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Welcome to the site. My best suggestion to you is to read read read. There is a ton of information available to you on this site, that's already been freely provided. Take your time, read the site, find things that are of interest to you. Ask questions in those threads (after you have read them), to get an idea of why something might or might not be a good investment.

Had to finally let mine go, could not say no to $6900 CDN. Hope there is a new one and can buy that also. I did have a Bricklinked one that my son and I put together before TFA came out, so I have enjoyed the build as well as the proceeds.

I bet we start to see crapola like that over the next year. It's getting weird. Even my old honey holes that were easy pickings are now being swarmed by competition. I went to a TRU the other day, and it was filled with two other "investors" that were picking and chatting and had no problem filling carts up with what I would deem "too early junk". That was a bit of a spooky experience, because I DO my research quite a bit on stuff, and they seemed to have done none. I wouldn't have done what this one 20 something was doing loading up on new star wars items, some superhero sets, speed racers, etc all at TRU inflated retail costs . Then I went to my local BAM which had at one point 6 UN Architecture buildings two weeks ago. I was considering buying a couple, but passed, then I went back this week, and they were all gone. I'm starting to even think the architecture line, which has a small but fanatical fanbase, is now becoming swarmed by resellers. 2 years ago, most sets like Sungnyemun, Robie House, Burj, Guggenheim, etc were hardly hoarded like most of the sets are now and I attribute the rise in costs to many of those older architecture sets to the fact that not many people were buying them to hold. Don't get me wrong, this christmas selling season was great. I just sold another Farnsworth house at 120 a day ago which gave me about a 96% return on investment from my buy-in, and the prices on Fallingwaters, Sydney Opera Houses, etc are definitely at a spot, where doubling your money, even after fees if you bought in at discounts are a given. But, do I think this will continue like this next year on the six sets that just retired? I'm not so sure... I actually have some doubts on many of them. Add in all the extreme rookies that have flooded this site over the last couple weeks that don't even seem to have much knowledge about lego, and it's left me thinking that it's time to be a lot more selective this year, but scale down on my buying by 60% compared to last year, with the goal of buying things I would open, but then just hold them in the box for a year or two. If things go south, then they become birthday and christmas presents and i'm not out on a huge loss.

R.I.P. Alan Rickman https://www.yahoo.com/movies/s/british-actor-alan-rickman-dies-69-125725714.html

I just sold a SC with a large hole in the front of the box but still sealed on CL for $350 cash.

I really dislike the idea of going through children's books, the novelization, and Aftermath prequel to get answers to some of the questions. They could have taken more time in the movie to explain the setting better and the state of the universe without getting bogged down in my opinion. I think cutting scenes has more to do with the financial incentive to keep the film shorter so they can run through more screenings per day.

Just a note: If you are nervous about using your credit card on-line or internationally etc. for something like this... I just purchased another batch of tickets to add to my previous 7 (was this a ploy, adding new really cool items ongoingly???) ...anyway, I just used one of those generic nameless drugmart gift-card, pre-paid masted cards everyone gets for Christmas & usually never gets around to using (or simply doesn't have any free cc slots in their wallet so they float around the desk for months) and it was accepted without any problem. Even with the US conversion from it's Canadian host $ value. enter the number, exp date, and code from the back, Trick is instead of entering your own name in the boxes at payment you enter the name printed in scrolly font on the card - in my case it was "Ideal Choice" (without the "The" preceeding the name). seems to work just fine, got an acceptance message & receipt. it's easy.

The rebels weren't alone in that. Everything the empire built was a piece of crap too.. Tie's with no shields, single missiles taking out a death star, a lone a-wing destroying an ssd, logs toppling at-st's.

Well I only bought the one ticket, but its a great thing your doing. Hopefully will buy a couple more before the end of the month.

And his performance as Alexander Dane in Galaxy Quest was brilliant!

