Leaderboard

When I first got into LEGO as an AFOL I was looking at all of the Star Wars sets that I had missed and how much they cost. It became necessary to figure out a way to get the sets cheaper or make more money. I knew that some people must be making money buying bulk lots and taking out the stuff they wanted and selling the rest. That seemed like 2 birds with one stone. I looked at the bulk lots on Ebay, realizing that most of what I would get from these guys were common pieces. So I started looking at bigger lots, somewhat intimidated by their cost. I figured, however, if an Ebayer was getting $10 for a pound maybe I could make some money just throwing stuff in a box, easy money. I made a purchase of about 50 lbs for about $350 because I saw some Star Wars sets and minifigures in there. Oh boy, easy money and some treasures of my own. Boy, was I wrong. The money is anything but easy. I quickly discovered that out of my 50 lbs of mixed LEGO, at least 5 lbs were easily recognizable as not building bricks at all. Tinker toys, K'Nex, Hot Wheels, plastic army men, broken action figures, Lincoln logs, playing cards, thumb tacks, thorny burrs and even broken glass was mixed into the ABS blocks. On top of all that junk, the real problems started. All of the Mega Blocks, BTR, and assorted knock off blocks knocked another 5+ lbs out of the lot. That's at least 20% of my precious blocks that was basically trash. As you filter through, you discover broken bricks, severely teeth marked ones and yellowed pieces. profits are getting slimmer by the minute. Ok, so I regrouped and focused on the sets that were obviously present. I pulled out the stuff I immediately recognized most of a TIE Interceptor, a little car, Jedi Interceptor with Hyperdrive ring, half an ARC Fighter, etc. All of these I scattered around me like ancient peoples paying homage to their creator. How do I go from lots of partial sets to lots of complete sets that I can flip to make back the money that I sunk into this thing? Well first I needed to figure out what was missing. So, I looked at instruction books to see what steps I needed to take to complete them and what pieces were missing from there. Utter bust. That's an awful way to do it. So I took apart the sets I had figured out and checked the inventory against Bricklink. I discovered what was missing, and that sometimes kids substitute pieces in the middle of a build. Now that I knew what was missing, time to turn back to 20 lbs of assorted bulk. digging through mixed bricks looking for the piece or pieces I need was time consuming and futile. Time to sort them out to make it easier. My wife and I sorted that 20 lbs of pieces by color. We had 10+ bags of pieces separated loosely by color (old and new colors mixing futilely.) That made it easier to look for pieces, but still sometimes wasting a lot of time trying to pick out a small piece in a big bag. After exhausting my patience, I turned to Bricklink to acquire the pieces I needed, dumping more money into this hole. Eventually I sold a bunch of sets I made from this and a few other bulk lots. Between the Bricklink orders I placed to complete them and the fees and shipping, I think I made some money. My book keeping was pretty terrible. But it all taught me some things. Some of these things I learned could help some people just starting out trying to find treasure in Bulk lots. STEP 1: Valuation So, you're looking at a bulk lot that you found on Craigslist, Ebay, a garage sale, another auction or whatever. How should you evaluate it? Weight: The volume of pieces will tell you roughly how much is there. 2 lbs = not a lot. 25 lb = a lot. Since you're not buying the sets one by one, you have to immediately realize that you are going to be getting dead weight in addition to the treasures that you seek. Visible sets: Any visible set that you can place is good. That will give you an immediate idea of what you can make out of the lot. No visible sets or parts of sets means that there may or may not be gold in there. Minifigures: If minifigures are present that's good. If licensed minifigures are present, that's even better. a loose rule I use is to look for flesh colored minifigure heads and hands. Sure there's some dummies in that group, and some good figures that have yellow heads and hands, but it's a good starting point. Instructions and boxes: Both of these are a good gauge to show you what sets may be present, but could be red herrings. Sometimes the instructions stick around long after the main components of a set are lost. Non LEGO stuff: There's always some detritus. The flotsam and jetsam of stuff that parents scoop up into the boxes. The most common stuff is non LEGO bricks. They're not always easy to pick out at first glance, but they're usually there. What you are looking for is how much of the lot is obviously not LEGO. Do you see doll parts, nerf darts, Pokémon cards, buttons, etc.? usually this is a good sign to me. It means no one has searched it. but it is a pain to filter through. Filth: Sometimes you can see how dirty and played with the bricks are. Most bulk will be dusty or dirty. Some will even have paint or marker on them. So with these factors, let's talk about how they factor into the valuation. an average lot is usually in the $4-$6 per lb range. Average lots show some partial sets, some minifigures, maybe a few instructions, relatively clean, with not a lot of obvious non LEGO stuff. Depending on the quality and quantity of the better stuff, you might increase your valuation, but remember you're not paying top dollar for what you see, because there's still a lot of work to come. Plus, you're going to get some amount of stuff you don't want. I have been known to go as low as $2-$3 a pound for stuff that had no obvious sets, mediocre looking or no obvious minifigures and excess junk. Then again, I have gone as high as $10 a lb for lots of minifigures and several mostly complete sets of some value. Some people stick to a hard $5 lb. Some lots of only minifigures I have seen sold for close to $100 lb. Figure out your comfort level and stick to it. Be prepared to have wasted your money on a big group of Mega Blocks. STEP 2: Sorting and figuring out what you have Once you get the lot, now you have to do something with it. Boxes full of bulk sitting in the garage is just hoarding. You're doing this to make your money work for you. So, I start by trying to pull out all the non LEGO, but also anything that gives me a good idea of what is there. Pull out minifigures, instructions, partial sets and set them aside. I bag the partial sets, with the minifigures and instructions wherever possible. I would never again sort by color. Finding a red 1x1 modified tile with clip in a big bag of red parts is much harder than looking through a bag of 1x1 modified tile with clips of assorted colors. Instead I start by throwing all the flats in one box. Slopes go in a second box. Bricks are a third box, etc. It's the most general sorting at first. As I go, I look for unique identifiers of sets like printed pieces or unusual shapes. Once the initial sorting is accomplished, I sort again by element. STEP 3: Completing sets The best way to make back the bulk of your purchase price is to complete the sets that you received. Some people will complete everything that they can, others disdain anything below a certain dollar amount. It's up to you how far down the rabbit hole that you are going to head. Once you get your sets, you need to figure out what is missing. Even if the set looks complete, it is best to verify. Some people will make substitutions in the middle of a set. Your customers may not appreciate substitutions, especially if there are megablocks in the middle of a build. So, it's time to take them apart to verify the inventory. If the sets are partial, you definitely should take them apart to figure out how much is missing. Look through your new bulk to see if you can find the rest. Focus on the expensive sets first. Check through your minifigures, instructions, and interesting pieces to see what sets may have been broken down entirely and see if they are worth reconstituting. You could do another survey of your bulk to see if the seemingly random bulk is hiding some treasure. I look for the part numbers on the interesting pieces. Finding the part number can be difficult, since it's usually inside of the LEGO piece and hard to spot, except with the right light. If the piece appears in multiple sets, I check for context with other pieces in the lot. Again, the interesting pieces generally have a unique shape, sticker or printing. If you can't complete them this way, or even with other bulk you might have, then you have to decide if sinking some more money into them is worthwhile. Does spending $10, $20, or $50 more make sense? Only you know for sure, but you've already dug a hole into your resources and time. It's either keep digging, or see if you can punt it off somewhere. I tend to try to get as many sets working at a time as I can. Hopefully this will help me to get the most missing pieces for the least orders. STEP 4: Dealing with the true bulk You're going to have leftovers after you pull out the stuff that is easiest to sell. You have several options. You could write it off. Put it back in a box and donate it or stick it in the garage, hoping to forget about it. This is generally the least appealing option to me. I've put time and money into this, so I want to recover something more than the tax write off or another box in the garage. Sell it as bulk. You could try to recover something from it by selling it all as a big lot, or even breaking it up into more manageable 1, 2, 5 or 10 lb lots. There's a lot of competition that way, but it's not super hard to do. Save the pieces to help you complete other sets in your next bulk lot. This is appealing because you already have it on hand. There's no guarantee that it will do the job, but at least you have a chance to cut down on further expenses. Sell the pieces individually through Bricklink or Ebay or some other venue. This is the most time consuming way to do it. It's also the way to get the most total value from the pieces, eventually. A lot of pieces may not sell quickly if at all, but you have a higher return on every piece that does sell. So, after all of that. You have to figure out whether it was worth it. If you made some money, or got some stuff that you wanted for less than the going rate, it will give you that rosy glow. It's fun to initially dig through all of that stuff searching for buried treasures. When you find something, it really does feel like it's all worthwhile. In the long hours of sorting, searching for pieces, and waiting for Bricklink orders it may be less fun. Waiting for the stuff to sell to recoup your costs is even less fun than that. I like to do it, but at the end of the day, the monetary returns vs. my time may not be the best. It may be the worst paying job that I have ever had. You really do need to have a plan for evaluating what you are buying and for dealing with it once you do. If you've never done it before, it may be overwhelming. It will take a little while to get more proficient. It's definitely not a quick buck, but money is there to be had. If you are disorganized, if you lose patience, if you don't have the time,you're just throwing money into a hole. May the bricks be ever in your favor. pictures are used to demonstrate example bulk lots from real auctions.

