Retiring Soon - open speculation

[Bricklectic]

Flintstones would genuinely surprise me if it wasnt retired.

1)its been on sale at lego with all the other retiring sets

2) its no where as popular as steamboat willie, and lego already has a relationship with disney license wise. Makes no sense to prolong a middling popular idea set, especially with the bumper crop of new ones coming out.

[Legojona]

1 hour ago, Zepp said:

Hey guys I'm just trying to be helpful. Laugh and joke all you want. I'm a former employee and I have a reliable source at the company so take the info or leave it.  I could care less.  There is a website on the company's internal server that lists all retired sets in any given year.  When I worked there (in my pre-reseller days), I used to print the list out for myself and it helped me plan out which sets to buy first for my personal collection when money was tight.  But everyone keep buying up all the Treehouses you want, sheesh.

Print out a list that is shared internally? That sounds unlikely unless you were in a very specific manufacturing or marketing department or high level management. Even then a list does not make much sense. They would just plan which sets they keep producing and for each set that would have their last run, tell the lego store it is retiring soon. 

 

In short, I call BS. 

[joneyyy1981]

1 hour ago, landphieran said:

I'd be amazed if they kept flinstones around versus Steamboat willie. If either come back, it will be my final time investing in an idea's set.

 

[SpaceFan9]

1 hour ago, Zepp said:

There is a website on the company's internal server that lists all retired sets in any given year.

 

I can't vouch for the sets Zepp mentioned, but can independently confirm that there is an internal list that employees have access to.  I've seen it myself, on occassion.

[Darth_Raichu]

2 hours ago, Zepp said:

Straight from LEGO - Ideas Treehouse and Flintstones are NOT retiring.  Vestas Windmill and Volkswagen T1 Camper are "Retired", however some remaining backstock may become available for a brief time early in 2021.  But they are definitely not producing anymore.

Is Downtown Diner included in that list?

[elmaslıefendi]

19 minutes ago, Darth_Raichu said:

Is Downtown Diner included in that list?

No worries, exit date is Dec 31st 2020.

[kaczy]

9 hours ago, Darth_Raichu said:

Is Downtown Diner included in that list?

It is already retired in EU

[shagmoz]

In general, how soon after a set is announced to be retiring would you sell your sets?

[stuco191]

In general, how soon after a set is announced to be retiring would you sell your sets?

Anywhere from 3-50 months

[landphieran]

13 minutes ago, shagmoz said:

In general, how soon after a set is announced to be retiring would you sell your sets?

As soon as the profits are good enough to you. Some people sell all year and have a constant stream of outgoing and income sets. Others wait years and only sell during the holidays. Really is up to you.

[Secret Squirrel]

38 minutes ago, landphieran said:

As soon as the profits are good enough to you. Some people sell all year and have a constant stream of outgoing and income sets. Others wait years and only sell during the holidays. Really is up to you.

All depends on your personal circumstances also. How long can you leave capital tied up in your retiring sets? Some like to offload ASAP & some take the long game approach. 

[raindog]

1 hour ago, stuco191 said:

Anywhere from 3-50 months

I don't mean to be argumentative but I have actually sold some before the retirement was announced and have gone up to 54 months past that time before selling.  But those last 4 months were pure hell, waiting for the time to pass. 

[Darth_Raichu]

2 hours ago, shagmoz said:

In general, how soon after a set is announced to be retiring would you sell your sets?

Between -24 months and +40 months

[Brad W]

3 hours ago, shagmoz said:

In general, how soon after a set is announced to be retiring would you sell your sets?

For the most part, I tend to wait at least a year until I consider selling. Or, if they get to the point where I can get a good return on investment. My goal is to try and double my money after taxes, fees and shipping. If I can achieve that, I'm good with selling. 

[Legojona]

I have been selling sets after two to four years. My average profit was 20% per year meaning I sell most sets at between 10% and 150% of profit. I have most luck with smaller sets and when i buy whole collections of older niche sets.