How do you think Luke gets around Ahch-To?

yep from 100 cost basis to 350 in 24 to 36 months stock market much better

In this series of articles, I would like to take a look at the more expensive, most sought after sets of all time. Instead of reviewing the sets I thought I would address the parts of the sets that make them so rare and valuable. New collectors may wonder why they can't just build these popular and expensive sets out of the LEGO pieces scattered throughout their house. Inexperienced buyers may have concerns over what parts might be replaced in used sets that they are buying. People looking into bulk lots might want to know what clues in a lot would indicate that one of these popular sets are present. The first set on my list is 10212 the UCS Imperial Shuttle. I know that the Millennium Falcon 10179 is much more popular, but I want to do it justice, so need more time to work on it. The Imperial Shuttle, 10212, was released in 2010. The original retail price of this set was $259.99. Used complete sets sell from $400-$500 while New in box sets sell for $550-$650. The box shows a total of 2503 pieces including 5 minifigures. New collectors would probably balk at the price tag for this set. It's hard to fathom why a bunch of little plastic bricks that seem so ubiquitous could ever be worth that much. Sadly, that's not really close to top of the mark for sets, and these collectors shouldn't wait too long to have that band aid ripped away. The first reason that this set is not one that you could just assemble from all of your kid's loose bricks is because it is 2503 pieces. I guarantee that your kid would notice that many missing pieces. These pieces are not just random, they were selected, designed, and tested to go together to make the best representation of this iconic ship. Some of these LEGO pieces are very common, but you still may not have enough of them to fill in this set. Let's take a look at the pieces that are most common in this set. (apologies that the stock photos do not always reflect the color of the pieces in this set, they are for reference only) There are: 133 White 1x1 Technic Brick with hole Element 6541 133 Black Technic Pin with Friction ridges with center slot Element 2780 108 Blue Technic Pin 3L with Friction Ridges Element 6558 106 White Plate 1X1 Element 3024 82 White Plate 1X2 Element 3023 58 Light Bluish Gray Technic Pin 1/2 Element 4274 58 White Brick 1X3 Element 3622 52 White Brick 1x2x5 Element 2454 etc. As you can see, the volume of some of these elements can be intimidating. Even though most of these elements are common and cheap, most vendors on Bricklink do not carry the inventory to cover your needs for these pieces. You'd have to make multiple purchases, pushing the average cost of these pieces up, due to all of the shipping and handling charges. Of course your savvy Briclinker will know to either have multiple wanted lists running, to spread out their costs, but still a lot of pieces means a lot of separate orders. Apart from the Large number of common pieces, you also have some specialty pieces that make up a set. The specialty pieces are ones that are either unique to the set or in so few sets as to make no difference. The unique and specialty pieces in the sets tend to have values that reflect a large proportion of the total value. This causes some collectors to forego the piece in favor of a cheaper alternative, whether it is the same piece in a different color or completely different pieces that serve a similar function. Unethical resellers will replace these pieces and not tell the end users who may not know to look. In some cases, people have made fakes. Spotting fakes is important, but not the focus of this article. For most UCS sets, one of the most expensive pieces is the sticker. The sticker is unique to the set, large and limited in number. Some people require unused sticker, while others are content to have them applied. For the 10212 Imperial Shuttle, there is one sticker sheet that has a large sticker that describes the vehicle and 5 smaller stickers that represent computer screens. Sticker sheet The stickers for this set sell in the $40-$50 range. Bought separately attached to their elements The large sticker should run about $20-$30 and the individual computer screens $10-$15 each. The Large Sticker is attached to Element 90498 Black Tile 8X16 with Bottom Tubes which is only available in 12 sets. Most of those sets are UCS sets. It's a relatively cheap part at around $2, mostly because it is in the Rhino and Sandman Supervillain Teamup, a relatively inexpensive set that many are parting out. One of the harder to find elements is 32 White Technic Lift Arm 1X7 Bent Element 32348. It's available in 8 other sets and averages $.50-$.60 each. It's currently available in the Ferris Wheel 10247. You also need 8 Light Bluish Gray 40 Tooth Technic Gear Element 3649 which average about $1 each. There's a light Gray version which lazy builders might include, even though it is incorrect, because they don't want to take the time to verify it is correct. The windscreen 6267 is only available in Translucent Black in 3 sets. One of those sets is currently available and less than retail LEGO City Train Station 60050. Before that set was released, this element was more than likely fairly expensive, since the other set it was available in was the Grand Emporium. There are 4 Trans Clear Technic Gearbox 2x4x3 1/3 that usually costs about $1-$2 each 6588 It's not a terribly uncommon piece (available in 20+ sets) but only the Imperial Shuttle has this many. A cheap piece that is only available in 4 sets is the White Windscreen 7x4x2 Round Extended Front Edge 89762. The only reason that I can conceive that this piece is inexpensive is that it was available in a very cheap, common set, Freeco Speeder 8085. Element 3046a is also a cheap rare element. It is available in 3 sets. It's a light bluish gray 2x2 double concave slope. It's available in the SpongeBob Squarepants Flying Dutchman 3817 and Sith Fury Class Interceptor 9500. Both of which were clearance in the past couple years. My final rare element is the White slope 2x2x3 Double Convex Element 3685 It sells for about $3-$4 and you need 10 of them. It's available in 4 sets including the Imperial Shuttle Tydirium 75094. Of the 5 included minifigures, Darth Vader and the Stormtrooper are found in other sets but the following figures are available only in this set: Imperial Shuttle Commander Imperial Pilot Luke Skywalker Jedi Knight with Pupils (although this figure is found with a watch) The last thing that many collectors consider when purchasing this set and the most obvious thing that you could see in a bulk lot are the 4 instruction books. These books, as a set, sell for between $40-$75 and are available in the $100 range. If you've got a box, that gets you closer to the upper range of $500 than if it is missing. The hard parts of putting this set together are the rare elements and the sheer number of pieces. The average LEGO collector could probably get 25-33% of the way to completing this set. The rest would take a lot of time and money to buy in multiple lots. People who have used Bricklink to build sets like this typically look back and determine that they have spent more than the average sale price to accumulate the pieces of this set. Value is a tricky thing. It's hard to explain to someone who is not involved in the hobby, because they just see a lot of plastic bricks. Collectors see the rarity of an old piece that is well constructed and was not common while it was in production and has become less so since then. New collectors come into the hobby every single day, and some that have been collecting for a while have begun stretching out to the more expensive sets. The UCS Imperial Shuttle is in the middle of the pack as far as cost goes in the world of UCS sets. Quick quiz: I lifted some pictures from an auction that closed a couple months ago. Could you pick out this set from the photos? Would you know that this was a UCS Imperial Shuttle? What if I gave you this picture? In the weeks to come, I will be exploring the pieces that make up each of the Top 25 Most Valuable sets, Ultimate Collector Series, and Modulars. Images in this article are the property of http://rebrickable.com/, Bricklink and LEGO. ****************** Quick note from jaisonline. As mentioned in the article, the 10212 Imperial Shuttle has been selling for $400-$500 (used) and $550-$650 (new in box). So how much would the bricks, manuals and sticker cost if we "bricklinked" our own 10212? Using current used prices on bricklink.com, it would cost $539 (before postage) to purchase everything except the box in used condition. "2,488 Items in 226 Unique Lots totaling US $538.90 ready to be uploaded into your inventory." Postage can easily add an addition $100. Thus, 10212 is an example where it makes sense to buy the set (new or complete) in one transaction. View full blog article

