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That's a great link right above, lets revive this forum a little BPs! if you got your money on bundle #5, you may just be getting my bricks too anyway, as cheap as I am, as lazy, as....as NOT-participating-in-SH.T as I am, I'm going to make a little version of Mos_Eisley $-4-likes idea, give this post 10 likes and I'll spend $10 on raffle ticket, up to 50 likes/$50! Let's go. (I'll pay on last day of the raffle Ed) And on the side, buy some tix too! Plus like Mos_Eisley post that I provided...

Alright, I'm selling likes! I've already bought some raffle tickets, but just for fun, for every "like" this post gets from members who joined before the time of this posting, I'll spend an equal amount on more tickets, up to $250. If it gets beyond that, I'll figure out how much more I'll spend. Let's set a like record!

I'm going to throw you all a bone. Even with 5,000 sold in the past couple of months (some went to end users), this set would still not crack the Top 25 sets in people's Brickfolios.

70404 WM $79

It's super that Sea Cow has done well. It's far from the best performer among the 2015 retirements, however. I'd bet few folks could name the best performing 2015 retirement on a percent basis (as of today, 1-17-2016)? Any guesses? Here's a hint: MSRP was $49.99, and current Amazon price is $134.40, a gain of $269%. The answer is Arctic Supply Plane, 60064. Here's a bit more data from the prominent 2015 retirements, as of today. As you can see, Sea Cow is middle of the pack, on a percent basis. On a pure dollar increase basis, it's done better, thanks to its high buy-in. Among the relatively easy to acquire sets (as Arctic Supply Plane was a sudden, early disappearance and really wasn't on anyone's radar), the best set has been Fallingwater. All FYI and YMMV. Name Number MSRP Amazon Buy Box 1.17.2016 Gain/Loss Artic Supply Plane 60064 $49.99 $134.40 168.9% Architecture Fallingwater 21005 $99.99 $224.95 125.0% Technic Excavator 42006 $79.99 $158.90 98.6% Star Wars Imperial Star Destroyer 75055 $129.99 $239.99 84.6% Maersk Line Triple-E 10241 $149.99 $275 83.3% Star Wars AT-AT 75054 $109.99 $198.88 80.8% Metalbeards Sea Cow 70810 $249.99 $433.99 73.6% Star Wars Cantina 75052 $69.99 $114.78 64.0% Batman Tumbler 76023 $199.99 $295 47.5% Star Wars Red Five X-Wing UCS 10240 $199.99 $289.00 44.5% Tower of Orthanc 10237 $199.99 $278.99 39.5% Star Wars Death Star 10188 $399.99 $548.87 37.2% Service Truck 42008 $129.99 $174 33.9%

