Community LEGO Blogs

Even if you are not a big Star Wars Lego fan, you know the planet series as they are EVERYWHERE in stores. These are cool, cheap little sets that cost 9.99 that include a minifigure, about 60-100 pieces to make a Star Wars ship, and a hollow planet that has attachments to either sit or hang from the ceiling. As mentioned before, these are everywhere and many have made it pretty far into clearance cycles; I have seen several sets of these that were 50% off. What will these do in the after market

People have been facinated by the ocean numerous times over the centuries. There have been different books written about it. My personal favorite book about the ocean is Atlantis. The book talks about people who are trying to find the lost city. In 2010, the Lego Company released the Atlantis theme. The theme is based on minifigures trying to find the lost city of Atlantis. The theme has had twenty-three sets released into the market and there was a Lego movie aired on Cartoon Network using the

So after doing the first article about my thoughts on a new theme from TLG, I was really excited to try another one. I really like models and things of that nature and I would love for TLG to get into more themes that I am really interested in (right now the only two themes that really fully appeal to me are LOTR and Star Wars). So, I decided to use my own idea for this next one instead of one mentioned by another member, although I was assume many others have probably thought of this. This is:

A while back I posted a thread in the forums asking what everyone would like to see next as a theme from Lego (The thread is here: http://www.brickpicker.com/forum/index.php/topic/4105-whats-the-next-theme-you-would-like-to-see/page-4?hl=next%20theme ). One of our the BP members, El Guapo posted an awesome idea here in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”. I want to make sure before I do this article everyone understands that he came up with the idea and it was a great one (Hey, maybe if Lego does

There are somethings that you just can't get enough of, but at the same time, you have to know when to stop. When I first started LEGO investing, I had a problem with this. I had almost never seen LEGO's on clearance at Target or Walmart or the LEGO store, and rarely set "foot" in Amazon. Once my eyes were opened to the sheer number of discounts and deals, I simply couldn't get enough!! Eventually, I figure out that I was obviously buying more than was within reason and had to return some things

In my last post I briefly mentioned that buying Lego for someone else could be quite a good ‘investment’ as they may possibly reciprocate. Here’s unorthodox Lego ‘investment’ tip no. 2: complain to Lego. When my local Lego store opened (I say store, I mean shop, because I’m British) I went along pretty sharpish. I was desperate to bulk out my budding Lego collection and headed straight for the Pick A Brick wall. I was informed by a very friendly member of staff that they’d run out of large PAB c

Now that summer is upon us, most collectors’ attention is squarely focused on the great summer releases and summer clearance sales that have come our way. However, I always find that as the days get hotter and hotter I begin to long more and more for the cooler days of fall and winter and especially the holidays – that magical time of year filled with simple joys, sitting by a crackling fire as the first snow falls, visiting grandma and grandpa’s house, skating on a frozen pond, and of course op

Please read my other article about the "Magic Number". Here is a link: http://www.brickpicker.com/forum/index.php/blog/11/entry-237-the-magic-number-when-the-growth-stops/ To find when a Lego set will potentially stop growing in value. You can use this system to determine under which category the set falls under. You can use the four variables explained in the other article to determine when a set might hit the magic number. To find what category a set falls under, the set must be graded on a sc

The last few weeks have been perhaps the most difficult in my life. My sister and brother-in-law went through a harrowing experience; one I’d never wish on anyone (my avatar gives some clues as to part of their troubles). They weathered the storm like true superheroes and I wanted to give them a gift that really meant something. What was that gift? LEGO, of course. Those close to me know that if I give LEGO as a gift it comes straight from the heart, and if you’ve read my last blog post you’ll k

On Ebay, when you are going to sell something, Ebay really pushes the “use free shipping to attract more bidders” motto. I know that I waffle back and forth every single time I go to sell an item in an auction style listing because I can't figure out whether I want to do this or not. There are pros and cons to every part of it and a lot of factors you have no control over. So I decided to do an article for my own benefit, as well as anyone else who decides to draw conclusions from this. This blo

The year, 1927, roughly a few years before the time “talkies” were about to become a global phenomenon, an Austrian filmmaker by the name of Friedrich Christian Anton Lang directed one of the single most important films in history simply titled “Metropolis”. At a cost of five million Reichsmarks (close to $1,200,000 in U.S. currency at the time), it was the most expensive motion picture ever released up to that point. An epic story telling about the lower class toiling away beneath the steel and

I have done quite a few Ebay articles so far (as you all can tell I spend quite a bit of time on Ebay), but I wanted to add a couple of extra things that I had thought of as an addendum to purchasing things on Ebay. These are some extra tips and tricks that fit outside of some of the other articles I have done. These can help you score some good deals on Ebay as well! The Watch List The watch list is a pretty nice feature that Ebay has and if you have ever been on Ebay you have probably used it.

