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Honestly, he had me at "walked in with a basket that has 16 pockets which I custom-made." I need a pic of this basket.

MIXELS!!! Lego Store in Jakarta had Mixels Series 2 discounted...under 2.00 USD each. Bought 'em all...had to make two trips...didn't have enough cash. Plus a couple of other things. Time to stash all this. My wife is pretty agreeable, But she would sh*t a brick. MORE CRAP!?!?!

The day has come, I sold my $400 ucs millennium falcon (10179) locally for $1,900. I made $1,500 on it, got a free ucs 1980's batmobile, and about 40 Star Wars minifigures. Part of me is sad to see it go but it went to some really nice people and it was worth it plus we all know Lego will remake it eventually so it was the right thing to do

This has to be a sign, right? I mean, how can I NOT go buy another Death Star today??

If you post a vid of you doing this and being a 100% on your smooshing, I'll donate a complete set to your cause!! Edit: that's in store with your fancy Murse and 15 boxes on the shelf.

Somewhere on a Fancy Watch forum somewhere, is a seller with a "buyer trying to scam me" story about an Amazon sale and UPS return that got "lost." Hope it all works out for everyone.

He just lost $10USD per hour writing that masterpiece.

"You might be a Brickpicker if..." Of course the irony here is that Lego simply WILL NOT "delete" the Death Star!

^ this explains why my last shipment from LEGO Shop at Home appeared to have been run over by a tractor

I would not be surprised if he developed a way to use his tongue to post while both hands were smooshing away

Just finished my third modular and second via bricklink. Spent a hair over $400 on it. Could have been cheaper but I stayed pretty true to the original except for the third floor windows. The front door, dark blue posts next to the doors, blue shirt minifig, and skis over the door were the priciest. I did end up with some extra doors so I can sell them to get it under $400... or do another one...

I do believe in the case where we're the seller and ship an item that is tracked as "delivered," it's not our fault if there's theft from their porch. Now I don't know how that applies in this case as a buyer returning an item, but it sounds to me like it's theft from the seller's property and shouldn't be your fault. UPS would probably say the same, "we did our part." In either case, I wish I married into your family. That's an amazing gift for a brother-in-law. I'd sooner get a Chima Fire Bike.

Head on over to the series 14 monsters thread, ChristopherJB posted a few tips that might help you!

I just read this entire thread and, up to your last post, thought you were going to get your money back. Really sucks, sorry to hear. I know you learned your lesson this time, but for everyone else out there, I always require signature confirmation/insurance if I have to return a high value item and the seller does not provide a return label. Sure, you will have to pay for both of those things, but you cover yourself against situations like this.

I have been ordering 1 tumbler every other month from shop at home with no issues. Same with the slave I. The month in between I order 1 of each from Amazon. This way I have been acquiring 1 of each set every month, and have been doing so since they were both released. Slow and steady, and I won't be playing the F5 game when these two beautiful sets retire. I only have 1 account and shipping address, and use the same credit card every time. Others may have had a different experience, but it's worked fine for me.

^This I prefer, so they don't throw it underneath the box of whatever I'm ordering.

If you were to bid on this Ebay item you could then use the Ebay feature to request the seller's contact information. This may help identify who is selling this watch. http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/contact-member.html#requesting Request a member's contact informationIf you're involved in a current or recent transaction, and can't reach the other member through email, you can request the other member's contact information. Here's how: Click the Advanced link at the top of the eBay home page. In the Members section on the left side of the page, click Find contact information. Enter the username of the member and the transaction's item number. We'll send the contact information, including the member's name, city, and telephone number, to your registered email address. The member will also receive your contact information. You'll both need to respect our User Privacy Notice when using this information. Read our false or missing contact information policy for more information.

Good suggestions, thanks. I will call my bank later today, I paid for this on a Visa Debit Card. Obligatory B&TEA quote: I find this situation bogus, heinous, and most non-triumphant.

I have nothing to add and I am disappointed that you had a bad experience and I wish you the bestbest of luck in resolving it. I really wanted to say that I read the topic title and expected at least one "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" reference.

Two 4184 Black Pearls to China for US$400 ea, excluding shipping. ....I previously sold several of these at $175 ea. Patience is a huge virtue in this game, at least for sets like this....

AFOL designer Chris McVeigh created a rebuild of the neck that solves both problems. The instructions are on his site. If you would like a kit of the 21 extra pieces you can buy them from me here: http://shop.constructibles.net/wall-e-head-mount-modification-kit-genuine-lego-pieces/ (back ordered, shipping in two weeks)

I was buying his story until the parth where he found a TRU with 15 cases on the shelf......

