Blog And News Articles

We all love lists, right? Welcome to what I expect to be a new weekly blog entry for Brickpicker: Top 10 Best Sellers at LEGO Shop at Home. As most of you know, LEGO’s online site includes a feature showcasing the Top 25 selling sets, updated on a daily basis. While this list is definitely a small sample, I believe it can help us gauge what’s popular with end consumers at any given time, so that when retirement time approaches we have at least an idea of how well a set sold through it’s lifetime. I will also be excluding (basically skipping) those entries on S&H that are not sets. For example, if a baseplate is currently sitting in place number 5, I…

Looks like Lego has some interesting events and offerings planned for next month. Get the kiddies ready (including your inner kid). Some highlights... Double VIP points on all purchases between March 7 and 22. The Classic TV Batcave becomes available to non-VIP members starting March 1. Various polybag and promo items based on money spent or themes. Themes include DUPLO (a duck polybag), Ninjago (mini dragon polybag). Look for the annual Easter set (40202: Easter Chick) Events for children include bunny, DUPLO and Superhero monthly builds and club meetings. Maybe best of all for children...bring…

At 7:28 AM EST, member 8lackmagic from the United Kingdom registered on our site and became our 50,000th activated member!!!! Brickpicker is also celebrating it's 4th year in existence which is exciting in itself. To know that we have been able to register 50,000 members in those four years is an accomplishment that I didn't think would honestly ever happened if you asked me a few years back. It's been amazing to see all the things that have happened over these past four years... 50k members, a book that has been published and just released with a second one in the works and we finally released our marketplace Brick Classifieds that offers ZERO selling fees and…

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 Shu…

LEGO is running a promotion this weekend, November 13-15, 2015. Purchase the Temple of Airjitsu (70751), and receive a free Enter the Serpent (70749) set. Enter the Serpent is $59.99 MSRP. This offer is available in US LEGO Stores and online at LEGO Shop @ Home. NOTE: Although initially available at LEGO Shop @ Home, it appears to now be in-store only. Just in case you want to see it, here is the fine print on the offer: **70749 Enter the Serpent free gift offer is valid through 11:59pm EST November 15 or while supplies last. Purchase must include 70751 Temple of Airjitzu to qualify. One free gift per qualifying purchase. Cannot be applied to previ…

I want to make a blog post that summarizes the Black Friday deals. A lot of the talk is going on in the Daily Deals thread, and we will try to bring deals over into the content here so that it is easy to see what might be out there. The reason I turned the summary into a blog is because for any comments, the deals are on each page and there will not need to be searching back 10 pages to see what was missed. This list will be available all the time. I am hunting through the Daily Deal thread to find the deals, so you will continue to see this update. BLACK FRIDAY LEGO SHOP @ HOME DEALS - A list of everything on sale @ LEGO starting tonight …

According to a story by Andrew Paul, Contributing Writer to Comicbookresources.com, the next wave of DC Mighty Micros will be released January 2017, and include three new superhero/villain pairs: Batman vs. Killer Moth Superman vs. Bizarro Wonder Woman vs. Doomsday For more on this, check out the Comicbookresources.com story here. Thoughts on the new pairings? Please feel free to share in the comments section below. View full blog article

As with most Lego promotions, you must spend a required amount of money to get the 'free' item. Many folks also use promotion stacking on http://shop.lego.com which is the process of spending just enough money to earn multiple promotional items. After waiting too long to order products at shop.lego.com to obtain the popular 40252 Mini VW Beetle promotion (sold-out online), I visited my local Lego mall store. This store had current promotional sets available including 40252 and the 40265 LEGO Friends Tic Tac Toe set. The purchase requirements were to spend $50+ for the VW Beetle set and $20+ in Friends items for the Tic Tac Toe polybag. Both are popular items…

With so many total sets available and #chaos in full effect as predicted by J-Mack, I thought it would be useful for new(er) members to the site and to Lego investing on the whole to take a look at how a short or shorter than expected run can greatly impact the value of a set. Without further adieu... The Mine 4204 June 1st, 2012 – Nov. 29th 2014 CAGR: 0.05% I loved 4204 The Mine. It had a lot going for it (at least in my eyes) – cool subtheme, unlikely to be remade, and lots of potential buyers seem to like construction vehicles and sets in non-technic sets. I'm sure they like them in Technic, too, but based on sets released, traditio…

