General Collecting and Investing Forum

I am curious how everyone keeps track of everything for taxes. You have to keep track of what you paid for a set then later you sell it for a profit and you have keep track of the eBay fees, PayPal fees, shipping fees. What if you bought a set in one year and sold it in another? I haven't sold much yet but I have purchased a lot. I can already see how it is going to be a lot of work keeping track of everything. I meet with my tax guy soon so I will have to go over all of this with him but I wanted to know what everyone else is doing?

I've been wondering where people sell their Lego. Please vote! Thank you.

I've been seeing tons of epic builds on here, so lets have LegoMania. I'll start off with some awsome build, and then you can try and trump it. This picture right here is from Cosi science center in Cincinnati. (Sorry for the photo being fuzzy, it's a crappy camera) After a while I'll put a poll on here so people can vote for their favorite, and will decide the winner that way. I'm really looking foward to seeing some really epic builds. They're will be voting later on, so make sure to keep checking back here to be a part of that.

I am taking a short trip with my wife to my parents soon. They live in the middle of nowhere. I was going to hit up the local stores and see about finding some sets. We are flying Southwest, so our bags fly free (as they should!) and we are only taking two bags, meaning we have two to spare. I know how hard the handlers are with baggage and there is no way to stop them from putting the box on the bottom of everything else. Has anyone done this and what what your experience? Thanks!

I am new to this site and I keep seeing references to people coming out of their dark age in the articles and forums. Can someone explain what is meant by that?

I thought this might be a little entertaining. Lets see how everyone's Brickfolio is doing. Click on "My Brickfolio" and get the current amount of your Brickfolio value. Then click on "View Brickfolio Items" and then "View Entire Collection". Scroll all the way to the bottom and get the total "Purchase Price" (assuming you have been entering this in your Brickfolio all along). This is the total price you have paid for all the sets in your Brickfolio Now take your "Brickfolio Value" and subtract your "Total Purchase Price". This will give you the total dollar value of profit from your Brickfolio. Now take your "Profit" and divide it by your current "Total Purchase P…

I am ready.

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

Lego gave solid gold 2x4 brick to a 25 year employee in the 70's... this thing just sold on ebay for 14grand! http://www.ebay.com/itm/1970s-LEGO-14K-SOLID-GOLD-25-YEARS-EMPLOYEE-SERVICE-2X4-BRICK-ULTRA-RARE-/221148102615

I'll get my 10179 tonight and I want to be sure the box contain the millenium falcon I read that it's possible to reseal a box, so I'm a bit nervous about that. Anyone have some tips for me to be sure "how to be sure the box is the intact original" and "how to inspect a box" Everyting look ok on the photos: Thanks!

Hello all! I'm thinking of investing $2000 or so with the power of leverage. My question is, what would be the biggest bang for my buck? Things like this to consider: Which "big" set is about to retire and would be worth more down the road? Should I invest $2000 into one type of set? Or spread the cash around? Ghost Train or Vampyre Castle? How many years should I hang onto X set? Thanks guys.

Some of you probably remember that I and some other members ordered some Monster Fighters Zombie sets from Export Prive at the beginning of January 2013. My order went in on January 2, 2013 and I got the package in today, came from Korea. Package was packed VERY NICELY--much better than even the ones I get from LEGO Shop at Home. The 6 Monster Fighter Zombie boxes are all in great shape and were backed in bubble wrap--one has a small crease on the front but that's it. In the end, the 3 week wait was a long one but I was able to track the package the whole way from South Korea over that entire period. I would have no hesitation ordering from them in the future…

See title - this is the type of query I'd love to do - is there a LEGO-related site available out there that lets me build a database query with following at minimum?: Set Year Number of Pieces MSRP (price of brick can be inferred using Number of Pieces and MSRP anyway)

Has anyone around here tried to build a LEGO set by buying the individual parts from LEGO and Bricklink? I was thinking about doing this for one of the no longer produced sets, but wanted to know if it is cheaper or more convenient than just paying the higher prices the actual sets usually require.