Only sold one set today. Friends Pet Salon 41007 $59. Not bad for a clearance item $11 buy in, $6 to ship. Shame it will take a year or longer to sell the other 14 at that price.

It's a bowling night. Come on out.

I'm all for helping people out, but I wish threads like these didn't pop up so much. This feels like the thousandth one in the past week or so. People don't bother to make intro threads anymore, they just get straight to the point, "How would you spend my money so that I can make more money?" and then you never hear from them again. I'm coming off curmudgeonly I know, but ugh, the site's going a little off the rails lately. /rant over. To the OP---Take Alpine's advice and buy what you like. Oh, and I'm sure Nexo Knights will be the next big thing.

hi, welcome to our community. i suggest to catch up on some pretty good reading like i did at my beginning (Nov 2012). here is the link.. http://community.brickpicker.com/blog/brickvesting/?page=4&d=5 do as much research as possible. just throwing money at lego is the prob best way to lose money and spare storage space please don't do that. read and read. finally (and think most will agree with me), buy sets you like to build because there might be a day when some sets are hard to sell...and well, you can always enjoy them by building. the 1st rule of lego is it's a toy for folks of all ages no matter what

Well I've reread it several times and I disagree. I agree with everything else though

Well if you want to succeed.. don't listen to anyone here but you. Do you research, know lego, know the market, spend the hundreds of hour needed if you have the passion.

The new blonde Ghostbuster looks suspiciously like cartoon Egon:

It would have been hilarious had some TFA stormtroopers died due to friendly fires when they circled and executed the villagers on Jakku (yeah I understood dark comedy)

So they could wear those helmets which effed with their ability to shoot straight, thus missing Luke/Han/Leia in the Death Star and letting them "escape" while tracking them to the hidden Rebel Base. It was all part of the "Plan." That's some serious foresight on behalf of the Emperor.

