Leaderboard

The LEGOLAND Discovery Center Arizona, opening Spring 2016, is holding a contest to find their new Master Model Builder. On January 30 and 31, they will be holding a competition in the Arizona Mills Mall food court. Applicants will asked to build themed creations. They will be broken up into groups to build for 45 minutes. The winners of each heat will move on to the Second Round consisting of 40 contestants divided into 2 heats also of 45 minutes each. The top 10 builders of those heats will return for Round 3 on Sunday. The winner of Round 3 will be awarded the job of Master Model Builder. Spectators are encouraged to come and support the contestants. It should be an interesting way to see some new and interesting creations of some of the most talented builders locally. The event begins at 9:00 AM on Saturday January 30 and ends at 4:00 PM. On Sunday it starts at 2:00 PM and ends at 4:00 PM. See the Official Announcement here. Follow LEGOLAND Discovery Center Arizona on Facebook Vote on the themes here As for me, I'm going to try to get over there for at least part of the event and report back to you.

This blog entry I struggled with the title, and considered a "while you were sleeping" title or something else to really convey how I felt about the current state of Lego investing. Unless one were sleeping, it is easy to see how the Tumbler 76023 has taken off. "The Horde" should be proud. While I am sure plenty of Tumblers ended up in the hands of little Timmy, the horde can pat themselves on the back for plowing though the last 4,000 copies that Target and Target-eBay had left in record fashion being the last retailer standing after LEGO Shop at Home, Walmart and other online retailers ran out of stock. Lets take a quick peak at some numbers. Tumbler 76023 - Retired - Retail $199.99 - current Amazon Buy Box (USA) - $324.99 (as of 11AM on 1/26/16) - Approximately 62% initial bump. Yes I know that it is not the most accurate barometer of price, but I have to pick something. It looks to be trending just under $300 on ebay, with multiple completed sales over $300. Ebay may be cheaper at the moment, but it isn't far behind. Merida's Highland Games 41051 - Retired Retail $19.99 - Amazon Buy Box (USA) $32.90 (11am 1/26/16) increase of approximately 62%. I picked this set because of the $19.99 buy in was easy to compare to the $199.99 of the tumbler. Both retired in the USA on the same day, both have exact same "bump" although if you were not sleeping, you noticed trends and were able to stock up on your princess quota. I was able to grab a fair amount of this particular set for around $7. They were 60% off an already marked down clearance price. To achieve the same returns, one's buy in on the tumbler would need to be around $70. Anyone manage that price without them falling off a pallet somewhere? Doubtful. WIth my $7 buy-in I am around 470% increase before fees shipping, and I am pocketing around 350% after fees shipping. The Tumbler would need to hit about $939 to realize similar gains if purchased at retail. This set is small, easy to ship, and I don't have to have a heart attack about scammers and shipping issues when I ship out a $900 tumbler. Other Notable Mentions Ariel's Amazing Treasures 41050 - Retired Retail $12.99 - Amazon Buy Box (USA) $28.88 (11am 1/26/16) - Approx 222% increase. This is only other retired Princess set in the USA. I personally picked up 10+ at steep discounts (more than 50%), so was sitting on 400% gain before I dumped mine late last year and at Christmas time. Sleeping Beauty's Royal Bedroom - Sold Out Retail $12.99 - Amazon Buy Box (USA) $17.50 (11am 1/26/16) - These were blown out at LEGO Shop at Home for $9, and are currently on sale at targets for $5 or so. For those looking to instantly triple up on an item and get started selling, solid choice here to get going. Cinderella's Romantic Castle 41055 - Available Now Retail $69.99 - Available pretty much everywhere. This is the gambling set right here. This set will retire eventually, but we could have another dolphin cruiser on our hands and have a set that won't die. I personally sold a few in the $130 range (on ebay) during Christmas 2014. I think that this is a reasonable goal for this set to reach within six months or less than retirement. I personally think that this one is done and Lego recently made "one last batch", and when current supplies are gone, we will only see limited restocks. As an experiment for this article I wanted to see how cheap I could acquire them in the USA without too many tricks. I was able to pick up 4 from Jet.com (seriously horrible business model) for around $43 each (38% discount), with no tax using a 30% off first order and opting for no returns. They shipped from TRU and they lost around $80 in the deal according to my attached invoice from TRU. Seal codes were 47R5 for those keeping track, so fairly fresh. For me this set only needs to now hit $86 for me to "double up" and I should be sitting pretty when it goes over $100. If we truely had power as a collective, we should be after this one in full force. Note: This article was written "for the horde" and all the new investors that are all over the Tumbler with gold and glitter and rainbows. There are other sets out there doing just fine, we just don't talk about it.

