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@Mos_Eisley "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery". i would like to totally rip-off Mos' great idea of likes. This is a good cause so I don't think Mos will mind plus he's far more original than me when it comes to ideas like this. In addition to already donating 2 SW TFA sets along with a small donation, my wife and i will like to give even more by engaging other Brickpicker members. *** For each LIKE this post gets, we will donate $1 per by purchasing fundraiser tickets. No limit of likes. *** The cutoff time for my likes is Sunday @ 12:00 PM EST. note: I think we can get 500 likes with this post alone! Lets work together make it happen. Mos' post can be found below. More info = https://rallyup.com/stpaul-2016/ ----- @Ed Mack @Jeff Mack

71 likes / $71 dollars in the last 8 hours. Not bad but we can do better. Please click the post below and LIKE it. Nothing more, nothing less. A simple click and more money is put toward a great cause. P.s. Don't forget to LIKE Mos” post also.

That's a great link right above, lets revive this forum a little BPs! if you got your money on bundle #5, you may just be getting my bricks too anyway, as cheap as I am, as lazy, as....as NOT-participating-in-SH.T as I am, I'm going to make a little version of Mos_Eisley $-4-likes idea, give this post 10 likes and I'll spend $10 on raffle ticket, up to 50 likes/$50! Let's go. (I'll pay on last day of the raffle Ed) And on the side, buy some tix too! Plus like Mos_Eisley post that I provided...

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!

I scored these 3 sets for $42.98 shipped on eBay so far I've located all of the minifigures and actual sets are looking complete!

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/videos/see-rick-springfields-massive-star-wars-toy-collection-20151207

Since we're getting toward the end and I didn't want to run out of time this weekend, I went ahead and purchased $200 worth of tickets with the likes at 162 when I bought. I figured that should cover any other likes that come in over the weekend. If it gets over $200, I'll take of that Sunday night.

Links to Likes for $1 posts: Mos Eisley 160/250++ LIKES Lordoflego 52/50 Likes Jaisonline 77/∞ LIKES It's easy! Just click the links and hit "like"!!

Let's impress the rest of the LEGO world. $50,000 and 1000 supporters sounds so much better than $45.000 and 900 supporters. We have two days.

Post.....posted. 50 likes-received. $50/5tix-purchased, thanks and keep it up everybody, looks like great sprint at the end of the race.

All, lets get a jump start to $50k by liking the post below.

Love it! Frank Lloyd Wright should have totally went with this name. Runningwater, the great American architectural dwelling!

Star Wars Episode VIII: The First Order Retaliates Star Wars Episode IX: Regroup of the Jedi

Nope!!!

Nope, I moved it before you saw it.

It is pretty amazing what the Macks and all the BrickPickers are doing. I don't think anyone in the community here in Burlington would have expected this response. It is and has been the big topic of conversation. Every time the parents meet about fundraising or even run into each other in the community, we express our gratitude for this endeavor. Even people who don't attend St. Paul's in the community are noticing. My family and I cannot thank your community enough. I know it means a lot Ed, but he is just one part of the picture. There are so many families that are going to be positively affected by the outcome of this raffle (not including the Lego winners). I am very grateful that Ed and Jeff began this initiative. It may sound silly but all of you will have contributed to my piece of mind for next school year, one less worry. So thank you all and good luck!

About 100 likes / $100 dollars in 26 hours. Not too bad. We can do better. Please click the post below and LIKE it (not this specific post). A simple click and more money is put toward a great cause. Please also donate anything to St Paul's Parochial School if not already.

Three mint Death stars, Sandcrawler, and an Ewok Village from Toys R Us arrived today.

I wasn't too sold on the EV until I got one for my son at Christmas and once I saw the final build together and some of the features so think this is a pretty awesome set! Going to get a few for investment now.

