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Did you make a LEGO-themed Halloween costume, or see any great ones this year? I'd love to see what everyone else created! I had a great time creating both a Unikitty and a Benny the spaceman costume for Halloween this year! I got to wear my Benny costume at work and a party at our house that evening. LEGO Movie Unikitty and Benny costumes. My colleagues wearing LEGO Movie costumes at work. Sincerely, ---tom

It was not referring to you, but let me comment anyway. I was referring to people who clean a store out of any item. It brings negative attention to all of us. We do not all hit the maximum purchase amount when buying something like ravenb99 said. Many of us do not buy and flip short term. Moderating purchasing techniques and spreading around your purchases will help us all in the future. A guy like emazers spreads his purchases out, by stores and time. He doesn't acquire 50 of an exclusive set in a one time purchase, that is why he hasn't been banned at every LEGO store. Do what you want. I am speaking from experience and how not to draw attention to yourself. I have well over 7000 sets and never was banned, questioned or left Little Johnny with no sets to buy.

You're hoping to see the R2D2s still in stock all bought by resellers ? The forum needs a "Unlike This" button.

Here is the issue. All of the major LEGO sites depend on affiliate advertising to help pay for the site and/or don't want LEGO to get pissed at them. Even a site like Slick Deals will have to adhere to this policy. None of us wants to risk those dollars or you can kiss our sites goodbye. Welcome to the New World. These companies are adapting to reseller behaviors and you better be prepared to deal with it. Black Friday deals are over rated to say the least. Most of the best deals are random and haphazard and you need other people to help you find them in many cases. There will be plenty of time to get prepared for most of the lame deals retailers are pushing on that day. The real gems are on Cyber Monday and later in the Holiday shopping season.

I think this is the reason I do so well at my TRU. I am there a lot but I never check out with tons of sets in the cart, even on clearance or anything else. I let price mistakes or things of that nature on my receipt go, don't return stuff. When I talk to those guys, thats what they complain about. In return, they always make sure I can use a coupon, throw in extra stuff, tell me about stuff they are about to clearance or put out, etc. And also I haven't had to explain to any of them why I buy so much.

Thought that was a real link until I came to this: You had me going for a bit there...well played!

I wish I could give a Thumbs down to the early openings like that, not the post but what the retailers are doing creeping earlier every year. I would rather the employees be able to catch a break with their family than navigate fights and brawls over $4 blurays. But hey I am old school.

Which system would that be?

6987 Message Intercept Base - pieced together from a bulk lot I bought. Saw the big trans-yellow piece and took a chance that the rest of the set was in there. Only missing a few common parts that I easily found in my collection. It was also missing the crater baseplate, but I had a stack of those on hand. The trans-yellow pieces are in great shape, very clear. This is the only Blacktron I set I needed to complete my collection, very happy to finally have this. It's sooo cool.

Green guy is A-wing pilot from 75003 and orange/white guy is Republic Trooper from 75001 http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?M=sw437 http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?M=sw440

nothing lego related but bought 93" teddy bear for my daughter

Welcome to BrickPicker.com. My name is Ed Mack and along with my brother Jeff, we are the creators of BrickPicker. We would like to give new members...and some old ones, an opportunity to ask the "stupid" question. On many forums, the new or inexperienced members will get berated for asking basic or repetitive questions that many veteran site members already know. Well this forum is the place to ask that silly or dumb question about the site or LEGO collecting and investing. So ask away, no question is a bad one... Also, check out the BrickPicker FAQs before asking, it might answer your question. PS: To veteran and experienced members, I expect civil and proper responses. To new members, no spam please. Thanks...Ed Mack

Sale this month at Uline for shipping boxes. Up to 40% off http://www.uline.com/Product/GuidedNav.aspx?t=301310 edit: I have yet to get anywhere near 40% though. Trying out various combinations the most I could get was 30%

Oh no... the archenemy of every good collector: The Dustmonster!

You're quoting a guy talking about some investors who may hoard a set as soon as an admin give an hint about it, in an investing forum. What was I supposed to think ?

Amazon will never have to pay the new dimensional rates coming next year. The playing field is very far from level.