Cannot wait to double the profit per hour using 2 hands 2 feets method.

Point Dume Residence by César Soares

10210 imperial flagship. Used for $525 plus shipping.

I found monster minifigures at Walmart on clearance for $1.00 apiece. 51 all together. First one I opened was Tiger Lady !

I believe TLG only wants one thing: sustained profitability. Period. Full stop. No company of its kind wants anything else. So the question the Lego company is constantly facing is: how do we (1) keep demand for our products up and (2) sell them for as much as we can? 1) They want people to be scrambling to acquire the sets they produce; they want people thinking "I'd better buy this right now because who knows when it will be retired and gone forever!" That is a very good mentality for Lego's customers to have. Lego's customers will take a much different approach to buying if they know they can get this same set in a few years for the same price. 2) And let's talk about price: Lego is VERY expensive! Almost outrageously expensive. Seriously. $200 for a spaceship made out of little bricks with a Star Wars logo on it? That's not cheap. But a huge reason why people are willing to spend $150, $200 or even $400 for a box of plastic bricks is because consumers believe in their value. Consumers believe these sets will always be worth what they paid for them, and will maybe even appreciate. Consumers trust in Lego because they are well made, last forever, and retain value. So the $200 price tag is softened quite a bit when you know it will always be worth this amount, even after you open and play with it. Compare this to my other hobby: my wine cellar. I often compare the two in my mind, and I think the comparison is worth pointing out here. Wine is consumable. The moment I pop the cork on a $400 bottle of Bond or Schrader or whatever, that "asset" just became worth nothing except the pleasure I'm about to experience as I drink it. Tomorrow morning I'm going to pee it all out and recycle the empty bottle. And my $400 Death Star? I can open it up and build it with my son. And then display it for a year while he plays with it. Then tear it apart and build a new scene with some of the pieces and minifigures and toss the bulk in a storage bin. Then we can find all the pieces again and build it all over in five years. And then get tired of it and put it all back in the original box with the instructions and sell it used and complete on eBay for $700. It sure makes it a lot easier for me to spend $400 on a Lego set than a bottle of cabernet once I go through all of this in my head... To sum up, I think TLG wants to retire sets, loves seeing prices skyrocket in the secondary market, and will not do anything that is going to screw up its own sustainable profitability. What TLG has done over the past 10 years has seen the company rise from the ashes to become this massive leviathan of money-making. If they started re-releasing numerous old sets or making their products available forever (i.e. stopped retiring them after 2-4 years) then the consumers' mindsets would really change. And profits would go down. And that isn't going to happen.

Last one I promise. I've been giggling like a third grader all day at what an absurdly massive dork I am.

It's really not that impressive, I can can do that in about 1 second. I just ask it what figure it is and a little voice tells me.

Gimme 30 seconds and I can find the checklist and baseplate. I need scissors for the rest.

If you know you will be able to identify it Rebuy it. Think of the possibilities. I won't spell them out due to the possibilities of possible pending litigation.

Good catch, what an A.hole. Hope is not anyone here.

I built it yesterday and I am stunned this got through QA. The design of the neck is horrendous. I am going with the McVeigh fix but I will probably Bricklink it myself next time I am building an order.

I did do an inventory cross check. They overlap a ton of inventory, but its not identical. I did finally manage to get contact info for the eBay seller. They are not the same person. However, the address of the Amazon seller and the eBay seller are separated by about 4 miles on Google maps, pretty close given how large Houston is. Also of interest, note the time and date on the watch in the eBay photos: all taken well after my shipment shows as delivered. None of this is hard proof, of course, but an interesting, coincidence, no? 4 miles apart, for a very rare item, that just happens to appear a day after? And this watch is RARE. Look how many auctions of this watch appear, which have actual photos, not product photos. Maybe 1 or 2 a month. I contacted my bank, and they were encouraging. They talked to the CC processor, and processor said I had a valid claim. I wrote it all up, and submitted it. We'll see if that goes anywhere. If you're reading this soap opera, and want to see the letter I sent to my bank, LMK and I can post the appropriate sections. For entertainment value, nothing more

I'd have been all, "PLEASE be a Darth Revan!!"

Funny story about that. I was organizing sets and putting my "investments" in 24x20 boxes per Emazers recommendation and I unboxed (2) ToO and in the bottom of each box were promo polys. "I don't remember that promo" I thought. It was the Demolition Driller. Fortunately it never did any drilling.