I like the blog for what I think it is intended to be - a little snap of the fingers in front of the face of the newer members of our horde. Sure it's biased, and that is the point, as I take it... that there are very viable (arguably more profitable) opportunities out there with less capital and less risk tolerance required... for the trade-off of more work, most likely. I personally splash around in both pools a lot, but the "small" one sees a lot more action because deals like MHG lend themselves so easily to flipping (which for me means approx a year or less hold). Meanwhile the Tumblers, Town Halls, etc. just take up space and gain value. One day they will be ripe and ready to harvest. Good contribution, should make a few people think about what they are doing more.

Use this as comparison and I'll get on board.

Fire Bikes for everybody!!!!!!!!

I'm the utmost newbie, for sure, never ever having commented here. But I can't help but do it for the first time in order to commend you for your effort in benefit of this school. I'm thousands of miles away but was truly moved by the idea and, much, much more by what I've read here so I could not not take part in it, as small as the contribution I can afford might be (and is). I just had to do it - to let you know a noble cause knows no borders and so that my little support to whatever two guys who show such a kind heart as you do ask help spur you on now and always. Cheers and best of luck for the school, students, teachers and parents.

This was a surreal experience a lot of enjoyment not so much from the build but from finally getting to build the CC. I need a frog and some hair. Up next GG.

I'm not talented when it comes to moc's and the things I see here are way over my head. But from time to time, I do try to build something when sales are calm. Mind you this is a work in progress. This is what I wanted to build. The palace of Morocco. I had opened up Battle of Alamut and found it a nice set, but ... well... too small. So I went for something bigger. The front gate is the first thing I built. I didn't order any special bricks and my inventory of loose bricks is modest. The front gate is almost complete. Inside there is a square which I will do last with some sort of pool. Not sure yet. And to both left and right there are riaads. The outside of the riaad looks like this, it's the side of the moc. Second floor will be a copy of the ground floor if I have enough small bows.I'm missing 1 of the orangy pillars so pretty grrrr about that. Still searching. The palace itself And from the back. Not sure I will close the back wall as it will be very dark if I do Is my third day I'm working on it so plenty of stuff still to do

