Leaderboard

There has been an update to Sergio Herencias Ghostbusters HQ MOC which was originally inspired by Brent Waller

I built the mystery box this weekend. The mystery box could be anything, it could even be a boat. Turns out that it actually was a boat 10210 is an impressive build, has great details and it displays well (I am missing two brown technic barrels for a sail, but those are easy to replace). The organ was a nice addition and I really appreciate that the galley and cannon areas were designed to be detachable in the same manner that the floors of a modular building are. This is a build that really comes together nicely and at 30" by 24", it takes up a lot of space. A great buy, especially at $160 under the BP price

Why are you even inside a TRU?

LEGO is successful because it is a dynamic product. The best toy ever created IMO. Now if you go back when LEGO wasn't so dynamic financially, you will find that many of their products were not so "dynamic." Stale might be a better word. There are many reasons why LEGO has found its groove recently, but building highly collectible and interesting sets that get retired is a major one. Many other members have stated it better than I... Widgets have a shelf life...Out with the old and in the new are two that I like. But how about this idea... eBay is the reason why LEGO has exploded in growth over the past 8 or 9 years...Face it, 20 years ago, there was no eBay, thus no LEGO secondary market. With the advent of the internet and auction sites like eBay, people began to learn of the value of old LEGO sets and realized they could make money off of reselling old, used sets. This morphed into saving and selling MISBs. People related LEGO sets to other collectibles that were limited in production, such as stamps, coins...Barbie Dolls and eBay was the perfect conduit to sell these secondary LEGO sets to the public. LEGO might like to act like it hates resellers, but I don't think that it really does. We all know that LEGO benefits greatly from our purchases and the interest and buzz we create about their products. What company wouldn't? They really just want to keep the reselling in check and manageable. Don't underestimate the power of social media to spread information about making money schemes and ideas. Jeff and I find links about our site in the wackiest places, so people are learning more and more about the value of the brick. Would LEGO still be profitable without eBay and the secondary market? Probably, but by a whole lot less that is certain. Sorry for taking this SSD thread way off topic...

Grand Emporium - modulars rule.

Just bought a Grand Emporium. My first one. It was time. Since there was only an hour left until the Balloon Cart promo was over, and I really wanted another one, it was time.

I think of a price I'll be satisfied with sometime in the future. I'll go ahead and list the item at that price and then leave it until it sells. Sometimes it's 2 minutes, 2 weeks, and sometimes it's 2 years.

My Triple-E just shipped from LEGO Shop at Home . It was my first order on LEGO Shop at Home back in April.

I just finish my R2D2 a few days ago Sent from my iPhone using Brickpicker

Actually had some clearance sale luck today. I bought two MBA Adventure Sets for 50% off. Plus the 20% off coupon on one of them. The only negative was that I completely forgot about the TRU GCs I had in my wallet. I bought those from GiftCardMall on eBay a couple weeks back at 20% off. Oops! I also picked up a 5002113 Friends Beach Hammock. They had one on the shelf, with no shelf tag. I figured I'd check it out, and if it were more than a few dollars, I'd just throw it back. Rang up for 1 cent! I passed on the two MBA Inventor sets they had, although I'm kicking myself for passing up Lego at 50%. I need to get back there and pick them up. I also passed on the one Space Center set they had; the seals looked very suspect.

Picked up a complete loose Emerald Night for $175. Took long enough to finally buy the set.

Wait, if it's the Grand Emporium then why am I seeing a Star Wars set on the instruction manual?

The SSD is probably one of the most impressive display LEGO sets ever created. It is elegant and nasty looking at the same time. The 10188 is really not a display set...it is a play set. It's my opinion that AFOLs with the discretionary income to buy either set will choose the SSD more often than not. As a serious LEGO and STAR WARS fan, I like serious sets. SSD is as serious as they come. Sent from my iPad using Brickpicker