Just FYI my order on SAH (US) placed 8/27 with expected ship date of 9/11 (I think) is still sitting as "Waiting for new stock." It has a lonely, ominous sort of feel to it... just sitting there by itself... isolated and alone, probably scared, buried in the middle of a stack of completed orders... Complete Complete Complete Complete Waiting for new stock Complete Complete Complete Complete Complete I want to reassure it.... I want to tell it that it will soon be filled. But the words sound hollow in my own head, and would be just a lie that neither one of us believes....

I hope you guys realize that this set came out THIS year. 2015

Asda. Spend £50 on selected Toys and get £10 off. Spend £100 on selected Toys and get £20 off. The discount is applied at basket. Includes new SW with 75105 at £99.97, stacks with up to 30% off Superheroes, e.g Jokerland at £59.97, Hulkbuster 3 for £56

Darn it he figured out my 2 handed power smoosh technique

I have devised a formula to max out profits on this. The key is finding a TRU that has ample supply which I did on my recent trip to Richmond, BC Canada. Last week, when this was released, there were 15 boxes on the shelf. I walked in with a basket that has 16 pockets which I custom-made. Key is 5 seconds per grab, then dump it into the basket for sorting. 5x16 = 90 seconds per set. Give or take an extra 30 seconds here and there. I managed to sort about 15 sets in 30 minutes. Mind you, I was also cleaning extra Tiger Woman and the Spider Lady. I went back the next day and everyone asked me why there's no Spider Lady and they can't find any. So 15 sets, 30 minutes, 15x16 = 240 packs. Excess Tiger Women nets about 100% profit. 1 set is about 3.99x16x1.12(sales tax) = 71.64CAD, approx 55USD sell for 89USD on ebay plus shipping, net profit of about 30USD after taxes. So 30USDx15 = 450USD, so pay per hour ends up about 150USD/hour since it takes about an extra hour or 2 to repackage and ship. For most BPers, 5 seconds per minifig pack should be easy. If you spend more than 5 seconds on each pack, you are doing something wrong. Spider Lady is one grab, split second, done. Witch, squeeze your fingers around, find the broom, done (2 seconds) Werewolf, squeeze hard around, find the bone, max 3 seconds Cheerleader, piece of cake, 3 second grab, grab 3 balls, done. 1 ball = head, 2 balls = 2 pompom The one I'm stuck on is banshee, takes me 8 seconds, so it all avergages out to 5 sec. So if you follow this formula, you should be able to haul in $150USD/hour based on quick grab. I've trained myself enough now that I can grab two packs at the same time, left hand on one, right on the other, this would reduce the smooshing time to about 3 seconds and the packs will still look brand new.

Shipping tip... shipping this 3 lb brick cross-country almost cost me over $13. Then I found it fits nicely in a Medium Flat Rate box, and ships coast to coast for $11 and change. This is the first time I've ever found use for a flat rate box.

This whole mess around PS retirement gives some support to another acquisition strategy: buy exclusives *after* they've retired. Yes, you pay a small premium. For example, you could purchase GE after retirement in the $220 range. Sure, that's above MSRP, but now GE has been on a steady growth all this year, and that $220 outlay in February is worth about $320 today. Not bad at all. Same with TH, actually. They were available post-retirement in late December/early January for around $280. I know, I bought 4 of them at that price. And I just sold the last of them for $500. Again, it didn't maximize my gain, but it was relatively risk free, the timing was locked in and I didn't have to play this "will they/won't they" game, I just cashed a nice set of profits for relatively easy acquisition and sale. My thinking in acquiring the TH at $280 was that is was a surprise retirement, and was sure to appreciate quickly. Turns out, that was correct. Investment is about both $$$ and time. We tend to focus on the $$$. Buying post-retirement is a time-efficient strategy, as opposed to $$$ efficient. I'll bet your CAGR is actually better buying post retirement and selling 12 months later, than buying PS now and selling 12 months post. YMMV.

Holy Sh*T!!!! No one is going to believe this. Guess what just showed up on eBay? In the last few hours? http://www.ebay.com/itm/LATEST-SEIKO-ASTRON-SOLAR-GPS-BLACK-PVD-TACHYMETER-MENS-WATCH-SSE031J-/391262166307?hash=item5b190add23 THIS IS THE WATCH I RETURNED. Its a rare model, very few come available, and ITS FROM THE SAME CITY I RETURNED IT TO. What are the odds? Here's a picture of the watch I returned, at the time of return: You have got to be kidding? Not really sure what to do now?

I love how the events unfolded in my day so far forced me to realize how little I know about things that I thought I knew. Those that did nothing but helped set my priorities straight. And that is the Moment of Zen