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The problem is that most people don't have the 'investor' mindset. People are myopic, impatient, subjective perception of probabilities is heavily biased, fail to consider opportunity costs and expected rate of returns. For example the principle of optimal selling date: when the expected return on the current value of your asset is surpassed by another one after the transaction costs (if they have the same variance). Simply, if you have the option to switch for another asset with a higher expected return. The grave mistake people do here is taking into consideration the original price they bought the asset at. It doesn't matter! Even if you received it free! Only the expected growth rate matters! They like to tell themselves that 'Oh great! I made 100$ on it! It's enough!'. But if you reinvest that 100$+original price into an inferior asset you just made a wrong decision by selling. The issue here is how you calculate expected return and the corresponding risk. The investment valuation method most people use here, even without knowing its name, is the 'comparables' approach. However, since the LEGO market is not exactly consistent over time and largely volatile, predictions are mostly inaccurate and people have to rely on their instincts. But, the essence is still the same. When you want to make a decision about selling or not, you have to ask this question: if my asset has an expected return R, can I find another one with R'>R with transaction costs (shipping, fees, etc.) accounted for? If not, then just keep the set. Already realised return is irrevelant! For exclusives I found that 2-2,5 years is the sweet spot.

Here's the list sroster posted: Set Number Set Name 21002-1 Empire State Building 21012-1 Sydney Opera House 21005-1 Fallingwater 60000-1 Fire Motorcycle 60006-1 Police ATV 60054-1 Light Repair Truck 60025-1 Grand Prix Truck 60021-1 Cargo Heliplane 4437-1 Police Pursuit 60017-1 Flatbed Truck 60061-1 Airport Fire Truck 60022-1 Cargo Terminal 60045-1 Police Patrol 60056-1 Tow Truck 60020-1 Cargo Truck 60008-1 Museum Break-in 60058-1 SUV with Watercraft 41050-1 Ariel

There will always be "new blood" in any endeavor involving money (or fame). In my former "hobby" life, I was a writer. I guess I "am" a writer because one never really quits and I have several stories forthcoming. I wrote for nearly a year before being paid for a story, and only $.01 a word at that--"semi-pro" rates. It took three years of 2-4 hours a day in the writing game, every day, to publish my first book with a small press... one which actually paid me for my work. After six years, I sold my third professional rate story and qualified as an active member of the Horror Writers Association, a long-time goal. What's my point? What does this have to do with LEGO? Everything takes time. The game often goes to the resilient--those willing to keep working even when everything looks bleak. I know this: I've made more in LEGO the last six months than the first six years of writing AND I'm having more fun doing it.

One thing I forget to add is one thing that appears to have worked strongly against resellers is the lack of discounting on most lego this holiday season. MSRP = no resellers purchasing = product on shelves = no need to purchase from resellers. It has worked amazing well.

Leon C. Megginson (1960s LSU professor summarized Darwin's Origin of Species) said it best...

OK. I just went to a Legoland Discovery Center that is not my home turf (visiting the parents) and saw some crazy stuff. They have put little signs up all around the store advertising what sets are retiring at the end of 2014. I'm not sure if this is just pure speculation by them or official from lists or maybe it just means they can't order them anymore? No signs for exclusives, they were up per section (ie, Friends, City, Superhero, Star Wars, etc). I'm terrible at knowing set numbers so here goes (maybe no surprises I dunno): Lego Architecture being discontinued in 2014: 21002, 21012, 21005 - looks like ESB, SOH and Falling water Lego city: 60000, 60006, 60054, 60025, 60021, 4437, 60017, 60061, 60022, 60045, 60056, 60020, 60008, 60058 Disney Princess: 41050, 41051, 41052 so BOTH Ariels? and Merinda's going bye bye too according to this legoland Lego Friends: 41000, 41031, 41007, 41027, 41013, 41008, 41028, 41004, 41005, 41029, 41006, 3315 Superheroes: 76002, 76001, 76003, 76000, 6862, 6860, 76009 Creator: 31013, 31005, 31006, 31004, 31007, 7346, 31002, 31008, 31011, 31003, 31009, 31012 Star Wars: 75001, 75022, 75004, 75019, 75000, 75003, 9493, 75021, 75015, 75016, 75005, 75020, 75002, 75017, 75018 I got pics, just too lazy to put them up now. I didn't get the pics of ninjago or chima because I felt like they were wondering why I was taking all these pics heh. Paranoia. Anyone seen signs like this before? Literally, signs of retirement. Here's one pic:

My experience is that I get as many or more sales after Christmas (people using up the gift cards and cash they got) as before. Before Christmas it's mostly moms and dads buying for kids, after Christmas is when the collectors spend (just my experience). So, I wouldn't despair yet

I feel like I've read this conversation before...