"Follow the White Rabbit" I compare my experience emerging from the LEGO dark ages two years ago to Neo's experience after taking the Red Pill in 1999's The Matrix. I vividly remember the night in early 2014, when I accidentally stumbled across an Amazon listing for a 10185 Green Grocer selling for something like $800. At the same time, I was amazed, shocked, amused, confused and most importantly, hooked. It was literally life-changing. Simply put, I had a whole new perspective on my favorite childhood pastime. Previous to that night, I knew nothing about LEGO brand stores, Lego Shop@Home, Exclusives, Star Wars UCS, sets with RRPs over $150, AFOLs, Brick Pickers, or the LEGO secondary market. The next day I started a new adventure in my life as a LEGO collector. Hoarders, Buried Alive - The Brick Picker Episode I like to sell spare LEGO sets here and there for extra cash - who doesn't - but for now, I consider myself more of a collector-investor than a re-seller. This is largely limited by my available free time. I am also what you would consider a hoarder completionist. I've gone from zero to 450+ sets in the past 24 months. Yes, I have to have all the Ninjago sets with the Dragons. The entire Architecture line? Afraid so. All the Creator modular buildings, absolutely. Can't forget about the LEGO Ideas sets. How about the Creator 3-in-1 buildings, those are kinda cool. Mixels, CMF series, and Winter Village sets are awesome. And then there's the Star Wars UCS collection, the Gold Standard of cool-kid LEGO sets. Besides the sizable storage and display space requirements, the financial commitment required to acquire and maintain a first-class LEGO collection is not insignificant. I'm still waiting for the BOGO sale on 10179 UCS Millenium Falcons at Amazon Unless you had the foresight to start stashing away LEGO sets in 1999, like a doomsday prepper waiting for the Zombie Apocalypse, you've probably missed out on a set or two or twenty. In fact there is a whole thread dedicated to this very topic on Brickpicker. If you've picked up a copy of the Ultimate Guide to Collectible LEGO Sets over on Amazon, you've probably read that some highly desirable LEGO sets are going for big money these days. If you're a serious AFOL, owning a mint copy of the 10179 UCS Millenium Falcon is like showing up to work one day driving a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California - it brings instant street cred. The whale collectors are going to spend whatever it takes to obtain the sets on their wish list. But what about the rest of us, the ones with budget limitations, a sense of fiscal conservatism, or a desire to get the best deal possible on our purchases, can we make our LEGO dreams come true? Absolutely. If you do your research, set a realistic price goal, and constantly monitor the market for deals, many sets are within reach. In the near future, I plan to present a series of articles highlighting topics of particular interest to the budding collector looking for the best ways to expand their collection. I'm also planning a recurring feature showcasing those Brickpickers offering great deals in their Brick Classifieds stores. What is this Brick Classifieds you speak of? "Tired of paying high commissions on your LEGO set sales? Tired of inexperienced sellers shipping your valued LEGO sets in brown paper and no outer protective box? Tired of clueless Mom and Pop LEGO auction sellers describing expensive LEGO sets incorrectly to make a quick sale? Fearful of unscrupulous “drop shippers” and their illegal activities? If you answered “yes” to any of the above questions, then you might want to take a look at sellers that are BrickPicker members. BrickPicker will now give members the chance to post their personal LEGO set and part listings for sale on the new Brick Classifieds website." — Ed Mack, founder Brick Classifieds Basically, Brick Classifieds is a newish market place, developed by AFOLs, looking to provide great prices on great LEGO sets, outstanding customer service, and a safe, simple shopping experience. Can't I just get that set cheaper on Ebay or Amazon? Possibly, but in many cases, probably not. Particularly when it comes to retired, highly collectible sets, Brick Classifieds is emerging as the leading online marketplace in providing outstanding value to it's customers. This is something I've increasingly noticed over the past year, but I wanted to provide up-to-date information to support my observations. This weekend, I conducted a small market research survey to determine which online marketplace is providing the best deals. As you can see below, vendors on Brick Classifieds offered the best pricing on 19 of 30, or 67% of the sets sampled. 1 All set values were obtained using market data available at brickpicker.com. Click here to research the value of your favorite LEGO set. 2 All CAGR data obtained on 1/16/2016 from brickpicker.com. Click here for a more in-depth discussion of CAGR. 3 Ebay comparison data obtained on 1/16/2016 and calculated using U.S. based sellers only and include shipping to zip code 36870. Pricing data comes from the least expensive Buy-it-now option listing for complete, sealed, new in box listings. Prices listed in U.S. dollars. 4 RRP listed in US dollars. Best of Brick Classifieds - Highlighting this week's outstanding deals A special shout out to vendors FlipBricks and BrickTop for having multiple listings in this weeks' deals. Minifigure Mania - $300 Complete set of 16 Collectible Minifigure Series 1 (sealed) BrickTop - $165 LEGO Castle Medieval Market Village #10193 (retired exclusive) FlipBricks - $340 LEGO Creator Fire Brigade #10197 (retired exclusive) Flip Bricks - $139.99 LEGO Creator Pet Shop #10218 (exclusive) FlipBricks - $499 LEGO Creator Town Hall #10224 (retired exclusive) FlipBricks - $224.99 LEGO DC Super Heroes Batman: Arkham Asylum Breakout #10937 (retired exclusive) FlipBricks - $339.95 LEGO Marvel Super Heroes The SHIELD Helicarrier (exclusive) Collector Bricks - $105 Mixels Complete Series 1 (new, sealed) pnwcollectibles - $373.45 LEGO Monster Fighters Haunted Housed #10228 (retired exclusive) Brickocephalus House - $69 LEGO Ninjago Ice Dragon Attack #2260 Couple Few Lego - $625 LEGO Star Wars UCS TIE Interceptor #7181 (retired exclusive) Toy Box Building Bricks - $655 LEGO Star Wars UCS Naboo Starfighter #10026 (retired exclusive) FlipBricks - $1830 LEGO Star Wars UCS Death Star II #10143 (retired exclusive) BrickTop - $535 LEGO Star Wars Death Star #10188 (retired exclusive) FlipBricks - $350 LEGO Star Wars UCS R2-D2 #10225 (retired exclusive) Lego Dominion - $163 LEGO Star Wars Republic Gunship #75021 (retired) FlipBricks - $279.99 LEGO Star Wars UCS Red 5 X-Wing Starfighter #10240 (retiring soon exclusive) Bricks and Blocks Galaxy - $249 LEGO Technic Unimog #8110 (retired) View full blog article

