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I think the Tower of Orthanc, the pet shop and the UCS R2D2 are retiring. Here is the reason why. When you are on the (european for instance) LEGO Shop at Home and sort items by "hard to find", sets are sorted by some (unofficials) categories. We can notice several ways ("call to check availability", etc.) but here what I consider very important as an investor. It's about "out of stock" sets. What's important is to see that when some sets are out of stock... some don't move and stay where they are in the list (see the sandcrawler, it's still in top of the list, available or not) and some move at the bottom of the list next to the "sold out" sets. That's why there are, IMO, two kinds of "Out of Stock" - OoS ******

What you're forgetting is that retail organizations (and large businesses in general) completely over-react to minor things. Your numbers make sense, and work on logic. A lot of businesses don't always do that. Also, let's not forget the point of the promotion was to move $75 worth of OTHER LEGO SETS. It clearly goes against the spirit of the promo itself to buy the sets to get a free set, and unless every TRU manager is dumb, they are going to take notice. General employees may take notice. Other customers may take notice. There's something to be said for keeping a low profile. They literally need to get one old fashioned complaint letter to get wheels moving. Or they look at their own numbers and see something is up. I know we all want to say that retailers (TRU in particular) are really dumb, but obviously they have some people doing their homework there, and that homework gets easier and easier with all the analytics and instant access to information. The following retail changes have occured in the last 12 months alone, and this is a partial list: 1. Walmart has stopped their 50% off LEGO After Christmas clearance. 2. K-Mart.com no longer accepts (Many) coupons for LEGO. 3. Barnes and Noble coupons exclude LEGO. 4. Target.com has begun pricing their hard to find/retiring soon LEGO sets at higher than MSRP regularly. 5. TRU (most of them) have stopped selling their PROMO items separately, and are actually getting corporate orders to NOT sell them. 6. TRU Coupons (some of them) are starting to exclude LEGO. I know I am not going to change anyone's behaviors, there are some folks who are short sighted and frankly don't care about "the future" of LEGO Investing, they want to get as much money as they can right now. I am not claiming you are like that, but there are lots of folks who are. Some on this site, many others who don't bother. But to deny that the impact of increased LEGO reselling visibility/reseller actions helped bring about these changes is really silly. I am not trying to take any sort of high road here or call anyone out, I am just pointing out that there is a cause/effect relationship between resellers and retailer policies. I am not one of those sky is falling sorts, but anyone who wants to do this long term should think about their actions and encourage others to think as well. Lots of people have pointed out increased competition/lower prices, harder to find deals, etc etc. It's not going to get any easier from here. And we certainly can't be surprised when retailers adjust.

Stopped at one of my tru 's. A manager asked me if I needed any help. I asked if they had any of the brictober sets left for sale. He told me nope, we are all out. As I was leaving I saw a pile of them at customer service desk.... All town halls. I asked the cashier if I could buy them. She said sure can. I told her I want all of them. She hesitated and smiled and said '' you're one of those ebayers arnt you. '' I smiled and send sure am. She sold all of them to me.

If the buy in is right, this set should do well after eol. It's only been out a little over a year though, do I'd be surprised if it retired any time soon. A lot of little girls like to "play school", and this set lets them do that. My seven year old daughter has this set, and plays with it all the time. Heck, even my eight year old son plays with it too, but he usually just attacks it with his AT-AT.

^ when you buy 1000s of sets a year from a dozen or so sources it is easy to miss a few. My best "lost inventory" was two GG miss labled. That was a nice surprise.

I think Heartlake High will do well after retirement. It's a building for one thing, not a loose collection of small "backdrops", and there are some nice details. It's a saver, not a flipper. If you choose to invest in this one, 30% off is not bad.

And at the moment Ewok Village stands next to R2D2 at the bottom list next to the sold out ones... So I'm afraid it does retire, too! Otherwise this mixing of positions could only be a random positioning by TLG system... and therefore means absolutely nothing!

Personally, I don't think that the drop off in sellers after 11/18 makes much difference because that group will not include any of the folks who you'll really be competing with for sales (at least for most items). Prices won't rise until the larger resellers who are currently competing for sales finish selling through their current inventory. This is one reason that reselling on Amazon in particular is becoming more and more difficult...each year, the larger resellers are working with an ever growing base of capital that is used to buy sets in ever larger quantities. Unless you're willing to undercut their prices, you have to sit patiently until all of that inventory is sold before you can start selling off your inventory.

