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It is getting more and more difficult to move up in the US in my opinion. The costs of basic necessities are going through the roof. Healthcare costs are insane. As a small business owner, it is just churning dollars and paying yourself with a salary that in many cases hasn't increased in years. It's a slow suck. Sure, people who choose the right profession or business at the right time can move up, but most Americans are just treading water, with stagnant wages and increased living costs. I used to be a lot more positive, but hard work and persistence doesn't always translate into success now. Even a quality education puts you in a huge hole financially before you get a decent job. Many Americans are in a daze, working harder for no status gain, more worried about managing their Facebook account than their bank account. Yet the stock market keeps chugging along, blowing off worldwide events and changing the rules to suit their needs. Maybe investing in LEGO makes sense in the new "bizarro" we all live in.

Just got back from my local Target (Greater Vancouver Area). This weekend only spend $50 in store and receive a $10 gift card free valid store wide. I bought $50 in groceries to get my free gift card. I also noticed my store had the new imperial Star Destroyer 75055 on sale for $105 (reg $149.99) 30% discount! I didn't see this sale in their flyer, so not sure if this is sale chain wide or not. So I bought my groceries, put them in my car, and went back in to buy the set. $105 less 5% using my Red Card: $99.75 plus 12% HST = $111.72, less $10 gift card: $101.72! PLUS THEY GAVE ME ANOTHER $10 GIFT CARD for my purchase! The fine print says one gift card per customer but they don't seem to enforce it. It was the same teller for the second purchase and she knew I had just got the gift card a few minutes earlier but was happy to give me another, I didn't even ask for it.. Pretty sweet deal I think. I wanted one for my collection and I doubt I'll ever get it cheaper than that. Might be worth checking your local Target store this weekend if you want one. Good luck!

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Sold 8 RI today between 80-86 today @ amazon. Sweet $$

Prob because HH is unique and interesting. GE is kinda boring compared to it.

Found this on a link at YahooFinance, kind of neat http://finance.yahoo.com/news/american-dream-illustrated-with-legos-brookings-200611923.html

As long as my family is healthy, we have food on the table, a roof over our heads, and some money in the bank, I'm happy. I really have no desire to live any kind of extravagent life. So I would agree that not everyone is looking to get to that Q5 level, and the "American dream" differs quite a bit depending on who you ask. My parents keep nagging me to buy a bigger house because the kids have to share rooms in our current home. Oh no! lol. I think its funny, my parents were of a generation where they crammed 6-8 kids into a tiny house, and they always told me how much fun they had growing up. I think people get this idea in their head that if they aren't constantly upgrading then they aren't successful in life. The kids are perfectly happy sharing rooms, and we like our home the way it is for the time being. Honestly, the only time I ever thought about moving was to have more room for stashing Lego

i wouldn't go that far There are many sets that aren't boring when compared to the HH. POTC ships, Palace Cinema, new & old Tumbler, VW T1, 10188, Arkham, etc... just to name a few. When it comes to Lego sets based on houses and buildings, I think 10228 will be long remembered and has a chance to be considered as one of the more iconic sets of recent times. Thus, I think decent demand will still be there for this set even 5+ years after retirement (as long as it's not refreshed) and we can't say that for most of the sets produced every year,

KMart? They'll create a listing, everyone will order, and then receive Deloreans instead.

looks like some 39.99 exo's are going back to target next week. also I am a true believer on this set and all IDEAS/CUUSOO sets. have 29 on hand and ordered another 11 this morning. if this set is not available in November/December, there will be hay to be made, but still long term i think this set and all IDEAS sets will be cash money.

Just sold one on Amazon this morning for $100 Ship by: 08/26/2014 Item: LEGO Cuusoo 21110 Research Institute Condition: New Listing ID: 0823ODK***** SKU: 3Y-5O5I-ACN1 Quantity: 1 Order date: 08/23/2014 Price: $99.99 Amazon fees: -$16.54 Shipping: $5.49 Your earnings: $88.94

No wonder interest has waned, they only put out 2 episodes every 4 months.

It sure didn't look like Dusty Rhodes to me???

If you really wrote "gamboy" instead of "gameboy" or "game boy", you have the reason why you did a disappointing selling. (because of ebay's referencing and browsing)

pssst we still need him around to fight those pesky knockoff bricks/minifigs sellers from China

Can this thread be moved to members only? Otherwise we are going to see another kind of article...

I don't agree with this: "The company stirred excitement this month by offering a line aimed at girls called the

Here are two of the three sets being built. I completely agree with the title. I'm hoping to launch the Truck set before this week. Lair build. Van build.

sold an RI on amazon at 94.51 +5.49 shipping = 100 earlier today. after fees and shipping 300% return in 3 weeks. now if only the rest will sell at that price... otherwise i can wait. this is fun. thank you new york times web link.

Search doesn't pull it up for whatever reason (helping resellers?). Use this: http://www.walmart.com/ip/LEGO-LEGO-Cuusoo-Exo-Suit/36246156?wmlspartner=jfOcdvfTNg4&sourceid=36821842341010782576&oid=223073.1&u1=&affillinktype=10&veh=aff I just got what I think might have been the last 4 but they keep trickling in.

i have heard people say that all of sets i sent to amazon were MISB but the one they shipped to the customer and which got returned is not mine. one thing to consider with "FBA" is amazon ships "the item" on your behalf. not-necessarily its "your item". what i mean is they will ship the item sold on your behalf. its reduced in your inventory. that don't mean that the actual item shipped is yours. why i am saying this is for following reason: say you are in california. you signed up for FBA. you send your stuff to amazon. they will most likely put that in their warehouse somewhere in california. now when the sale is made based on the buyers location they are going to ship the most cost effective way for them. so lets take the extreme and say the buyer is in the east coast. then amazon will most likely look for the inventory in east coast i.e PA or MA and if they find the same item there then they would ship those. it might belong to someone else but sold and shipped on your behalf. ^ this is a very likely scenario that would happen. hence potential for some unruly exposure...

