General Collecting and Investing Forum

Today I received my Grand Emporium from LEGO Shop at Home, and the box was creased and dented in several places. I am thinking of returning it, however it came with the 40180, Balloon Cart Promo gift. If I return it will I be expected to ship that back with it, and If i decide to buy a new one, what are the odds that I will receive a second Balloon Cart?

I guess buying at the right time is a piece of cake, whenever they are close to EOL or they are way to cheap to let them pass you can't go wrong with that strategy, but WHEN to SELL is the question I have now..... I have a few sets that are probably in their prime or past their prime and I have not focused enough to make my profit on those and reinvest. So here is my question. Which of these sets that I consider Matured , would you SELL and which would you HOLD ?? By the way all new in sealed boxes..... 4842 HP The Burrows (4 Sets) 10217 HP Diagon Alley (2 Sets) and the crown jewel..... 10182 Corner Cafe What would you do???

Well, not too big. I live rural (in Idaho) and have limited choices of retail stores for shopping/clearance lego. I am heading on a business trip next week out of Boise, and wondered the best way to plan for finding clearance stuff? I'm looking at 4-5 walmarts, 3-4 targets, and 2-3 TRU for example. Just hit them all and grab heavily discounted stuff? I haven't quite figured out the Walmart app for checking stock

I was wondering about the model numbers for sets. I noticed all the sets are XXXXX-Y, where the Y is a 1 99.99% of the time. I know I have seen a few -2 sets here and there. I can't think of any off the top of my head but I know I have seen them. What is that all about? Is there a method to the madness of these set numbers? Will a set number tell me anything about a set?

Hello everyone, My name is Megan, from Australia, and I've just started to wonder whether to small-scale amateur invest in some lego. I've been reading some of the articles and they are great, but one thing I haven't understood is why would you wait until a set is close to being retired to purchase? If I see something on sale, or even RRP that I think would be good to purchase, wouldn't it make sense to purchase it and then keep it for a few years, if I'm not in a hurry to make a profit? Also, why is the year after retirement the best for selling rather than, say, ten years after retirement? Thanks very much! Cheers, Megan

ok... I'm still new at this and yesterday I received my first order from the Lego store. My plan is to just put the boxes on the attic and forget about them for the next 5 years. No rush for me. it started out being an investment but after receiving my first 3 boxes I now know that I have to buy more just to put some of them together. The boxes look much better than when you get them at a store were they are scratched a bit and get dropped by kids. My first items are: Mini Cooper Ghostbusters Back to the future I personally LOVE the look and feel of the Ghostbusters box and can't wait to get more to put one together. My kids went crazy about them One…

Since I started the "Sets of 2013" thread as a way of cataloging every single set for this year, I thought to do the very same for the next one here. Anyway, here is what is currently known or rumored to be released in the year of 2014. Juniors Vehicle Suitcase - $24.99 House Suitcase - $24.99 Spider-Man: Spider-Car Pursuit - $12.99 Digger - $9.99 Construction - $14.99 Princess Play Castle - $14.99 Turtles Lair - $19.99 Fire Station - $19.99 Batman: Defend the Batcave - $29.99 Race Car Rally - $29.99 Pony Farm - $29.99 Police: The Big Escape - $29.99 Knight's Castle - $49.99 Creator Fast Car Cute Kitten Transport Plane Red Thunder - $4.99 Power Digger - $4.99 Emerald Ex…

So I was digging through some boxes at my in-laws house and found I had stashed 5 Wolverine and a mini modulars set. Previously I discovered Hulk sets and Robie Houses I had put aside. Am I crazy or do people also put some of their excess sets they get cheap enough aside to be forgotten about for a rainy day?

I have a Lego tie that was made for the Belgian employees of Lego around 1980. Only 500 ties were made and it comes with a certificate of authenticity. I can't seem to find any reference of it on internet and I was wondering how much it is worth? Can anyone help me with that?

Today I went to my parents house and got all of my old Legos. I had the foresight to organize very well before I stopped collecting. These sets are all from the late 80s and early 90s. Most of them are complete with instructions and boxes. There are also a bunch of old Lego Magazines in an envelope. I will be doing inventory, and some building as time permits. Sent from my iPhone using Brickpicker

So, I have a few sets tucked away right now that are doing well but I keep eyeing to build for myself. Right now, the stacks are comprised of the Imperial Flagship, Fire Brigade and Shuttle expedition, I only have 3-5 of each but every time I think about opening one, I realize that in doing so, I am becoming a person who pays way over MSRP for EOL lego (a chump in my book!). Even though I bought the sets for under MSRP, the cost to me of opening and building it is the same as buying one at inflated secondary market prices due to the loss of sale. These are all sets that I bought extra of in order to build one or even two for myself but now that I am seeing how well…

Dear Lego, I actively love building sets. I love the detail of the minifigures. I love the creative licences. But the world knows you have been charging ridiculous premiums for your product outside the US. The international market has tolerated it for so long. As discussed previously Amazon US has been coerced (whether it be temporarily or permanently) directly from Lego into ceasing international shipping. In recent years Amazon has been a hub for many international buyers to score Lego at cheaper costs than their local retail prices. Yet now the screws are being tightened. Lego has been banning users, placing limitations and now this. I thought it was ludicrous ea…

Going through my recently reclaimed childhood collection, I was interested to find out my oldest set. I've only sorted the tattered instructions so far, but I have a 6609 from 1980, as well as several from other years in the 80s Here it is http://brickset.com/sets/6609-1/Race-Car What do you have?