(Not sure if this is the right place for this. Apologies if it's not.) The Investor Phase: If you have savings, a decent job and a credit card that you don't need to pay off for a year, it's VERY VERY EASY to do this part. You just check various places every day for deals and buy buy buy!!! The lack of space in my house caused by stored Lego and my large credit card bill (0% interest until this October) are testament to this! Like most BrickPickers I'm aware of, my approach was generally to buy on 30% discount or more and get at least one of each set for my personal collection and then multiples of sets I thought would do well at EOL. Despite not really being a very organised person, I spent a fair amount of time logging all my sets and where they are stored, in anticipation for the day I start to sell them. I have about 1000 sets, ranging from the small ones up to SSD (one of). which isn't including minifigures and polybags. The Turning Point: I left my well-paid day job a couple of weeks ago (not by choice) and am going to try to be self-employed instead. With no steady income and possibly needing to downsize our house, and the credit card to pay off in October, I NEED to start selling the Lego for cash and space. If only I'd just left all the money in a savings account! Ah well! The Seller Phase: About 3 weeks ago, I sold my first set (on eBay). Since then, I've sold another 11 on eBay (10 posted and 1 sold this morning). Total money back in my pocket is about

Are u ok? Did you get a heart attack out of seeing that? :D

well now it has Starbucks all over it from spitting out my iced coffee after reading that......hilarious!!

I don't mean de-boxed and only mailing the sealed bags....I mean the seller checking the box to see if everything is intact and then shipping the whole thing. I know that if I were buying a set (myself or as a gift) on a secondary market....I'd ask then seller to open it nicely and make sure everything is there. At the end of the day.....sacrificing two small pieces of tape with black lines on them is well worth the piece of mind that I'm getting the actual product.

So this morning I got a very official looking email from paypal using my first and last name. Said my account was limited due to suspicious activity and until I logged in and confirmed my account that it would be frozen. I of course didn't click the link and went directly to Paypal's site. Everything was normal. Now, I consider myself very internet savvy and also take internet security further than most. And this one had me going due to it being very well done and targeted specifically at me. I fear that due to the recent ebay hack this will become pretty common. so here is a heads up to be vigilant and if you receive any paypal phishing emails you can forward them to [email protected] so they can try to hunt these scammers down.

I sure hope my roof does not end up on top of my head... Yes, it is certainly my day-to-day convcern

Here is the preliminary count I have so far, though some are dependent on the discount we can get: 2 - 46andTWO 2 - Alpinemaps 1 - @rtisan 2 - chillmodious 1 - darksam007 1 - Dredgen 1 - dutchmaster305 1 - exciter1 2 - gorbasho 2 - Huskers1236 4 - jaisonline 2 - Jimking23 2 - jjsrt8 2 - johnwray 1 - legodad 1 - naf 1 - NJHitmen 1 - rubysue74 2 - sabojj 1 - stephen_rockefeller 4 - supergtp1 1 - tipup420 2 - varmintt 39 sets total Going to send another email over to NACM as I still haven't heard back. I'll ask them about tiered pricing

But at the same time, time-extended arbitrage is still just a specialized flavor of reselling. Wikipedia: A reseller is a company or individual (merchant) that purchases goods or services with the intention of reselling them rather than consuming or using them. This is usually done for profit (but could be resold at a loss).

We can't assume any of these sets are great sellers, true, but your point of LEGO extending set lives to 6 years was based off of one set, the 10188. There have been over 10,000 LEGO sets produced, and even if 10 or 20 had a 6 year shelf life, that is an outlier. The 10188 is an exception...for now. In no way am I knocking the 10188. I have pointed out many times that bang for your buck, it is one of the best sets LEGO ever developed and sold. Maybe LEGO is changing their philosophy on retiring sets. Time will tell. My original point was that by retiring LEGO sets, it makes them more valuable than if they were never or rarely retired. Sure, it helps the investors of the world as well, but most of all, this value after EOL helps LEGO itself. If an item is perceived as valuable after it is retired, more often than not, the same would be true when the item is being sold by primary retailers. It is much easier to sell a $400 LEGO set to an AFOL if they believe that the LEGO set will be worth more money one day than they paid for it. How many $400 boxes of plastic would LEGO sell if the pieces became almost worthless after opening the box like many toys? Not many. The primary and secondary markets compliment one another and the retiring of sets is a key component to it all.

I think reselling in general sense does not imply the component of "wait for manufacturer to stop producing what you have". Plain reselling is "buy something at a biggest discount possible, sell it alongside the manufacturer, even better if manufacturer gets sold out(but will produce more) and item is in demand" . in our terms, general reselling is "flipping". Once "wait for retirement" component is involved, it becomes more specialized reselling.

