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There will always be people that will wait till the last minute to get a set thats retiring and try and get the money to buy them, like I keep saying if you can buy one a month, but instead alot of people are out there spending $1000 on clearance stuff that will sit in there closet for years, Everybody should be getting the GE,TB,HH,SSD,DS,Volkswagen Camper. Fire Brigade out for 4 years and so many people never got any. And say you have 30 GE when they do retire you will kick yourself for not having 50 or more.

just be honest dude. You were on your phone checking brickpicker for deals.

Part of the dislike of TRU is their shenanigans claiming inflated prices are MSRP. I'm also not impressed when eBay sellers list things as "RARE!" or "RETIRED" when they're not. Same sleazy sales tactics. Good old honest price gouging, now that I have no problem with.

I have one of these framed

This lot is WAYYYY overpriced.

I've posted this link elsewhere, but here's my classic space/futuron/blacktron collection. Spent a week going through bins filled with random bricks to piece all of these back together. The crown jewel of my collection, 6990, still runs like a top after sitting idle for over 20 years. I was worried because a lot of my old motorized toys were dead, but not the monorail! http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=529319

Dang hope you would say Vampyre Castle $9 just to see what would happen on the forums -I don't always going shopping, but when I do I buy Lego-

Simple. 1600/3300 = .48 or 48% of market value so initially it looks like a good deal but break it down a little further. selling them on ebay would take roughly 15% off the top in fees and paypal (will call it 20% to be safe). take into account missing pieces (there will be unless the guy is absolutely OCD) and a safety margin say another 10% to account for fluctuations and other variables. 3300 * .7 = 2310 2310 - 1600 = $710.00 in profit Now ask yourself is the time spent to go through the lot, inventory, clean, photograph and wait for everything to sell worth $710.00? I agree with Knarrff, 1200 would be more like it.

Buying at TRU is like buying a car in the US. Do your research and all will be good.

I know that this has been hammered out before but I still think its funny that everyone gets all bent out of shape when TRU raises its prices but its OK when we (as investors or resellers) do it. If I was TRU I'd have my prices high all the time. Sooner or later someone is going to buy it. Plus it weeds out all the competition of people going in and buying up THEIR inventory (look I spelled it right)and reselling it on EBAY. Strike a chord?

79002 Attack of the Wargs for $10 from Walmart.

Was able to get a Palace Cinema, two Lego movie stickers, martian manhunter, and she threw in a chima poly bag. WOOT! thanks for the tip

TRU has recently started marking up items which are soon retired/already retired or are no longer being sold by lego to retailers. They have been taking advantage of "retired" set prices. I think this is the first sign that the SSD is a goner...soon.

Just looked at the TRU flyer and here are some of the deals they showed: Blue Roadster (6913) - $11.87 Silver Mine Shootout (79110) - $53.87 Vampyre Castle (9468) - $99.87

Sold a 6166 for $58+shipping

I'd buy anything at 70-75% off. Hell, I'd buy Duplo at that high of a discount. ;)

You can always make use of these: http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=2423298011 :-)

X-Men? Fantastic Four? X-Men themselves could be their own line. There's also a half dozen other Avengers AND secondary characters like Daredevil and Dr. Strange that are comic icons. DC will get some recognition out of the Teen Titans cartoon....but when it seems half the investors/collectors/fans on this site don't even know who the Martian Manhunter is....I would'nt put too much stock in DC's non Batman character stable.....and that's coming from a huge DC fan.

LOL yeah, you have your barnes&nobles, which we don't have at all here In Canada and TRU doesn't give us those 20% off coupons and Wal-Mart doesn't do those gift card extra deals either... I tell ya, first world problems all around up here

so Iketart87 tried to cut you off Krayzie?

8098 appears to be one of them. (I'm not an expert, either)

It all depends....I enjoy sorting lots and completing sets so at 50% I would jump if it is something I am interested in. Of course 3 hours into sorting a lot I am wondering if I am slightly insane lol. Doing this with craigslist lots is not for everyone but you can definitely make good money on it.

Welcome! (Catan is the best board game in the world!)