Yep. Shut up now. You never see me talking about it. Neither should you. Architecture sucks. No minifigures. It sucks. Do you understand?

Dear other seller of set X: Mine is the next closest price via Amazon prime. You do not need to beat my $79 price by $19 to make a sale. You are welcome for the advice.

This is going to be a quick blurb, but wanted to put out a public thank you to Huw at Brickset for posting a logo of Brick Classifieds on the home page for places to buy LEGO. This will give your listings on Brick Classifieds exposure to the busiest LEGO community site on the internet. I have also given Huw access to an API that he is going to try and get implemented for his set database and show your listings directly on those set pages. Overall I know it may not look like much to you, but the millions of people that visit Brickset annually will see that Brick Classifieds exists and get them to hopefully return on a regular basis to see what all of our LEGO resellers are up to. If you provide great pricing and service, the word will get out and people will look for your store. If you don't have a shop setup, maybe now is the time to do so.

I have just removed a bunch of links to ali express merch. Please do not post links to that site. Yes, last year we had numerous users get infected with a computer virus that messed with your DNS settings on your computer and even in your router to redirect searches/links/etc to less than desirable sites.. If you feel the need to post information about counterfeit products, please go to the right thread and post where people can find them rather than direct links. All direct links get deleted.

Okay. I'm in.

Have you read this thread at all? I'm sure you'll find plenty of information about investment trends for this set by reading.

Credit cards, maybe.....

Makes one wonder what your nick name is about than.

He is straight up off his meds.

When I do CL sales, I almost always have them meet me within a couple of miles of my hosue. I tell them to call me when they're there. I used to have them meet me somewhere that I had to go regardless in case they didn't show up. Now I just leave the house when they say they're there. I'd rather make them wait 3 min for me to get there than sit for 30 min or an hour because they're stuck in traffic, lost, or don't even show up. If they aren't OK with waiting on me for 3-5 min, I thank them for their interest and move on.

I did maximize my store shopping. I also used Bricks and Pieces and Pick-A-Brick. The transblue 1x2 bricks - there are around 200 of those needed. I grabbed those from Lego, I think, because they were cheaper. There were a couple of other bricks I was able to buy by the 100s from a couple of sellers that helped keep shipping costs down.

