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Showing content with the highest reputation on 08/31/2015 in all areas
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We are working on a Daily Deals feature to help build new ways of keeping up with the deals. Keeping the Daily Deals all in one thread has been great. Sure the thread will get big, but based on feedback, we have 200+ members getting responses daily. One of my pet peeves for the daily deals is that members post great tips and tidbits but on most occasions, never post a direct link. What we would like to do is continue to enhance this system to give credit where credit is do and reward people for putting in the effort. If you look at the editor, there is now a yellow/orange dollar sign button for posting a deal. This will display a window where you can post the link to the deal. The link is the most important thing. Don't worry about affiliate codes or anything, we will take care of that. Just post the link. If there is a price and percent savings, please enter in those values. Don't need to enter in dollar signs or percent signs. We will work on getting the format correct. What this will do is go out, grab the title of the item, a photo of the item (for most popular stores, may not work in all places) automatically for you. Also, it will insert the information into a separate database that I will get into shortly. What you will get is an entry that will something like this. This example may not be an awesome deal, but for those that are great posts, you can click that and it will count to give that poster some credit. Over time, we will be able to see who is posting the most deals, who is finding the most awesome deals and find ways to thank them for helping everyone benefit. As I mentioned earlier, there is a new page on the forum http://community.brickpicker.com/daily-deals This will just display the actual deals that were post. Kind of summary of what products have been on discount or in stock, etc. Again, we will come up with more identifiers and filters, but for know we just want to start testing the actual system and see how its working and fix up the design. The more that people use this feature, the more we will be able to do to get you the deal the information in different formats. There are a lot of directions we can go in when the data is stored like this. Next week, we will most likely have an update that will allow you to pick a country that the deal is in so that you will be able to start filtering out deals via country, or retailer, etc. This feature is available in any forum, it is not just there in the Daily Deals thread. You can post a deal anywhere. We will also have a searchable feature coming that will allow you to search the current live deals and just insert that deal and not make a duplicate one. Hopefully you like the start of this. I feel it come become something very cool for the site. Thank you10 points
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This weekend: My last Family House for $98 shipped on eBay (loved that Target sale last winter), a Logging Truck for $57 shipped on Amazon, a few more Winter Soldiers ($17 shipped, eBay), and a "retro" pirate in a box. On a side note, I didn't post on this thread for most of my first year because I felt it was too much ego. Here's why I changed my mind: it's helpful for other BPers to know how much sets are currently getting. Thanks to everyone who contributes to the community.10 points
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8 points
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I read this thread so I can get annoyed by how much people spend on Amazon for items I sell for much cheaper on eBay8 points
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Wall-E for $114.95 on amazon. Person lived 2 states away and shipping was under $6. Santa's Workshop $119.95 also on amazon.6 points
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And here I am wasting my precious time trying to find out people's opinion on retiring/EOL sets6 points
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There is one thing LEGO investors and resellers fear more than getting banned from Shop at Home: set re-releases. As you all know, LEGO production runs for a particular set is limited to a period between a few months to several years. Once the set hits the end of its life, investors expect never to see that set again at retail price and reap the benefits of secondary market demand and price increases. While in the vast majority of cases this is the norm, every once in a while LEGO decides it is time to bring a previously released set back into the primary market. Re-releases are usually improved versions of the previous set including new building techniques, pieces and exclusive minifigures. While the re-birth of previously retired sets can bring happiness to collectors that previously missed out, the opposite is usually true when it comes to investors. The possibility of buying a newer version for retail diminishes the need for collectors to pay higher secondary market prices, resulting in a decrease in demand and the expected price decrease. Investors dump the old set quickly in order to secure a small profit or to cut their losses; market reaches equilibrium. Up until fairly recently, re-releases had been limited to smaller or mid-range play sets like Jabba’s Sail Barge. The impact of the newer version is easily observed in the graph below: While this kind of issue annoyed re-sellers, it was what came after that really started worrying them: the re-release of an Ultimate Collector’s Series set; the 10240 X-Wing. Somewhat different from the original model, this was LEGO’s first attempt to re-releasing one