General Collecting and Investing Forum

Just got an email from Paypal about enhancing their protection policies for sellers. Should be good news for some of you out there.. We

Asset Class What It Is: An asset class is a group of investments that have similar characteristics, behave similarly and are subject to similar market forces, laws and regulations. Typical asset classes include stocks, bonds, real estate, cash and commodities. These groups can also be broken down further. For example, the asset class "stocks" can be broken down either by industry -- e.g., manufacturing, automotive or energy -- or by a more general characteristic of the investment -- e.g., value, growth or blue chip. After reading the above definition for an "asset class," should LEGO "investment" in sets and bricks be considered one? Is LEGO investment that seriou…

Question: How much you need to invest to consider yourself serious investor or collector. What do you think?

I apologize if this is common knowledge among LEGO collectors/investors but if you have MISB sets stored in a closet on shelves, make sure the part of the box that is touching the shelf is not sticking. I have all my MISBs on shelves and thank goodness I check on them daily (more than once lol) because they were begining to stick, I would hate to see someones MISB set ruined and lose money. I put sheets down on the shelves and then put my MSIBs on top of the sheets and that solved my problem.

We will be starting a BL Store once we settle into a house again. I will be getting used Bulk Lego (have already started) and was wondering is it worth cleaning each piece or just stick to the ones that are very dirty. I have seen youtube Videos, where lego says they wash them in the washing Machine in pillow cases. Or other using Borax to clean light colored Lego. My plan was to sort by color, then wash them and do final sorting. Is this overkill or good thing to do or have to do. Thanks Mike

Ok, folks, the new catalog (January 2013) hit my house today and I just wanted to post some thoughts and then get some thoughts from everyone, so here goes: --My kids love the new Chima theme - without even watching the TV series, they're already trying to decide which tribe will be their favorites. I got to say, I'm kind of diggin the Cragger's Command Ship. TV series kicks off with a preview Wednesday, January 16. --The new Lego Connect app is pretty cool. It basically places an in-motion virtual image of the set on top of the picture of that set in the magazine. For some of the sets, you get directed to the Lego Designer Video for that set. I highly recommen…

With LEGO patents recently expired more of these sets (which seem a little too close to the LEGO brand) will be popping up. This one can be purchased directly from Amazon.fr. You normally see these imposters being sold in droves by lower end retail operations, so this is a first to see Amazon buying large stocks of these clones. http://www.amazon.fr/TopaZ-Construction-Maison-Vacances-Pi

I budgeted around 120 for my next purchase. Which is the best buy right now between the Epic Dragon Battle and the Maersk Train? I almost picked up 2 trains the other day but couldn't find any on the shelf that were pristine so I went with the haunted house..... .can't be mad at that! I will get both eventually but which one should I pick up now?

Hello, I would like to know if all sets come with extra parts ? I got the 6858 new set and i have 13 extra parts, some i do not know where to put them cause its not on the instructions.

So after reading some of the posts in "Will the Fire Brigade be retiring soon" and other places on this forum it seems like these sets are the most likely to retire at the end of the year: Fire Brigade, Grand Emporium, Tower Bridge, plus a few more I can't remember. I was wondering when would be the best time to buy these sets then? If they do retire at the end of the year, when would be the best time to make a purchase, either for investment or for collecting. Me personally I don't have much cash on hand to do much investment, so I plan on purchasing one of the above for myself. The question is, will it be better to buy them in the second half of Oc…

During my package pickup today, my regular UPS guy (Who knows me all too well) gave me a heads up that UPS is expecting up to a 50% increase in deliveries this year, and that I should plan (shipping and receiving) for delays. He said I should ship stuff out a week sooner than I normally would, and that any incoming packages could be delayed up to a week as well. Obviously can be taken with a grain of salt, but nothing similar has been said to be the last few years by the fine folks at UPS. So there might be something to it. Any of you volume/last minute sellers, not to mention hot item opportunists, may want to be aware. For urgent deliveries, might want to check …

As I have been acquiring some Lava Falls set (MSRP $7.99, 2 minifigures, 94 piece) - I couldn't help but wonder how they come up with some pricing - For example, Shipwreck Defense is LESS pieces, also with 2 minifigs, and $12.99. Forest Ambush from castle was 90 pieces, 4 minifigs, and $11.99 MSRP. The pricing just seems wildly inconsistent for "in house" themes. I expect licensed themes to be more pricey, but this is odd. Anyone with any theories on this? Is it simply that Ninjago is targeted more for kids so they are ok lowering the price a few bucks? Doesn't seem to work that way with the sets that are $20 and up...