Taj Mahal is not even in the Top 100. Not even close. That's why it's $3000.00. LOL

I hate when people hit you up via CL asking about an item posted and then you respond and then you never hear from them again. It's like, why even bother if you really aren't interested? It gets me excited because I think I'm going to make a sale and then I'm left hanging. I'll even send a follow-up email just to remind the person about the item and I still don't get a response. It's just irritating. If you contact me and then aren't interested, at least respond to the follow-up email and tell me you aren't interested. Freaking CL, man. Rant over.

anything to do with Lego Star Wars at 40% discount

Here's a side by side comparison of the new Ghost Microfighter and the SDCC 2014 build:

Hope I'm not reposting, I found it on line and I really like it, whole thing including the custom box design

These questions really should be directed to the Deal or no Deal subforum. Now, for the 42009 there is a thread: And for Benny's Spaceship:

I am ecstatic about this set. It's not the scale of the set released in 2008 that contained over 1200 pieces, but with the price of 29.99, I'm happy. This one will make any kid happy. The base of the ship is made from pieces that you can only get by purchasing sets that are over 50 dollars and the playability is endless. I also like that the haul is designed out of Lego bricks and not a huge molded piece for the bath tub. As a kid I never cared for taking Legos in the tub. Enjoy the video.

I would hazard a guess that "scene" sets in general are not entirely bad, so long as the set looks complete from all angles. What many people do not like is an open/incomplete back like many of play sets such as superheroes and friends. Arkham Asylum and Tower of Orthanc comes to mind.

@Deadfraggle Did a great job on this article. I really appreciate the time aggregating the pricing to do that comparison grid. It does please me to see that many of them vendors are putting thought into their pricing on Brick Classifieds. Traffic and sales have been steadily increasing hopefully because visitors are taking notice of good deals. Remember to contact me if you post a new listing or lower your prices on existing ones. I will add that listing to the Featured Listings no the home page. I spoke with Huw from Brickset last week and he will be adding Brick Classifieds logos and links very soon which should be a nice increase of new eyes on your listings.

U better admit you're no just venting here but secretly hoping that the other seller is here and will read it and raise the price And u must be the other seller lol j/k

This is a Canadian thread people!

Is missing about 4 Dollars in common parts ... Had both manuals, missing box though... Not even 50 bucks... $45 ! Ex employee that needed cash...

The lego corner at my local TRU is full to the brim of 2016 sets though, along with some old stock that were not marked down to clearance prices. The Walmarts on the other hand, are lego ghost towns. There are still quite a few MTTs on clearance however. Behind each of those sets are 5 more.

Thanks for this post! I enjoyed the article and can relate to a lot of it. I do not recall ever having anything Lego at our house when I was a kid though. My brother had little cars and I had Barbie. I started to notice Lego after my daughter was born and she got some Duplo at some point. I loved the quality and detail. Eventually I bought some regular Lego "for when she is older", but I just really wanted to open it and play with it. She is now almost 8 and she is a Lego fanatic. It is the thing she spends the majority of her time doing. We homeschool so she has a lot of free time and I love to see the things she comes up with. For Christmas this year she had a wish list with such a variety of sets that people would ask me if it was right. She got most of the sets she asked for between us, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. They included General Grievous, Chima, Ninjago, Friends, Creator, Guardians of the Galaxy, Jurassic World, and Minecraft. Her favorite Lego is pretty much any and all animal figures, minifigures, and animals she builds with Lego. That's why she likes Chima so much. She thinks it's really silly when she hears someone say Lego is for boys (and we have heard people say that but thankfully, no one we know just people at the store). My sister and I both have huge collections and anytime someone finds out about it they seem really confused. They just do not get it. I am no master builder and do not have the imagination to come up with the stuff my daughter comes up with, but I do love to build from directions. It's very structured which seems to be good for my ADHD. :-) I personally love Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Elves, Friends, and Minecraft.

Castle-themed AT-AT build by Adam Dodge

Hades hound. Cerberus.

No helicopters either. Totally uninteresting.

Yeah, I read your post and I feel your pain. I figure after some time has passed it's best to forget about it and move on. I usually delete the email or text and forget about it. There will always be someone else hitting me up later.

I gave mine to the dog for his eating box rage. it's crap

My feelings on the modulars is that it's a pretty saturated market right now.

Show us on the minifigure where the bad set touched you.

These sets are winners. You heard it here first.

