With sets like this, my hypothesis (I will be writing a blog explaining it) is that these sets will jump in value. If you sell early, you will do well. At a certain point, everyone will start trying to dump them and that will kill the price.

I have 4 of these. I sold 2 last week for $240 each and I am hanging on to the other 2 for a while. I sold 2 right away because like you stated I think it will sell for more now and then dip quite a bit for a while before it starts to climb. It might take it a long while to get back to $240 so I figured I will sell 2 now and save the other 2 just in case I am wrong.

It's not too far away from

In short, yes they are selling at those prices. The latest sold listings on eBay show:

Price(P&P)

99(15)

<165(15) (best offer)

165(15)

155(15)

150(5)

250(15) (Germany)

155(10)

169.95(0)

156.53(10)

179.95(0)

These are between 29/12 - 7/1. This may be a short term OOS bubble but it will be interesting to see what happens.

I'm happy I found one in the Lego Store near Antwerp, Belgium on December 30.

 

As I'm new to this game, I find it very tempting not to build any of the sets...    

In short, yes they are selling at those prices. The latest sold listings on eBay show:

Price(P&P)

99(15)

<165(15) (best offer)

165(15)

155(15)

150(5)

250(15) (Germany)

155(10)

169.95(0)

156.53(10)

179.95(0)

These are between 29/12 - 7/1. This may be a short term OOS bubble but it will be interesting to see what happens.

Interesting, where do you get that from??

 

I assume the () figures are postage?

 

I got mine by watching auctions and entering the prices into a spreadsheet. But using that method I cannot do BINs as I do not know whether they end by running out of time or being bought.

 

Attached is my file for 10197 for the last year...

My prices incl postage, the BP prices do not.

Book2.xlsx

Folks who are predicting that FB will be a lousy investment make the assumption that this set has been purchased by investors/speculators at a high rate throughout four years since 2009. Only TLC will know the true buying pattern.

Personally I don't think there is a strong correlation between number of sets hoarded and number of years the set is sold by TLC. Each hoarder will likely buy a comfortable level of inventory per set, regardless of whether the set is out for two years or longer.

Given the high likelihood that this will be the only fire brigade for the modular series, I expect the demand to maintain at a healthy pace for many years to come, unless TLC treats modular like City theme and keeps on churning out new fire stations.

I agree, and each investors comfortable level is different, depending on storage space amount of time they want to keep it etc....

Chipbee: you make a good point.

 

CNH1974: Yes, the prices in brackets are P&P (sorry the tables/columns aren't the prettiest, I was replying on my smartphone).

 

I got that data from eBay, by searching 'Lego 10197' and selecting 'Sold Listings' as the variable on the left.  This gave the results I've presented.

Haha, I have never noticed that check box before. Doh!

I'm happy I found one in the Lego Store near Antwerp, Belgium on December 30.

 

As I'm new to this game, I find it very tempting not to build any of the sets...    

 

If you want a set to build buy it used. Why spend 25% more just to open a box? 

I just watched the last 10 completed and sold listings on ebay.de (germany)

 

The results: (prices in euro)

 

221, 240, 245, 220, 246, 235, 250, 223, 219, 233, 221

The average price on Ebay auction for Dec-12 to Nov-13 was

Damn it!

 

I had one ordered a few weeks ago in a local store and today they told me they probably won't be able to get it after all ...

Retired !

GE next?

vampyre castle and fire brigade in the same day....lets enjoy this for two weeks before we think of next.....when was it they retired the scientist and the other sets?  Curious if they do it monthly, or if there is rhyme or reason to it

GE next?

 

Yes I suspect though, not until the end of the year.

 

I only have one of these, bought in 2012. I may get another in March if they do double points.

FB is nearly doubled in few months

Sent from my C6903 using Brickpicker mobile app

It's selling for $240-250 right now. Depending on what you paid and your local sales tax, the profit on these is around 30-50% if you're selling on eBay. It's a nice profit margin, but not quite deserving of the pedestal it is put upon on these forums.

Of course, if it is fetching $300 by Christmas, then it is worthy of being back on that pedestal.

It's selling for $240-250 right now. Depending on what you paid and your local sales tax, the profit on these is around 30-50% if you're selling on eBay. It's a nice profit margin, but not quite deserving of the pedestal it is put upon on these forums.

Of course, if it is fetching $300 by Christmas, then it is worthy of being back on that pedestal.

It's selling for

The success of most sets is based on its original retail price. The FB was only

RRP in the UK was

So I was watching the morning news on CBS and long story short, this came up: link  I found this really interesting because you can totally see the bottom's floor resemblance to the fire brigade! 

 

Now I don't know how you could use it to a marketing advantage, but I thought it was cool and thought i'd give you guys a heads up.

Thanks for sharing. The resemblance is so uncanny, this building was probably one of the inspirations for the design. [p.s. the link is broken. Remove the trailing period (.) to see it.]

Well there are only 5 Fire Brigade's on eBay under $300.

It should be really interesting to see if it spikes for Thanksgiving and Christmas or if it will be slow going.

 

I'm hoping for a jump to $350.  Probably not in the cards.