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They say that sets are discontinued/EOL so that people who believe them will buy.....its a sales tactic and looks like its working on some of you ;)

Hahaha reminded me of the time my ex wife tried to sell my lego collection online ... Still have all my legos :)

I love it, Here is another for you:

Welcome, Kit. There seem to be a fair few folks here who buy discounted Lego sets and resell them as a way to add cash to "the Lego fund" and then use that money to buy the sets they want for their own/their kids collections. I'm a cheese-paring pinch-penny, so I applaud this method of feeding the family Lego addiction, maybe it would work out for you, too!

I've got one.

How about this one:

That is some pretty admirable following of the rules. Your own accounts were causing problems, so you banned them. Kudos for no favoritism around here.

That is a lot of discounts.

I am actually Blackjack and Irishguy66.

:::quietly re-holsters pistol::: :::looks innocent:::

You all really should have more faith in humanity. Funny thing will be when these things do go EOL and a, God forbid, LEGO employee told you and you didn't believe them and missed out. Then who will be the dope? Not Santa that's for sure.

I can't wait for the $1K tag. That just means that my open set will be worth a bunch.

"Pretzel Girl", eh? I liked Bavarian lady better, but whatever. Why the hell are there only 2 of her per case? Series 10 I wanted Medusa and there were only two of them per case....argghh.

Don't break the seals of the LEGO box.

sorry if this has been asked before, I'm new. I have the Lego Star Wars Falcon 10179 still in the original shipping box from Amazon. Two questions. 1. How do I know if this is one of 10,000 w/o opening it. 2. Is it worth more keeping it in the shipping box? Tks, john

don't ever believe lego store employees, they know about as much about eol dates as santa claus does

The Town Hall is not going anywhere........nor is the Haunted House. The SSD and FB could disappear by this December.

I don't think I really like the set. It is huge, brown, and somewhat boring. I saw the set today at the Lego store, and I watched the video preview, and the guy looked very excited, but maybe he was just a fan of the building beforehand. I know it was very difficult to design, and it does look like the actual building, but would someone who does not care immensely for the building want something with that large of a footprint displayed? And forget playing with it. What kid would want to play with a Lego opera house? As an investment: I have no idea what this thing would do. Maybe sell like crazy in Australia. As a Lego fanatic: Pass, Pass, Pass. This is the type of set that I might enjoy building, but if I were given this set an any other set to build, I would not choose this one. Again, I live in America, and I have never seen this building in person. It might be as cool as the Empire State Building or Wrigley Field elsewhere.

That's it. No more LEGO for me, its all Mega Bloks, and Knex. Actually, Mos Eisley, you hit the nail on the head. I have been trying to elude to this point without coming out and saying it but seem to get called a "bubble thread starter" or "chicken little sky is falling" person. I have been doing this too long and have seen too much with other collectible markets. I'm not saying this market will go bust like the others but I will stick to my guns: within a year, 80% of LEGO investor newbies will have moved on to something else. I'm just afraid of the damage to the secondary market that will be done in the mean time.

I highly respect Mos Eisley and his opinions on LEGO investing. He is a valued member on this site as indicated by his Moderator status and I know he speaks from experience. His collection far exceeds mine and he is one person I always look to for wise tips and comments. But don't let his perspective dampen your view on LEGO investing. Mos Eisley is a "one percenter." In other words, he owns more LEGO sets than 99% of the AFOL population. He is at the top of the LEGO investment food chain. So what's my point? My point is that Mos Eisley has been doing this for quite some time, long before it was coined "LEGO investing." He has seen the days where any person with a pulse could buy an exclusive LEGO set and flip it quickly for a profit. His point of view is an extreme one, from the very top, so his risks are greater than most on this site. With LEGO investing becoming more mainstream, it would appear to be more difficult to make quick profits, so I cannot blame him for being at least slightly pessimistic on the future of LEGO investing. But is the pessimism really warranted for the average investor? One only has to look at the recent Minecraft and SE Crawler as examples of the health of LEGO investing. I know that Mos Eisley is referring to other large sets, like the Fire Brigade and Tower Bridge, when he speaks of the market being saturated with sets. In the "good ole' days," those sets would be easy peasy LEGO investment winners, but with the mass amounts in storage across the world, who knows what will happen to these sets after EOL. Also, with more restrictive rules from retailers, it is harder for the big time investor like Mos Eisley to buy multiple exclusive LEGO sets at discounted prices. But for the average LEGO investor, buying 20 of each LEGO set is not practical. There are ample opportunities to make nice profits if you choose under the radar sets and on a smaller scale. Who would have thought that back in 2007 that a rather unimpressive $89.99 set called Market Street would end up selling for $1300 six years later? Maybe a handful of people, but point is that there are still Market Streets out there, you just have to be the one who is smart enough to find them. Many long term LEGO investors have been spoiled by huge and easy profits, but there are still plenty of new and RETIRED sets that are viable investments. I wrote about the Toy Story Construct-a-Zurg yesterday. A year ago, it was the set with the worst CAGR in the entire catalog of LEGO sets, yet over the last six months, it appreciated over 40%. Some smart people might have bought a couple and made some quick money. This is just one example of many potential great investments out there. It might be a little more difficult to predict winners and losers now and to make a quick buck, but the possibility is still there. Now I know what you are saying...Ed Mack owns a LEGO investing site, so his positive outlook is self serving. Well, there might be a smidgen of truth to that, but I also know the impression that everyone owns 50 Fire Brigades, Haunted Houses and Tower Bridges is an exaggerated one. I know that the internet enables people to lie and stretch the truth. The perception that many members on this site go out and buy 10, 20 or 30 of each set is contradicted by actual sales data we see from LEGO, Amazon and eBay. Just because you hear LEGO profits are up again, doesn't necessarily mean it is because of resellers and investors. In no way is this response an anti-Mos Eisley one. I just wanted to explain where he is coming from and that many of you are not in the same boat as he is. The smaller investor has more options and less risk, but there is still room to hit a home run on occasion. Good luck...

