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Take off your tinfoil hats people. There's been a lot of interesting speculation here about Lego manipulating the market with Machiavellian strategies. The Town Hall is retiring because it was the slow seller of the theme and that is that. For it's entire life it sat on the shelf at $200, right next to the beautiful Grand Emporium, the fun Pet Shop, the romantic Parisian Restaurant - all of which were much cheaper, and were more emotionally attractive. Do you want to dream of having your own pet shop one day? ... or dream of having a bureaucratic job at City Hall? It was always peoples' 2nd or 3rd choice, so it didn't sell well. Mystery solved. I made a list of about 2 dozen "rare" part numbers for the TH (parts used in the TH which were unique, or shared by no more than 2 other sets). I was interested in the "eliminating rare parts" theory ... but even I don't buy it. If the Town Hall was a hot seller, it would still be available today. Eliminating a dozen or so part numbers is a small, small bonus for Lego, but in no way a deciding factor. A similar list of "rare" parts for the Detective's Office would have over 40 part numbers on it - many of which could have been substituted with more common parts... but obviously, the design team wanted "that certain shade of blue", or unique new hair on that minifigure... clearly part number proliferation is not a big concern for Lego. And resurrecting the Town Hall? That ship has sailed. Lego recognizes this "after death demand" for what it is. If they produced another batch, investors would snap them all up. If they went into full production, and continued to carry this model for another year or two, many investors would be very hesitant to buy more exclusives. They would be shooting themselves in the foot. Last year, Feb 4th, 2014 was Retirement Apocalypse Day... dozens of sets got their "Retired" tag that day, even though most had been gone for months. I expect TH will earn it's badge within the next few weeks.

Finished up the Technic Star Wars Destroyer Droid 8002. Picked this up in a lot and was going to sell it but I like it a lot. I might keep it for a while or at least put a high price on it.

Another factor about 'collectibles' market. Demand is driven by the common knowledge that product is around for a limited time and won't come back. So people buy it because they don't want to miss the ship and pay inflated prices together with the fact they know that the product they own will hold its value. If people believe the value is persistent they are more likely to haul cash. If LEGO destroys this 'belief' sales of exclusives may drop by a not insignificant amount overall. So LEGO has to weigh the following: cashing in on a popular and desired retired set vs. keeping up the 'limited availability" belief. Since the latter most likely affects all exclusives I would vote on the latter since they can always create new awesome products that would sell just as well as resurrected ones. I might also add, just as Ed also mentioned somewhere earlier, that the current rapid growth of LEGO as a company is mainly a result of the increased perceived value of LEGO. People saw in the emerging secondary market that value is persistent over time, even increases and began to consider it differently than other toys and regard them as valuable durables rather than ordinary consumption goods therefore their propensity to throw cash increased. Since they are not run by imbeciles they know this and don't want to destroy it. The large quantity of AFOL sets is part of the strategy of keeping this up.

From a post over on The Brick Fan, just2good of Eurobricks has stated a new chess set will go along with the other Pirates sets of 2015. This should make building an army of blue coats and buccaneers rather easy, eh?

Buy it ALL that is my listing.

People are over thinking this retirement. Kenxxx made a list of rare and unique parts of TH, and in that list you will see that TH shares many rare parts with recently retired sets such as GE. So a simple reason for TH retirement now is because the company has ran out of these rare pieces and it does not make business sense to make a small batch just for TH. Also TH is not exactly making an early retirement. This set has been around for more than 2 years and the quantity of the rare parts were probably planned and decided on many months back. So once the last batch of TH is produced, the retirement is baked.

First we have to look at the target customers. Buyers of exclusives probably aren't the ones who throw away LEGO, they are more aware. And you are placing too much emphasis on TH. You have to look at the information structure here. Investors monitor LEGO and are looking closely enough. What the Average Joe sees are eBay listings. They won't dig down to the source of the prices (TH retirement or whatever). He just sees that retired exclusive LEGO is expensive. He draws the conclusion that it's worth buying large LEGO and heads to the store or buys pricier sets than he wanted to initially. This strategy is not based around the single TH. If LEGO does this just often enough to hold up average secondary market exclusive prices they can manipulate Average Joe into spending. It's not the investors' perception LEGO wants to manipulate. After all they are riding on the same wave. It's the people we sell to. High secondary market prices are already in the social media and even some of my Hungarian acquaintances who are parents are buying exclusives because of that. And they did not hear this from me.