Well, that's done. Just wanted to say that it was because of browsing Neosphinx' profile that I learned about the ongoing charity and raffle. I was going to suggest better visibility on the forum by putting this thread above everything else but I noticed it's there... Don't know how I could miss it but possibly others didn't notice it as well? I also read some people aren't able to pay with their credit card. That's because in Europe lots of banks allow payment everywhere except in the US (because of the high possibility of fraud). It only takes a few minutes to log in to your online bank account and change this. You can change it back immediately after your payment. (Maybe this was a problem as well for some European users). The only thing left to say is: "Won't somebody please think of the children?" (too bad no minifig was made of her ) Good luck with the charity to the Macks and happy new year to all the brickpickers!

Guess what I'm doing this morning? lol This SW sub is going to be the most difficult. Carry on. Don't pay any attention to me.

I really appreciate your info but I think that Fallingwater is the real winner of the $50 and up sets and I say that because it saw the most real growth in the last year. The Arctic Supply Plane sold in the 110-130 range all year and saw negligible growth, basically it made you 0% in the last 9 months. 21005 was around for almost 6 years!!! and has doubled in less than a year.

Well reasoned opinions, but at 50% off, I'd probably buy. Most of the reviews over on brickset.com have been super-positive, and I think they'll do well to sell as a whole wave. Getting one or two 50% off might not make me clear the shelves, but getting several complete sets with that kind of discount would be hard for me to resist.

Yeah. When you start getting unsolicited lego investing 'tips' from your cabbie, you'll know it's time to sell. EVERYTHING.

They were still there. 51R5

They are including one in every order. It's a low priced item that they are giving to generate interest in a new line.

From my searching, I did not see a dedicated thread for the upcoming Star Wars spinoff Rogue One. I know there have been posts about it in other threads, but I feel its time to create a dedicated one since more information and off course sets will eventually be making its way out. In a post today from Ubergizmo, they talk about how Darth Vader will be back. Apparently the costume is an exact replica or the original work in Episode IV, James Earl Jones will be involved in the project which is awesome and they will even have a CGI Grand Moff Tarkin in it. If this is done right, who knows how popular this will be. I can only imagine what the theaters will be like when Darth Vader makes his grand entrance on the screen. Quote from article:http://www.ubergizmo.com/2016/01/darth-vader-apparently-returning-to-star-wars/

Aimed at the new investors who might have some savings, but seeing as they're earning no interest in the bank go looking for alternative investments and stumble across articles about Lego investing.The 2 pieces of advice I'd give are research (use this site as its great and the knowledge you can gain from reading previous post or asking intelligent questions can be invaluable) and have a PLAN you intend to stick to. So once in, you think you find some good bargains and quickly your closet is now stashed with a sizable amount of Lego. Couple of things might (and probably will) happen next. 1) You suddenly stop to think about what you're doing and your bowels drop - a good chuck of your savings are now stashed in your closet. You panic and are willing to sell up for little or no profit. Trust me when i say I'm pretty sure this happens to everyone when they start out. As long as you've properly planned and made some decent choices don't panic! You might get some quick wins but for most sets you need patience. 2) You see some of the sets you got on sale and immediately consider yourself psychologically as losing money, again you're running to the nearest lavatory. Here there are 2 ways people might go. Panic, throw the budget out of the window and buy more sets averaging down even though it breaks all the targets you set for a particular set (then go to 1). Or Panic and go straight to 1 (do not pass go, do not collect 200). You become disheartened and sell out at no profit or want to return purchases to the store. Just to reiterate what a lot of the vets on here have said have a plan (that can obviously change given the circumstances), don't overextend yourself and have some fun. Lego investing isn't a get rich quick scheme. I believe there is decent money out there to be made but just like everything else it takes some patience, a bit of luck and a lot of work. Ohhh...and before anyone calls me out yes I am speaking from experience

*sigh*. Typical SoCal market. Stopped by a Target and none to be found of the Pop Star or Ninjago. First, I doubt those were ever where in big numbers. I saw them both, but only ever 10-20 at a time in any given Target (and I have 8 within reasonable distance to me). Second, even if they did survive until Christmas, people in SoCal jump at 10% off LEGO so no surprise that they wouldn't make 30% let alone anything better.