For you Investors starting next year I would buy a Tumbler when ever you can, I have 5 now and will be buying one or two at least every month or so, this way when the Retiring panic buying starts I should have 20-30 now most will wait and wait and again miss the boat.

$59.98 second one for half price. Two for under $100. Enjoy.

We should start a new thread in January for all the Amazon sellers titled "What set did someone return to your store today?"

I don't have any of those items listed currently, but I would guess that you're battling against dozens of other relatively new sellers who are also in the same position as you, expecting to unload all the same exact sets that everyone else was grabbing last year with the plan to sell this year. Many of them are probably willing to accept a slim margin or even a loss, so you're going to have a tough time selling them at a good price. Additionally, other than the Mixels and Creator houses, those sets were not really highly desired when they were in stores last year, so it will probably be a couple more years before some new people come along and want some of those sets for their collection. Again, I haven't checked the market for any of those sets.

Today's haul Really good price for the Village Bakery, especially for being in one of the more expensive Lego counties (Sweden) at around $65, same price for the Ninjago 9450. Plus 2 hours of my time on buses and trains. Yes I should get a car. The Lego Serious play is not for investment, but I am really interested in the concept and using Lego in business. 10244 Mixer and 10235 Winter scene is from LEGO Shop at Home so bought during 5% Black friday weekend, plus 15% off all toy stores promo from my credit card, and the free 40107's of course.

IMO... The beetle is not a breathtaking set... choppy-looking. Certainly cool, and very unique, and very iconic. But sort of "clunky". Yet it continues to increase in value. It is a VW, after all. Its value will increase on that factor alone. The van is a true head-turner. If you've seen one built, the display factor is through the roof. This set doesn't get just the iconic draw of being a VW, but also the draw of looking unbelievably cool when assembled. Much more so- again IMO- than the Beetle. My personal investment strategy is long-term holding of sets that will not go "out of date". Whenever the van actually does go, I can't think of a currently available set that is a safer play for the long-term hold. I mean, very long-term hold, When the hype is long over, when other fellow sellers have unloaded their inventory, this set will be extremely valuable. We have all hoarded it well, and it has sold phenomenally. But in the distant future there will be a time when the hoarded quantities have been (mostly) sold off and are long gone. When this set does become TRULY scarce- which, again, will take a very long time- the value will explode. My personal goal is to acquire my targeted number of the van, then simply "forget" I have them. My inventory is shelved in a storage unit. My VW van acquisitions are at the very back to remind me of this.

My plan was to use this holiday season selling frenzy to decrease my stack. I sold quite a few sets but my stack has become even bigger than before. Well... what can you do?

And a horn

Because the minifigs are still bad@$$ and it's 50% off MSRP. Who knows how long it will take but this WILL be profitable!

I hope that you're right, but I think that things are going to continue getting more challenging as the years go by. As the overall base of capital spent on Lego for resale on the secondary market increases and as more resellers bet more money on more sets, the more saturated that market will be and the more difficult it will be to find sets with runaway secondary market prices. On some of my listings this year, I'm competing with sellers who have 500-600 copies of the set to sell. Needless to say, those aren't runaway winners. And for those of you who think that this dynamic only applies to those of us who sell cheaper sets within a year of EOL and, consequently, doesn't apply to those who are stocking up on the large exclusives to sell 3-5 years down the road, I can say with great certainty that it will work its way up to your level on the food chain before long. Just looking at my own inventory, I am holding on to 10x the number of exclusive sets that I was two years ago and I'm not all that big of a reseller...I can't imagine how many more the real big dogs are holding onto now than they were in previous years.

Unless I had unlimited access to as many of this set as I wanted at MSRP, I would struggle with "flipping" a single one.

I imagine that most people who are having a great year have also been doing this for over 2 years. They have the right inventory and experience to make their inventory competitive as profitable prices. I personally continue my downsizing and am loving this year, which is also my 3rd. My only regret is not having the space to fully feast on the smorgasbord of retiring exclusives. This could very well be the end of the modern day gravy train. I would be frustrated and demoralized if I was a newer investor trying to grind out a profit this season.