Maybe LEGO retired the Town Hall to mess with the minds of resellers. You must realize that LEGO is very aware of secondary market values. They would like to see their products viewed as valuable and collectible. Constantly re-releasing sets would hurt secondary market values, thus reducing the perceived value of new LEGO sets. If people pay big dollars for retired sets, they are more willing to pay big dollars for new sets. One hand washes the other.

Wouldn't it be cool to go 30 years in the future and buy the "official 2045 edition brickpicker's almanac" to see which sets will have appreciated the most?

At first, I was thinking Town Hall was retiring for a few reasons already stated: price point made it the slow seller of the group, too much shelf space, etc. Then I started to think about production costs, part number reduction, etc: according to Brickset, Town hall has several "rare" bricks... part numbers used only in Town Hall, or used in only a few other sets (many of which are already retired, or who's days are numbered). If they dropped the Town Hall, they could drop quite a few part numbers. Looking at part numbers shared with less than 3 other sets, I found: 6000644 shared only with Arkham Asylum 6022319 shared only with Santa

Would have been better (cooler) to have a LotR chess set. They did miss that opportunity.

Ahhh, gotcha. Oh well. Win some, lose some you are still way ahead of the game. It could be worse, could be this guy

Edited out the obscenities......calm down its a just a toy.

The Town Hall could have been "retired" for multiple reasons...Big Box...High MSRP...Slow sales...Expensive pieces...Think back a year ago, few cared at all for this set and didn't want one. A few like myself, liked the set and knew it would sell well one day when people woke from their "Fire Brigade and Grand Emporium Daze." The "Big is Best" belief in the LEGO world and that is a reason for the recent upsurge in prices. This set is somewhat unique and large in comparison to the other Modulars. It is now somewhat rare, a great combo for LEGO secondary success. If LEGO chose to make another production run of this set it would be a waste of time and hurt their future sales. That would send a major negative message to the LEGO secondary market that LEGO will reproduce a set for short term gain. LEGO and its decision makers are smart people and value the collectibility of LEGO sets. They even market it. LEGO walks a fine line of producing sets for kids, their main source of sales, and mixing some adult collector sets to appease AFOLs and the secondary market. They obviously are doing a great job from the looks of their sales. LEGO likes the secondary market, but just doesn't want to promote that fact, We help keep their product valuable in the eyes of millions of fans. A last point...think back when LEGO's sales and profits started to explode. It was about the same time eBay and Bricklink took off and LEGO reselling began to prosper and grow.

did know where to post this exactly, but i just wanted to let my bros over here know that I just picked up 3 Lego Millennium Falcon's for 67.95$ at the Disney store in my mall. Gooooooooo!

picked up 3 Millenium Falcons for 67.95$ each at Disney Store.

Hey I'm offering 30% off $1,000 sale Cash only local pickup. Need some GG money

He's asking eBay prices on Craigslist. Also many of those sets can still be easily be found at retail, both online and in B&M stores. Errr. Buy them all that's from Pseudoty ;)

Still needs some work but it is my Beach Hut Modular MOC Pictures will probably be sideways

Broken down Chevy on the front yard? Classic. Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Brickpicker mobile app

It's really a new niche. The closest thing to compare them to are probably the City House/Corner sets. They really have mixed results. http://www.brickpicker.com/bpms/set.cfm?set=7641-1 http://www.brickpicker.com/bpms/set.cfm?set=7993-1 http://www.brickpicker.com/bpms/set.cfm?set=7993-1 This is the kind of MOC I need to represent my neighborhood.

Built the mixer again with the kids today. Great set, lots of figures, great build. Very much looking forward to the ferris wheel.

