Piece_Out_Studios

(I apologize if this has already been discussed on a different forum post. If so, please direct me to it.) I bought one set of 10211 Grand Emporium back in November last year I believe, or sometime within the past year when they had double VIP points. The main question is this: should I sell it within November/December during the LEGO eBay peak, or should I wait a little while longer for better returns? Now to give you some more information, if you want it: I am looking to sell this within the next year. I bought a Death Star the same time I got GE and if I don't sell GE soon, I'm not going to have a good place to put it. My space for storing LEGO is very limited. So if I want the best value is now good or wait longer? Based on the sales of 10197 Fire Brigade, it seems to be following a similar trend in sales. When is the best time to sell GE? November or December? Early or middle of the month? Bidding or Buy It Now? November seemed good because it gives me as the seller time to send it and not worry about the package not getting there in time. But will people pay more in December to get their hands on a set? Will less people buy in December? Will there likely be more sellers in December thus more to compete with on the market? If you can help me out with any/all of these questions, it would be most appreciated.

No one has said it was Batman's Tumbler, just that there's going to be a UCS Tumbler. It could always be Bane's. It's unlikely, but just a thought.

So we have Arkham Asylum, one of the most well known places in the Batman universe besides the Batcave and Wayne Manor (the Asylum is popular probably because of the famous Batman: Arkham franchise), and we've heard rumors of a UCS Tumbler from Batman Begins/The Dark Knight or possibly a camo one from The Dark Knight Rises (that's just my own thought, no one has said it will be a BLACK one, did they? It was just sort of assumed...just wanted to throw that out there), so what next Exclusive/UCS set should LEGO put out next? I think these are the best options... 1. If they keep it in the Batman Universe... Wayne Manor. Bruce Wayne's mansion that has been in his family for generations. They could throw all sorts of good film, TV, and comic references in there. Or just make the CUUSOO one already. 2. If they will go for Superman, I think a Fortress of Solitude or Daily Planet would be good. 3. If LEGO gets daring and goes outside of those two heroes (which they SHOULD...), the one I want made most is the Hall of Justice, or a Justice League Watchtower. Those would be perfect sets to include a Green Lantern figure IMO. What do you guys think? What big DC sets do you want produced?

I have yet to get this set for personal collection or investment purposes. It's currently listed as "Out of Stock, expected ship date April 7". Is this a sign of EOL coming by the end of this year?

So back to the old news of new sets, the 2014 Star Destroyer! Something that hasn't been seen in minifigure scale for 8 years. But when I compare the two, I would almost choose the older 2006 over 2014. Almost, but not quite. I think the realistic look and figures are good. However, there's the obvious nagging thing about it being smaller than 2006's. But that didn't really matter since half of the ship was really an escape pod launcher. But is the new half any different? It seems pretty basic for what you pay. Is that set worth $130? And there's no more helmet changing station either! I had hoped for an improved one, but since the station was on the Super Star I guess they went for accuracy maybe? My biggest reason for asking is my hope to sell my used 2006 Star Destroyer for more than $160 (I am more a collector than investor, and I still play with the sets, believe it or not, but I sell them when I want new ones). Will this set negatively affect the price of 2006's model? Does size matter? Either way, I think I am going to buy 2014's new one, probably after selling my own one. But should the time to sell it be now or later? Thoughts?

So anyone who follows LEGO on the internet (which is everyone and their dog) knows about this promotion by now. I have some points and suggestions/comments to make on this interesting promotion. 1. "Always two there are, an opened, and an investment. No more. No less." "But which one was purchased? The opened, or the invested?" * I personally will be getting two either way I think, one for my own collection and one to invest in. After all, if I buy stuff I would anyways, I didn't really lose anything. I just made less money than I thought. And he IS a cool looking figure. Well designed, and goes great with the other EU sets. 2. Speaking of EU, this is something that will affect the value of the figure. He's not necessarily a mainstream character...just like Martian Manhunter though, he's a POPULAR non-mainstream character. This could go either way for investors, though. I think Super Heroes is generally a safer bet than Star Wars though. It's hard to say how much this could go for, but if point number 3 is any indication, he could go for a nice $25. 3. TC-14. That droid that was seen for 10 seconds in Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace. He was a May the 4th figure, maybe the first, but I can't remember for sure though. But he is selling for about $15-25 on eBay and the secondary market. My only question is, why? Other than rarity, there's not too much more to the figure. He's a silver C-3PO, and that's it. To me, Gold holds more value than Silver, if you catch my meanin'. Darth Revan is different, he's a very cool looking figure to me. I don't see why he couldn't go for $25+ within a year or so. 4. Rarity plays a fairly large part of the value, I understand that. And if it's a promotion open for 3 days, it's going to be pretty rare, is how I see it. You can only get this figure from May 3rd-5th, probably meaning a lot less will be produced. However, that's not to say you won't see him again at other Star Wars/LEGO SW events. After all, I got my own TC-14 at the LEGO Kidsfest in Portland last year. They were handing them out to anyone wearing a Star Wars or LEGO SW shirt. I didn't even know about that, so lucky me! Anyways, he probably won't be EXCLUSIVELY exclusive forever. However, he may be exclusive enough to get some good money out of him. 5. $75 of Star Wars LEGOs. I don't know about you, but it is pretty easy to rack up $75 worth of sets with only 2-3 small items in your cart. LEGO is expensive. I don't know how thrilled parents would be about trying to spend $75 on LEGOs unless a birthday was coming up. How many would that be? I know parents would be hitting their heads if they just bought cool Star Wars, and then a couple months later, their kids are begging for new summer release sets. They would rather spend "less" money on eBay. I say less because we investors wouldn't really see that the same way. So that's most of my thoughts on this promotion. Can you let me know what you think, and confirm or deny my own suspicions and comments? *Yes, I know that it was Darth Bane who established the "Rule of Two," for any SW fanboys who might get on my back or something.