19 nov in europe

Was not expecting to find these today

The bigger picture is these sets aren't about the money: They are priced at $19.99 specifically because they felt it would be a price higher than anyone would be willing to pay - they weren't meant to be sold until after the promotion (if at all). A few people buying out stores early in the promo leads to customers going to the store, finding out they couldn't get the promo, and all it takes is a couple complaints to corporate to get balls like this rolling. Or a manager raising an eyebrow when someone comes in and asks to buy $1000 worth of a theoretically minor giveaway item - and talks to someone at corporate about it. Drawing attention in any way like this leads to changes and people looking into what's going on. Obviously, I have no inside info, but having worked in retail in the past, I imagine these scenarios are both very possible.

(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

Got 2 HH delivered today from Amazon, code: 37R4 These must have been the most recent & hopefully the last production run from Lego as the boxes were minty mint!

Oh yeah that was me, I'm still happy that I did that. Also I bought some GE. It was either that or traveling the world with my girlfriend with all inclusive. Honestly the decission was easy, a real no-brainer!

I love the Ewok Village set, though I really dislike the price. I think it will be a good performer in the long run because it has been largely ignored thus far and Bricklinking it will never be much of a viable option; it's got too many minifigs and odd pieces. The disdain people have for the set and the price point reminds me of the Town Hall. I wouldn't go all in on this one, especially since it is likely to be around for a while, but I don't think you would go wrong with having a few. Tough to buy right now though because there are just so many other sets currently in flux that are more worthwhile to invest in.

4 x 10240 Red Five X-Wing Starfighter

I don't buy that much and I still misplace a couple sets a year. My best find was a couple $50 sets that I put away in a different place from where all the other sets were. Not as good as your find.

Absolutely not. The will not match any sort of "Buy One Get One", bundles, dollar off, percent off, limited time only, or anything like that. The only thing they are going to match is price. If the price of something is $79.99 then Walmart will match the $79.99. If the price of something is $99.99 with a $20 instant rebate then Walmart will only match the $99.99 price.

Town Hall was already showing signs before double vip + Lego employees, albeit we take their statements with a grain of salt, have more or less confirmed it was going.

I think the early (or perceived early) retirement of some pretty prominent exclusives is what Ed was referring to. I am sure his source was not thrilled at what happened with TH so Ed is keeping mum on the rest save for some cryptic comments.

When you have a large inventory, I can forget to add a couple sets to my Brickfolio and excel speadsheet. This usually happens when I need to enter a lot of sets into my Brickfolio at one time.

Everyone has know for months that we'd be getting October Double points, AND a great exclusive, so people have been saving up their pennies to load up on exclusives this October. Predictably, tons of sets have gone out of stock. These sets KEEP coming back into stock, yet get scooped up because people assume these sets are now showing "The Signs" of retirement. When these sets ship from these retailers. (almost ALL retailers, mind you) they even have Date Stamps from within the last 2-3 weeks. So they're still being produced. These aren't factory finds from 2013, like we saw with the SSD back in April. I think everyone is interpreting resellers (and regular customers) stocking up during the best promo of the year for early retirement. I could see the Town Hall continually coming back into stock throughout the holidays and if they do finally 'catch up' to demand, imagine the amount of returns resellers will FLOOD retailers with. Just my opin. And perhaps THAT is the something Wicked this way coming.

That goes into anything investment wise not just LEGO. Anything hot is usually scooped up in mere minutes these days. The Disney designer dolls being and example or the Vera Bradley Disney patterns last year (how many people bought 2 of each pattern per account). Olive Garden Pasta Bowl, Starbucks Gold cards last year and year before. The list goes on and on. Same could go for the scooping up of the hot sets. Does anyone on here buy 1 TH, HH, SSD or do you hit the max allowed when they come up? (not counting if you can only afford to purchase 1) Or finding clearance minifigs for 1.48 (there were a few pics of large quantities bought). Does an individual just buy say 20 or 30 or take all 200. The Wal-Mart clearance deal haul a few months back that filled a garage at 75% off. The manager clearly wanted to dump the product out of there store for room for new merchandise and that person was the only taker up to that time. Or by buying 30 or more seperate orders from LEGO or Shop at home to get the free promo with each order (I am very guilty of that one) These are all instances of the reseller community buying up in large quantities for the intent of a quick flip in most cases. I am sure it is frowned upon by some others that wanted to get the item but on the flip side of that the items were there available for anyone up until that point. With the Bricktobers I was always under the impression that once that weeks sales were over the remaining items are put on the shelf for sale. I only went on Sundays with the hope of getting any additionals (one store I went at 5 til close Saturday as I was on vacation leaving the next morning). So the general public had the option of participating in the "promotion" part all week. At that point any extras would go on sale to the public at 19.99. I know some purchased ahead of that time period. I myself got a few that way (and I do mean a few like adding on 1 or 2) but the majority bought in bulk were bought after the week was over. I agree it all affects our industry but it is more than on just promotional sets like this. It all is factored in the whole picture of how we are looked at.