Knock on wood my Amazon sales during Christmas have resulted in very few returns in the past. I'd venture to guess it is because often they are sent as gifts directly to the recipient. (No buyers remorse or realizing they paid to much) My return rate during the holidays is definitely lower than the rest of the year, and FBA sales are returned even less than seller fulfilled. Edit: To back this up: I sold 710 toys on Amazon from Dec 1 to Dec 31st last year. From Dec 28th to Feb 8th I had 8 toys returned.

I think one issue is setting what your limit is for each set when it comes to $$$ and space. I know I set goals, but it's still soooo hard to not grab a few more during the frenzy when you see the price instantly going 50% or 100% over retail. What do you do with these? I keep telling myself to flip them, but it's all so hard to let go when you think they might double again a year from purchase. I know folks sometimes still scramble to get one or two of these exclusives at the end. I've been lucky thus far and have bought early to feel comfortable about not missing out and then just stockpiling more over time.

This is the point with all of these exclusives. If a person is trying to micromanage retirement dates, they are missing the opportunity to acquire sets before the hoard devours them. I know many will tell me about limited space and money, but some of these sets perform so well after EOL, it pays to be safe and buy them before you are monitoring the Stock Tracker Update Page all day. Toy around timing EOL with a $20 Batman set. Don't mess around with a R2-D2 or AA.

I don't think it really matters how many of these you or anyone else are holding, you won't be disappointed.

I passed on these at 20% off and I would not buy any more at retail price either - I think the market is saturated, production has gone on too long and money is better invested elsewhere. If it had retired a year ago things would have been so different.....

Holy schnikes the last two days have been really good to me, tonight I got the burrow (4840) and it's 100% complete with the box, manuals etc for $50 shipped, hogwarts express (4841) that is 100% complete with the box, manuals etc for $60 shipped, a 100% complete Hagrids hut (4738) for $25 shipped and finally the forbidden forest (4865) for $5 shipped and they were all from the same seller!

My opinion only but if you want 70+% in 12 months or less is doesn't get any simpler than snapping up 10235 winter village. my opinion yea, but do some research on ALL of the other winter village sets. Just say'******. Easier money perhaps. Good for next holiday season indeed. Mini carousel, little carny booths, lots of figs (con: torsos not exclusive)

Oh, she's totally on board with the Mixels. Its everything that isn't a Mixel that she's skeptical on (at first).

You would have thought that she would have figured out that you're a master LEGO reseller after the Mixel incident.

You're the reason I picked these up. I went to two different TRUs on Saturday. Signed up for the CC, plus had the 10% off day, plus the 10% coupon from the website. That got them down to $90 for me. I cleaned out the first TRU (3 of them) and the second TRU was sold out. The wife was skeptical at first. But I can never resist free money. I installed the eBay app on her phone just so she can share my joy when these sell. (She always seems to be less skeptical after the first sale).

Thanks, I might go ahead and flip mine. I bought mine last Thursday, but didn't get there until noon or so. They had 3 on Wednesday, but only one left by the time I got there. Flipped it quick in a few hours. Pretty amazing return if you can get them for around $100. They won't even be worth that much a year after retirement.

You and I have a very different definition of funny. Do you think THIS is funny: Do you?! Look at him...fingers both stuck, the harder he pulls, the worse it gets...this is no laughing matter but you're just giggling away at this poor man's conundrum, aren't you?

Like Ed said, I am just cleaning up, moved it to it's production server. Getting rid of all the garbage test data and accounts. Trying to fill in the blanks and format all the BS pages like privacy policy, etc. Later today I may write up some details on how the classifieds will be different. I broke away from the conventional Theme/Category setup to allow it to grow on it's own and not constrain it to be any certain way. Anything LEGO related can be posted. If you have LEGO toilet paper, you can post it and tag it that way and it will be able to be found. LEGO displays, books, posters, etc. It is not just going to be broken down by theme, set number, etc. I look at it like a classifieds or a flea market or something. I will go into more details on this later. The one thing we did choose to go with is that we will be using Paypal Adaptive payment checkout. Buyers will be able to purchase from up to 9 different vendors at one time (Brick classifieds is actually the 10th vendor once a fee % is factored in). All will be paid at one time in one shot. There will be no billing. Ed and I will not be hunting down people for lack of payment, etc. Once your items sells, a fee will be collected and everyone is happy. Again, I will get into more details on this later, i need to leave for work now woohoo!!