I recently made some extra cash from some extra side work and decided I should buy a LEGO CUUSOO set to invest in. The only problem I have now is which one? It looks like that for now, the one with the best returns is the Minecraft Microworld set, but in the *future*, I think the DeLorean will have some great returns because of the movie. I have also heard that the Curiosity Rover is a good set. What do you all think?

I am highly considering selling my used, but complete and generally great condition, 6210 Jabba's Sail Barge from 2007. I have looked it up here on Brickpicker and on eBay, and it seems like it's generally not going to go for much more then it is currently. I have come to this conclusion by looking at the monthly rates this set sells at, and it appears as though LAST year was peak by only about $20 more used. I honestly only seeing it dip in coming years, so I feel like it's now or never to sell it for over $130. Can you guys either convince me to hold on a month or two more, or confirm what I already think by telling me this is as good as it gets?

Thank you very much!

That's actually what I said at the bottom haha

It seems to me this is generally a bad idea for multiple obvious reasons, and more not-so-obvious reasons. 1. How can they keep track of all the pieces that might be stolen? Everyone knows how much value there is in LEGO, and anyone can simply pick up an interesting figure from an expensive set and resell it. They claim they check every set to make sure it's complete, but someone has probably already found a loophole. (A possible answer could be the fact that they must have an address to confront someone if suspected of reselling, but even then, you can gift sets to someone's house when they aren't there, pick it up, rinse and repeat. People are getting more creative with finding ways to make a few bucks, and for some that's through thievery.) 2. Who wants to RENT LEGOs? Most kids I know like building their own creations out of other sets to make their own creative vehicle or building (heck, I even do that). How are they going to keep the kids from not tearing up the set and mixing it in their own collection? Do the parents then have to buy the set from them? Do they have to spend hours picking out the pieces? Kids are messy and irresponsible, and the parents are sometimes the same. (They say you can buy the set from them at a discounted price, but how much of a discount and from what price? Original retail, or current retail?) 3. Only 1 at a time. I know that it makes it easier to keep track of, but what if you want to play with say, an X-Wing and a TIE Fighter, but can only rent one at a time? No answer to that except buying one, but that defeats the purpose of renting them, doesn't it? They suggest registering two accounts, but then you're paying TWICE as much to rent sets per month. 4. Renting. I don't know if it has changed, but there used to be 3 plans to choose from, Fan, for $15 (Get $25 sets and under), Super Fan (approx. $50 sets and under) fro $25, and Mega Fan (all sets) for $39. The only plan that is worth it to me is Mega Fan because you can get EVERY set, including the uber-awesome Death Star that retails for $400. I think most parents and kids would gladly pay 10% to build that set and play with it for a week or more! However, when it gets down to it, unless you live close to their shipping place, you are waiting on average 7-8 days for ONE set. For something like a small $20 City set, that is unacceptable. That means you can barely get 2-3 days of play for one set while waiting 8 for it to get there. If you've done the math, that's only 3, or if you're lucky 4 sets per month. THAT sucks. 5. Overall price. Since we're on the subject of Math, it doesn't seem like too much money at first, does it? $40 for a month of renting sets rather than $120 for sets all over your house, not bad. BUT, let's take a closer look. For those who thought that word problems were useless, I

They supposedly clean them, but whether they are or not I suppose hasn't been really proven by the common public, namely us.