Analysis may have flaws but see my post... http://community.brickpicker.com/topic/87-10224-town-hall/?p=354695

Rockefeller Center NBC Promo I have never seen one of these anywhere else and I thought I did a pretty thorough internet search for it. It is a standard Rock Center set that was purchased by NBC. They added a promotional sticker to cover the base plate that has the NBC logo and "Rock Center with Brian WIlliams" on it. I obtained it for free from an employee that I know at an NBC affiliate station who is not at all into lego, so I don't doubt that it was released by NBC. I have just never seen another one mentioned anywhere. There is one ebay listing for it, which was mine that I sold last year just to see what it would bring. It didn't do much different than the standard set, but I wasn't expecting much from it. I do still have another one of them. Just wondering if anyone else has run into one before.

Picked up my first Parisian Restaurant with EBay bucks. One of the few exclusives I could find around retail at the moment. $160 shipped

just download your defect report in a few days and make sure it doesn't pull up on the list (have an X in the 1,2,3 DSR column). That is something they could remove the defect from if by some chance he did leave one.

Ok, have to update with pics. Went out and was able to get the box set for $20. I took pictures of some mini figs that definitely don't belong to the box set (Futuron, M-tron and Blacktron). Where do I start with this? This is my first lego craigslist buy. While I was there I also bought the tinker toy set for $8. I left and he called me back and said he found more Legos! Of course I drove back and he handed me the bin and said have a great night! Great guy! $0.

I found a getaway glider for $6.48 at one of my targets

Interesting... NetBricks people (lego rental service) bought Forrest Police 4440 (99+shipping credit) and tecnic helicopter 9396 (139.99+shipping credit) from me. Also sold for $40+shipping credit mini camper poly to some Chinese person via forwarding service. And racer 42000 for a 199 + shipping credit

Tuck these away and forget about them for a year or two.

i placed another one once the one week wait period was up. I doubt they will ban you as long as you are not circumventing their limits .

wow thanks, you just made my co-worker's daughter very happy! thanks for the scouting report!

I finally jumped on the microfighter bandwagon and got the millennium falcon and x-wing together for $12

The Tupperware is just to distract you from what he has in the back corner on a dish rag cart, that ain't no TB ;)

Perhaps town hall sales were not very good and that is all there was to it

TH might come back for a little anyway, I am referring generally to truly retired sets. And yeah, early retirement of TH in itself doesn't change much. But I emphasised on the repeated aspect of this action. R2 fits in. And Average Joe will notice the drop in the prices and interest. For LEGO to succeed in this strategy it has to keep the secondary market healthy and alive and most importantly well performing. Why does LEGO want to limit hoarding in my opinion? Not because it doesn't want us to make profits or fears we are competition. On the contrary! It wants to see limited supply on the secondary market so prices can soar high! We are not exactly a competition because those who buy overpriced retired stuff most likely buy new releases as well. High secondary market prices are important for LEGO! It wants enough supply to be noticed and constantly on the market but little enough to keep the price high. Until now those prices were high without any action from LEGO. However LEGO figured out the workings of the market obviously and realised it has to become proactive because hoarding became excessive to endanger high prices, thus indirectly the increased perceived value. Random retirements of some exclusives here and then just might be enough to preserve this dynamic.

1 Hr. 45 Mins to sort Book 1/4 completed in 2 Hr. 25 Mins. Total 4 Hours and 10 mins. I'm tired...that's enough Lego building for one night. Overall, pretty awesome build so far. Really enjoying it. This is only the smaller (steps) side of the Opera House. Thing is gonna be massive.

No worries. You can always return some sets in 90 days. storage never seems to be a problem at your place when return polices are offered. Ha.

Nothing happens at 80mph, you have to get that baby up to 88mph.

I heard from a Lego employee that when a Lego Delorean hits 80mph, it triggers a switch in Lego HQ to restart Town Hall production. Unfortunately, I don

Alot of people aren't considering the future and even present demand from buyers in Canada, Australia, Korea, and Japan etc. I've sold some sets over the last few weeks to those countries and it's pretty easy to ship to Kentucky. The demand will be there from people just getting into Lego or buying from the US on Ebay to ship overseas and sell in their own shops over there. I know because I've sold to 3 different asian investors already.