Ummm what u be smoking son? :)

(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

I am doing really good and I am satisfied. My biggest succes was with Chima, City, Duplo, Friends and Ninjago. Not in this particular order. And as somebody wisely mentioned before in this thread... after Xmas I will relist my inventory to used and AFOL targeted sets.

Friends and Disney have been the big disappointments for sure but at the prices a lot of us got it at it will do fine. Most bought Castles at $43-50 which is a great deal (Boscovs was the cheaper and the Target $10 off with store pickup deals). Shopping malls at $70 were great too. Fryes had the DC at $41.99. They might of been holiday flops but those prices are great buy ins for down the road The Ghost will be a big one for me down the road. Bought all I could at Fry's and Yoyo for $53.99 and those have done very well for me. Combo'd them with Phantom and they have done really well (even with TRU selling them $15 cheaper recently) Set selection and quality of the set gets overlooked a lot. Advents are a pure example. If you looked at all 3 sets this year SW and City had the value / wow factor. They both did extremely well while friends struggled. Going forward you'll still have to analyze each one when they come out. I always buy a few when they are released and see how many flip that week and at what price. SW I sold 12 at $60 , City was like 6 at $50 and I sold 0 friends. I don't care about profit then just gauging interest for later on. So when the deals started coming I bought based on those numbers. I do that with pretty much any new set that comes out in the latter months. If there hot off the bat then there is a better chance they will sell out when the holidays comes around. Set selection will be one of the biggest keys going forward and choosing the right sets will be vital. Not everything is going to go up like it used to (or enough to warrant selling for a profit). Popularity of the set, availability of the set at retailers and online sellers, price points will all be big factors. SW vs WVM is a prime example. WVM has had 2 subpar seasons of sales in stores and online. SW comes on at a better price point and huge popularity and blows it away even with WVM possibly retiring. You can't let what the first few sets did always dictate how the next one will be. Not saying WVM won't go up at all or anything like that but its flat out not as popular. It's still sitting in the store this morning even with SW being sold out for a good 2 weeks now. When you can't even be the set people buy because the one they really want is sold out , you might want to invest in something else. Basically just a lot more thought, reasearch, and analyzing needs to go into purchases in the future.

No one has mentioned the oil it can spurt out and then set fire too when it uses its boosters to hover. For this reason it also comes with a portable fire extinguisher

Amazon is "God" in our business. eBay prices generally follow regardless of their lack of connection. The fact that Amazon didn't blow out any stock this year hurt the QFLL. Last year by Dec 2nd I'd rekon 40% of the most popular sets were out of stock. This year by the 9th I'd rekon that number is 20% or lower. (It's a subjective # obviously) Bottom line is: If Amazon has it in stock your probably not going to make money unless you bought in for 30%+ off, regardless of the number of sellers in the market. Any item Amazon and Quidsi are OOS on I haven't had any problem making money. Batcave, OH, X-Wing etc all rose extremely fast after being OOS, IMO the competition is being greatly overblown, Amazon and the other retailers are our competition, the other individuals are small fish in a very large lake. EDIT: For retired sets, yes competition from others hurts. Sorry, should have clarified I was talking about flipping more than anything else. Even last year retired sets took a dive during december, I remember a post about it, I've had better luck moving retired sets in the fall and spring.

Which Ed? Knight Fall was excellent. Start reading around Batman issue 488 or so (the story line officially stayed with issue 492 or so plus the other Bat titles). It started getting terrible with issue 500. Ugh. Yeah, I use to be heavily into comics back in the 1980s and early 1990s.

I just relisted mine so great timing heh. Well the plan is to go Thursday to the store where they had 4 of them yesterday and hope all 4 are still there and pounce. I can get a fair amount at lego discovery centers with 10% off but that just really erases tax and not enough meat on the bone unless these do "crack" $200.

Seriously Lego? Hundreds of euros for your UCS models and you can't print certain parts? These are not your regular kids sets, we are adults collecting these things!

    Thanks my friend!

Are there any sold listings in that range?

Ill be there in a couple hours to pick it up. ;-)

Popularity does not mean they won't retire it. Just means a higher EOL price :D

Pretty interesting! Will have to run the numbers to check out all the sets....thanks for posting them all. Heads up for next time btw, if you use your smart phone instead it will draw fewer looks!

I don't understand unless you really need the money why sell the Batman Ayslum so quick, wait and these will be $400 and up. Thats why about 75% of investors crack way to early, just remember you will never see this set again.

It looks crappy to me. However, crappy looking gold is STILL gold :D