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As the release of the Brick Classifieds feature nears, we wanted to add a new forum dedicated to it. This will be the place that we will make announcements and updates regarding Brick Classifieds. One of the first announcements I am going to make is that I am looking for some members that have the time and really want to post on Brick Classifieds. Overall we are looking for an initial group of people that devote time to help populate the site with real listings. When we open the site to the rest of group, we want you to be able to see instantly how it will look and feel. I would really like to invite members who have no less than 30-50 sets and/or minifigures that they will be willing to take new photos and put in solid details. Remember, the #1 rule of this site is that you need to upload at least one real photo of the actual set(s) you will be selling. No stock photos will be allowed unless accompanied by an actual photo of the item being sold. We will go over these rules more as I create a Brick Classifieds (Beta) forum to discuss and issues or concerns. The first phase of the release of Brick Classifieds will be mostly about loading the site with listings. That without a doubt is key to getting the site recognition. As we have mentioned before all listings will be FREE during a beta period which will probably be a few months long. Ed and I have had many discussions about what our goal is with this site. Our overall feelings have been that it should be an extremely easy to use system for posting sets. Those of you that are familiar with eBay should feel right at home here. Much of the concept of adding/buying items and posting feedback is almost the same. It's simple. Nothing here will blow your mind as far as features go. It's meant to be simple but effective. As time goes on, more features will be added when we feel that they will make the most impact. If you have 30 or more items that you would like to post and have the time to put in solid effort in creating good listings so that everyone can get an idea for what the site will be like, please send me a PM or post in here. Sometime in the next week or so I will invite you into a Private Beta forum. One special note that we would like to put out there is that we have decided to allow everyone to create a new account. It will not initially be tied to your Brickpicker account in anyway. So for those of you that are concerned about all the BS that has been going on, you can start fresh here. For those of you that don't care about all this, you can use your BP username so that people will know who you are and feel confident. For many of you I think this can be a huge benefit. As I open up new features for sales with the Brickfolio, there will be a hook that will tie accounts together privately if you wish. We will get into this more later, but just wanted to put it out there. Over the next few days, we will talk more about features, show screenshots, etc. We appreciate you being patient, but hopefully by getting it going now, I can start to get marketing going and help everyone have a great holiday season this year

Maybe we will hire some Oompa Loompas...On a serious note, yes it will be, but eventually, people will build up some positive feedback and we will be able to stop reviewing certain members listings. Even from the start, there are people who I trust(not you...LOL) and their listings will be approved automatically. I have seen their eBay and Bricklink stores and their ratings are excellent. I will talk to Jeff about making some sort of override for members who are willing to show us their feedback on other sites so we can carry it over in some way. Maybe some sort of badge or emblem indicating an experienced seller.

Well there will be an area for "Wanted" as well as "Trades" These will be simple ads and it will be up to you to do your due diligence as to whether to make the deal of not. Just create a "Free" ad of "WANTED: 10197 Fire Brigade" then in your description post what you are willing to pay and what you are looking for. People will contact you, later you can look at their feedback and do it. Then if you want to do a transaction then move forward with the deal. As far as your idea for you to filter on people with feedback, sure, good idea and it will come down the road when there are enough transactions to allow for it to actually work well.

Another thing that Ed and I have bounced around is how do we want people to manage their listings and what happens after they post their item. As we have stated before, our goal is to become a great place to shop for LEGO. We want to tell people that we have experienced and knowledgable members with great pricing, come buy from them. We also hope that sellers give good value which will keep the buyers coming back to see what's new. There are two types of listings. Never-ending ones and of course ones that will end after a certain period of time. We are going to offer both. 1. Will have a longer duration, something like 60 or 90 days. The goal is to keep the seller engaged with the site and their items. One major negative of the never-ending listing is that people set it and then forget it. They don't come back and look to see what the price is, are people looking at it, basically if it sells, it sells. This is also a potential site killer for those that push high prices and don't care. You will be notified that you listing has ended and then you will just have to visit the site and re-list for free (just click a single button). At that time you should evaluate your price, images, description, everything to help put you in a position to sell your item. At least then, people will know that the items and seller are still around. A direct quote from Ed..."If it sits there too long, maybe the price wrong..." 2. The never-ending listing. This will be available for you as well. There will be a small fee with this though and its only paid if the item sells. We understand there are the users that want to set it and forget it and that is fine as well. If you are the type that is dead set on what you want for you item and don't care how long it sits there, then this is for you. All initial items from the start will have a long duration rate until the site gets going. We are trying to come up with options that give the most impact. Custom builders, unique products, custom minifig creators Ed and I also know that there are very creative people out there that may want to sell or that there may be the really rare item that you want to bring more detail and attention too. There will be very simple features like adding youtube clips to showcase your listing. We know you are out there and will want to get feedback from you so that you know you have a good place to go and post your unique items. We are adding categories for these users. Once inventory increases and we see what types of items are listed, we can then create sub categories