Hello LEGO fans, collectors and resellers… Many of you may already know who I am, but for those of you that may have just learned about Brickpicker, my name is Ed Maciorowski and I would like to ask you for a few moments of your time. Over the past five years, my brother Jeff and I have operated the BrickPicker site at no cost to members and fans. All we ever asked from members was to click on affiliate links to help pay for the site expenses, which cost members little or no out of pocket money. Many of you have gained valuable information and insight from our data and forum community that enabled you to make money from LEGO collecting and reselling. Often, people would ask how can we help the BrickPicker site and its creators and we would say thanks for the offer, but no thanks, we felt uncomfortable taking donations. Well, we have a way for all of you to help out not only me, but over 150 children and their families. Let me introduce you to the St. Paul School of Burlington, NJ… My son, Max, is a member of the Kindergarten class in St. Paul School. He has attended the school since September and adores it. My wife, Jane, and I also adore the school. It is everything a school should be. It’s a school where everyone knows your name and there is a sense of pride and respect not found in many other larger schools. I cannot explain it, but there is an ambience of goodness in the building. Sounds corny I know, but as a person who has the word “evil” in his email address, I can tell you that I know when something deserves special recognition as a “good” thing. But it’s not only me who recognizes a great school. St. Paul School was voted the “Best Private School” in Burlington County, NJ and won numerous other awards. St. Paul School’s graduates constantly excel in high schools throughout Central NJ, with a large portion of graduates appearing on the National Honor Society and finishing top in their classes as Valedictorians and Salutatorians. To find out more about the St. Paul School, you can check out their website… So here is the situation. St. Paul School is a Catholic school and as many people know, Catholic schools always have a hard time paying the bills to remain open. While St. Paul School and other Catholic schools welcome all religions and people, they are not funded by state or federal tax dollars and must adhere to many policies of the Catholic church and their Dioceses. Unfortunately, due to the weak economy and other forces outside of their control, enrollment in Catholic schools is down, putting more and more pressure on the school’s and local church’s budgets to remain open. This is an ongoing battle and fundraising has become an annual ritual in every Catholic school in the nation and most likely, the world. Everyone has to do their part to help out and Jeff and I are doing ours. Here is our plan… Jeff and I are going to personally RAFFLE OFF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS OF RARE AND RETIRED LEGO SETS! These sets are from our personal collections and they include the: 10188 Death Star 10228 Haunted House Sealed Case of 64 Series 10 Collectible Minifigures (MR.GOLD might be in there!) 10224 Town Hall 10225 Ultimate Collector Series R2-D2 MORE SETS HAVE BEEN ADDED!!! That is well over $2000.00 in LEGO sets. All are retired and appreciating in value as we speak. I will personally ship them to anywhere in the world at my cost and in a proper shipping container. There will be one winner for each set and you must buy tickets for each raffle separately. One person can win all the sets if they enter all five raffles. There are discounted tickets available and the raffle will be run on the www.rallyup.com website, which is a very reputable and trustworthy fundraising site. They will automatically pick the winners at 11:59 PM on January 31, 2016 and will notify the winners. I will then ship out the winning LEGO sets to their new owners. The raffle and link to share can be found below: https://rallyup.com/stpaul-2016 Each ticket costs $10.00 and enables you to enter one LEGO set raffle of your choice. $50.00 will cover all five iconic LEGO sets. ALL OF THE PROCEEDS (besides the commission to www.rallyup.com) goes to St. Paul School and to its corresponding church, The Parish of Saint Katharine Drexel, which helps the school operate. Tickets can be paid with any major credit card and the site is secure. Unfortunately, PayPal does not get involved with “raffles,” so PayPal can