Hi, some of you may have read my thread where I meet Adam Reed Tucker at a lego convention and get several autographs from him on a Robie House instruction booklet, a 1st edition sealed John Hancock Center set and a T-shirt. Recently I also acquired an Exo-Suit set signed by the great Peter Reid himself! Right now, I have the sets and instruction booklet stored inside heavy duty freezer bags and kept out of sunlight and humidity. but I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to store them better, and maybe have them be more displayable? I know The Container Store has clear plastic polycarbonate boxes they make for footballs, baseballs and other sports m…

Hey guys, First let me thank everyone for all the amazing deals, tips and information. This hobby is very addicting and I've learned a lot in a very short amount of time. I've been accumulating sets rapidly since the Fall of 2013. I have shelving dedicated to my collection in the basement but it's starting to spill over. My wife recently decided she wants to organize and finish the basement. I'm on board with this but it presents a huge problem. I need to consolidate my collection and my timeline to beginning selling is now accelerated. I was originally planning to hold out until Christmas of 2015 before selling anything. Most of the veterans recommend sel…

This October the "Lego world" fair is in Utrecht, the Netherlands from the 16th till the 22nd. I am seeing all kinds of exclusive sets being sold at comic cons and the fan expo in Canada. What I am looking for is news for possible exclusives being offered during the logo world fair in Utrecht. If anyone heard anything please mention so here! Thank you! Verzonden vanaf mijn iPhone met behulp van Brickpicker

I recently got 2 boxes that had a slight creases on the edge of the box, nothing too serious. I attached the two pictures, tell me what you guys think and if it is worth it for me to try to swap them out at the lego store. (For reselling purposes btw) Thanks.

We hear quite a bit about box art and I'm just wondering what makes it or breaks it? The most important part of a set is what's inside the box, but there have to be some people who care about the outside as well. In some cases the box art might be the biggest factor in selling a set. One thing I can't stand seeing on the front of a Lego box is that rectangle with text inside that says "WARNING! CHOKING HAZARD...." I get it, of course, but it is still annoying. I love the newer designs coming out...such as the Curiosity Rover, Ecto-1, and Exo Suit. I like the dark backgrounds with less distractions. This thread probably has more to do with collecting tha…

As you can see here: http://community.brickpicker.com/topic/11134-my-vintage-lego-haul/ I will be going through about ten years worth of Lego over the next week or so. Some of the containers are actual sets that I will keep together. However, two of the larger tubs are bulk, miscellaneous pieces. I am thinking of starting by dividing the bulk by color and putting each color into Ziploc bags. Does anyone with more experience have any tips? Thanks!

The more I see what is happening, the more it reminds me of the baseball card phenomenon of the mid to late 80's. For those that weren't around for the baseball card crash, here's a quick synopsis. Cards started gaining a tremendous resurgence around 1984. People started jumping in around this time that had no interest in it before. The markets got so large, and card companies so greedy, the amount of production skyrocketed in the late 80's and early 90's, to the point there was too much to choose from, and nothing was hard to find. Oversaturation killed the market. I see the same thing happening right now. There has always been interes…

I am furious right now.... Kmart and Walmart legos tampered with in the Philadelphia suburban area. We are getting ready to move into a new home so I am trying to get my collection a bit more organized in boxes to move to the new house. As i started boxing things up i started to pay attention to some of the sets especially that i got on clearance in the past few months. Kmart: 2 Goblin Kings 1 Attack at Weathertop Both looked like the seals were all in tact but I noticed that there was no play in the box top the tab was holding. pulled a little harder and sure enough I could see glue! All three freaking boxes. Opened them all up and all figs gon…

Greetings Brick-brothers and sisters! In my job as a US DoD civilian, I have the privileged of traveling the world. Everywhere I go, I am always on the lookout for our favorite plastic crack in the hope that I can find some hard to find sets at a good price that won't be prohibitively expensive to ship back home. I am currently deployed to the small country of Bahrain in the Arabian Gulf. I don't know if we have many members from the Middle East or South West Asia but I'd love to here from you. Children here obviously have toys but the working/service class is huge and the income gap, much like most of the Middle East, is vast. Bahrain's location relativ…

Hey folks, Just thought I'd share a small milestone with everybody and let everyone know that I just purchased my 50th set. I started this back in January of 2014 and I've enjoyed every moment of it. Thought I'd share my inventory with you in order of what I first purchased so you can see my strategy/progression, some of the rookie mistakes I have made, possible feedback from all of you, and so the people that are even greener than me can learn from. The only set I've purchased full price is the Architecture Studio. The others I've been able to get for between 30-40% off. Here they are: 70808-1: Super Cycle Chase 4 10225-1: R2-D2 …

I'm reaching out for help on a giant project that I'm working on for my son's birthday. I've built a massive table and glued 32x32 baseplates (15 of them) to the legs of the table. My plan was to cover the baseplates in tiles for a nice finish...Ive got quite a few tiles I can pull from my very small bricklink inventory. Now comes the tricky part. I need enough tiles to cover 15,360 holes on these baseplates. Purchasing that many tiles off of bricklink would cost me a small fortune. I've got enough out of my inventory for only about half at the moment. So for you longtime bricklink store operators or shoppers are there any sets out there that are overly loaded with …

I've been collecting LEGO for the last 8 year's in those years I've brought every star wars set,super hero (marvel or Dc) sets,Lord of the rings,hobbit sets,as well as 6 of the 8 modulars not including the Simpson's house,aswell as every city set from the last 4 year's, also some different types, sopwith, T1 Camper, and the Mini Cooper and Queens Anne Revenge. But a dell was made with the devil I mean my wife that I cannot purchase another lego until we make.settlement on our house only exemption is if I sell a set I can buy a set...so I never really sold my sets but when I did wow I made out great my question for you people are is this a fair trade for me these set's for…