The basic startup fees, after the initial free Beta, will be posted. A lot really depends on the community and their interest and involvement in the Classifieds. Listen, we all want to make money, but to be quite honest, we have to actually see how much work Jeff and I have to put into this to make it work. The community can help by getting involved and posting their sets correctly and making the deals happen. We want to charge very cost effective fees...basically dirt cheap, but in order to advertise these listings properly, it will cost us money, so it can't be free. Jeff has some really great ideas he will share as we mature and develop the Classifieds, but we have to crawl before we walk, so exact numbers and structure/features of the site will be in flux. You will be impressed with what we have in the way a simple and usable interface. The Classifieds can be the answer to high fees on eBay/Amazon and possible future fee increases on Bricklink. If people price their sets properly, list their sets properly and ship their sets properly, the Classifieds will work and everyone will be happy. Abuse the system and it will damage the entire community and it's reputation. We want people to save money by using the Classifieds, but we also want members to pass on some of those savings to buyers as well. Sent from my iPad using Brickpicker

People have to keep track of their inventory. We cannot police where they post items for sale, nor will we try. But if an item sells on this site, we expect the seller to complete the deal, without any issues or excuses. Sent from my iPad using Brickpicker

Oh Benny... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2i_CKDrZUw

Used but complete w/ mostly sealed bags 10214 tower bridge for $180 shipped. eBay, best offer. Listed for $200+$25 shipping. I offered $155+25 ($180 total) and they accepted. I have several sealed but have always wanted to build one. Now I'll be able to do that before I put it in storage for a few years. Can't wait to receive it.

Just went by the Robie House today! Now I'm excited to see how it's built on the lego set. Have not bought it off ebay tho. Prices have gone up up up! Now I'm kicking myself for not buying the set I saw at the MET in NY.

ZAGG sells cellphone/tablet accessories for those who do not know who they are. From my experience their products are fairly high quality and i use their screen protectors all the time. They have launched a new site and are having an "up to" %50 off sale on select items. These are not just clearance items and there are some great deals on there. I believe they also offer free shipping to the US. Ended up finally purchasing a keyboard for my iPad mini (originally $99 down to $29). Anyways just thought i'd share! i'm sure many of us have smartphones This sale is valid May 26-27. Link: http://www.zagg.com/promo?utm_source=email_Marketing&utm_medium=Promotion&utm_campaign=NewZAGG_ActiveAnnouncement

It's something I would like to incorporate, but I just have to get Jeff to make it happen.

The lowest price its been on Amazon uk is

You had me at "badge or emblem". You know how us girls are about shiny stuff.

You're talking about business liability insurance. If you're concerned, your best bet would be to form a corporation or LLC, and that way the business would be sued in most of these types of cases (except in the case of gross liability by the owner, for example if you said in your ads, "Hey, buy this for two year olds! Totally safe and they won't choke!" instead of the disclaimer that you might use and LEGO does use on the packages you send people. You can get a personal liability umbrella policy through some homeowners insurance policies, and a normal business policy like I have under my own personal name also offers some liability insurance that I could increase if I were worried - but keeping it under my own personal name, I'm always going to be sued personally, not just my business, so IF someone won a huge settlement beyond what my normal business insurance covers, I have no corporate or LLC umbrella to protect my personal assets. I'm not worried about it, but if I were famous or worth more than 10 million, I'd probably look to incorporating just to keep some separation from a motivated scammer and a dumb judge.

I'll probably wait until mid-Summer and try to get one used/complete for $100 or under.

Evening all I have recently started making brick films. Just posting one for critique, I know some content has been done before, but this is more of a test film Thanks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3wZZ6QUu9I

Thanks. I got the wife a keyboard and accessories for her ipad mini. Maybe this will distract her from my lego purchases this month...

It should be easy, get a couple of headlight bricks, place the lights inside them and attach the headlight bricks onto a place where the lights would be visable. Haven't built it myself, but is the method the Horizon Express uses.

I finally finished building my R2-D2 after starting to build it five months ago. Great set and display piece.

I think you overestimate the amount of resellers on the site. We have almost 30,000 members and most are silent and probably don't resell LEGO sets. They are here to check out prices and the values of their sets and look for sales on the Daily Deals. They are also here to talk LEGO in general. As Jeff stated above, Bricklink has done very well over the years selling their LEGO sets with poor advertising and awful site features and functionality. Viewing photos on that site is a joke. They do well because they charge a fair fee and LEGO fans know of it. We will actually advertise and Jeff and I have some ideas to promote sales, but we have to get the feature active before we can move on many of these ideas. If a seller on the Classifieds listed an item at a fair price, why wouldn't you buy from them? If you are the type of seller that likes to list items for way over market value and wait for some uninformed sucker to buy from you, the Classifieds are not for you. Stick with Amazon and eBay and their 10-15% fees and growing regulations and restrictions. But if you like to charge a fair price and pay reasonable fees, then give us a shot. Sent from my iPad using Brickpicker