I am not a little girl. I know that may come as a surprise to some. I have never built a LEGO Friends, Elves or Princess set, but I have helped my daughter build a couple. With that in mind, I asked my little girl to help me with this set. I thought it might be valuable to get the insight of the target market for the Water Dragon Adventure set. She was excited to help me, and her younger sister tried to "help" as well. So, in this review, we're going to take a look at the stuff that interested a 6 year old girl about this set designed for 7 year old girls. Is LEGO doing a good job reaching their target audience? REVIEW: SET DETAILS Set #: 41172 Name: The Water Dragon Adventure Theme: Elves Parts: 212 Price: $19.99 Before we get to the build, let’s talk value. At 19.99 the price per piece works out to a bit over $.09 each. There is 1 minifigure. (Probably because the main part of the build is a dragon) The minifigure is some elf that I don't know the name of. It's times like this where I try to decide if the ppp is a good metric. 2 (or 3) wings and a dragon head probably throw off the part count as far as the number crunchers at LEGO are concerned. BOX CONTENTS Some people may wind up picking up a set that is open box or, want to verify the box contents before beginning a build. For this set, there are 2 numbered baggies, wings, a head in a bag, stickers and an instruction book. I do not know if 3 wings are standard or if I just lucked out. BUILD AND EXECUTION Bag 1: I asked my daughter to do the building so that I could see what kind of trouble she ran into. The main body is a blocky shape with several angles jutting off of it to give the impression of roundness. The towball is where your tail will mount to. The first sticker is applied on the dragon's rear. Each tail segment has a smaller sticker. My 6 year old had some difficulty getting the ball and socket joints to snap together. Is this just my daughter or is it too much friction for your standard little girl? I was curious about the bow/flipper combo on the top of this dragon's head. My older daughter didn't really care, but the 3 year old was very upset when the bow was not on the head. To me, the legs seem stiff and in need of one more joint, but the 6 year old liked the shape and was happy when she saw what looked like legs to her. 2 more legs. 2 more feet, I stepped in to finish those as it was getting close to bed time. With the wings, this dragon doesn't look bad. it's a little simplistic and cutesy, but both of my girls were very happy with it. This one spits water? BAG 2: Time to make the part padding other stuff from this set. First you make 3 round things. I don't know what they represent, but you make them and then move on to building a crystal island. I will say this for the part selection here. There are a lot of translucent pieces. My daughters both love the translucent pieces. They try to steal them from every set I get. This set had a lot and that made them happy. I really have no idea why there is a catapult here. My kids think it is used to feed the dragon. are the elf and dragon enemies? is there someone else flinging plants at them for some reason? who knows. There's an obligatory brush and a crystal heart. Is that a cookie in the clam shell? I don't understand this island thing. I really don't understand why there's a set of golden binoculars hidden here. The elf has a map, is this the treasure she was seeking? REACTION: For me, the dragon was cute. The price wasn't bad. I'm not upset at the cost of this set, and the time we spent building it wasn't terribly long. I guess that just goes to show that it's a simplistic build. The island perplexes me. I can see similar set dressing in Star Wars and Super Hero sets. They are there to add value to a smaller simpler build. I wish they had put the parts and time into making the dragon more complex. My daughter completely loved it. From the dragon, to the minidoll, to the island made out of "shiny" pieces, it spoke her language. In her case, at least, LEGO hit the right notes and she wanted to sleep with it. (She didn't.) The minidoll has some nice print on the torso and the face. The back is completely plain. I can understand why long term LEGO fans don't want to have these mixed in with their minifigure collections. They are just awkward standing beside a regular minifig. I don't think that there's anything inherently wrong with these figures. If LEGO decides to make a few Super Hero or Star Wars characters in this style, I just might get them and place them on a separate shelf. FINAL THOUGHTS: It seems like the Elves line isn't the most popular expansion of the LEGO brand. The dragons in this series seem to be an attempt to bring vitality to the brand. To my eye, they are more striking than whatever else they've been doing in the Elves line (except maybe that Pegasus sleigh.) If anything is going to turn this theme around, it's stuff like this. I think that at some point, collectors of dragons will circle back around to these sets. They're never going to be yuuuuge money makers, but I feel like there is some money to be made. Don't rush into these, but I'd pick them up on clearance. Grab it on Amazon! EXTRA PIECES: Was I supposed to get a third wing? I have no idea. It seems like way too big a piece to be a standard extra.

