Leaderboard

Original Ideas submission:

My ‘Original UCS Falcon, escaping from Docking Bay 327’ enshrined in a coffee table now complete.

Personal Set Winner: Jestro's Headquarters: Buy in $20, sell $80+ (7 of them) and probably being able to flip some Rockets within a week of getting them for about $50 profit each. Worst Decision: Not sure yet, I have some inside thoughts but am overly pleased with my 1st near full year of doing this via starting with bulk buys only and moving into sets and deciding which one's to break out into the BL store while buying bulk around town. Best Decision: Shutting the BL store down in August to organize everything so that when an order comes in I can pull it very quickly and know exactly where an item is vs knowing "about" where the items may be. I even built a 9 dresser drawer (about 4 feet wide, 5 feet tall) specifically for all my New pieces and absolutely love it. I sometimes wish I would have built 2 at the same time though as the lots/part numbers continue to increase. I originally thought that 10,000 pieces was a solid store size, then I thought 15,000 was good. Now I'm at 50,000 and still looking to continue to add more and more as time allows me with family/other job. Every order, no matter what size or sale amount puts a smile on my face. Other Best Decision: Starting to do this. I think I was hitting a mid-life crisis while going through some health issues, lyme disease like, never confirmed but treated as if it was in the end (after nearly 3 years of searching for an answer) and needed to find an escape at home and just from everything else. I believe I found that new spark in my life. Looking forward to a fun 2018.

Toys R Us $50 gift card for $40 at Ebay LIMIT 5

And I had a nice relaxed breakfast with wife and kids.

So, I'm visiting my folks and decided to pop into the nearest Books-A-Million. After using their coupons, gift card, membership discount, and BOGO 50%, it was a decent haul, especially for that old UN Set. 70906 Joker Lowrider - $34.99 21016 UN Headquarters - $22.49 Captain America - $7.33 Iron Man - $3.65 Belle - $7.33 Beast - $3.65 Hulk - $7.33 Plus, TLJ soundtrack for $10.33. That helped with one of the coupons plus also I loved the soundtrack.

In for 3

Per Max's update......https://www.amazon.com/LEGO-Creator-Lakeside-31048-Building/dp/B017B1BEBE/ref=sr_1_21?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1514385528&sr=1-21&keywords=lego+creator 31048 - Lakeside Lodge at 50% off

When I am 64.

My amazing grandma bought me the new ucs millennium falcon (75192) from the store in Liverpool yesterday

I want the boardwalk

You could probably get someone to build a loft for what you got for your falcon! :-) In the falcon. Will add some stormtroopers, as well as Vader and obi-wan duelling

Any one looking for 4,283 Dimension packs for $17,500? https://santabarbara.craigslist.org/tag/d/4283-new-lego-dimension-sets/6435852840.html

Yawn. Where are the topless Kylo and the thing with four boobs, you know, for completeness?

Oh, almost as many as he does Rey's Speeder. Another winner... (50'ish)

I was at the mall for an other reason anyways. I’ve done well on Boxing Day at the Lego store before, so it was worth the quick check. Thank you for your valuable contribution to this thread.

Inception is dangerous...

Wins - deciding to go deep on Scooby Mystery Planes at the last minute when I could get them for £9 each. Backing TBBT when everyone else was deep in Dr Who. Hailfire Droids, Star Wars set that flew under radar but is double RRP now. Titanium dragons £17 buy in, in fact most Ninjago i bought did well. All Series 1 speed champions, don't expect this year's retirees to do aswell though. Losers 75150 same reason as everyone else. Cheap buy in and short shelf life looked good but it still won't die and there's a better a-wing now 75087 Anakins Custom Jedi Starfighter. These still keep popping up discounted on Argos eBay site. Thought Argos exclusive plus being Jedi ship gave this one potential. Small sets - Microfighters, mighty micros, city sub £8, battle packs etc. Boxes too easily damaged and take a long time to get into the £20+ range that would make them worthwhile.

I bought 2, one for me, one for my imaginary friend.

The problem is though, it's not what people will pay. It's what the horde will charge. Dr Who could have quite easily fetched £80 during Christmas, but the horde had so many at such deep discounts they were happy to sell at £45. I see the same happening with this. Every time there's any discount on this set HUKD lot are all over it. It's had 17 posts dedicated to it on there since it came out. People will make money because of the discount buy in. At best it may rise a little above RRP during the quiet months before dropping again come September.

It´s done now anyway. Sure took time to sell those last nine.