I think we should all be glad we aren't all jumping on the same sets for 50 each. Some people go for small/medium sets, some for the large ones. Some buy and hold, some quick flip, others part out. This way, we all fill our little niche in the secundary market. If everyone would take Ed's Advice and put all our eggs in the basket that is Grand Emporium, probably no profit for anyone. Prices in a market economy are affected by supply vs. demand. More supply vs. same demand equals less growth. Verzonden vanaf mijn iPhone met behulp van Brickpicker

Love seeing that Classic Space 'town'

Welcome gamer!

Funny that I bought some bw $13-$16 and sold them for $32 or so....but no one wants them

I sold 12 of them after the movie came out at an avg price of $20 - It does appear that prices have come down a little since then (undercutters). What they really need to do is put a cracked arm Greedo in the next movie, and I will be set.

VC has been on sale a couple times last year, i think it goes on sale a bit more often due to it's ridiculous markup. So i think it will just be this set from the MF line, but i'd love to be wrong!

Let's hope the creator and monster fighters lines are as well

Wouldn't be surprised if most (if not all) of the LR line was %40 off. Doesn't make much sense to clearance 1 set in the line. %40 off the train would be a great price.

Welcome to brickpicker from a fellow classic space lover! One of my prized possessions is a blue spaceman from a set that I got for my birthday in Feb '87. Somehow, he's almost in perfect condition in spite of all the play he got over time and the fact that he's been legal to drink for over six years now.

Well the one with the red "plates" reminds me of one of my ebay listings:

can i still welcome someone who has been here longer than me. Show of hands, Al rightly then WELCOME NAF!!!!!

If you have that kind of money, and that kind of time - and the sets are really complete, nicely separated, with instructions... Maybe, but I think it might be a bit on the high side. I would be more comfortable with something like 1200, but even then. It's a lot of money if something doesn't go as planned.

with the 3 battle packs you get 4 figures and no are spindly little droids. the guns are cool too. the colors and contrast are sharp. i am loading up on all of the main trooper packs. havent' gotten ANY droid-loaded Battle of Saleucami as I anticipate this will be the stinker left over on clearance.

If nobody wants them then why are they sold out from stores?

I am not a big fan of TRU because of their lack of an affiliate program. Many times we have reached out to them and have explained the sales potential from the large LEGO fan base on this site. We have shown them strong sales numbers from Target, LEGO and Amazon and have stated we would love to promote their listings, yet they always blow us off and state they are not accepting affiliates at this time. I guess are making so much money that they don't need our support or others like us. Besides an occasional deal, I really find their prices a joke and wouldn't mind seeing them go bankrupt. At least then I know it would force people to buy from the remaining retailers who do offer some sort of affiliate advertising. Just my selfish two cents...

I hope you guys don't think that I made those Catan builds!

The real question is who will retire first - TRU or the Death Star?

Deals at TRU have been amazing for several months now. People complaining about TRU prices are you forgetting: - $25 hobbit barrel escape (and then tack on $20 off 100, or $10 gift card when you spend 50?) - Baxter's revenge (and then tack on $20 off 100, or $10 gift card when you spend 50?) - Y-Wing on clearance - Palatine's arrest down to 60 - Technic sets for 20% off - FREE $60 Highway pickup when you buy a hard to find exclusive set (some as cheap as 119.99) over the holidays, And many more including the wendy's gift card 10 after 40 spend, several bogo 50's, etc. If TRU goes away, other stores wont just get all those exclusives. We LOSE a company that pays to get those exclusives. They just wont be made. How many times have you seen a set online, not quite sure how you feel about it, but when you find it in store on the shelf, you get a real feel for what the set is. perhaps they even have an awesome display that gives you the sense of scale and what you're actually getting in the box. Can you always find what you're looking for at Walmart, Target, etc? Do they often have barren shelves, messy shelves, items all over the place? You can almost always find what you're looking for at TRU. yes because their prices are higher if you're an impatient buyer, but its there. If TRU wants to try to get 500 for a death star or 530 for a Super Star Destroyer for a few months (or maybe even just weeks),,,,,,,,,,THAT"S GREAT. Take a break and don't buy from them this month, Enjoy the potential expansion of price on Death Stars so that folks won't be so freaked out when they eventually hit 600 and 700 on amazon (if they ever retire). The patient and educated buyer should WELCOME others in the same market getting higher prices for their goods ESPECIALLY if you ever want the value of your goods to increase. TRU hate is misguided, and you'll be sorry when they're gone.

