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There was a brief(ish) moment that some members were getting under my skin but I've done a lot of thinking and realized how awesome this entire community is and my attitude was not reflective of how I feel about this forum and it's members. I'm good now!

My buddy (AFOL, not an investor) wanted my help to prep and sell his Imperial Flagship (10210, with box and instructions). Spent about 2 hours taking pics, cleaning, and disassembling. Listed it as a BIN on eBay for $499. We're very good friends, he said to just give him $380 when it sold, I'd keep the rest for eBay fees, shipping, paypal, and my time and use of my account. Well, the kit is fabulous, as most folks know. He owed my $100 for a Rush ticket purchase last month, and I said, why don't I just give you $280 and we call it all even? He was thrilled. Can't wait to rebuild this, especially since I just carefully washed all the parts. Here's a few of the parts drying out before sorting.

I was as awesome then as I am now Check out this pearl of wisdom:

M:Tron Magnet Factory by Blake Foster

There is difference between growth and a good return. GDP can grow at 0.01% or 2.7%. Both are growth. You don't have to stick with the low return.

As others have noted, it greatly helps to know what you have. You can also create smaller bundles (20x super heroes sets, 20x City sets for Tabbyboy, 20x winter sets) and this can help keep your value higher and minimizing the number of transactions. Definitely use Brickclassified as if you got your sets significantly on sale as there may be members looking to buy some of your sets and it would be effortless.

My normal method of building is to sit down and build a set until it's finished, marathon building if you will. I've decided to take a different approach when I started the Parisian restaurant. I've been building a little bit at a time and I think I'm enjoying this style more. I've been at it for about a week and I just finished the bottom floor. I'm impressed so far.

Sold two mixel series 1 black sets for $35.49 on ebay. Sent from my XT1095 using Brickpicker mobile app

Hey man if the UCS DS Storage Box has gone EOL, the DS will follow for sure... That's the kind of inside information I've been waiting for.

Just to play devil's advocate.... Look at what the new 75020 Sail Barge has done to drive down prices of the original 6210 Sail Barge and most people agree that the old Sail Barge looks better, more true to the movie, etc but the new Sail Barge has far superior minifigs. Same thing might happen to the MF.

Can you imagine if in the final scene of the new movie, the camera slowely pans down, the ominous music increases, then BOOM! New Death Star!

Yep. Paypal noticed something fishy about the payment. It may or may not be something to worry about. Just hang on and let Paypal sort this out before mailing the item

Shouldn't you be happy ? People dumping now = less competition 1 year from now ?

Think of it this way, we all pick our long term winners. This is a good set and I could have waited it out, but it is no long term winner for me. My R2 and TH is. I decided to take funds from this as part of cash to buy up 50 Creative Tower's. I am clearing at least $25 per creative tower. Yes I could sit on them till Christmas and make a lot more but I want the quick flip. My buy in was about $31 each including tax. So I spent $1,550, and two weeks later I am down to single digits remaining on the creative tower, should sell out this week, maybe today, and have made at least $1,250 on the $1,550 investment. i wish I would have bought 200 of them looking back. Now I can take the $2,700 ish and go plow it into something else. Maybe more ToO or Red Five or something else. The helms deep was not generating the type of return I wanted and while I love LOTR I just don't see this commanding the $ of the other sets long term. There is no right or wrong. Each has our own style. But this was my reason to dump. At the time I dumped I did not know the towers would come along but I knew something would and they did along with many other great finds I have been either turbo flipping or stashing away for the long haul. Us dumping may make your long term hold even better for you I hope.

I had bought several of these at MSRP. I love LOTR and Helm's Deep but I recently moved out all but one for me made 10% and called it a day. The cash went into buying 50 Creative Tower's which I have almost finished turbo flipping and am very happy on the time return investment on it and will take the proceeds and plow into something else. Sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you. (I am stocking up on ToO by the way) For me the Kenny Rogers song know when to fold them was playing on the set and glad I did but to each their own

The fan base for this theme isn't going away. These sets will bring good money, it will just be slower growth than other themes.

Comparing performance over the short term of retired sets doesn't really work because sets behave differently now. Good sets pop immediately and then seem to level off for a while followed by slow growth. Older sets would increase more steadily for a longer time. I would attribute that to the same thing that happened with 41999. Investors buy them up and push the price up. Your average buyer doesn't immediately know that they missed their chance for a Town Hall or R2 at retail so they don't have a lot of reason to buy as soon as something sells out.

I just visited the same meijer and the lone Lonely Mountain is now 3. The new ones have a seal code of 05R5 and they are on sale for $97.

