee. It's wayyyyyyyy less work then any other way to invest. With that said I still buy clesrnece and such cause their is something I really enjoy about the thrill of the hunt. With thst said I'd trade every clesrnece deal I've ever gotten in for fire brigades that old have been had for 119.00 for 6 months straight and I'm sure every one of you would do. I really do belive there is an aspect of fun to getting that clesrnece deal or hot sale thst csnt be had with click click over and over on sure winners like fb. To elaborate on that the thing that I see the most on this site is people always jumping on the next sale despite the one from last week still be active and being way better. How many of u were buying exclusives s from Wal-Mart after the first week and how many wernt cause it wasn't new and fresh anymore?

ASSUME

And how many sellers have quit the LEGO selling game since January 2010? Raise your hands... oh, wait, you're not here so you can't.

I hate to break it to all of you "Chicken Littles" out there, but Jeff and I have observed this type of graph and data since we have started keeping track well over 3 years ago. The same shape of graph, over the same time periods, with the same ups and downs, highs and lows. We have seen it for site activity, CAGR, # of sales, total $ sales and so on. It is remarkably consistent. This whole conversation is based on one seller's observations, with no other basis in fact. So I wouldn't bail on LEGO investing just yet if you want my opinion.

I invest in sets that don't "excite" me all the time, I mean otherwise how else am I going to explain the cinderella castle sets in my closet...am I right fellas?

"So, Lone Star, ....now you see that evil will always triumph....because good is dumb." Lord Helmet by customBRICKS, on Flickr

You should contact StarCityBrickCompany, he's thinking about a PedalPicker website, he may create a sub-forum for you.

Sending items twice eats even more profits. Tracking is a must.