I haven't reviewed a microfighter before. I like Star Wars. I like Star Wars vehicles. I think these are cute. I have avoided doing the reviews because they didn't fit with my collection. The Resistance X-Wing Fighter had something different about it. LEGO Microfighters are small, and don't take long to build. Hopefully my self indulgence with the pictures amuses you. If not, I apologize. REVIEW: SET DETAILS Set #: 75125 Name: Resistance X-Wing Fighter Theme: Star Wars Parts: 87 Price: $9.99 Before we get to the build, let’s talk value. At 9.99 the price per piece works out to almost $.115 each. This is on the high/middle side of pricing for a licensed set. There is 1 minifigure. (This is standard for Microfighters.) The minifigure is unique. On the packaging he is listed as Resistance X-Wing Pilot. It's Pretty obvious that this figure represents Snap Wexley portrayed by Greg Grunberg. As such, I'm going to refer to him as Snap Wexley or maybe just Snap. (I wonder if he's got brothers named Crackle and Pop.) BOX CONTENTS Some people may wind up picking up a set that is open box or, want to verify the box contents before beginning a build. For this set, there are 2 unnumbered baggies and an instruction book. Speaking of the box, this is the only microfighter that I know of that has a tape sealed box instead of a punch tab. BUILD AND EXECUTION There are no numbered bags, s let's just dump this and get started. I asked Snap to help me put his ship together. I think he's giving me a thumb's up. I don't know where he's going but we've barely gotten started. Snap said that he needs a rest. I have no idea where he even got that chair, none of those parts are included. Wait a moment, Snap. You said a rest, nothing in your contract about a mandatory lunch break. Ugh, I've gotten derailed. Just ignore Snap and his loafing. As you can see, I've built the back portion of the X-Wing. Now, we've added a couple more attachment points for wings and some decoration on the back. As Snap finishes his snack, the front of the X-Wing goes in place. Notice the U-Clips on top and bottom to prevent the wings from opening too far. Snap's finally ready to help out after putting his stuff away, The ship is almost done. We just need to add the cockpit canopy and the wings. The instructions have you build the wings in pairs. Maybe Snap's ready to help out now. Oh, sure. He's posing like he did something. REACTION I can enjoy the chibi aesthetic. The cutesy look of the squat ship is fun. It just doesn't really fit in with my collection and display. Especially since my kids have destroyed all of the other ones that I built. If they hadn't lost some of the pieces, I'd likely be trying to get all of them. The minifigure looks good. We might not ever see him released in a larger set, so it's a good time to pick him up. The print on his helmet is great. FINAL THOUGHTS The microfighters are an interesting conundrum. Most of the sets are just troop builder stuff. a few have been unique minifigures. The first question that we have to ask ourselves is, is this character going to be remade? With JJ Abrams stepping away from Star Wars, will Greg Grunberg return for future installments? In many ways, this character reminds me of Porkins. A minor X-Wing pilot with a few memorable scenes, but no lasting impact on the series. Plus, there's the beard. To be serious, there are a lot of X-Wing pilots. There are a lot of unique helmets and heads that they can make before they need to revisit a background character. Look how long it has taken LEGO to revisit Biggs and Wedge. The main draw that I see in this set is the minifigure, and he's not important enough to make this set escalate in value. The second thing that we need to think of is whether this ship is iconic enough to draw in the fans later. Yes, it is an X-Wing. X-Wings are iconic. But, it's not a hero ship. It will be a nice to have, not a need to have. Kids who have relatives that want to get them one of the important ships in LEGO form will scoop this up, because it will always be cheaper than every other X-Wing released. Even if the individual price on this kit goes up, it will always be hampered by the value of a real X-Wing set. Even polybags could torpedo the value. The third and final thing to look at for this set is where it fits in the series. The third series of microfighters will be stumbling block for this line. LEGO has heavily loaded this series with sinkers. I feel that serious collectors will take a pass on almost everything in this series. What does that mean for the future? Well, if collectors ignore this on the shelves, they won't get a lot of refreshes. If the Microfighters line continues, there may be those who circle back around later to sweep the entire series. I would pin any future movement on how limited the number of refreshes are this year. But, if they don't sell at all, regardless of rarity they won't be worth anything in future. I wouldn't expect this set to sell as well post EOL as the Series 1 X-Wing. EXTRA PIECES There are 2 extra pieces.