As a countdown to the Force Awakens, I will be writing reviews on Star Wars LEGO sets this week. I haven't really done an exclusive set before. I kind of wonder if the exclusives are the sets that people would be most excited about getting, or the ones that people wouldn't mind missing. Let's dive into the Hailfire Droid set and see if it's a can't miss, or a swing and a miss. REVIEW: SET DETAILS Set #: 75085 Name: Hailfire Droid Theme: Star Wars Parts: 163 Price: $19.99 Before we get to the build, let’s talk value. At $19.99 the price per piece works out to a bit over $.12 each. This is to be on the high side of pricing for a licensed set. The…

The Rebel Alliance Battle Pack is not based on anything in the Star Wars films. It's a set of expanded universe figures based upon the game Battlefront. I'm generally hesitant about battle packs, the builds are an after thought to the minifigures. The builds are forgettable and look generally like nothing you'd like to have as part of your display. I'm even more hesitant to build a Star Wars set without anything canon. LEGO has given us more of the same. In my review of 75133, we'll see if it's not just that. Hopefully it's something truly interesting. REVIEW: SET DETAILS Set #: 75133 Name: Rebel Alliance battle Pack Theme: Star Wars Parts: 101 Price: $…

Convention exclusive. The two words many LEGO collectors dread to hear and several investors become giddy over. To some, these highly exclusive sets with their limited availability can be the Holy Grail of a LEGO collection. They are extremely hard to obtain, and can be very expensive unless you are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. In recent years as the popularity of LEGO has skyrocketed, these exclusive sets have become even more coveted. Retailing for just $40, they can be found at conventions such as the upcoming San Diego Comic Con (SDCC) and Star Wars Celebration. These sets are small with very low piece counts (averaging around 200) whe…

Good news for some, bad news for some and irrelevant news to others! Must be a BigBlueDogBricks post by yours truly, Veegs! "The True North Strong and (Almost?) Free - Loonie Slide to 59!" That phrase plays on the words to our National Anthem O Canada, and is possibly amusing to some? First, a link to the article - although most major Canadian papers had this or a variation on it today: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/macquarie-loonie-forecast-1.3401644 As the article states, the loonie (Canadian $1 dollar coin, for those unaware) is forecasted to continue its slide against the U.S. Greenback, perhaps to an (shudder) all time low. Grim things for some in the Cana…

I'll dive right into this article by discussing the investment potential of the "comes in black" 76023 Lego Tumbler set. It appears production was stopped for the $199.99 76023 Lego Tumbler set months ago about the same time Lego slapped the infamous "retiring soon" tag. European and US Lego Shop At Home websites have either sold-out (red font for those who track that) or removed this set's page entirely. In the US, only Amazon and Target have stock currently. According to Brickpickers who try to track inventory like @trekgate502 , the current inventory at those 2 online retailers could be gone by the time the 4th NFL Wild-Card game finishes this Sunday. Regardless o…

Today we are announcing the winners of the Brickpicker Minifigure Book Photo Contest. Now that we have two books out there in the wild I can say that it is not easy. Ed has a few months of sleepless nights and or nightmares and I become a stalker looking to get permission to use photos in books or I pretend I am a photographer and take a few thousand photos hoping one is good enough. With that being said, I have to say that the first book was super exciting mostly because it was our first book but the second book was a lot more fun. For one thing, we knew what to expect overall, but it was a lot more fun because we got to deal with and see what type of photos the publ…

After a very cool August LEGO build at Toys R' Us (See below picture of my son Max and his creation), they are following up with another quality and FREE LEGO build(s), this time on two dates... September 17th between 12-2 PM...Disney Princess Cogsworth character September 24th between 12-2PM...Disney Princess Lumiere character Now I know they are "Disney Princess" characters and some little boys might not want to build them, but I think they are pretty cool and it might be worth a try getting your little tough guy to the local Toys R' Us for a free LEGO set. ***Thanks to Elkkthunder for the original heads up... View full blog ar…

(Updated 10 Feb 2022) Brickheadz (Retail Availability) Set # Name BH # 41585 Batman 1 41586 Batgirl 2 41587 Robin 3 41588 The Joker 4 41589 Captain America 5 41590 Iron Man 6 41591 Black Widow 7 41592 The Hulk 8 41593 Captain Jack Sparrow 9 …