You should also consider the growth in the future interest of Lego (Market Potential). This is all speculation, and that is all it will every be. The more Lego expands and creates new markets, the larger the collector base will be. I keep thinking about an article I read a month ago about a family who spent $100,000 on Beanie Babies, and ended up with nothing but crappy stuffed animals. They actually invested the money from their children's college fund, hoping to double or triple it. I think about that every time I buy a set for investment. Lego has a few major differences, however: 1. We are able to purchase sets as deep discounts, if you know where and how to find them. 2. The bricks themselves have actual physical value. People will always play and use Lego blocks, as something doesn't come along and take its place. Looking at the Lego knockoffs, I don't think that is every going to happen. 3. Lego sets are not priced to sell as collectibles. We can watch for a product and purchase it at normal retail price or below. I do not think any Target, Walmart, or Lego.com will every sell an item at an increase because it is a 'collectable'. We might not be able to get every set or LE set, but those sets will enter the market at a regular retail price. 4. And this is the big one for me: I love playing with Lego sets, and I am 42. My son and daughter love playing with Lego sets, and they are 2 and 10. Lastly, as a former stock market trader (Options), I see the risk inherent in purchasing something and losing money, maybe even everything. To say something is a sure thing and will 100% assuredly make money is the fastest way to going broke. That being said, let me add that I believe the worst vice is advice, and I never give it unless asked. My reasons for collecting and investing in these products are my own, and I question them every time I purchase a set. Right now I only have 20+ sets set aside for investments, so my risk right now is negligible. If I do decide to amass 100+ sets for investment purposes, there will be much research and decision making hours taking up a portion of my time. Right now, I enjoy it because I like Lego sets and I find the whole market interesting and something I want to invest both my time and money to. Here are some quick reads about Market Potential. I see some usefulness in the analogous products, and it is an interesting concept to add to your buying/selling habits. About plants, but has a nice equation: http://plantsforhumanhealth.ncsu.edu/extension/marketready/pdfs-ppt/business_development_files/PDF/estimating_market_potential.pdf Bottom up and top down: http://mpd.me/addressable-m-1/ Market size hypothesis: http://ultralightstartups.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Steve-Blank-Market-Sizing.pdf Another calculation: http://www.marsdd.com/articles/estimating-the-market-size/ Good luck, and thanks for posting your ideas. They made me think a lot more about choices I will have to eventually make.

Not trying to be argumentative....but.... We are looking at the theme as a whole. MOST of the Star Wars sets that make up the theme are retired...unlike LOTR where over half are still on shelves, and the Hobbit that are ALL still on the shelves. I think the SW theme is just stale. I consider myself a pretty big fan...have shirts, toys, quote movies, etc. But what the heck is that Bounty Hunter Assault Ship? The Geonosian Cannon? Nope. Some random Jedi that was in the movie for 9 seconds' ship? Nope. Even the Droid Escape doesn't excite me. Tie fighter 4.0 or whatever number they are on. I am going to buy some stuff at the store on Sept 1 so I can list that Clone Trooper on Day 1...but really none of the stuff available is very exciting for me (Okay the Gunship is COOL and for some reason I really like that desert skiff...just looks pretty spot on to me).

The main issue that I see with this is that ability to buy something does not mean everyone has an equal ability to manage inventory, market items, sell items, and process orders. The buying part is really the easy part in all of this. In no way is this a level playing field, and it never will be because of incompetence, laziness, differing skill levels, etc... This is not a slam on anyone specifically, but I would say that based on the listings we see and based on many of the things posted here in the forums and some of the blog articles that a large percentage of would-be investors are somewhat incompetent when it comes to effectively doing all of the activities required to operate profitably in a secondary market. This could be because they just haven't learned how to do it yet, or it could be that they just don't care. As you mentioned quick-flipping, it often gets a bad rap here because people say the time involved isn't worth the return. This is at best short-sighted. While I have no definitive proof, this is evidence to me that the people attempting it haven't really thought through what they're doing. Whenever you have a process that is inconsistent or inefficient, results will be impacted. The only reason I can quick-flip things profitably is because we're following a very well-defined, predictable process that produces predictable results. For example, I don't print shipping labels the way many of you do, I use standard box sizes, I buy boxes in bulk at really low prices, I use automation to manage inventory and create listings, etc... People also have issues with how long it takes to list things, which is yet another indication that people are using ineffective or no automation techniques to speed all of this up. This results in low-quality listings that take people a ton of time to create. Just wait until close to Christmas when we see people whining about hitting item and selling limits on eBay that they don't know exist, or all of the complaints we will see about negative feedback because they didn't take the time to properly package and ship things. You'll see some people drop out of the market after that.

From the pictures, I can tell most of what is there. In picture #2, there are two uniformed players. Those two may be from Championship Challenge II or the 3425-2 Grand Championship Cup. In the bottom left corner there is a goal. That is from the 1428 Kick '******' Score. In picture #3, that part is from the 3422 Shoot '******' Save with the three big yellow hands in picture #2. In picture #4, that part is the 3423 Freekick Frenzy. And last the white soccer players. I can only find one set that has those white soccer players. That set is the 3425 US National Team Cup Edition set. That is all i have on the picture you have. Unfortunately, I cannot find where the boxes came from. Hope all of this helps.

Hey new to the site. This is my first post. I built the 4x4 crawler exclusive edition today, it was pretty awesome. I have the original as well but really like this one a lot better. The color, the motorized winch, etc.. Just wish they would make printed pieces instead of using stickers since this is such an exclusive set.