I don't know that this fits into "Retiring Soon" but I'll post here anyway and the mods can move me if I've incurred an infraction. I'll be mentioning the Simpson's House and contemplating its future, so I guess that's sort of "Retiring Soon."
I'm vacationing in Bali, Indonesia at the moment with my wife. I see a Lego store in popular touristy area mall. I go in and get the distinct impression that nary a large set has been sold here in months. Two young male employees behind counter don't even bother to say hello or greet us (strange considering the people here are, by in large, friendlier than most places on earth).
GBHQ is on sale for 15% off - doing the quick math from Indonesian Rupees I calculate that, at current discount and WITHOUT adding back in govt tax of 10% it comes to a whopping $380 in USD. Disney Castle (not on sale) comes to $492 USD after taxes.
Simpson's House came to $352 USD after tax. And the kicker is that literally 80% of the boxes are beat straight to hell. Crushed, kicked, opened, warped from water or humidity - you name it. And there were dozens upon dozens of them. Just stacked up along the wall. Horizontally like pancakes.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it takes a Herculean effort to get all these huge cardboard boxes down here to the middle of Southeast Asia in anything resembling mint condition. I'm not judging. But these boxes look like my six year old built a fort out of them in the backyard and just left it there for a few months while weather and the neighborhood dogs had their way with it.
Point is this - clearly (and I mean CERTAINLY) nobody is going to be buying these. I mean, this country is very poor. A cab driver will wait four or five hours for you just to secure a $15 USD return fare to get you back to where you started. I cannot fathom any local paying two weeks' pay for a Lego Simpson's House. And no tourist is going to drag one of these back across the ocean (you need an entire separate suitcase for it) at this ridiculous markup. Heck, even at 50% off these things are never going anywhere. I was speechless standing there looking at the massive quantity of these and their price tags.
So it got me thinking... where ARE they going to end up? Lego is eventually going to dump these somewhere to make room for other stuff that nobody is ever going to buy for 70% over MSRP. In some Walmart warehouse six months from now about 100 beat-to-hell Simpson's Houses are going to show up online at MSRP long after it's no longer available and the boxes will be like the December 2015 Target "Tumbler" lottery.
As an aside, they still had a whole display full of all of 2015's vignette scenes (Valentine's, Easter, Christmas, etc) except for 40138 and 40139. They were all $17 USD. So basically like buying them on eBay back home.
Anyways I just found all of this interesting and thought I'd share. Haven't posted for several months but I still follow every day. Thanks for the ongoing discussion and laughs.