How would 80 dollars be the ceiling when they are selling for 100 right now?

I've been able to add sets through the catalog so far. Frog, what you said was what I tried first, and found my error was not adding the xxxx-1 at the end so it was not recognizing my set number. I'm on my way right now.

That is correct... I could translate it to spanish for say... A couple of SSDs xD

At the risk of sounding pretentious I bought the set because it feels... significant. Full disclosure: I also find Alf pogs significant.

I think the jury is still out on these large Ninjago dragon sets. With EDB still available it's hard to judge how they'll do post EOL. I bought 4 at kmart for around $40 (50% off plus cashed in SYW points/surprise points). For whatever reason kmart was blowing these out back in March.

I bought a Lego set from South Korea once, and delivered on time with the right item (no fakes). They offered free shipping too! Read their feedback first, that would help. the one you should wary of are sellers from China. They have strange ID, zero feedback, and offering Lego at bargain price.

I know this guy down the street that will list them for me ;)

Hell, everything seems boring compared to the Haunted House. You may like to visit the Grand Emporium but you want to live in the Haunted House.

Wondering how much higher these will go and at what point I will be kicking myself for getting rid of 30 already. I listened to all the seasoned pros on here that said we were all delusional that the $35 Rover could hit $150 by X mas because sets don't quadruple in a year. Hopefully this set will crash and all will be well in the world of Lego investing. That was late night sarcasm

dude you gotta stop being so negative all the time, youre harshin up my buzz

You got me there. I would definitely wait for the next train. The Tortoise and the Hare was always my favorite story as a kid (The Ant and the Grasshopper was a close second).

You took the words out of my mouth.

That's amazing this thing is still $149 at Lego LEGO Shop at Home (due September 28th) and the cheapest on eBay is $218. Congrats on your sale.

47 21110 Research Institutes - between $67-$72 + $5 shipping on Amazon. Thank you, New York Times.

Sitting on four already and you guys make me think of buying even more... should i buy two more at

No kidding.. A 25% spike for RI over on Amazon today..

That's an excellent counterexample. Wish I'd thought of it. For that matter, how can Lego retire the SSD when they're still making 75003 (A-Wing) to smash into its bridge? I think this means 10221 is coming back later this year.

Ok, special note to self. Make sure joyjoy and MartinP don't do any math things for the site

(2) 42009 from Amazon UK. Exchange rate has been moving in favor of the US dollar bringing each set to 167.00 and change delivered. Not quite as cheap as the Meijer Bonanza late spring. Will bring my inventory count to (4). Slowly accumulating. My average price is under 160.00 each.

I wouldn't pay 70% over MSRP for any set one week after EOL (or 3 months after "practical" EOL, if you want to count from the day it was not widely available in stores). I would invest in other sets that are likely near EOL and have somewhat similar ROI potential but can still be bought at MSRP or below, such as Grand Emporium, T1 Camper Van, etc. But that's just me. I know I can be completely wrong. Good luck with your investment (and we are in the same boat).

If we're depending on customers in China, we're in serious trouble. China makes its own "legos" in huge quantities at low prices. Everyone talks about how China and India are the future. No, they're not. China is a giant fixed-investment ghost-town building ponzi scheme, and India is a third-world nation with a first-world debt problem. You would be hard-pressed to find a functioning democracy as fiscally incompetent as India. If it were in the euro zone, everyone would be talking about it as the next Greece. Anyway, Lego's future, like its past, is North America, western Europe, Australia, and the "western" Asian countries: Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan. Lego itself claims to have big, bold plans for China. Good luck with that. It hasn't worked out very well for other western companies. Basically, you enter the Chinese market, all your IP gets stolen, and then the government prosecutes you for being an illegal foreign monopoly.

Ahhh, I see now. At this point I am not rolling profits into other sets. I will add additional exclusives next year to top of the next run up of hopeful retirements and that will be it. I have specific plans for this investment course and it is not an ongoing year over year plan. When I exit my positions I will be allocating those total dollars into other areas. Down the road I may pick up some singular sets (tumbler in late 2016 as an example) 30-40 of these. Plans change though and you never really know what is coming down the road.

Did you open the box and say "Look sir, droids."?

OK I now have a smarter system set up for capturing changes in the "retired product" Lego shop search results. I ran it a couple of times and found quite a few sets that I had missed off my list. I've filtered out any Duplo sets, or accessories like minifigures, motors, cables etc. This is a list of all the newly found ones. I've also added a column called "Status Updated" that records the date I ran the numbers and found the newly tagged Retired Product sets. And attached is an updated full list of all sets to date. As sets drop off the Lego "Retired Product" search page into oblivion this will soon be one of the only sources for that info. EOL dates table.xlsx

Diversity

Thats unforgivable. I would have put myself up for adoption.

I'm giving the master ebayer badge to frog! It's awesome to have someone who is so knowledgeable about a particular service!

https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/helpcenter/helphub/home/ If you've already been there and CS is closed, call them tomorrow. They'll walk you through the process. Basically, they may be willing to dispute the chargeback on your behalf. That doesn't mean they're going to win against the cc company, and if they don't, you don't either. Meanwhile, the money will be taken out of your account or backup funding source. If this buyer did the same thing to a lot of sellers, PayPal will be more likely to try to dispute it with the cc company. If you're the only one, you're probably out 12 bucks. If you had a brick and mortar store, you'd have shoplifters (and still have chargebacks ) - it's annoying as heck when it happens, but you figure it into your cost of doing business and you move on.

Classic!