only be used for direct donations. I know that is a minor inconvenience, but if their is an issue, contact Jeff or I and we can see what we can do about transferring money to our PayPal account and paying for your raffle tickets. If we get a great response from people, we might add a few major sets or collectible and rare items to the raffle contest. On a personal note, I just have to say that I feel awkward asking people to help and for money, but the St. Paul School kids, faculty and community are worth it. They need to raise $200,000 by the end of January in order to keep the doors open and I am pulling all of my strings to help get them to that goal. I need your help. Period. If you value quality education and teaching children morals and respect, then supporting a school like St. Paul is paramount to the future well being of this planet. To the BrickPicker community...Show the LEGO world that we are more than just a bunch of Quick Flipping Low Lifes….that we care and have a heart, even though we buy all of Little Timmy’s LEGO sets up to resell. LOL. Honestly, this is important to Jeff and I and I want to be proud of our community that we have built over the past 5+ years. If you want to repay us for all of the efforts we have made over the past five years, buy a ticket...or two...or five. My son and 150+ other kids and families, faculty and friends of the St. Paul School will thank you… CLICK HERE TO PARTICIPATE IN THE FUNDRAISER PLEASE HELP AND SHARE THIS BLOG POST ON FACEBOOK, TWITTER AND OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA OUTLETS!! If you are interested in just making a donation and want to use Paypal, you can. Just click the purchase link on the right side bar. On the next page you will see a checkbox that will allow you to just make a donation. Check that box and you will then see options for payment. Paypal is not available for buying raffle tickets, it is against their terms.

Welcome to Week 4 of the Top 10 Best Selling LEGO sets as listed by LEGO S@H. How does this Blog work? While the LEGO Shop at Home best sellers list is updated weekly, we will be updating it every Wednesday. The list includes only sets. Minifigures, keychains, Pick a Brick and other products are excluded. If not enough sets are listed on the S@H Best Sellers page, the weekly entry could be shorter than 10 sets. I will comment only on those sets that are new to the list, or that for whatever reason may stand out on a particular week. For example, if a set has been on the list for 10 weeks in a row, then it may warrant a comment or two. I am keeping an Excel spreadsheet with each set that appears on the list, its weekly placing (if any) and the total number of weeks that it has been on the list. I will try to publish it for the first time in one of the next few entries. For now, this is a US based best sellers list. Pretty simple! Note for this week: Once again, the list of top sellers includes less than 10 sets (5!). We are trying to figure out how we want to deal with this in the future as it seems that it might happen more often than I would have imagined. Now that we got that out of the way, let's take a look at this week's Top Sellers. Top 10 (5!) Best Selling Sets (LEGO S@H) #1: 40201 Valentines Cupid Dog - Previous Week: #1 - Buy Now! #2: 10251 Brick Bank - Previous Week: #2 - Buy Now! #3: 75827 Firehouse Headquarters - Previous Week: #3 - Buy Now! #4: 75105 Millennium Falcon - Previous Week: #4 - Buy Now! #5: 75102 Poe's X-Wing - Previous Week: #5 - Buy Now! Extremely short list this week, more so than the previous one. Having said that, it seems to be pretty clear that The Force Awakens continues to prop up some of the first wave sets, especially the Millennium Falcon and Poe's X-Wing. The Millennium Falcon is kind of expected, and if we had compiled this list back when 7965 was still available I am sure we would have seen it in the Top 10 pretty often. On the other hand, Poe's X-Wing takes one of the most adored ships in the SW Universe to a new level, with a pretty cool color scheme and an appealing minifig collection. The Top 3 also remains unchanged, with the seasonal Valentine's Dog keeping the top spot for the 3rd week in a row. The other 2 sets, Brick Bank and GB HQ, are still benefiting from being new releases, so we should see them drop a little once the initial hype is gone. As always, feel free to leave your views and suggestions in the comments section below! Thanks for reading.