When I first got into LEGO as an AFOL I was looking at all of the Star Wars sets that I had missed and how much they cost. It became necessary to figure out a way to get the sets cheaper or make more money. I knew that some people must be making money buying bulk lots and taking out the stuff they wanted and selling the rest. That seemed like 2 birds with one stone. I looked at the bulk lots on Ebay, realizing that most of what I would get from these guys were common pieces. So I started looking at bigger lots, somewhat intimidated by their cost. I figured, however, if an Ebayer was getting $10 for a pound maybe I could make some money just throwing stuff in a box, easy money. I made a purchase of about 50 lbs for about $350 because I saw some Star Wars sets and minifigures in there. Oh boy, easy money and some treasures of my own. Boy, was I wrong. The money is anything but easy. I quickly discovered that out of my 50 lbs of mixed LEGO, at least 5 lbs were easily recognizable as not building bricks at all. Tinker toys, K'Nex, Hot Wheels, plastic army men, broken action figures, Lincoln logs, playing cards, thumb tacks, thorny burrs and even broken glass was mixed into the ABS blocks. On top of all that junk, the real problems started. All of the Mega Blocks, BTR, and assorted knock off blocks knocked another 5+ lbs out of the lot. That's at least 20% of my precious blocks that was basically trash. As you filter through, you discover broken bricks, severely teeth marked ones and yellowed pieces. profits are getting slimmer by the minute. Ok, so I regrouped and focused on the sets that were obviously present. I pulled out the stuff I immediately recognized most of a TIE Interceptor, a little car, Jedi Interceptor with Hyperdrive ring, half an ARC Fighter, etc. All of these I scattered around me like ancient peoples paying homage to their creator. How do I go from lots of partial sets to lots of complete sets that I can flip to make back the money that I sunk into this thing? Well first I needed to figure out what was missing. So, I looked at instruction books to see what steps I needed to take to complete them and what pieces were missing from there. Utter bust. That's an awful way to do it. So I took apart the sets I had figured out and checked the inventory against Bricklink. I discovered what was missing, and that sometimes kids substitute pieces in the middle of a build. Now that I knew what was missing, time to turn back to 20 lbs of assorted bulk. digging through mixed bricks looking for the piece or pieces I need was time consuming and futile. Time to sort them out to make it easier. My wife and I sorted that 20 lbs of pieces by color. We had 10+ bags of pieces separated loosely by color (old and new colors mixing futilely.) That made it easier to look for pieces, but still sometimes wasting a lot of time trying to pick out a small piece in a big bag. After exhausting my patience, I turned to Bricklink to acquire the pieces I needed, dumping more money into this hole. Eventually I sold a bunch of sets I made from this and a few other bulk lots. Between the Bricklink orders I placed to complete them and the fees and shipping, I think I made some money. My book keeping was pretty terrible. But it all taught me some things. Some of these things I learned could help some people just starting out trying to find treasure in Bulk lots. STEP 1: Valuation So, you're looking at a bulk lot that you found on Craigslist, Ebay, a garage sale, another auction or whatever. How should you evaluate it? Weight: The volume of pieces will tell you roughly how much is there. 2 lbs = not a lot. 25 lb = a lot. Since you're not buying the sets one by one, you have to immediately realize that you are going to be getting dead weight in addition to the treasures that you seek. Visible sets: Any visible set that you can place is good. That will give you an immediate idea of what you can make out of the lot. No visible sets or parts of sets means that there may or may not be gold in there. Minifigures: If minifigures are present that's good. If licensed minifigures are present, that's even better. a loose rule I use is to look for flesh colored minifigure heads and hands. Sure there's some dummies in that group, and some good figures that have yellow heads and hands, but it's a good starting point. Instructions and boxes: Both of these are a good gauge to show you what sets may be present, but could be red herrings. Sometimes the instructions stick around long after the main components of a set are lost. Non LEGO stuff: There's always some detritus. The flotsam and jetsam of stuff that parents scoop up into the boxes. The most common stuff is non LEGO bricks. They're not always easy to pick out at first glance, but they're usually there. What you are looking for is how much of the lot is obviously not LEGO. Do you see doll parts, nerf darts, Pokémon cards, buttons, etc.? usually this is a good sign to me. It means no one has searched it. but it is a pain to filter through. Filth: Sometimes you can see how dirty and played with the bricks are. Most bulk will be dusty or dirty. Some will even have paint or marker on them. So with these factors, let's talk about how they factor into the valuation. an average lot is usually in the $4-$6 per lb range. Average lots show some partial sets, some minifigures, maybe a few instructions, relatively clean, with not a lot of obvious non LEGO stuff. Depending on the quality and quantity of the better stuff, you might increase your valuation, but remember you're not paying top dollar for what you see, because there's still a lot of work to come. Plus, you're going to get some amount of stuff you don't want. I have been known to go as low as $2-$3 a pound for