Cladner points out some valid information, I am going to be a little more direct and less eloquent. After not logging on to this site for a long time it really is sad to see that you talk as much BS about Crypto as I suspected you did about lego. I would sit down and stop trying to brag how good you are for once because it is so poor on so many levels! I suggest rather than trying to brag on here about your Crypto gains, you sit down and do some reasearch so you can actually pick coins that are gonna do much better in a much shorter space of time than Iconomi (technically you are at a loss on that) and then maybe consider spouting off about ya gains. Btw I would drink and be merry save wasting your time waiting for eth to hit 200 because since you got out at "the right time" it has gone up $100 +, btc also up around 15% , ooopppssss error! If you dont know the reason (why?) alts move with btc I suggest you give up or do some research! Oh and if you dont like what I am saying I dont want to PM you and I am sure you could try and bribe someone $50 to get me banned like you did with that Ozzy lad! To all you decent folk on this site, hope you had a great Christmas and have a fantastic new year, I have a lot of respect for this site and the folk on it, sorry for this post. As for you Tabby maybe stop with your egotistical s*** for 2018

I visited today two stores to get Architecture Studio, by miracle I found the last one in stratford. the current status in brand stores might give you better indication about current state of EOL status and potential resurection (if) Palace Cinemas gone everywhere Winter Toy Shops gone everywhere Caterham hoarded everywhere 10+ boxes Elves series almost gone everywhere Batman Classic surprisingly was almost done. Assault on Hoth isn't going anywhere even discounted Simpsons with 1cm of dust surface on top of it Louvre gone everywhere Burj Khalifa gone everywhere Tie UCS still available Winter Train still available Winter station still available Yellow Submarine overhoarded Nexo - it depends on set and location Xerion Gone everywhere AROCS still available Minecraft the Village still available hassle free Friends Escort Girls mainly gone Escort Superheroes girls still available.

Winner decisions: my decision at the beginning of the year to no longer put real money into my LEGO purchases (or only very little). Stuck to it by-and-large until October when the FBA earnings started rolling in. Especially KMart/SYW .... $4k in MSRP bought, $500 in cash spent. Total of 181 sets. Also winner: My early on decision to go mainly small and medium sized sets (sub $50). Final winner: Not listening to what others say here . Bad decisions: Kylo Ren Shuttle polybags. Even though I got them for free, they just don't move.

Finished this off while the kids were napping. It’s -40 with the windchill today so cant do much else...

My daughter loves the winter village sets but is too young, so we built our own with a few new sets from Santa!

I would rather just look at a picture of the Falcon.

In for 4,283.

Good deal at $100 for a personal build but maybe Gray2010 was referring to investment potential? This is a big heavy set which is going to cost more to ship. Is there enough meat on the bone at $100 + tax + shipping + fees...depends on your expectations of "profit". Picked up my 42069's for $69.97 and Friends Roller Coasters for $49.97. Best potential will probably be after retirement.

A little off-topic, but does anyone else concur that Lego have significantly cut production back during H2? Waiting for 50% discounts was the way to go in summer and autumn, and it often paid off. If production has become leaner, then surely the discounts will become rarer. Maybe 25 to 35% discounts will be new buy-in triggers. Maybe sets will disappear in 2018 without any discount at all. I wasn't here a year ago, so I don't know how the current market compares to 12 months ago. For me, it seems unusual that not one retailer has offered a 50% discount over Christmas, apart from one Friends lightning deal.

Of course you don't see that many, they are track / weekend cars. You don't buy a Caterham to commute to work or go shopping.

BTC is not what a lot of people thought it would be. It was supposed to be a new kind of payment, but it has issues and became a store or wealth instead. BTC suffers from super high fees and long waits so it can never be used for day to day transactions. There are other cryptos that do what Bitcoin was supposed to do much better. However, BTC won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

We just finished building it, me and the kids, and this rocket is awsome. Huge and well done. We really liked it has a build. Looks AWSOME has display.

It´s like selling on Ebay, people don´t look at the description.

70902 is back at Amazon for $9.00 for business customers. Limit 2. https://www.amazon.com/LEGO-Batman-Movie-Catwoman-Catcycle/dp/B01KOPHYZ4/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1514317346&sr=1-1&keywords=lego+70902

Why did you wait? You can have breakfast every day of the rest of your life.

Winter Holiday Train. After the fact I wish I would have gotten the power functions beforehand. Glad the same will be reusable for our (still under the tree) Hogwarts Express.

My 60+ dad (being an absolute Solar / Wind / Alternate Energy Enthusiast) got from us a new LEGO Education (Energy) set and he couldnt resist and built this wind turbine within less than an hour.. I wouldnt expect that (so soon) .. so I think that besides he is really skilled it was an amazing xmas gift.. now he is waiting for some serious wind on the balcony to get some reading from the propellers on the attached energy meter (which was included in the set).. ?