I forgot Stormtrooper armor that didn't protect them from anything. What's the point?

Wal Mart has an organizational plan?!?

According to the cartel office president, the reason for that is that TLG fully cooperated with the investigations, certain managers were fired and thorough internal measures were taken by TLG to prevent these things from happening again. Source: http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article150909205/Lego-setzte-Einzelhaendler-massiv-unter-Druck.html I'll translate some other relevant passages in that article: "TLG has acted contrary to the prohibition of resale price maintenance, said the cartel office. On the basis of that non-cartel rule, producers of goods are not allowed to limit the freedom of resellers to set the prices for the goods." "In 2012 and 2013, distribution employees of Lego had forced resellers in the north and east of Germany to fix prices. This regarded exclusive articles. According to TLG some 20 sets were at issue. Those sets, and the designated resellers, were kept track of in a regularly updated list, according to the cartel office. If the resellers didn't act in accordance with this imposed rule, they would receive fewer of those items, or none at all, according to the investigators. In some cases, clearance sales were influenced." "TLG accepts the verdict of the cartel office and won't appeal."

Sounds almost like Amazon FBA.

I don't get how this was missed unless....... Perhaps serious collectors ignored it in favor other models. The Lego Movie itself appealed to kids and families, most of which probably don't spend that much on Lego sets because I constantly hear them complain about how expensive they are. This model would not have been in their sights at all. But for me, as a collector, I could tell this would be a good one just based on what it was.....a really big steampunk pirate ship.

because we are nerds who would also exile ourselves on an island that's accessible only by using 70810 or 10179

One sold for over $400 shipped on eBay today with only 26 sellers for New BIN. I guess the old "but for every 3 SC I can get 5 PS" herd mentality doesn't always work. So what is up with the two threads for the same set? Can someone please explain what the blog does like are posts in there sent to news sites or twitter. I just find it confusing and more time consuming to have to read both.

Some just like to complain...

Saw these a couple of weeks ago at Target. It was in a big blue display box that I haven't seen. My first reaction was, "I don't remember Harry Potter driving a blue car in the books."

There are only 34 listings on ebay. 9 sold on Jan 11th. The last three all went $350, $375, $398. Rarity is going to help this quite a bit. Big thanks to the pessimists that scared everyone off this one.

This is my recommendation to every new investor rushing to the scene: Imagine a world without BrickPicker. One where people make simple decisions on their own. In this world, one would choose which sets to buy and when to sell them, without help. Are you going to make the right decision every time? No, but you aren't going to anyway. But what you will have every time is more experience. The people who have been the most successful at this had nobody to ask for help. Nobody to tell them how to do everything. You'll be far better off in the long run if you don't let the majority make your decisions for you.

Alright, I'm selling likes! I've already bought some raffle tickets, but just for fun, for every "like" this post gets from members who joined before the time of this posting, I'll spend an equal amount on more tickets, up to $250. If it gets beyond that, I'll figure out how much more I'll spend. Let's set a like record!

Every article should contain your sentence... LEGO investing is no longer “easy” money as it once was...

Comments about the ethics of parenting and posting pictures of children on the Internet aren't the purpose of this thread. If you've got a concern, please contact the poster through PM or Report the post to the mods.

Last Thursday/Friday I had a huge amount of sales, I'm talking at least 5 times my average day... Then Saturday/Sunday, not a single sale. It does make you scratch your head...

So I just finished running the numbers off of the Bay/paypal. This is for all of 2015: 100 Total sales gross proceeds of 16,518.xx fees include shipping, packaging materials, gas for transportation when allowed by the IRS, ebay fees, paypal fees...does not include time spent (3588.xx) Cost of product (7053.xx) Net profit 5703.xx....80+% return on original investment (I have not calculated the CAGR yet) I am still a small fry. This is the first time I crossed 100 sales in a year. This season included selling out of deloreans, republic gunships, selling a few 9398 acquire from the UK, and some duds I was happy to escape with some profit like Orc Forge and Apple tree house (very thin margins on those). Some sets were held for 3+ years others a much shorter time. Fun time but I was little disappointed in the returns. Last year I grossed about half of that but my ROI was nearly 100%. Don't read too much into it....A lot was set selection. Some of my combined listing got eaten up with shipping costs. (I am based in the Midwest and I had a lot of west coast sales) I Rarely use calculated shipping but I am rethinking that strategy.