 

 

[Secret Squirrel]

32 minutes ago, Brad W said:

For the most part, I tend to wait at least a year until I consider selling. Or, if they get to the point where I can get a good return on investment. My goal is to try and double my money after taxes, fees and shipping. If I can achieve that, I'm good with selling. 

You say your goal is to double your money in one year but in reality what percentage of your selling stock actually achieved 100% ROI or more?

[Sozial]

2 hours ago, Darth_Raichu said:

Between -24 months and +40 months

Well well my - is more than -24, yes looking at you 10220

[Brad W]

10 minutes ago, Secret Squirrel said:

You say your goal is to double your money in one year but in reality what percentage of your selling stock actually achieved 100% ROI or more?

80-ish%. I'm a very picky buyer, so I buy as low as possible and then wait until it get as close to 100% roi as possible. 

[Brad W]

1 minute ago, Brad W said:

80-ish%. I'm a very picky buyer, so I buy as low as possible and then wait until it get as close to 100% roi as possible. 

I'm not selling to make ends meet...This is more of a hobby. I have a few themes that on average give back great returns and just buy those themed sets. It works for me...

[coelian]

12 minutes ago, Sozial said:

Well well my - is more than -24, yes looking at you 10220

I once sold a 10220 for a 10bucks profit. Lol Having said that in July I still loaded up some. There will always be new people who want retired iconic sets. 

[TheBrickClique]

4 hours ago, shagmoz said:

In general, how soon after a set is announced to be retiring would you sell your sets?

I check the prices a couple times a year.  If a set is flat, I dump it after a year.  Maybe it'll go up, but maybe it will be the next Birds, Exosuit, Women of NASA, etc... just taking up shelf space.

If it climbed, but has since leveled off, also a good time to sell.  Super Star Destroyer, Grand Emporium, etc... would be a good examples (ignoring what they did this past year).

If it took off like a rocket with irrational exuberance, might want to pull the trigger quick -- I'm looking at you, Seacow.

Everything else, is up to your cash flow needs.

In my spreadsheet where I track all my sets, I have the sale price column and the date sold right next together.  Most of my sales are on ebay and I list one set at a time, and I'll price the next set based on the trend that I'm seeing.  It's depressing when I see sets selling for $350 two weeks before Christmas that were selling for $250 two weeks earlier.  Ya, you'd wish you had held onto those sets and sold them later, but that's how the dice rolls sometimes.  My solution is to "simply" stock enough sets that I can get some quick returns early, but also have the reserves to participate in the long game.  For me, that means where I might have considered 10 of a set to be a good reserve with large diversification, now I'm looking at 30 to 50 in a smaller variety.

Similarly, if it is going up, consider why.  Is it FOMO driven -- if so, sell quick.  Is it part of a long-term collectible series (winter holiday sets, architecture cityscapes) where new incoming participants want to catch up -- then it'll probably only continue to increase and you might want to hold longer.  If it is part of a series that has been cancelled -- such as sets based on a particular movie -- then the demand might wane and you'll wish you had sold earlier.  And then there are the classics -- look at the price history of 10223 or any of the 7040X castle sets.   When you think of LEGO, how can you not think about Space and Castles?  As long as LEGO doesn't introduce a new castle series, nostalgia will continue to drive these up and you should probably hold onto a couple of them.

And then there is the exit plan.  How much can a set go up after all?  If it's already 5x its original MSRP like some of the castle sets, then do you cash out or keep betting?  I don't know of many people who will say, "Oh, why did I sell for 400% profit when I could have made 900% profit?"  You're more likely to hear, "Why didn't I take my 400% profit before LEGO decided to reissue the same set this year and now I only doubled my money?"  It's a lot safer to take that 400% gain and reinvest it in the next set that might go up only 50%, but is not very likely to drop 50% after retirement.  Also, at some point, folks will Bricklink a set if they are willing to spend 5x MSRP.  I picked 5x just because that's a fairly extreme gain that not many sets will hit.  Personally, if I have a set that has hit 3x MSRP on ebay, I'm more than happy to sell and never look back.