Folks, fundamental business management is that all "widgets" have a life cycle. No exceptions. That life cycle can evolve, but is usually defined. I believe the LEGO group is testing the tolerances of longer life spans as well as more products on the shelf at the same time, coupled with price controls. Trends are not determined over night. This is why I believe that last year and this year may be recalled as the golden age of LEGO investing. If their hypothesis is proven true, ie. longer life cycles and more products at the same time, the secondary market will be shaken. Very small group of people have piled up large exclusives since the price control was implemented. If that changes next year you will have mass buying of exclusives in the future with a large saturation of sets from LEGO. This will lead to price declines from that point forward. The sets retired over the current and previous 18 months will be pure GOLD to those that can wait to sell for years to come.

It's not the fact that sets retire that makes Lego successful, it's the fact that they refresh their lineup with new product on a regular basis. They need to constantly rotate sets out of production because they only have so much capacity to produce sets. They need to kill the old sets so that they can have brand new product to sell. Brand new product keeps people interested in Lego. Take cars as an example. Even if a Ford Mustang is selling extremely well, Ford still freshens the model every couple of years. People want to buy things that are perceived as being new and cutting edge. The Death Star is an anomaly. I'd argue that not only is it a flagship set for the Star Wars theme, but for Lego in general. Everyone knows about the Lego Death Star, even people who aren't that into Lego. It's the one display in the B&M Lego stores that has been consistently in the main window ever since the set came out. It has a certain wow factor, and perhaps Lego doesn't have anything in the pipeline right now that can fill that special product slot, so they just choose to not retire it.

bricklink's site from my experience is complicated until you get used to where everything is. fee are cheaper but you get less exposure. sometimes paying eBay fees tend to balance out. go to the blogs and look at the bl vs ebay.

I know. I was just being sarcastic. I have two death stars myself. I would not have bought them if I would not believe in them as investment. I prefer the SSD also over the DS. That is why I will stick to two DS's and increase my number of SSD's. I like the 7965. It is a good replacement for the 10179. People with small wallets will not buy a 10179. But they can maybe afford a 7965.

Interesting post djim. You have a good point. Afterall, it's playable and is some kind of a display set because of display scenes. What I meant is that it's not a UCS display set. I own a movie theater room and I would be glad to put a UCS SW set inside, but there's no way I put a set with minifigs having some battles in a lego round rack. It would look like some huge SW polypocket or housedoll. Not appealing IMO. That's a point you have to consider: not everyobody is as much as a huge fan to be ok to have such sets to be displayed. IMO the fact that a SW set is impressive, accurate etc is ruined since you put minifigs on display. There are two ways of thinking about legos: with and without minifigs. I'm sure it will make mad a lot of people here but that's my opinion. I asked some friends about the DS set (they like legos, they like SW, but are not 100% in it) and they think it's fun but not so good looking. Paying 500$ and more to this set ? No way ! About the SSD they would not pay such money either but... ok, they easily understand some people can be ok with it. i don't think we will see again such a big and impressive SSD until the next 10 years. 2k $ is a bit much IMO but indeed I wouldn't be so surprised if the value reaches 1k $ before 2020. IT'S SO HUGE ! (though I would have prefered an imperial star destroyer that size) Hmmm... another question is: what about the number of each set that are sleeping in investors' rooms ?

here's what happened: April 3 http://www.ebay.com/itm/LEGO-Star-Wars-Anakins-Jedi-Interceptor-9494-/271406259921?pt=Building_Toys_US&hash=item3f3112ded1 30% off 54.99 one day sale target ebay - 321 units sold.

Found a Goblin King for $37 at Kmart today. Cashier was jealous

Nooooo :(

Nothing seems to affect the stock market now. There is turmoil all over Eastern Europe and the Middle East...and not just your garden variety, but serious crap and the stock market just keeps on hitting new highs. Years ago, any serious world event would affect the markets. It just seems like a rigged market. As for LEGO investing, as the OP stated and many know, gains are nice, but the selling and shipping is a job. Sent from my iPhone using Brickpicker

I do not believe this is an upcoming set. The room was designed and built by Brightbricks - a UK based company that does worldwide builds, and have Lego Certified Professionals (checkout their website). They do some amazing stuff overall including some massive builds, including the 350,000 piece Durham Cathedral currently being built as a fundraising project for the Cathedral (I'm one of the volunteer builders). I think this is just something they made up themselves to fit in with the bedroom theme.