Hello everybody! First I would like to apologize for two things. 1) I am sorry for stirring such a controversial debate and I didn't realize it would happen nor did I expect it to get so heated. 2) I am sorry for stating something that I didn't actually have a true source on (Namely, whether minifigures which did not have the "regular" logos, numbers, etc., were from China). As soon as I realized that it was becoming a debatable topic I realized my mistake, and then did what many members asked for: citing a reliable source. Upon investigating I realized I was getting nowhere because it was pretty clear no one really knew FOR SURE. So I went to the one, absolute, best authority to answer this question: The LEGO Group. I don't have the original message I sent to them, but I will retype the gist of it and what I can remember: Hello TLG, I am a LEGO fan and collector, and have been for several years. I am active in many LEGO groups, sites, and fan-forums. I unintentionally sparked a heated debate between several users regarding minifigures manufactured in China. It is assumed that most minifigures that are made in China do not have the LEGO logo on the inside of the foot, as opposed to other minifigures. Most promotional and Collectible Minifigures do not have this logo placement. Would you be able to provide any information to clear up this matter? Thank you for reading, ****** So that was generally my letter. I just got a reply today. Here is what was said: Dear *******, Thanks for getting in touch with us. We are so glad to hear that you are such a big fan and are actively participating within the LEGO

So I've noticed recently that LEGO has been making several changes. Some may be good, some may be bad, but they don't exactly hurt us as investors, except for maybe #3 which is could technically. But let me know if you have some more to add to the list, or is it just me that these things are happening? 1) Condensed boxes. It seems like that the most recent sets I got were almost bigger. This may be because the boxes themselves were smaller to actually fit the set better. I'm not POSITIVE, but I am pretty sure that boxes for most sets (except for battlepacks or $13 sets) have gotten smaller and are a better fit with the set you buy. A couple years ago, I remember buying a $30 Star Wars set and the box was huge! I don't remember which one, but I remember it felt smaller than I was expecting because of the size of the box. A week ago, I picked up the new General Grievous Wheel Bike for $25, but the box seemed so much smaller, and same thing for the Batman: Riddler Chase set (which I got at the same time). You can tell just buy swooshing the boxes around (sealed of course), that it's harder to hear the pieces floating around in there, because it's more condensed. 2) HIGHLY detailed figures. We all like minifigures and I think most of us appreciate authenticity, but it just might be getting out of hand. The new Luke Skywalker that comes with the Sand Crawler will have Mark Hamil's mole (beauty mark etc., someone correct me if my terminology is wrong) on his face. A MOLE! I don't really know if this is a good thing or not. I appreciate authenticity, but that seems really odd to me. And the new Darth Vader and Obi-Wan in the Summer 2014 wave will have printed on cloaks. Vader gets a cape (because he actually wears one, I guess), but all of Obi-Wan's garments are screen-printed. I DON'T like that in the LEAST. 3) Separation of Figs and Set In case you were wondering, that was supposed to be sort of a pun like "Separation of Church and State" (not to get political, but as a joke, but I went to the dentist and got nova cane, so none of this may make any sense...). Anyways, the sets are separated in numbered bags to make building simpler, which as a collector I like, and the figures are also separated in said bags. I appreciate this, as a teen who still plays with LEGO. It adds more anticipation in building the next part, rather than wanting to use the minifigs for hours and THEN build the set. But as a parter-outer, which some of you are, but I am not, it makes selling minifigs apart from sets difficult since you have to open 2, 3, or 4 bags to get 1 or 2 figures. It does help with selling the model parts though, since having a dozen bags all opened at once to build a tiny section is time consuming. 4) DC Comics (no longer DC Universe as it was in 2012-13) Overall, I appreciate this because I am a huge DC fan and comic reader. I don't read EVERY comic, but I read the biggest story arcs and know several characters (including the Martian Manhunter which has caused some stir in the investing world). Many characters have been given interesting looks that some did not expect, such as the Flash. His design is somewhat based on the New 52 (which is DC's relaunch of comic books, negating some things that happened in original comics, and starting fresh). If it wasn't, he would probably have been given the same helmet as in the LEGO Batman 2: The Videogame. Other characters with a New 52 look include: Martian Manhunter, Nightwing, Damian Wayne Robin, Batgirl, and (sort-of but not quite) SDCC Green Arrow. This is probably an effort of WB to streamline the New 52 into all aspects of DC, which now includes LEGO sets/minifigures. 5) Chinese Manufactured Parts I am not talking about the fake figures you see going for $0.03 on eBay, I am referring to LEGO approved parts that are not exactly the quality standard of normal Denmark manufactured LEGO. Some have wondered how to identify for sure if it was manufactured in China or not. Apart from just noticing look and feel differences, there's some branding you can look for. As seen in picture 1, I have compared 2 new, recently unpackaged and built, DC Super Heroes 2014 minifigures, Batman and Martian Manhunter. Manhunter is the Chinese manufactured figure. In picture 2, compare the right arms of the figures. On Batman, you can see the first thing very close to his hand is a number (not sure what the number means exactly), and then the word LEGO. On Martian Manhunter, you can see closer to his armpit (I don't know what it's called...arm pin maybe?) there is an indentation with a number. I didn't want to remove the arm in the event I might damage the torso. In picture 3, the legs of Batman feature the LEGO branding and numbers. Manhunter's legs do not. That is summary is how to identify a Chinese manufactured minifigure. So is it just me? Did you catch any of those before? Learn something new? I want to hear anything you noticed happening in recent years of LEGO history.