Does anybody else feel this way? I have been thinking about this, and it is doing some odd things to the shelf life of some good sets. It seems like the shelf life for a lot of things is down to only about 9 months. For example: The 6869 Quinjet is only about 9 months old, but is being clearanced out at many Walmarts. It is already deleted from the site entirely. Same thing with the Ghost Train, 9 months old and on its way out. Half of Monster Fighters has already been clearanced at a lot of Targets, and so has some LOTR stuff from the first wave. The Batcave 6860 is a year old, but it is also being phased out at Walmart. Just off the top of my head, I th…

Hi all, I live in Windsor, ON, about 15 minutes from Detroit. My wife wants to do some shopping tomorrow and this will be my first time post-Christmas to hit up LEGO deals in the USA. Are people still seeing clearance items at Wal-Mart, Target and/or TRU? I'm also considering Wally World (if I can find one in MI), Kmart, Barnes and Noble, etc. Any more I should add to this list? Anyone in the Detroit or greater Detroit area cleaned out any stores I should avoid? I'm hoping to be pretty ruthless and only buy heavily discounted items, and I'm hoping to make 12-15 stops. Looking for older sets - with some of the posts on here I'm wishing for the Black Pearl or …

Apparently a few people on BrickLink have been receiving letters like the one attached. The pictured letter was posted over there. Basically it says that TLG only sells products to end users (outside the independent toy dealers). If they suspect that you are reselling them, they reserve the right to cancel your order. I would imagine you have to be buying a lot from them to raise any flags, but still interesting.

I was wondering if poly bags made a good investment? I have limited storage space and I do not want to devout a large sum to LEGO investing. My goal in investing with LEGO is just to have fun and maybe someday down the line have the hobby pay for itself.

Hi, What Lego theme or series have you collected every set for or are trying to collect every set for? I have all the Atlantis and Prince of Persia sets. I am working on the Harry Potter theme.

Quality article about LEGO prices over the years...

Hey everyone, I wanted to run an idea past you guys to see if you would find it useful. I have developed a service that runs every fifteen minutes on my computer and checks whether every non-retired LEGO set is available. If not available, it changes my database to reflect that and sends a text message and an email to me to alert me of the retirement. It has been working well and accurately for the last 4 months (when I first developed it). I was curious as to whether anyone else on this forum uses a similar technique and whether you guys think this is a good idea for a program. Also, the obvious bottom line question is whether anyone thinks this kind of idea is wo…

There have, and always will be, scammers out to get your money. It could be that cheap 10188 Death Star on eBay going for $199 BIN or a $500 10179 Falcon on Craigslist. Perhaps we could have a 'sticky' thread where we post scammer or suspicious listings so buyers and Brickpickers can be alerted? Also note that if you find a fraudulent listing on eBay, you can email ebay. There's a 'report seller' link on the Seller's bio page. Ebay are generally quick to respond to such emails and pulls down listings quick. Having said that, here's a story that I posted in another thread but thought it might be apt to post it here. And why do people do such things for a couple…

These are just my opinions but these are some rules I try to stick to when purchasing a set for investment. 1. Get the best deal and buy on sale. I think too many people (including myself when I first started) jump on sets at retail just because they think they will be more valuable later. Now there are some instances which this will work but in most cases you are cutting in to your potential profits. Why? Almost every set goes on sale at some point. If you think you have another year before EOL then you have another year to keep waiting and watching for the price to drop or the item to go on sale. Target, TRU and others will have a BOGO 50% off at some point. You will…

I've seen in the Lego LEGO Shop at Home this tag that identifies some items In this category there are some old sets but some new sets too, like 10226 Sopwith Camel and 10220 Volkswagen Van what's the meaning of this category? "hard to find" because they produce not a lot numbers? Is it right to consider to invest for this reason?

I recently discovered the "world" of Lego Investors...before I was only a user I bought several item (monster fighters, ninjago, LoTR, HPotter) and know I need an advice (and an opinion) What should I've to buy between this items? 70503 The golden dragon 9450 Epic dragon battle 10218 Pet shop 9516 Jabba's palace 10211 Grand Emporium 10193 Medieval market 6857 Dinamic duo 10223 Kingdom joust 10225 R2-D2 6860 Batcave And what are the reasons why should I'v to buy one rather than another? Other question: what does "discontinued" means? Thanks a lot... p.s. sorry for "My english" but I'm italian and I don't speak/write english very well