The best is when their failure to use a signal almost causes a wreck and they get angry at you for what they caused. Like we are all psychic and know where you are going

Absolutely, more and more resellers have found the modular line. That said, and here's what interesting, each retired modular from GG on has done BETTER at each stage of its lifecycle. Here's where the modulars sat 5 months and 14 months after EOL: 5 mo. 14 mo. GG: $190, $280 FB: $250, $400 GE: $300, ******/a TH: $500, ******/a I agree 100% more folks are hoarding, yet we're seeing better results. I personally think this is from 2 causes: more buyers and AFOL in general (thank you, Lego Movie!), and sales to recent investors. I don't see any reason PS and PC won't follow the general trend of FB/GE. They won't be another TH, unless TLC pulls the plug on PC early.

I can't argue with your logic but with each modular more and more hoarding is taking place which I'm certain has some affect on secondary market prices.

Go for the pet shop. It's been out twice as long as the cinema. Better yet just buy both if you can.

Your concern is valid on paper, but I do not place much weight in it. You know 94.7%* of all buyers are too lazy or not interested in bricklinking a set. This set will continue to climb at a solid rate. I would not be shocked to see this hit $500 this year. * I like to make up numbers.

Set #7646 Alien Infiltrator http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?S=7646-1

I do buy a ton of makeup these days. and... My prior vehicle was a Jeep Grand Cherokee...... Which fun fact of the day is driven by more females then males by far. The gap puts it at the number one vehicle for gender difference. Crap. I'm going to the gym to listen to Pantera and lift heavy things.

I think the comment was intended that is anything that burns fossil fuels really "good for the environment." "Better than the alternatives" might be a little closer to reality. The TDIs are really nice engines. I could do without the Jetta around it though.

Yeah 30 til cancelled with make offer is what I use for anything over $50. Under $50 I dont add the make offer part. I normally add 10% to my price when I have the best offer available. Some people get a real kick out of saving a buck with the best offer but most of the time I get that extra 10%. One last thing if you have a lot of the same item dont list all of them at once. Keep the quantity low as people seem to pay more for an item when they think they might miss out on the deal.

I'll drink a cocktail made with their tears. They have been warned thousands of time. Let's have fun, enjoy our trip and forget about the ones who stayed on the quay.

Intergalactic Laundry Day by Wami Delthorn

What happened? This was mine but I traded it for Lego

Everything appears to be a dud when still available at retail. Amazing what a few months of retirement will do.

those were the days

I know I sell multiple items to the same buyers sometimes, as well as others. I'll wait until they sell and then package & ship, just for this reason.

Price @ Amazon is $385.. pretty nice performance so far

Walmart 3x 70816 Bennys Spaceship for $49ea 1x 76021 Milano for $35 1x 10569 Duplo Treasure Attack for $9 BN 1x 21005 Fallingwater $66.xx after 20% off coupon, 10% off member and a holiday $10 GC they sent me. The manager said no coupon on Lego. I said it says in the Toys and Games not the Hobbies section where the Architect sets are located. She put it through while grumbling under her breath. K-Mart Found two series 1 Mixels for $5ea.

Just wanted to share an update since you were all so helpful in getting me started. Here's how things stand since I posted this cry for help exactly one month ago: Total profit since I started in January - $714.89 QFFL inventory on hand - $737.28 Long terms holds - $647.87 (my plan is to use my profit to invest in these kinds of sets; rinse and repeat; trying to build a self sustaining business) My long term holds are at present are: ToO x 2 WVM x 2 I'm saving up to buy the EEE before it retires I think. Thanks for helping a newbie out. My next big challenge is navigating to EOL purchase and resale bit.

Finally sold my limited crawler 4x4 for $379 shipped. I lost my opportunity to sell for $400+ after the initial craze so I was content waiting for it to rise back up some. I'm sure it has more room to go but my hold strategy has changed a bit.

I have the trigger finger ready to sell my remaining 7965s when the new pics get leaked. Of course, that could increase the hold factor x10 if it's underwhelming or under 1000 pieces.

Of course it is. Don't you know how hard it is to drive an SUV with a cellphone on the left ear and a greasy right hand (thanks to the yummy egg mcmuffin) ?