My wife said she saw Technic Extreme Adventure (42069) for $100 in store.

It´s not just the sticker price, though. A lot of these sets are blink-and-you´ll-miss them in the movies and just don´t register with the fans. Your BB8´, AT AT and ISD will always be popular but these things come ten-a-dime and people just could not care less - completists apart.

Right. Now more than ever, Lego reselling is more of a hustle rather than buying up a bunch of exclusives and sitting back. I'd love to sit at home and make a few mouse clicks and call it a day. I am actively having to scour this site looking to save $10 dollars here, $30 here, buying discounted gift cards, etc. Visiting multiple stores in order to find clearance items and shopping sales several times a week. Seeing 200+ Amazon sellers before Brickpickers even consider listing their sets in disheartening. In the end, is it all worth it to make some modest gains? We'll see in a couple of years.

I think this is the most accurate description I've read to summarize the problem at hand. There is bubble talk weekly here, which permeates through many of the various threads. I don' think there is a bubble that will burst, causing prices to plummet significantly on LEGO sets like beanies or baseball cards, but I do think we are at serious risk of very small gains on many sets in the future. As described above, the sheer number of EOL sets available on the secondary market moving forward may keep appreciation rates very modest. People wouldn't pay $1200 for a Green Grocer if there were 200 sellers with available stock on Amazon. This is the biggest difference between 2008 and 2016. I will be very interested to watch the growth curves of exclusives purchased or retired in 2014 and later. Sure, @emazers is going to do well with his 60 Death Stars, because he purchased them at an average cost of something like $275, but could you do that today? TRU doesn't seem to do the BOGO on exclusives anymore, B&N has shut the coupons off. Where can re-sellers, especially those new to the game, pick-up large volumes of exclusive sets discounted at 35 to 40% off RRP? I think pockets of opportunity for good LEGO profit will remain for years to come, I'm just not confident that the long-term hold strategy will remain the most viable. Quick-flips, cashing out 6-12 months after retirement, parting out sets, trying to find the overlooked sets, etc are likely key to survival.

As someone who's been trading the financial markets for over 2 decades, I find this Lego investing trend very interesting. What got me back into Lego was not any article, but opening and building a set that was gifted to me. Only then did I realize how crazy it was out there. I firmly believe the days of multiples of 100s even 1000s percent gains is over. It just won't happen. There will always be a strong secondary market, but not likes of the 10179s, etc... User Vassal on Eurobricks pretty much summed it up. What he/she says is straight out of an economics text book. " ....Some get into it to help subsidize their Lego hobby, I know I have been tempted to do so. However, I fully believe the market just won't hold. There are a couple major items to any market: (1) scarcity and (2) information. There has been a large increase in the number of "resellers" or "investors" in the secondary market the past couple of years. These people are stockpiling massive collections (literally massive, like storage units full) of sets for sale later based on historical times when there was significant scarcity for a particular retired set. With the increase in resellers, scarcity will go down, and profits will go down. We won't see the extreme EOL gains on these sets any longer since there will be literally hundreds, if not thousands in the secondary market. There simply will be too much supply for the demand. Another aspect of scarcity is in my mind, I would rather just buy the sets coming out from Lego at much cheaper prices. Lego investors are primarily targeting AFOLs coming out of the dark ages. As a recent AFOL out of the dark ages, I have wanted retired sets, but filled that void with new sets coming out as I can't pay the prices for the retired sets on the secondary market. I can buy loads of sets with thousands of pieces for the price of a Green Grocer. " Information: This will hit the Lego secondary market in a couple of ways. Information regarding Lego investing is becoming widely disseminated. With stocks (pretty much worldwide), there is widely available information out in the public. Any information not in the public is illegal to make investment decisions on. Due to this, stocks will pretty much reprice based on any information out in the public, and no one usually has information that the general public don't. This is the efficient market theory which minimizes the quick profits. The same will occur with Lego, it is no longer a secret regarding the money to be made with them. That information will bring down the price as more and more investors flood to sell (back to scarcity), and there will no longer be a price gap due to misinformation (few people knowing the value of Lego retired sets).It isn't the resellers that ramp up the prices, but the buyers who buy at those prices. If you have no buyers at a particular price point, sellers won't sell. The prices wouldn't be where they are if there wasn't a market for them at that price.I only do get frustrated with them purchasing up all the deals so quickly, but I don't know that it is them solely responsible for out of stock items. I don't have anything against them personally, as I know there are lots making good money. To each there own, but these are my personal thoughts on the future of the Lego secondary market.I hope to some degree parting out stays around as I do like being able to stock up on a lot of certain pieces rather than trying to buy whole sets with pieces and minifigures I don't need or want. "