of the largest and most expensive sets in the secondary market. This issue has hurt the original version, 7191, significantly over the last couple of years; a 2 year and 1 year Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of -4.27 and -25.34 percent respectively according to the latest Brickpicker data. Despite the negative impact of the newer release, the original UCS X-Wing is still up over 500 percent of its original retail price. The serious collector is more than likely the source of demand for this set at the moment, which coupled with the relative scarcity has provided a price floor for 7191. After the re-release of a UCS set, LEGO had opened the door to similar actions in the future. A lot of investors commented that this would be the beginning of the end of LEGO investing the way we knew it, and decided to make adjustments to their long-term investment strategy. Enter the Winter Village holiday theme, one of the most admired and popular production lines in LEGO’s arsenal. So far, LEGO has consistently released one new set per year on this line, while keeping no more than 2 on the shelves in any particular holiday season. Consequently, LEGO retires one Winter Village themed set per year, making it one of the most easily predictable retirements out there. As investors, you can quickly understand why something like this would be appealing: shorter production runs limited to a few months of each year, somewhat concrete retirement dates and huge popularity with collectors are factors we all would like to see more when investing in LEGO. Not surprisingly, the performance of the Winter Village theme has been quite stellar, as you can easily tell from the charts below: Those are not only some really nice looking sets, but also pretty good investment returns. Now, the real issue: LEGO recently announced the new release for this year’s holiday season, the Winter Village Toy Shop (2.0). From the pictures, you can see that in this case the company took re-releases to a whole new level by only slightly changing the previous model. Basically, we ended up with the same exact set as 2009 with very minimal cosmetic alterations, in addition to suggesting to move the Christmas tree to the complete opposite side of the display. If you are a frequent visitor to the site’s forums, you will remember the uproar this release caused with investors and collectors alike. On one hand, it hurt investors that still held the previous version, while on the other it hugely disappointed collectors that expected to be able to add a new structure to their Winter Village town. What immediately followed the announcement was not really hard to predict: dozens of new listings for 10199 popped up on eBay and other selling venues from sellers trying to realize their gains. The priced dropped very quickly, as sellers undercut each other hoping to get rid of the inventory way before the newer Toy Shop hit the shelves in a couple weeks. Why would LEGO do this with so many different potential buildings that still can be added to the Winter Village town? I can think of a few potential reasons: The Winter Village Toy Shop is perhaps the most popular set of the entire WV line. The sales numbers on eBay seem to indicate that the Toy Shop sells the best in the entire line, with the Winter Village Bakery being a close second. LEGO determined that demand for a Toy Shop release increased with the release of last year’s Santa’s Workshop. Collectors that purchased the set last year may now be more likely to purchase a place for all of those freshly made toys to be sold. Being the older of the WV sets, the company determined it to be cost effective to bring it back with a few modifications and focus their efforts on other popular lines. Think Episode VII sets coming in the next few months. We probably will never know the actual reasons executives at TLG decided to go with a re-release instead of a completely new concept, but the reasons above make some sense to me. Now, does this mark the beginning of the end of the Winter Village line excellent secondary market performance? I honestly don’t believe so. Rarely we will find another theme that is so easily predictable as far as production runs and retirement dates, and even if LEGO re-released every single set every 4 years, by that time most of the post EOL price appreciation would have taken place anyway. The key with this line will be, in my opinion, to hold the sets for a shorter time period, say 2 years, and sell to realize the gains. Why run the risk of this happening again when we already have proof that LEGO is willing to bring the older sets back? Thanks for reading.5 points
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Yay! I just received a confirmation that I won! Happy Monday!4 points
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besides the daily deal thread, this is the most useful thread on brickpicker. sometimes i even hesitate to post on this thread because inevitably it means more competition, but all of our investment futures in plastic bricks are somewhat stuck together so sharing info is useful. lame pun totally intended. from your post i know its time to start selling some Winter Soldier's. also heads up - you can still find the Logging Trucks for $16.99 at stop and shop grocery stores in the northeast. snagged 8 in rhode island on drive back from cape cod last friday.4 points
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Picked up my very first sealed CMF box! If you check out the price tag, they had no intention of opening it.3 points
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I very much appreciate the time people take on here to list their sales. Recently sold various 3 pack tribes of Mixels series 2 $33 Willis Tower $48 Forest Police Station $92 30271 TMNT polybags in bulk for ~$5.25 a piece 7065 Alien Ship $49 (slow sellers but at a buy in at $15)3 points