I generally liked this wave of SW, and I prefer the vehicles and models in Episode III as opposed to Episode II. However, I wish we got more MEMORABLE moments from Revenge of the Sith, like Yoda vs. Darth Sidious, instead of "Battle of Saluecami," which was seen for barely 5 seconds in the entire film. I adore the new Jedi Interceptor, but wish we got a Red model for Obi-Wan, or maybe both for $40-50? I wish Boga was included in the Grievous Wheel Bike set, then I wouldn't mind it being $25 or $30. The only reason for purchasing the Tri-Fighter is Chancellor Palpatine. Otherwise, it's a horrible DOWNGRADE compared to 2010's 8086 Droid Tri-Fighter. I'm glad we get a better V-Wing, but like I said before, I wish we got more memorable models instead of 3 second cameo vehicles.The Utapau Troopers battle pack is my favorite, because they are just so much cooler than all other clones (except for the 501st in Episode III). My biggest disappointment is NO Commander Cody anywhere. He's pretty awesome looking, and was way underused in the Clone Wars (but don't get me started on the faults of TCW). I am not happy with the new Chewbacca, because his face doesn't really look like Chewbacca's. I do like Tarfful, and I am pleased with Gree, but his presence makes me even more mad that we didn't get Commander Cody. I don't care for Microfighters at this point, but I see there is an obvious draw for some, and a great distaste from others. The two Clone Wars sets are better because the vehicles and Clones are better. I wish we got more exclusive figures WITH the already included ones, it would help to soften the blow of the price for these sets, but with the constant changes I suppose they are exclusive anyways. :/ Overall, better than 2013's summer release, but it could have been better. It looks sad compared to the next line up though. Original trilogy, here I come!

I hope you aren't in my area. Tell me you don't live on the West Coast, please? LOL

There are a lot of people though who DO know who he is, thinks he's awesome, and are thrilled about him being an official LEGO minifigure. Mostly fans of the TV series Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, with writer Paul Dini, writer for Batman: The Animated Series. He, like Aquaman, was under-appreciated for a long time. Since New 52 though, he and Aquaman are pretty frickin' awesome.

It felt to me like Jor-El wasn't that special. He could be easily customized from a personal collection OR look better. It wasn't that great of a representation of the actor. But I kinda liked Man of Steel...

Me too, but do you think that if they released a Key Chain for him it would affect the price at all? Not drastically or something, but they made one for the Hulk promo fig after all, so they might with this one too.

The Brick Show is the site/YouTube channel/people that first released this information (as far as I know) in their review of the mini Tumbler polybag. They are trustworthy and pretty accurate when they make statements. As to official LEGO confirmation, there is none. But I can suspect that it will be a fall released UCS, so to hear an official confirmation now would likely be implausible. It is technically still speculation though. Another good thing is that they might make more UCS sets for the Super Heroes line.

I made an order of things I was going to buy anyway so even then no biggie, but still a bit sad.

FBTB (From Bricks To Bothans) received an email from LEGO Shop@Home saying this: Due to overwhelming demand, the LEGO Shop Martian Manhunter promotion has been ended early for both the US and Canada. Also when did you place your order because if it was anytime yesterday or before it is most certainly shipped with your figure.

I'm not certain in the UK if there are any differences, but I placed two orders on the same day, only about five minutes apart, to go to the same house and they are still sending them. My guess is it is one per order, so place two or three even orders to get more, save them for a while, and rack up profits.

Well the LEGO Shop@Home site is out of stock in the US and Canada. Hope you got yours just in time!

Hope you got at least two, one for your personal collection and one for resale, 5002126 Polybag: Martian Manhunter, is now out of stock in the U.S.A and Canada. I got two, one for myself and one to sell, but was thinking about getting a third because I was certain it would last through at least half of the month. I hope LEGO sees how successful this promotion was and gives us more great figures like Manhunter.