GE is my personal most hoarded set - i have 20 (21 counting the one i built) and after seeing the GE is the most hoarded set overall and likely purchased at msrp, it is pretty hard to see any point to buying over msrp except to build. its not like there are 10 of these selling every day - more like 1 or 2 per day on ebay and probably similar numbers on amazon with some days with no sales. so say there are somewhere like 6000 sets hoarded - just a guess for the point of discussion - if there are 4 total selling on ebay and amazon every day x 365 days a year = 1460 new ge's sold a year - so it will take 4 years for that amount to sell. most investors won't want to wait that long and will get out sooner than later which will also depress the appreciation curve. so you are going to be waiting a long time before the price gets to where you will be making anything more than like 10 or 20 dollars for your time and risk if you bought it over msrp or making accepting 10% profit. there are so many other non-hoarded $149+ sets out there that have EOL in their not to distant future that will perform better than a GE purchased well over msrp. the boat has sailed.

In Soviet Russia inventory ask about YOU!

I maintain my brickfolio like a monk. Not sure if everyone does that.

Downtown Disney has on sale for $112. They had 16 when i walked in. 12 when i walked out. Limit of 5.

Sold a Ninjago Fang-Suei clock. (Finally!) I was jumping around the house and my wife was looking at me funny. (I think some of you can relate to that joy.)

I finally got around to building this set. It's just so...big. When I was 25% done, one could have thought I was building The Bat from the last film. Gotta love the wheels. The kids were around on and off during the build (over 2 days with many stoppages) so I couldn't do a build review. It's a nice set. Just be sure to not move it much since it's on the fragile (it must be Italian , Christmas Story joke) side. The side fenders that extends from the front to the side windows fall off easily. The upper brake flaps don't bother me as much as they are in an area seldom touched. Things do tend to fall apart inside when moving the vehicle around by the sides. Getting those can be a pain since the cockpit openings are narrow. I'll post more in a review, in the meantime, here is a web found comparison pic between 7888 and 76023. 7888 is minifig scaled and kinda large itself.

This post is exactly why i think (most) LOTR will do well, but not until they're all gone. Future buyers won't care whether something was once 29 on clearance, they'll see a set with 600 pieces and exclusive figures, and they'll figure well that was 69 retail, and i can't find it anywhere so i'm stuck paying 99 (or much more). As to the point about it being clearanced because it didnt sell well.............THAT"S GREAT for future sales. If it didnt sell well, that means there's less of them out there in the wild. I WILL agree that many of the LOTR sets lack cool display ability that star wars sets have. Lego seems to translate best to vehicles and buildings, but not vast expanses of walking (LOTR burn right there). Many of the LOTR locations are not distinctive enough, or far too big to capture in brick. I do think that they make up for that with outstanding mini figs. And as i mentioned, i'm not saying the whole line will do well, but many will. So combine a line that has 75 years worth of fans (thus far), a line that likely was not produced in huge numbers (since we're all saying it didnt sell well), and has fans with disposable income. My LOTR was all purchased at between 25-70% off so i can break even right now even after fees, shipping, etc. I'm not trying to convince any of you guys to buy from me, My future customers are hopefully working on their website or waiting in line for the Hobbit, or perfecting their elf ear prosthetics right now. ANYTHING but reading this forum and realizing they can get amazing LOTR legos for less than retail right now, but will have to pay 2x that 2 years from now.

Can you share how you're looking this up?

Orc- I think you are my favorite poster, and I say that very sincerely. When everyone else is rushing and bustling over EOL sets and the "big" exclusives, you continue to give extraordinary perspective and information on the entire scope of what TLG is producing. Seriously, thank you. Your posts remind me that it's nice to step back on occasion and appreciate everything Lego is doing. I enjoy making cash here... but greatly admire TLG as a company, and I think you contribute more to the board regarding the entire spectrum of what Lego is currently offering than any other poster. Thank you.