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Yes, and just sold an Olivia's House for $110 and I'm buried on page 3 of the seller list.3 points
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Bla bla bla, SOH, bla bla bla, MSC, bla bla bla, PS bla bla bla. There - all done, I mean poofed.3 points
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Built WALL-E today - he looks awesome and I like the orange/yellow brick colors. As previous reviews have stated the neck IS a problem and mine will crash forward with slight touch. Thankfully LEGO is sending replacement parts for the forward leaning part. Unfortunately his head still swings around so I created a fix for my model - I know it won't be popular and I am not suggesting others do this - but it worked great for me: I put a tiny piece of scotch tape around the end of the technic pin which creates much more friction and now the head can look to the side and up without turning and facing backwards. In the end I am a little disppointed the set was released like this but in the end I am OK with my fix and the new parts coming will be interesting to see....2 points
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2 points
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This is the very reason I don't mind posting here. Amazon LOTR: Orc Forge - $98 Dragon Mountain - $85 Mars Rover - $155 Star Wars Y-Wing - $135 Friends: Olivia's Newborn Foal - $27 (horses are still alive) LOTR: Shelob Attacks - $68 In the past, it has been better to post as a lot and cheaper to ship. I see the price creeping up on Amazon for Two-Face now. I may send the rest in for the holiday rush, rather than lot'ing them out until they are gone on EBay.2 points
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3 Zombie Businessman, 3 Plant, and 5 crazy scientists per case. Zombie businessman is one of the harder ones to identify. Crazy Scientist is pretty easy once you find the beaker, which is fairly easy to identify. The plant guy has one of the larger heads, and if you find a bag with a large head, it's either Squarefoot or Plant guy. Smooshing at first is quite intimidating, especially when it's a brand new line and it's your first round. But once you know what you are looking for it becomes relatively easy and gets to the point, where you can just grab a bag, and be Carnac as Magnificant and instantly know by the first touch of a head piece, or the accessory. I think I could pretty much hit an entire case, and have it identified within 15 minutes at this point. I've already smooshed through about 100 monster bags so far.2 points
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Unbelievable. I say it every time a MOC of this size is posted and it's that I'm amazed at the creative ability of some people out there. I could never do this with an unlimited supply of Lego. This would actually make a pretty cool theme for Lego to work with. Might have missed the window on these movies, but they could have made some cool dragons and buildings from the movies.2 points
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Was at my local target today and on the shelf was 3x 75104 (Kylo Ren's command Shuttle). I went to check out and the computer gave the don't sell till 9/4. The cashier called over the supervisor over and the sup apologized and said they couldn't sell it but they could put it on hold for me. I said no thanks. On a better note, I found in the clearance section 70010- lion chi temple 40% off and 70006- Cragger’s Command Ship for 70% off.2 points
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Isn't it? The system denied us too... but these folks REALLY wanted my money, unlike TRU. I asked for nothing, but they bent over backward to make the sale from the moment I hauled it all to the counter. Yeah. Without asking what was in the back, lol. I honestly think it was employee ignorance. As above, the system wanted to obey its Lego Overlord. Then we won't discuss the extra discount for waiting around an extra 40 minutes for them to figure out how to sell them to me... Just smile and act baffled, folks. It works wonders sometimes! Sadly none of these three sets impress me. Cody is OK, the red on the TIE is pretty cool, that's about it. If I was Ultra QFLL they'd all be gone by now (and I'd probably be in a Billund jail by next week). But who's complaining?2 points
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For those that missed out on this set, don't worry, it will be back in a few years.2 points
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Thanks for your reminder, I almost forget about this set... Now is the time to dig them out from my inventory.1 point
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This set has appreciated nicely in the last 6 weeks. Pretty consistent sales at $100; not a bad short-term flip if you bought in at $55 during the TRUTH/20% discount days back in the Spring. Bundled with 4203 and a few others, this may be a $200 sale this Xmas.1 point
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Oh, of course! I feel foolish now, know all about the RedCard. The magic has just worn off1 point
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Even though the Falcon set is the most expensive of the bunch, i think that will be the one most sought after. It will have the most likely "last" version of Han if you take my meaning. That alone will drive this up significantly after the movie. Obviously, the sets with Kylo and Phasma will be the next sought after simply because of being cool villains. Honestly, after seeing what Hasbro is bringing to the table, i think ALL of them will do well overall. The Hasbro ships are terribly scaled and are made of rubbery plastic that warps and are expensive for what you actually get. For example, the Lego Poe's X-Wing blows Hasbro's out of the water in every way. So while some may be slow at first, i think every set in this wave will do well in the long haul.1 point