First off ... a "Big Thanks" for putting BrickClassifieds together! Can't wait to see it! One option / function I would absolutely love to see in the future (and I would totally use) ... would be the ability to make a "Standing Offer." In other words ... lets say I wanted to buy the Fire Brigade. Perhaps I could place a standing offer of $250 ... and if anyone wanted to sell it at that price ... they could then message me and we could complete the deal. (This really isn't as bad as it sounds. So what if you sell it for $300 on Amazon ... with 15% commission ... that is $45 ... so after commission ... you are basically back to the $250. Second ... if my "Standing Offer" was obnoxiously low ... lets say $200 ... nobody is going to sell at that price anyways ... so I'd be a fool to place it. Perhaps you could charge $1 to place a standing offer for any set over $100 ... and $2 for any set over $200 ... etc ... so that it would discourage placing unrealistic offers. This single feature would set BrickClassifieds apart from both eBay and Amazon ... and I would totally use it.) One last point ... perhaps when placing a "Standing Offer" ... you could specify that only people with a certain "star rating" could see it ... thus cutting down on fraud ... etc. Anyways ... like I say ... I'd love to see this added sometime in the future ... I think it would be really cool! (PS ... one other really cool thing about "Standing Offers" is that it would enable a seller to sell an item immediately ... instead of waiting days / weeks for a buyer to come along at a certain price point.)

How hard do you think it is for people to find this site the way it is? It shows up when you search for sets all the time. Bricklink has a price guide and billions of resellers it doesn't look like that has hurt them at all? They do no marketing what so ever, but yet people find them and buy from them. eBay has the tools for searching for what the set has recently sold for. Is there really any mystery left. The goal here is to give super low fees so that you as a seller can offer good pricing that will offset the high fees and move inventory. Of course we are going to market it, but whether its attached to this site or not is irrelevant. If I don't attach it to the site, I think that would be bonehead move #1. Thousands of visitors come here a day already from Google and other search engines. If I don't start to market it on the home page with new listings so that people can find it and take a look, I am already hurting business. If I start all over at a new domain, well, I am starting over. People at least can learn the history here at Brickpicker. It has an established member base of almost 30,000 people. That sounds pretty good to me to start looking, no? Are you going to inflate all your prices, if so, don't expect many sales no matter where you go. People are not that dumb. If you see too many issues for you, then I understand you don't want to try it and that is ok. Ed and I are going to give it our best shot. What do you really have to lose?

Thanks for the answer, I appreciate it. Here is why I ask: I am very curious if the owners of this site thought this feature through and I'd like to hear their strategy with this. Not saying that as an insult but out of honest curiosity. At a very basic conceptual level I see problems with such a feature if it is aimed at the primary market and if it's linked to BP. To me if it is geared toward the primary market it would be very prudent to branch off and be independent from brickpicker. Why? Simply because the sole purpose of this site is for secondary market players to strategize and communicate Lego deals so that we can profit off primary market consumers. That is the sole purpose of this site. Collecting is a very remote second purpose overall. It is undoubtedly about maximizing $$$. You see it in nearly every post. One can sugarcoat it in a ton of different ways but it is what it is. If the classifieds feature is left attached to this site people will find out the purpose of the community and the type of people that are selling on the classifieds. Amazon and Ebay without a doubt have scalpers as well, sure. Of course they do. But their classifieds feature is a mix of scalpers and what I will call "legitimate sellers." They did not spawn from a $$$-driven community like us (we are almost 100% scalpers). Again, feel free to disagree on my description but it is what it is. If it's hard to understand why this is an issue I encourage you to think about it: Say you are interested in widget xyz. A site opens up that sells xyz products at largely inflated prices (this is what BPers do by nature, myself included). However, after creating an account and browsing the forum you see that the community is built on profiting on people like yourself. That is the sole purpose of the community. For me, I will do everything in my power to NOT buy it from this community unless I absolutely had to. Step back and think about this for a bit. It's not the same as Ebay or Amazon--there is a distinction. At the basic conceptual level I see issues. What's the strategy for this? Again, I am curious not trying to be rude.

New train sets available at LEGO Shop@Home via TheBrickFan http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Train-Station-60050 http://shop.lego.com/en-US/High-speed-Passenger-Train-60051 http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Cargo-Train-60052 I also wonder when we'll see the next Creator Train set... Considering we got 9 sets with a train within the span of just 4 years, excluding these, my guess would be late 2014 or early 2015. Some may not consider the Ghost Train to be an actual train though, so really only 8 trains that could easily be motorized but only 5 with official instructions from LEGO, 3 that came with both the PF and Track, and another coming with just the track. Ahh... the old speculation train. Ha. I do hope the next train has a better looking front end compared to the Horizon Express, didn't really care for it.

Bricklink it and make a reproduction nameplate.

Wait, is this a LEGO sting started by, working undercover, Stephen Rockefeller?

Just went to TRU and bought a sealed case! Plus got 10% off because it's Thursday!

TLG production is as about as secretive as what components Apple is currently buying in China lol.

http://youtu.be/wH-l9tQfsaA