General Collecting and Investing Forum

Out of town for work, and spotted a Vampyre Castle at a Walmart in the clearance section. The seals on the box are completely intact - but on one end of the box, the panel between the seals is completely ripped. Like if you tried to open the box without cutting the seals first. I am confident looking at the box that it hasn't been opened. For resale though, my question is, would you keep it in the sealed box? Or open the box and just keep and resell with the complete set of bags plus instructions? Guessing I could part it out around Halloween next year.

I experienced a few bad ebay purchases with lego box either mild, moderate or severe damage from sellers missed the small tears/damages but claiming mint condition, poor packing skill in spite of request of protecting the lego box well.... Now, another stupid experience ..."open box new". It came down to my mistake anyway when bidding on some set recently. On the listing, the seller categorizes the item "new", meaning the item "new, unopened, unused, undamaged.." but tricky part is in their "detailed" description, "open box new"....another unique term the sellers come up with. Surely, I should have read it thoroughly but first time ever, I missed this one because…

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!

Check out this LEGO Ferrari F1. They did an amazing job! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3E_BNEYSGM

picked up an orc forge (9476), shelob attacks (9470), and luke's landspeeder (8092) all for (slightly) under retail. thanks to the wife for saving coupons!

Here's a question for discussion. If most people here are investing in typically the same sets such as: Fire Brigade, Pet Shop, Vampyre's Castle, Helm's Deep etc... Won't this make us all competitors when it comes time to sell? I know we all have differen't thresholds for profit and selling but at one time or another there will be times when our selling will overlap with eachother. Let the friendly competition begin.

As I was in my basement the other day doing a little organizing and comparing my collecting area to my wifes crafting area I could tell that at the current pace of buying my days that I would eventually run out of room. I would say I have at least a couple more buying seasons to go before I run out of room. How close is everyone else to busting at the seams? Do you have plans to sell once your inventory expands beyond your storage area or hobby room you are allowed? I don't like the idea of selling once I run out of room, especially if I believe the sets are still on the upward trend but you can only stash so much Lego in the crawlspace...

Just been hearing some rumors that lego will release a bmw model in 2013, is this true? if so omg :D

Lately I have been finding myself doing less and less driving around and hunting for deals. Partly because I don't have as much free time in the evening and the other component is that it is a gamble on whether or not I will come up with a score. With this all in mind how does everyone evaluate time spent hunting down deals and whether or not they score big? Now some stores have sales going on but even then there are times when they also sell out of an item and a person walks away empty handed. With this in mind does a slightly smaller discount online have a better return of the convenience of saving time and effort to go to a brick and mortar store? I used to en…

My wife and I are quickly running out of pieces in the Lego city display we are working on. I have been searching eBay to find some bulk brick auctions and have put some on my watch list. But the idea just came to me that there may be some sets out there where the minifigs sold separately would be worth more or equal to the set itself. Getting some of these sets and selling the minifigs might be a good way to accumulate pieces. I'm not looking to make any money on this but would at least like to break even or maybe a little less. Does anyone know of good sets that I may be able to do this with? Color really isn't an issue since we need just about every color but grey woul…

These are going to auction - however I have no clue what sort of price should be expected? There are literally hundreds of sheets? If anyone has any info on the rock raiders game etc that could help me - any information would be much appreciated! I have attached a p link to blog for more info! http://www.planetdiecast.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=original-lego-artwork-from-the-1990s.html&blogger=aston&Itemid=2576

Hi everyone, I am Bricklinking the Taj Mahal and am wondering: Do any of you know where I can get 208 of the 368001 piece? The picture is attached. On Bricklink, the largest quantity I could find was 14 and that is by far not the amount I need. I am looking to find these at less than $0.05 per if possible. Thanks.

For myself it was back in 2007 when I was at a Target looking at the sets that were currently out. I saw a SW Y-Wing and B-Wing on the shelf and I decided to pick them up since I had an X-Wing. After I got them home and built I decided to complete the Battle of Endor Hangar scene before Han and the other's left in the shuttle Tyderium. So I went on Ebay to see what the cost would be to fill out the rest of the scene. I noticed then that the A-Wing was selling for around 20.00 a piece used and out of box. When I went and looked up the falcon I was floored at how much a used copy of the ship cost (though I did get it for 100 later on that year) and how much a new in bo…

Ok So we all heard/read about how to make sure your LEGO boxes for investing are kept safe, but I ha another issue. In my country, we get ''huge'' stickers on LEGO boxes, marking where the sets come from etc etc. Its about 3x3,5 cm sticker. Should we leave that intact or try to get it off and endanger damaging the box? If we should get it off, is there a way I am not aware of how to do it more elegantly than only hope not to damage ? Any ideas and answers welcomed!

Well, I thought on found a good deal on the 10179 set from craigslist. The person was selling the set for $800. Thought this was a reasonable price. Not really a crazy price. Still a real good deal though. Anyway, the catch was the person could only accept money pak order. You buy the card, put money on it and upload it to a debit card. Of course I thought this was sketchy. So I asked her why she doesn't have paypal. Her response was her late husband screwed up their paypal account and couldn't get a new one. I told her I still do not feel safe and she said that she would give me her debit card number to show that she wouldn't rip me off. I basically talked h…

I know majority know about this, but maybe some will find it useful, especially is this for us poor EU users trying to ''fight'' the privileged US EU Amazon online shops compared prices! It is way less work with this If this is already somewhere feel free to remove the thread.

This isn't a thread to belittle people for shelling out SM prices for a set so don't even think about it!! I will start The only two sets in my collection that I have paid SM value for are the 7161 gungan sub and 7661 Jedi starfighter with hyper boost ring. Both have remained steady at the price I bought them for the last year.

I have been wondering if there was any way to further classify the used sets purchased on Ebay. There can be a wide variety in the used category. Assembled with no box, or insturctions. With crummy box, with nice box, sitcker used or unused. I think we all unerstand what new means (actually that is a little complex to becasue the box can technically be open...what's up with that), but the used category could be enhaced. I would think for evaluation purposes a used set, with an nice box, nice instcution manual, unused sticker sheet would typically be valued more than the Price Guide used price (which often is missing box). I can't see buying a bunch of sets a…

Looks like there are 4 new Lego stores opening in the U.S. this year, hopefully some of you live close to them, I sure don't. http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=24319739

Just noticed today when I went to Lego LEGO Shop at Home that they are adding tax now to the total..... Guess the free ride is over....

Do some of u think that the market of Star Wars is getting smaller or is it still thriving and will for many more years. I want to collect Star Wars mini figures but is the market for them one i can make money on or just collect?

Just wondering... I was sorting through a lot of Legos, Mega Blocks, and other clones, and I found a couple pieces that either are made by Lego, and I am just wondering what set they might be from, and some, I am not sure if they are made buy Lego or another company. Any help would be help a lot! Thanks!

Maybe I am reading too much into this but are the deals that some people stumble upon on eBay hurting the market value of sets? Since the calculated value is based upon eBay sales then this should be the case right? A recent example is the smoking deal that a member (over 50% off) got yesterday on a set due to the sellers listing error. That sale will probably hurt the value since not that many of that set being sold. Will stuff like this even itself out eventually? Am I making an issue out of nothing?

the majority of participants in the forum are from US and when they're talking about the attractiveness of a theme, they referred it to the US market but there is a big difference, for a set/theme, depending on the country? what are the themes not so strong in europe as they are in US?

Should I start off collecting by buying sets and not opening them or by buying mini figures. If u chose minifigures what sites do u recommend for buying them