stuff that had no obvious sets, mediocre looking or no obvious minifigures and excess junk. Then again, I have gone as high as $10 a lb for lots of minifigures and several mostly complete sets of some value. Some people stick to a hard $5 lb. Some lots of only minifigures I have seen sold for close to $100 lb. Figure out your comfort level and stick to it. Be prepared to have wasted your money on a big group of Mega Blocks. STEP 2: Sorting and figuring out what you have Once you get the lot, now you have to do something with it. Boxes full of bulk sitting in the garage is just hoarding. You're doing this to make your money work for you. So, I start by trying to pull out all the non LEGO, but also anything that gives me a good idea of what is there. Pull out minifigures, instructions, partial sets and set them aside. I bag the partial sets, with the minifigures and instructions wherever possible. I would never again sort by color. Finding a red 1x1 modified tile with clip in a big bag of red parts is much harder than looking through a bag of 1x1 modified tile with clips of assorted colors. Instead I start by throwing all the flats in one box. Slopes go in a second box. Bricks are a third box, etc. It's the most general sorting at first. As I go, I look for unique identifiers of sets like printed pieces or unusual shapes. Once the initial sorting is accomplished, I sort again by element. STEP 3: Completing sets The best way to make back the bulk of your purchase price is to complete the sets that you received. Some people will complete everything that they can, others disdain anything below a certain dollar amount. It's up to you how far down the rabbit hole that you are going to head. Once you get your sets, you need to figure out what is missing. Even if the set looks complete, it is best to verify. Some people will make substitutions in the middle of a set. Your customers may not appreciate substitutions, especially if there are megablocks in the middle of a build. So, it's time to take them apart to verify the inventory. If the sets are partial, you definitely should take them apart to figure out how much is missing. Look through your new bulk to see if you can find the rest. Focus on the expensive sets first. Check through your minifigures, instructions, and interesting pieces to see what sets may have been broken down entirely and see if they are worth reconstituting. You could do another survey of your bulk to see if the seemingly random bulk is hiding some treasure. I look for the part numbers on the interesting pieces. Finding the part number can be difficult, since it's usually inside of the LEGO piece and hard to spot, except with the right light. If the piece appears in multiple sets, I check for context with other pieces in the lot. Again, the interesting pieces generally have a unique shape, sticker or printing. If you can't complete them this way, or even with other bulk you might have, then you have to decide if sinking some more money into them is worthwhile. Does spending $10, $20, or $50 more make sense? Only you know for sure, but you've already dug a hole into your resources and time. It's either keep digging, or see if you can punt it off somewhere. I tend to try to get as many sets working at a time as I can. Hopefully this will help me to get the most missing pieces for the least orders. STEP 4: Dealing with the true bulk You're going to have leftovers after you pull out the stuff that is easiest to sell. You have several options. You could write it off. Put it back in a box and donate it or stick it in the garage, hoping to forget about it. This is generally the least appealing option to me. I've put time and money into this, so I want to recover something more than the tax write off or another box in the garage. Sell it as bulk. You could try to recover something from it by selling it all as a big lot, or even breaking it up into more manageable 1, 2, 5 or 10 lb lots. There's a lot of competition that way, but it's not super hard to do. Save the pieces to help you complete other sets in your next bulk lot. This is appealing because you already have it on hand. There's no guarantee that it will do the job, but at least you have a chance to cut down on further expenses. Sell the pieces individually through Bricklink or Ebay or some other venue. This is the most time consuming way to do it. It's also the way to get the most total value from the pieces, eventually. A lot of pieces may not sell quickly if at all, but you have a higher return on every piece that does sell. So, after all of that. You have to figure out whether it was worth it. If you made some money, or got some stuff that you wanted for less than the going rate, it will give you that rosy glow. It's fun to initially dig through all of that stuff searching for buried treasures. When you find something, it really does feel like it's all worthwhile. In the long hours of sorting, searching for pieces, and waiting for Bricklink orders it may be less fun. Waiting for the stuff to sell to recoup your costs is even less fun than that. I like to do it, but at the end of the day, the monetary returns vs. my time may not be the best. It may be the worst paying job that I have ever had. You really do need to have a plan for evaluating what you are buying and for dealing with it once you do. If you've never done it before, it may be overwhelming. It will take a little while to get more proficient. It's definitely not a quick buck, but money is there to be had. If you are disorganized, if you lose patience, if you don't have the time,you're just throwing money into a hole. May the bricks be ever in your favor. pictures are used to demonstrate example bulk lots from real auctions. View full blog article