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I'm not hedging my bets by gobbling up $150 Falcons, no way.1 point
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I was away last week so didn't get around to checking on the transfer. Every last US cent I transferred from PayPal showed up in my RBC account! Sweet .. too bad the dollar is so crappy right now (traveling to the US next week for work) but maybe it'll turn around. Wish I had discovered this about 2 months ago when I transferred a much larger sum of US dollars to my CDN account. Ah well.. live and learn.1 point
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This is the only reason I look at this thread. It's a great barometer for timing. Thanks on the Family House info. It may be time to start unloading.1 point
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It seems like the Clark Kent and Batzarro are roughly equivalent in value to Trickster. Bricklink shows that you can get them for about $14 - $15, with the average on Clark creeping up to $18-$19. I'll bet that there's some Walmarts with stock of the first DVD still hanging around. Like that Padawan Menace that came with Ian, That one made it to their $5 bin amd the minifig prices reflect it. Medal Ceremony Vader is also easilyfound in the $14 - $15 range However, Blue Coat Bilbo was a limited Target exclusive pack in, and his average price on bricklink shows about $50-$65 with outliers in both directions. WHile the Bain son of bard that was more widely available is more like $16-$17. On another hand, there's also Iron Patriot who was a limited pack in with LEGO Marvel Super Heroes at Walmart, and his values have stabilized around $25. I think we can probably blame the supply of knock offs for that.1 point
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What's not masculine about building/playing LEGO??? Also: Why these genderism all of a sudden?1 point
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Many thanks one and all. I will try to keep finding more of these remixes as they come along like this classic space train. 6990 Redux by nolnet1 point
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Would have loved to see an official Lego line when the 1st movie came out!1 point
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I never picked up on this thread either. It's awesome. Definitely some great revisions here.1 point
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I've been bitten by the building bug pretty bad and built a few sets in the past couple days but I will take it easy and start with 70817 Batman & Super Angry Kitty Attack. Well there isn't much of a set to build really considering it is simply two minifigures, Angry Kitty, and another unique Micro-Manager. What is there was nice though. This classic Batman, despite having the same (most) everything from just a couple years back, could be my own favorite among the growing army of Batmen for the special facial expressions. The cheshire grin across one side cracks me up every time as I hear Will Arnett's voice giving the traditional "I'm Batman" line in the back of my mind. (His head is exclusive to the set by the way and so is the trans-black 1x1 circle tile used on his nifty yet bulky grapple gun.) Super Angry Kitty is, well, super angry to the point of giving The Hulk a run for his money. The Robo Skeleton is awesome for more reasons than I could think of right now one of which droids are just awesome and I want an army. Another being it is quite possibly the closest we will ever get to see a Terminator esque character in LEGO form which just adds to the army building exercise. That is more than enough jabbering on just the figures I think so on towards the Micro-Manager which turns out to be filled with play features between the decently flexible claw arms, a couple flick-fire missiles (that work well as any other), and at the push of a lever the thing blows it top literally. Okay a couple of plates shaping the head fly off basically. Overall I found the set to yield a solid selection of parts (a handful are limited to exclusive) and the only deterrent with getting multiples would be ending up with a lot of Batmen which already was a problem with acquiring any one DC Super Heroes set. I can imagine a few creative uses with Super Angry Kitty's parts well as the Micro-Manager's and you already know where I stand on the Robo Skeleton.1 point
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Well this builder has already come up with some nice MOCs using these monsters. Up To Their Old Tricks Feed Me! The Cheerleader1 point
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Hey flipping them without question was my intentions today, but I tried to get them to override and they wouldn't do it. Take the money and run. Star Wars fans can be fanatical with unleashing their cash to be the first in line to get something.1 point
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Multiples of several Amazon.com Mars Curiosity Rover - $155 Ninjago Temple of Light - $100 Castle Dragon Mountain - $85 Ninjago Kai's Fire Mech - $27 Friends Stephanie's Outdoor Bakery - $16 EBay Creator Family House - $100 Creator Apple Tree House - $90 Creator Hillside House - $120 SW: Republic Gunship - $1901 point
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