Lego enthusiasts come in all shapes and sizes, and over the years TLC has been great at finding and catering to non-traditional toy enthusiasts. For gearheads, mechanics, and Mr. Fix-Its, the Technic theme is manna from heaven. Consisting of gears, pistons, shocks, struts, hydraulics, motors, and remote controls, Technic models move, squeeze, light, and pull in a variety of ways to showcase hundreds of mechanical functions. Technic was introduced back in 1977, and has become a staple of TLC's pr

In the last Technic EC article (Part 1), we assembled the past performance data for all of the Technic sets since 2005 and picked through some of the relevant and interesting information we found. To read this EC article and review our data, click here, or check out the Excel sheet attached at the bottom of the article. To summarize our findings, Technic investing has proven to be lucrative, with an average theme ROI of 107%. In this article, I will try to forecast potential returns for the unr

Lego Castle sets have been a consistent theme in Lego's portfolio since the late 1970's when the first Castle set came out. Unfortunately, it has not necessarily been one of the most impressive themes in terms of CAGR, but some of that is because of how long it's been around and how many sets have been made (Just take a look at the Star Wars overall CAGR and you can see). Inside this theme, there have been some big winners amongst the normal gaining sets like the 7946 King's Castle (CAGR of ove

So I think most everyone here would agree that every investment has it's pros and cons, I think there are still a lot of people who are hesitant about trusting toys as an investment. I think everyone can agree that it is better to put your money in a situation where it can grow over a place where it can't (like a savings or checking account) because with inflation, that large sum of savings you have can be worth a lot less later on. But what makes all of us so attracted to Lego investing over al

After a shocking release of a remake of a Star Wars UCS model, the question in everyone's heads is "Who's next? What's going to be remade next?" I did a little analysis a couple days ago, and want to share my results, and why I made the predictions that I did. 7181 TIE Interceptor - 2000 This is a very epic model of the TIE Interceptor, and has very nice black box, that many investors and collectors miss. Unfortunately, it seems that LEGO's partnership with Star Wars requires all Star Wars produ

Since its original introduction more than a decade ago, the Star Wars LEGO theme has been the single most successful line of products in TLG portfolio. The fan base is just huge and the same goes for the content itself: hundreds of books, toys, 6 films (soon to be 9), miniseries, etc. To tap even more into the SWs market, back in 2009 the company decided to offer a little something extra to those Star Wars LEGO fans as part of the May the 4th promotions, and that was the beginning of a series o

There are thousands and thousands of LEGO investors, and even more LEGO fans and builders. Wouldn't it be great to have a system of rating your fellow brickers? I compiled a list based on what I have observed, so it is highly opinionated. I also came up with a few nicknames for people of such catagories: Investing and Reselling: Polybag Investor - Has less than $200 in investment sets, and more than 10 sets. Rookie to the Game - $300-$800 invested into LEGO, but has invested less than a month

When I was a kid eons ago, there were only four Lego themes: Town, Space, Castle, and Technic. Amazingly, these three themes still exist to this day: City, Galaxy Squad, Castle and Technic are today's version of TLC's four evergreen themes. Lego was built on the backs of these themes, and can thank them for its ascent to the multi-billion dollar toy behemoth it has become. Although they are sometimes shunned by Brickpickers for newer, more complex, or licensed sets that have been designed to br

One of the best ways to invest in LEGO is by buying polybags/small LEGO sets...To be precise seasonal/exclusive polybags and sets: • If you have old polybags from old promotions like Mcdonalds or TRU those would go a lot more than average polybags • Holiday polybags go more than average one • They are Halloween, Christmas , May the Fourth , Easter and Summer polybags • LEGO Brickmaster sets would go for a lot more than average because they were not for sale in stores • The only thing more than

There has been discussion and analysis in great quantities about the Star Wars Ultimate Collector's Series ever since the investment potential of the sets was discovered a few years ago. Even though this great display sets have been greatly successful, I want to go ahead and bring the spotlight to a somewhat related kind of set: the play-set versions based on the ships that have been released under the UCS. I don't really want for this to become a sort of competitive comparison between the two,

In previous articles, I touched on the best ways to set up Ebay searches and how to periodically check for items so that you make sure you catch those great deals when they pop up before anyone else does. I was thinking a while back, when I was setting all these searches up, that it would be nice if this messaged you much more often that new items matched your search. Then I wouldn't have to refresh the page 100 times. So I set out on Google to try to find something that did that very thing. My

I wanted to reach out to everyone and write another article about drop shipping and the problems we are now seeing more and more with Lego sets. I had another drop-shipping incident I had to deal with and wanted to offer a direct personal experience with an issue. I wanted to offer a few addendums to the information on the site provided before by Talon in the article “Drop Shipping Lego: How to Avoid Being Scammed” which is a great article to have pinned to your browser as a bookmark while you a

Every day, I read the forums and marvel at people that order 20, 30, and even 50 of a Lego set. I marvel because I am a hobbyist investor. Reselling isn't my day job, and it doesn't fund my 401K, or even my family vacation. I enjoy building Lego, so investing to me is a way to help fund my building hobby. My infatuation with Brickpicker has now encroached on my Lego building hobby (much to the detriment of my "Robo-Chicken" MOCs), yet my cash outlay is relatively minor compared to mega-sellers.