Thanks to the help of some fellow BPers, this small project is now complete

Gotta admit, after the slower start I didn't think this raffle would ever sniff 50K. It's awesome to see the generosity of the members of this forum. As a punishment for being wrong, I guess I'll have to help try to push this over the edge...

Wow 27 supporters away from 1000 and $3,200 (approx) away from $50k raised. Impressive.

No. It is a great build.

Shipping to the Netherlands is more expensive than shipping to Germany (GBP 5.07). Obviously the Dutch "LEGO tax" applies to shipping, too.

I would love to see some of these older sets "updated" - a modern take on it, with new, modern parts

My kids could break pieces off an anvil, but The Tumbler stayed together ok for me when handling it from the under side.

Bought this set this week well after retirement. A but above MSRP hehe but as an AFOL I really wanted to have this set.... Received the set yesterday....the mint box gave me a big smile. The design is awesome....! This one will be build after Red 5.

Promotional set 1590 (ANWB Assistance Center). I know, I'm a child

One of the best all-time minifigure driven Lego sets in my opinion. Too bad it didn't forgo the fragile Bat-blade for a boat or more real estate.

41101 Friends Heartlake Hotel: discount from 100 GBP to 52.50 GBP (47% off). See here. Free delivery in UK, shipping within Europe (at least, the Netherlands) 5.50 GBP.

7783 The Batcave - phenomenal set, phenomenal figs.

My daughter's birthday is on the 7th. I'm taking off work that day and our first stop is the LEGO store.

I was just looking at the new bundles and the generosity of our Brickpicker members. These are some incredible prizes! Two weeks ago Jeff posted a link when the Sea Cow was available at Walmart. I grabbed three. Jeff basically put an easy $300 in my pocket with the post. Now it's time for me to return the favor and purchase some more raffle tickets. Please ask yourself how many countless times a Brickpicker member posted a deal or tip that saved you $$$. What about information that helps you determine when a set is approaching end of life? Would you be able to gather that information on your own? I know I wouldn't. It's time to give back. This community has been generous to each one of us. Let's return the favor. Just purchased $200 more in tickets ... please consider donating if you haven't already.

Don't forget Poe's XWing will always be popular around Halloween

I just got back to your site today having moved from Holland to Canada, and adding a new set to my brickfolio (I like it a lot!). What a great way to come back, with a raffle! I donated a little something to help a litlle bit. And just my thoughts for someone who might not be inclined to help a religious school: I grew up as a RC kid. Went to RC schools. As a 30 something I renounced my RC-ism for reasons all my own. I respect anyone in their religion, I just don't believe the church is my thing. But I _am_ a humanist. I went on to send my kid to RC schools. Why? Because the RC schools I was involved are most open to any other religion in my humble opinion, I was thaught about all the other religions and a-theism in RC schools in quite an open fashion. The last RC school my kid was at was an open supporter of the in-school LGBT organisation. What is important here is to support a good school through the efforts of the wonderful admins of this great site. It's not about hate in this world, it's about a little help here and there. Hopefully as humans, through things like this we'll get there* in the end.... *) fill in your personal choice of "heaven/paradise/........ " on earth in the here and now

If we hit $50,000.00, I will make those MYSTERY BOXES SPECIAL!!!

$40,000! This is fantastic! How about $50,000? We have two and a half days!!!

First images of new 2016 sets leaked! Despite "no picture" signs... On display: Box-images: Star Wars Advent Calendar 2016: (Source: http://www.hothbricks.com/2016/01/nouveautes-star-wars-second-semestre-2016-premiers-visuels-sets/ )

The situation is the other way around for me (I'm in Europe) but when I order from Amazon.com I've found that ordering in USD is cheaper than ordering in EUR. I assume the currency rate Amazon is using isn't as good as the one used by the CC company.

There was someone on Ebay about a year or so ago that was selling these....$10-15 or so, had over 3,000 sold. Many more folks have since made their own, but perhaps LEGO caught on as well.

I also think the Rex's AT-TE will have very limited appeal, until it's gone. Blue X-Wing, big winner, but it leaves me skeptical about how many additional production runs the black X-Wing will get.