I know no one asked (but because this is the internet I can freely answer questions anyway :)) but I was thinking about the question "how much has Lego increased in price over the last few years?". Sure someone will come and blow this analysis out of the water but I thought that by looking at the modulars eliminates any noise around IP costs, spikes due to rare mini figs and the size of the pieces in each set should be on average a similar %age (ie proportion of big, medium and small pieces would be similar). Normally i wouldn't look at price per piece at all as a gauge but I think when comparing modulars you can (just to caveat I only own 2 so this is a bit of proof by induction). (sorry guys in EU I only looked at US and UK data). I used the US & UK CPI index to rebase the price of past modulars to today (hope that makes sense). Looking at the @ retail price per piece of modulars in the US its fluctuated around 7 cents per piece. In dollar terms the brick bank is 5% more expensive then Cafe Corner. For the UK its different. Brick bank offer relatively good value (20% increase) however DO is a huge 37% increase on a price per piece basis. However if I adjust for inflation and back out the historic price per pieces in today's money things look a little different (using CPI index which doesn't include mortgages). For the US brick bank is down 8% inflation adjusted (bargain). For the UK market Palace cinema is still up 12% vs Cafe Corner but the new brick bank comes in at -5% (similar to our counterparts across the pond). So whats my point? I know the old "adjusting for inflation" can be a bit of a crock but it doesn't really surprise me that inflation adjusted Lego prices are down - I think the general uptick in prices is probably more due to licence costs & economies of scale (relatively more costly to produce smaller sets) then most realiSe. Also this kind of enforces (in my mind) that there isn't a primary market bubble for the product yet. Lego havent started wildy increasing the modualr pricers on the back of retired secondary market sales. My analysis is limited to the modualrs but IMO they offer some of the best value to collectors (especially AFOLS). Now back to trolling..... (Data I used is below - if i messed anything up then I'm only human so please don't lambast too hard) Set Number Release Pieces PPP US PPP UK US RPI UK RPI PPP US Today PPP UK Today Café Corner 10182 Oct-07 2056 6.8 4.3 209 824 7.7 5.3 Market Street 10190 Oct-07 1248 7.2 4.8 209 824 8.2 6.0 Green Grocer 10185 Mar-08 2352 6.4 4.3 214 837 7.1 5.2 Fire Brigade 10197 Sep-09 2231 6.7 4.5 216 849 7.4 5.4 Grand Emporium 10221 Mar-10 2182 6.9 6.1 218 871 7.5 7.2 Pet Shop 10218 May-11 2032 7.4 5.9 226 928 7.8 6.5 Town Hall 10224 Mar-12 2766 7.2 5.4 229 950 7.5 5.9 Palace Cinema 10232 Mar-13 2196 6.8 5.5 233 981 7.0 5.7 Parisian Restaurant 10243 Jan-14 2469 6.5 5.4 234 997 6.6 5.5 Detectives Office 10246 Jan-15 2262 7.1 5.9 234 1008 7.2 6.0 BrickBank 10251 Jan-16 2380 7.1 5.0 237 1025 7.1 5.0

Exactly, European buyers were swimming in stuff when most of it disappeared quickly in the US last year.

There's also the Amazon Smile program from Amazon, where a percentage of member purchases go to a specific charity, in this case, the school. In that case people could be donating the next time they order anything from Amazon without paying any extra. There's more info here: https://org.amazon.com/

Got my first Tumbler from B&N yesterday, it was shipped in the original lego box and arrived in mint condition.

I have sold about 20 of the Poe XWing for about avg $12 Amazon FBA. Comes out to almost 100% profit. You dont need to sell exclusives to make money.

How do you think Luke gets around Ahch-To? Why do I feel like we might be the only two that get that joke? Ah, who am I kidding. There are too many nerds here.

I got 2 from Target a few weeks ago, both with open seals. I returned both to the local store. Then I just ordered 1 again from Target and just got today and seals are intact and box is in decent shape too. I can't believe Walmart just slapped a label right on the Lego box. That's terrible...

While I appreciate the comments about the picture from all members, I think it is a rather innocent and fun picture that exemplifies the fun of LEGO. One does have to be careful of what is posted on the internet, but in this case, I really don'r see any major problems if the parents are the ones who posted the picture.

Her Majesty's Theatre, London by JanetVanD

Finishing the sides and roof supports. On the original version of my son's van, i added two 1x1 studs to the roof supports to hold the roof on better. Here is what the original roof looks like on the 2 stud longer van.