A friend has it to get rid of, but I don't recognize the parts.

In our quest to give the LEGO collector and investor more buying choices, we will be listing buying choices from THE PLASTIC BRICK in our LEGO SET GUIDE. If THE PLASTIC BRICK has the set, there will be a banner that you can click on next to the EBAY, LEGO and Amazon listings. Thanks...

Hey fellow pickers! So, I have an Amazon Chase Reward Card. I've had it for several years, and I've never redeemed anything. I could be a responsible adult and use that cash elsewhere. But I could also make an investment here. I can basically do one of two things here. 1) Use those points directly on Amazon or 2) Redeem the cash, then transfer the cash to my PayPal account. So, I have a grand total of $201.05 to spend. I could buy one set like Tower of Orthanc, or a modular (Grand Emporium, etc.). I could buy 2 $100 sets. I could buy 4 $50 sets. I could buy 4 White Boba Fett polybags. I could buy 2 Alfred the Butlers. If you had $201.05 to s…

whether it be clearance, Craigslist, or rummage what is your greatest LEGO find ever

LEGO SHOP @ HOME UK -- 10% off all orders of

I have always been surprised at the low prices of some of the old Lego sets. I have negotiated $40 price for Lego Set 50-1 and 911-1 in very good, used condition with original box, tray and plastic tray cover. I am thinking about backing out because there seems like no growth and limited demand on eBay. They seem like historically important sets as the 50 has the old style figures, and 911 has the proto-minifigure. Anyone else collect vintage Lego? Should I pass?

Sorry if there is already a thread about this, but I'm wondering what is usually the going rate for a used/open set (that is still available in stores)? Is it normally half the price of retail? Most of the info on the BP price guide is for retired stuff I think.

This is my question: How much time on a regular day do you spend on Legos. This includes building sets, BrickPicker, eBay, Amazon, buying sets at stores, etc. This number probably varies from day-to-day, so if you like, please give us an average week usage. This is how long I estimate that I spend on Legos: Sunday: 5 hours? Monday: 3 hours Tuesday: 2 hours Wednesday: 2 hours Thursday: 2 hours Friday: 3-4 hours Saturday: 5 hours? The reason why my Saturday and Sunday numbers have a "?" next to them is because this number varies greatly on the amount of homework I have. Feel free to factor stuff in like that into your numbers!

So I check the site just now to see if the brickfolio values had been updated for this month and saw that indeed it had. I hit the brickfolio link to check mine but hadn't noticed I wasn't logged in. If you do that and are not logged in it takes you to an example page of a brickfolio. The value of the mock page says 142.00 or something like that.......thinking it was mine, I started to panic lol. I finally realized I wasn't logged on and let out a sigh of relief, I almost thought I had a ton of building to do!

Hi everyone, I'm going to London this sunday for a week. I was wondering if any Brick Picker member could help me with tips to where to go for buying lego in London? I think there's an official Lego Store in London. But they seldom have great deals, well thats my experience in Denmark. Regards, Lennart

I've been hoarding Lego sets for a little over a year now, but have only attempted about 10 sales on Ebay or Bricklink. As I start to offer more listings online, I'd like to solicit opinion/advice on selling sets as bundles. Without revealing any of your trade secrets, I'm curious to hear from some of the experienced sellers out here. As an example, let's say I've got 4-5 retired Star Wars sets, do you think its wise to sell these as individuals or as a collection? I would imagine you've got to consider these factors: Affordability for the buyer, top dollar for the seller, shipping and handling issues, buyer demand, listing fees, and volume sales. What a…

Guys, What can you tell me about this set? I can get one NISB but I have no idea of original prices or what it could be worth nowadays. It seems to be a complete collection of several Mars theme sets in one and has minifigures, BP database can

Anyone else happen to man the Lego NES? Anyone else also looking to collect the Mario set as a whole? Thoughts and opinions? Speculations? Genuinely curious & new to the scene. Hoping to make an investment on the Lego Nintendo as a whole as my new hobby.