So, you have found Brickpicker and probably have already bought a number of sets that you plan on selling at some point in the future. Or, maybe you are a somewhat seasoned investor that has accumulated a large number of sets and are just now starting to sell your first few items. Either way, I wanted to give you a by no means comprehensive list of best practices for listing your items for sale. Whether you list on BP’s Brick Classifieds, eBay or some other site, I think these basic first steps will help increase your sales and reduce the risk of potential issues. 1 - General Tips Before getting into more details, I wanted to provide some general tips …

In 2003 LEGO released the Cloud City set 10123. For 13 years, there was no representation of the last third of the Empire Strikes Back. People have been asking for new Cloud City sets in the decade since. When information leaked about the Carbon Freezing Chamber, there was a lot of hope, a lot of speculation, and a lot of fans quivering with excitement. When we saw the pictures of 75137, there was an enormous outcry. How could they take an amazingly iconic set of scenes and chop it down to a half of a set with a goofy action feature? Well, I was one of the disappointed masses when I saw this set. No Bespin Luke, Leia or Lando. No gantry for a duel. There's not even a…

NEXO Knights is Lego's replacement for the Chima theme. This latest "kiddie" theme is returning to television on Monday January 11 on Cartoon Network. The 2-part pilot and new NEXO Knights episodes will be shown each weekday until January 22. Check your local listings for showtime (e.g. shown at 5:30pm in the EST time zone). Will you be watching? Wikipedia: "The series describes the adventures of five young knights: Clay, Aaron, Lance, Macy, and Axl who protect Knighton from Jestro, the Book of Monsters and their army of lava monsters. They also help the Monarchy, Merlok (sorcerer) and Robin." TV advertisement. While over…

I've been wanting to build this set since it was released in June. I never really realized how much I enjoyed stuff from Return of the Jedi until I really looked at my LEGO collecting habits. This particular ship is a beautiful and elegant design in the films, but how does it look when translated in the most recent LEGO iteration? Well the box was pretty, so let's delve into the set. REVIEW: SET DETAILS Set #: 75094 Name: Imperial Shuttle Tydirium Theme: Star Wars Parts: 937 Price: $99.99 Before we get to the build, let’s talk value. At $99.99 the price per piece works out to a bit under $.11 each. This seems to be about average for pricing fo…

The Brickpicker Brick Index was updated recently. This index gives an indication of the movement in value of each set based upon the previous 6 months of sales data from Ebay. You can review the sets by theme if you like, but @Jeff Mack has accumulated the top 20 performers for the last 6 months on the landing page. I'd like to take a look at the data and see what it tells us. First, let's take a look at the data that is presented. Each set is ranked by what percentage of value it has increased in the past 6 months. There's a handy graph of that period of time showing a whole dollar value on the Y Axis and months expressed numerically on the X. A cursory overvie…

After a somewhat long absence from writing articles, I decided that a good way to try and get back into the rhythm was to revisit one of my 2013 articles, The LEGO December Effect. For those of you who have not had the time to read the previous article, back in 2013 I noticed an interesting price trend for the most expensive sets: they seemed to take a big deep in value in the month of December. Back then, I decided to compile some data for a few of the most expensive sets at the time and do a comparison between their November and December value. The table below is the one I originally used. It is pretty apparent that a majority of the sets in the list dipp…

LEGO fans were given an early Christmas for about an hour on Tuesday morning, as the UCS Millennium Falcon 75192 showed up on Walmart's site for 25% off. Normally priced at $799.99, the one hour sale had the Falcon down to $599.99. It hasn't been Christmas for everyone, though, as a number of users reported yesterday that their orders got cancelled. However, a few users have reported that they have shipping confirmations for their orders. And for a brief time this morning, the set showed up once again at $599.99. Keep those eyes open, you never know when this, or any other set, may go on surprise sale in the days leading up to Christmas. Register and partici…

This really isn't going to be a fluff article about how awesome Brick Classifieds is, but more of a small message that people are starting to take notice of it. Launching any new site is not easy at all. Google and other search engines don't even know you exist, so obtaining new customers via organic traffic is tough. Vendors that do list products don't have a lot of feedback so it's hard to show history and trust. So you might say, ok, what is so good about this? Those that have stuck it out and continued to post new quality listings with solid descriptions, real photos and priced their listings right have done well, real well. Brick Classifieds has been liv…