Arctic_Builder

He's in Orthanc. Standing at the balcony as we speak - er - type. It was a fun build.

I have never had the issue of missing pieces - yet. Whenever I come up missing, I usually find the piece(s) still in the bag sitting on the floor or in the trash (There have been some close calls). My biggest gripe is the instruction booklets using various shades of colors for the same part and color types throughout the book. Makes it hard to distinguish between the (for example) light browns and dark browns.

I guess you can always get an x-ray before you ship the set off to be sure all the bags are there! If you advertise in good faith MISB and it turns out there are some bags missing inside, but it was MISB when you shipped the set and when it arrived to the customer, legally you would have no liability because you could not possibly foresee that those bags would be missing due to the box being sealed. They would need to take the issue up with Lego as they would be responsible for the missing pieces in a sealed set produced by their company. Now if you wanted to provide good customer service you could contact Lego in their behalf and deal with the hassle of obtaining the missing bags or you could offer a refund, get the bag, and resell. (Or use secondary markets to obtain the pieces, or whatever other means necessary to make the set complete.) This scenario really boils down to your approach to customer service.

Back to the subject - a lot of great thoughts in here. The reason I posted this is because I'm not extremely knowledgeable in investments at this point in time. I'm fairly experienced as an accountant, not an investor (thus the desire to do my Masters in Financing and get involved). This is why my original post was stated as an inquiry and not, well, a statement. In my research there are many different ways to invest in Gold. Coins, Exchange-Trades, Stocks, etc. Has anyone had experience trading in Gold? I think the reason (for many) individuals trade in gold is the idea that they would rather have the gold than the note, but this to me isn't a logical reason for an investment.

Good point! It was pretty late into the very early morning when I stumbled across this, thus the mistake - but it's right there in the Heading - "...Fears Ebb." No offense taken and I'm pretty confident in my reading comprehension regardless of the fact. I understand your point though - and it's a point well given. Investing can be (and to some degree always is) risky business. Understanding is essential to security in investments.

Here in Southeast Alaska our temperatures are considerably moderate compared with the Mid-Upper portion of the continental US. We hit around -10 degrees F in the winter, sometimes. Southeast Alaska is a Temperate Rainforest, which "tempers" out temperatures. Our problem is that 80% of the year is spent in freezing cold rain. Minnesota is beautiful country.

I had the same concerns as I was building it, but once the B-Wing is completed it's a surprisingly solid and impressive set.

I built 10237 Tower of Orthanc over the last two days while watching the classic TNMT cartoons. It's a great build and a very sturdy set. I place it #2 in my collection right below 10228 Haunted House due to the back not being fully enclosed (whereas the Haunted House fully encloses and can snap open). I will upload a fuzzy picture showing Orthanc with my 79007 Battle at the Black Gates (yes, I got two of them) and 9476 Orc Forge sets.

For you current investors out there, I thought this might be an interesting discussion. The price of Gold has hit two year record bottoms due to inflation fears (curse the Federal Reserve). What are your thoughts? Would you buy or would you wait? Or would you just invest in Legos? http://www.thestreet.com/story/11956078/1/gold-plummets-as-inflation-fears-ebb.html

Moving to Highland

Greetings All, I'm located in Alaska, USA but will be moving to Utah in a couple of months. I started getting back into Lego about two years ago, inspired by the coming birth of my first child. I started following sets on e-bay and realized that many of them were priced much higher than retail value back when I was a kid. This led me to discover this site and I have decided to invest in sets on sale and retiring sets in order to turn a profit for funding the hobby. It's a realistic objective to sell Lego in order to fund buying new Lego. Right now my portfolio of New and (mostly) used sets has almost reached break even in total asset value - which is pretty cool. I don't plan on selling them all, but it will be nice when I've gained back as much as I've spent and can use future profits to buy sets to add to our collection. Some additioanl information about me: I'm an accounting student working towards law school with a masters in financing. I'm partner in a business doing Support Forestry work in the Tongas National Rainforest here in Alaska. I'm also involved in other various business projects (such as kindle e-books) and investments. So Lego investing is right up my avenue. Look forward to sharing the trade experience with you all. Cordially, Arctic_Builder (BTW I just built the 10237 The Tower of Orthanc over the past two days while watching the classic TNMT cartoons with my family - great set!)