They do have a point. I was drawn to this set as I want to give it to a friend that is crazy about Alladin and when I looked closer at it, I found it very disappointing to give an Alladin set without an Alladin :-| The price-tag of 26.99

I just noticed a more accidents this morning which I could not attribute to icy roads (temperature has been well above freezing the past few days) or sunlight (it was partly cloudy). Those drivers were dangerous enough without DST adding to their repertoire of excuses. -3 to me for misspelled words in my rants about DST :D

1. People who drive to work half asleep due to Daylight Saving time 2. People who invented AND approved the peace of **** called Daylight Saving Time

VW TDI Jetta=speed, good for the environment... really!? :D

Wal-Mart 4x GOTG: Milano - $11 each 4x GOTG: Milano - $20 each (random stop on the way to the mall with the family) 2x GOTG: Nowhere Escape - $25 each (same random stop) Target 3x Technic: Hot Rod - $19.98 each

Well said Trek. Interesting to to compare it to AA, both of which are doing very well. But the "Little Guy" much better... and neither one is officially retired. TH is in its own catengory due to the rug being yanked out beneath it. But R2 is in a class of his own. What a unique build. With the combination of Disney and J.J. Abrams behind Star Wars... there will be a film a year from now until the Biblical Apocalypse. Their formula is simple: a trilogy every other year: a SW character-centric film between. There was a time I believed the SW Lego theme to be "cooling off". The rising tide of these future films will lift all SW Lego "boats". This theme- and this set- are red-hot.

Of course it is still early (or not yet even) in the "EOL" stage for all sets in this theme but you are correct that overall it has not been too good investment-wise. By CAGR in the database, Shelob's Lair (25%) and Mirkwood Elf Army are the leaders thus far. Mirkwood Spiders has really taken off lately, Lake Town Chase got a huge bump over the holidays, and Unexpected Gathering is finally starting its inevitable climb as well. ToO speaks for itself. The first four are very roughly double MSRP on eBay last I checked. Why those? The minifigs tell the main story, if you ask me - especially after the final Hobbit movie. But to address your question, is any of this performance "good"? For the pair of wave 2 Hobbit sets, I would argue yes. They can still be found in the occasional Walmart for up to 50% off and are fetching ~4x that. But it really depends on when they plateau, of course. On the subject of minifigs, Lonely Mountain has five exclusive version minifigs in addition to the big fire-breathing star of the show, including the three dwarves that "matter" in the movie besides Thorin. Perhaps more importantly, it represents the point of the whole dang story from start to finish. For purists, very little of that other "5 armies" spectacle was in the book, and none of the Dol Guldur business. Of course this probably won't matter a great deal but it is something to think about long term. Helm's Deep is not a great comparison, in my opinion, though arguably the closest between the two sibling themes. It did do quite well initially after becoming unavailable, but plateau'd very quickly too. Holidays and all that... It only has 3 exclusive minifigs out of 8 total, by the way, two of which are comparable to the Lonely Mountain dwarves in terms of being "second tier" important characters. No super-villain-huge-awesome-guy to carry the set at all. And unlike Hulk, we know we will never see another Lego Smaug. Furthermore, despite a very solid design, Helm's Deep suffers from "lots of grey bricks" syndrome. The Lonely Mountain does not. It is colorful and therefore more unique. Finally, Helm's Deep is just not iconic enough to represent LotR the way Lonely Mountain represents The Hobbit. It is much more similar to Lake Town in many ways, story-wise. The difference being, it survives.. mostly. Now, had Sauron "lived" in Mount Doom, and THAT set been released, WITH him as a maxi-fig, we would have an ideal comparison product. I realize Unexpected Gathering is much easier to display, so it may be chosen "over" this set by many folks who don't give a rip about any of the rest of it. But I think the (personally predicted) difference in supply will more than make up for that in terms of the sets competing against each other. Another way to put it is that this set is to The Hobbit what Black Pearl was to PotC, or Hogwarts to Harry Potter (imagine if there had only been one version). Obviously I am not the first to draw those comparisons.

I'm actually super excited about this set. I just seriously don't understand people's negativity towards it. It's freaking deja vu like the Helicarrier. People did so much bitching and complaining about it, but look at it, it's selling like hot cakes. I've seen people complain about the build and that it looks boring. What would you exactly expect with 2 panels attached to a ball? It's like the TB. It's a simple build with 2 identical towers. But the finished product is absolutely amazing. It's also funny with people talking about the size. If they made it a $100 set with half the pieces, I wouldn't be surprised to see the same people complain that it was too small and for a UCS set, Lego would need to make it bigger. Luckily, it's just a very vocal minority that make it apparent online. This will be a day one purchase for me. I love everything Star Wars, and it'll be nice to have a Tie Fighter sitting next to the X-Wing on display along with all my other UCS sets. /2centcomment

Anyone who has a foot of snow where they live in May should consider relocating.

Thanks for making my life easier. Clicking "Like" is so much less work than writing all that