Pc 114,- He 88,- Ssd 354,-

castle will also be a winner down the road ...

The deal is active from November 1 to December 31 and is great for those without stores that use USPS. Priority Mail Average Discounts (vs. retail rates) Flat Rate Products 15% Under 5 lbs. 20% 5 lbs. to 20 lbs. 36% Over 20 lbs. 28% - See more at: http://announcements.ebay.com/2014/11/all-sellers-can-now-receive-an-average-discount-of-30-on-usps-shipping/?_trksid=p3984.m2301.l3955#sthash.7FKmLeVW.dpuf

So far so good. Even though it is spherical, it's not a symmetrical build like most ships are, which is nice.

I would personally give you $25 per right now to complete my sets. I know thats not much profit but I do believe in the full sets (still $73 profit on a $500 sale). Having all 4 is the only real investment potential I see. Having some solos is good for the people that need to complete the sets but I feel a lot of people will give up and sell there solos so they will drop until they dry up. Just at the buy in of $70 per set (for the sets built by doing the buy 4 get 1 free) I see an easy $30-50 profit after fees. Then the ones where you got it free you take the profit off the sets you bought to have a nicely discount set for sale for the holidays or even further down the road. Which for me the big ones were Sith, Duplo Train and SW advents.

Just bought 10 x research institute for 20

I'm not going to go out of my way looking for them but if I walked in my TRU and saw 20 of them for sale I'd probably nab them. 1) Town Hall is the coolest of the 4 IMO. 2) this is the one that couldn't be gotten using a TRU coupon so I think maybe less peeps like myself stockpiled them (I only have 6) 3) If the rumors are true TRU are shipping these all back to lego they should do pretty well 4) You probably have 20 of the modular Town Halls so you can always pair them with those when you sell, heh heh. 5) If this is the beginning of a series of mini modulars you will be happy you hoarded these

I shipped a few packages last night. One being from brick link in which I went solely through PayPal. Everything worked fine,hopefully it was fixed for you.

As far as I am concerned GE and TH are done and PS is still there. (How long is another questions though but I'd guess till mid/end next year).

Not a kid nor a woman... That must be a lie because there is no other sex ;-) For the sake of it: Received PS: 38S4

Bag #2 completed.

One of the biggest evolutions is the margin for error is getting lower. Mistakes now will cost you even more because 1000s of others made the same mistake and have to unload those sets too. If you make good decisions and find niches; the profits are still there. They just aren't as obvious as the old MF, CC, GG, etc.

I was fortunate enough to see an advanced screening and... I don't think that it was an original story (I don't want to post anything that could be a spolier) and I thought that it was great for 2/3 but the last act was ridiculous and farfetched. The acting was excellent and I really appreciated the mood, tone, dialogue and other technical qualities. I would happily see it again as it was a very enjoyable experience. Ex Astris, Scientia.

I've started building my DS 10188. Oct. 13/14 bag 1 completed. Just starting bag #2.

Went to a local Target to get some household stuff, found an aisle with a few Series 12 minifigures. Bought a few, asked the guy if they had more. He brought out a new box and I took the box, still sealed. Went to the register and the box scanned at $2.99 - for the entire box of 60. Oh, and the box had 59 bags in it, not 60 - called Lego and they box these things by hand....interesting.

Last time I went I found 8 imperial flagships on the shelf discounted for 125 - 4 months after eol and at the time they were selling for $400 each. Me and my father in law bought all 8. The best steal I've ever gotten.

Like Arnold says in T3 "She'll be back" Probably a few more rogue appearances but I hope it is over.

I just grabbed 95 Minifigures from a Target that were all marked down to $1.48 each. 55 Series 12 40 Series 9

Is this store prepared for a parking lot infiltration?

In the early days, it caused me to spend a lot of money. These days, it causes me to spend a lot of money, but a little wiser now.

the PR isn't small. the TH is just so big. PR is the same height as PS, PC CC. PR has the most complex interior. you also can't see the back terrace when viewed from the front.

My 7 month old daughter built her first Lego set 10553 and she developped a taste for it. Her review was, plenty of nice colored pieces. The little bear is most easy to chew on and the window boxed is most useful to poke mommy's eye out. Brilliant set imo.

No honey, I'm really sorry but no room for groceries this week!

More Mixels Series 1 for $110. Who was selling them at $99 and undercutting all of us either gave up or got bought. Good! Get out of my way, please. Let's raise the price, not lower it.

I'm not a kid, nor a woman, and I find Pet Shop is one the best looking modulars, right there with Parisian Restaurant. Palace Cinema is the worst. Just my personal taste.

Like this one....