I like Marvel...but Batman is pretty awesome. Darkness....No parents....continued darkness.

Of course it's a "hot price"....cause you gonna get burned! Oooooooooo...get it? Like burned like moated or faced. Or burned like with fire...or a hot poker or something. It's late.

I can't provide any documented proof on this, and the info I have is a decade old and second hand, but there was at one point a culture of skimming, kickbacks and cost cutting that pervaded China. The stories I've been told had to do with printed goods, books, board games, card games, etc related to the table top gaming industry (think: Dungeons & Dragons, Magic the Gathering, HeroClix, etc.) In general, many of the factories in china were perfectly capable of producing products on-par or even in some cases exceeding the quality of the products made in America or Europe. When large companies would spec a product, they would sometimes send representatives to China to evaluate the production line, check quality on pre-production samples and sign off on the production of however many units they needed (be it 10k or 1m units.) The problems would generally start as soon as the factory would re-order supplies. If the U.S. company provided material specs to the factory and allowed the factory to source the materials, than as soon as the factory needed to resupply they would send out the materials for a rebid from their suppliers (or if they had a preferred business partner they would just go direct to them) -- this would often result in the factory either getting the materials for less and keeping the difference for themselves, or getting kickbacks of one type or another -- the problem was that sometimes these new materials would not actually meet spec and would result in lower quality product. Since the U.S. company would normally not have one of there people "on the ground" these sub-standard materials wouldn't necessarily get caught and would make it into the U.S. supply chain and out to retailers. Now sometimes, these would get identified later, sometimes they wouldn't. If found, sometimes the U.S. company would switch factories -- but generally the costs of moving production would out weigh the benefits and they would get "reassurances" from the factory that they would only use approved vendors for materials in the future (which would sometimes stick and sometimes not.) The largest companies keep a quality team in-place, on the ground, locally in China to make sure these things don't happen -- but many companies find it cost prohibitive. Another anecdote was an NPR story I heard last year that had to do with Apparel manufacturing. The problem that industry would have is that they would get production samples from a factory and they would be perfect. The factory would start producing the product and suddenly the product would get popular. The manufacturer would contact the factory and ask if they can ramp up the production on their next run so that instead of 10k units on the next shipment they need 50k units. The factory, not wanting to loose the business, would say "sure no problem" even though they knew they couldn't possibly produce more than 20k units in the given time frame. The factory would then subcontract with other factories to produce the extra and those factories would then produce sub-standard product that would end up mixed in with the good stuff. This kind of behavior is not unique to China, or even to just a few regions -- this kind of activity happens world wide, it is just more pervasive in China (or at least it was a decade ago.) It's the responsibility of the manufacturers to find reliable factories that can produce on-spec, and to spend the resources needed to make sure the product ships on-spec. It just happens that when you own your own factories, or when your employees don't have to travel halfway around the world to do Q/A, than it's more likely you'll keep a closer eye on the results. Not much point to arguing about all of it though -- perhaps TLG decided that the collectible minifigs were less likely to be "played" with in the same manor as the figures from their normal sets, and as such they could cut some corners with the particular quality of ABS used, the maintenance & quality of the molds (are the mold lines more visible on the CMFs?), etc.

I'm making the point about taking financial advice from a man dressed in a batman mask...

65 yesterday, 25 today with 2-3" of snow/sleet/ice. Tomorrow? 51 and sunny! Go home, weather, you're drunk... -------------------- Visit my eBay store: http://stores.ebay.com/mo-state-bricks

I like M.C. Escher and anything my four year old son draws up...

I really liked these (from some photoshop contest), not sure why...

I know next to nothing about art. And although it's probably gotten pretty cliche the last couple of years, there's something about Van Gogh's Starry Night that makes it one of my favorites:

That "Great Wave" is a famous work of art for a reason, and I believe I have seen some of Walter Inglis Anderson's style before with his soft palette of colors. 100%, yes. Now to add something else to the topic, here is one recent mindblowing example of why I love pixel art so much aside from my own geekness. Death Magic by AlexHW at PixelJoint