I looked through most of the Leia minifigures and it doesn't look like any of them. Edit: You are correct. It's not Leia. It is a combo of minifigure part. The torse comes from Juno Eclipse which is in the Rogue Shadow set.

I can confirm - tower bridge is 28 bags.

I can relate to what you write Gondorian. I also have spent alot of money (almost 18k) on lego the last six months. I have been selling a bit too and I made some profits (not even 1k). So not something to write home about. I have started a topic called "insecurities and doubts" some weeks ago cause I also was doubting if I was doing the right thing. I know constrain myself by not buying anymore everything like a chicken without a head. Some things that I keep to mind are: Yes, I am tempted to buy other 10 SSD's cause I know they will do good. I have only three of them and when going EOL I will loose money cause I did not buy more of them when I had the chance. But this thought is wrong. When the SSD goes EOL now. I will have three. And with this three I will make some profit. And then I am happy with that. I can miss some money but I am not Emazers. Also I have a family too, and a house to pay, etc. I am very sorry to hear what happened to you. I really think it can happen to any of us. I hope maybe with Brick Classifieds you can unload a fair part of your investment without to much hastle. I would call to out to all the brickpickers in your area to help you whenever possible. Cause I also think we all have some influence on people's buying habits. Good luck and I hope you can solve your problems.

Gondorian, thanks for sharing. LEGO reselling/investing/flipping is a grind. In many cases, it's a nice way to subsidize one's income, but very few can make a decent living from it alone. As asharerin stated above, flipping certain types of sets amounts to a minimum wage job. I like the comment about "an hour per set" is taken from your life. Sounds about right. Point is, make that set a worthwhile one. Are you going to make $10 an hour or $100 with the same time invested? Granted, to make $100 per hour, a more expensive set would have to have been bought and maybe more time/space holding onto that set to reach such levels, but it takes money to make money as they say.

There is a good takeaway from this. It does take time and effort to sell. I think a fair amount of people are in for a somewhat rude awakening when they go to sell and they have never done it before. Much harder than hitting the sell button on a stock.

I scored a used/ like new tantive iv for $115 shipped on eBay that was only missing the box and it even came with a nice bonus of 9 extra rebel fleet troopers! So it definitely sweetened the deal

I can't wait for the Retiring Soon - Closed Speculation thread.

With the new movies coming out, remakes will become less of an issue for a lot of these sets, with the Falcon as the obvious exception. We won't really know if the new movies have a Death Star or SSD/Star Destroyer. They probably won't, but you can't count them out. JJ Abrams does a nice job of blending the old with the new, so I'm sure we will see some classic vehicles and characters. I just really believe that big time STAR WARS collectors look for accurate models and are extremely anal like myself, so a set like the 10188 is not a must have set. Sent from my iPad using Brickpicker

Finally picked up my imperial flagship 10210 (assuming seller ships ok). It was about 1 year ago that I became active on these forums and said "that set will be mine one day". Waiting 1 year probably cost me $50-$100 in price. Word to the wise, if there are any retired exclusives out there that you "must have" best to pull the trigger on a decent price rather than wait! ;-)

You could use the creator tree house for treehouse of horror

I have some time to wait before my new son will be able to help me build. Many who have read my responses now know I am a proud pappa. I have wanted a child more specifically a son for mor ethan a decade. We were blessed with a son to adopt just 10 weeks ago. I left this house this morning with a warm heart....When I said goodbye to him this morning he gave me a heart melting smile. Teary eyed just typing it. Go ahead poke fun...I am cream puff and wear my emotions proudly.

This will be my full time retirement job in 9 years. Assuming any of this is profitable by then.

When I'm working on Part "1" I'll open all the "1" bags and lay them on the table, leaving all the pieces inside (I have a very nosy cat who likes to swat small objects around, so I can't just dump all the pieces out). Then when I need a piece I'll go fishing through all the bags for it. It's annoyingly inefficient, the bags start to tear after a while, and that crackling sound the cellophane makes is obscenely loud at 2:00 in the morning, which is when I can build in peace. I should probably invest in some kind of sorting containers...any suggestions?

I don't organise... and sometimes, against all of Lego's advice, I build on the floor on the carpet and not on the table

I dump it out right on the carpet. Every piece I can't find I yell at my dog thinking she ate it. I then find it. I don't apologize.