[Secret Squirrel]

3 minutes ago, TheBrickClique said:

I check the prices a couple times a year.  If a set is flat, I dump it after a year.  Maybe it'll go up, but maybe it will be the next Birds, Exosuit, Women of NASA, etc... just taking up shelf space.

If it climbed, but has since leveled off, also a good time to sell.  Super Star Destroyer, Grand Emporium, etc... would be a good examples (ignoring what they did this past year).

If it took off like a rocket with irrational exuberance, might want to pull the trigger quick -- I'm looking at you, Seacow.

Everything else, is up to your cash flow needs.

In my spreadsheet where I track all my sets, I have the sale price column and the date sold right next together.  Most of my sales are on ebay and I list one set at a time, and I'll price the next set based on the trend that I'm seeing.  It's depressing when I see sets selling for $350 two weeks before Christmas that were selling for $250 two weeks earlier.  Ya, you'd wish you had held onto those sets and sold them later, but that's how the dice rolls sometimes.  My solution is to "simply" stock enough sets that I can get some quick returns early, but also have the reserves to participate in the long game.  For me, that means where I might have considered 10 of a set to be a good reserve with large diversification, now I'm looking at 30 to 50 in a smaller variety.

Similarly, if it is going up, consider why.  Is it FOMO driven -- if so, sell quick.  Is it part of a long-term collectible series (winter holiday sets, architecture cityscapes) where new incoming participants want to catch up -- then it'll probably only continue to increase and you might want to hold longer.  If it is part of a series that has been cancelled -- such as sets based on a particular movie -- then the demand might wane and you'll wish you had sold earlier.  And then there are the classics -- look at the price history of 10223 or any of the 7040X castle sets.   When you think of LEGO, how can you not think about Space and Castles?  As long as LEGO doesn't introduce a new castle series, nostalgia will continue to drive these up and you should probably hold onto a couple of them.

And then there is the exit plan.  How much can a set go up after all?  If it's already 5x its original MSRP like some of the castle sets, then do you cash out or keep betting?  I don't know of many people who will say, "Oh, why did I sell for 400% profit when I could have made 900% profit?"  You're more likely to hear, "Why didn't I take my 400% profit before LEGO decided to reissue the same set this year and now I only doubled my money?"  It's a lot safer to take that 400% gain and reinvest it in the next set that might go up only 50%, but is not very likely to drop 50% after retirement.  Also, at some point, folks will Bricklink a set if they are willing to spend 5x MSRP.  I picked 5x just because that's a fairly extreme gain that not many sets will hit.  Personally, if I have a set that has hit 3x MSRP on ebay, I'm more than happy to sell and never look back.

Ahh, don’t bring up Woman of NASA 😭

[zaphoid]

14 minutes ago, Secret Squirrel said:

Ahh, don’t bring up Woman of NASA 😭

I made a profit on every single one of those I had.

[TheBrickClique]

5 minutes ago, zaphoid said:

I made a profit on every single one of those I had.

Yes, in this case to the QFLL went the spoils of war:

https://www.businessinsider.com/lego-women-of-nasa-amazon-prime-price-gouging-2017-11

[brickohaulic]

20 minutes ago, Secret Squirrel said:

Ahh, don’t bring up Woman of NASA 😭

 

25 minutes ago, TheBrickClique said:

I check the prices a couple times a year.  If a set is flat, I dump it after a year.  Maybe it'll go up, but maybe it will be the next Birds, Exosuit, Women of NASA, etc... just taking up shelf space.

-- 

So you just do this manually to check prices or do you have a method in place to let you know when prices on a set have gone up a certain percentage so that it may be a good time to sell, such as with Keepa.