Ahhh I see... Both sets really look awesome so it really is a tricky situation ;-) If you or your friends/family/whoevers sees it is into Star Wars, than the answer would be R2D2. On the other hand there are people who really like their cars ^.^ Probably I would display R2D2 and every now and then arrange some Star Wars minifigures around it (or on it...) etc. Guess he gives you more opportunities to change small details. (See http://community.brickpicker.com/topic/11992-r2d2-moc-adding-some-colours/?hl=r2d2 ) I guess you could also make some adjustments for this seasonal thingy ;-) (like lights around it for christmas for example)

You have to have some quick flips when you are getting started or you are just spending a ton of money for 2-3 years with nothing coming in until all your exclusives have been retired for a bit. Most people can't do that in the beginning. If I had the kind of money where I could just not care where 10-20k goes every year, I wouldn't need to be doing this for extra income. Now in the long term, yes I hope to not be flipping at all, but in the beginning I have to cover the costs of all these exclusives with SOMETHING or that's it for me.

Word. I'm doing the exact same thing right now.

^^congrats on 1000 posts

I thought I would throw in I still do quite a few quick flips of items to help generate some cash BUT over the last 3 months I have been learning from BP and those who blazed the trail long before me exclusives purchasing and medium to long term holds is the way to go if your able and I have been slowly converting my inventory to match that philosophy. This Christmas is a great time for me to get rid of deals I bought that have been slow movers and convert into TH, AA, and other sets. I am glad BP has shown me the light. This is NOT in conflict with what Raven is doing, it is just as an individual for a hobby I find heading this way will be more long term profitable for me in my case.

The only thing more scary than a herd of BBPWT is an unfed herd of BBPWT.

Just run them past Jeff or me first. We will honor their requests the best we can. It is probably much ado about nothing and the sales are probably subpar anyway, but we are just warning members that certain posts or threads can be removed unless they get permission from the Admins. We will see how this all shakes out.

Black Friday? 1996 called.

I brought the excessive buying/coupon use/return topic to everyone's attention so that a few people might listen. It wasn't really directed at anyone specifically. I usually stay out of these conversations, but TRU and their policies and how members interpret them and/or take advantage of them is always a hot topic around here, so let's try to come up with a reasonable approach to the topic. I am not here to dictate to people how to spend their money or run their business, but being that we are all in this together in a non-direct way, I think it is wise to help some inexperienced members out. First off, we are not all flippers who buy in massive quantities for a short term gain. Many of these conversations(this one included) on this site are leaning towards the short term angle, which LEGO does not like to be quite honest. I don't want a novice investor to think that this is the only way to invest. A promo like the recent Bricktober event was a mess and it should have been implemented more clearly from the start. I cannot fault a buyer for acquiring multiples of these sets if given the chance, but realize there could be consequences to those actions. It is situations like this which can lead to other consumers complaining to corporate TRU or LEGO about the evil resellers buying up massive quantities of sets. It is my opinion that resellers in general have to be more discreet in their buying habits. As more and more people enter the world of LEGO investing, I know it will be difficult to control some yahoos. Some people don't care about the collectible or commodity they resell and change from collectible to collectible as much as they change underwear. I get it. Not everyone views LEGO sets and bricks in the same way. Unfortunately, the situation has already caused many retailers to respond to this sort of excessive buying, return and coupon use. I think if we all could be a little more careful moving forward, harsher restrictions and retailer policies won't be implemented.

Black Friday + Walmart = Prime People Watching, I've never seen people buy so many movies. I agree though, most of the deals on BF aren't that hot, paying attention throughout the year can usually net a better deal.

might be since Amazon opened up international shipping on a subset of lego sets yesterday..

Hi. I'm back. Interesting tax discussion, but I feel that my thread got derailed as a result, so please post tax advice elsewhere. Thanks! How am I doing with the selling? Well, I avoided selling for a few months, but put about 40 sets on eBay the other day. 5 have sold so far (3 Batman sets, 1 Ninjago and a Chima CHI Temple). The profit is not huge (

Right, just be nice to people and don't abuse coupons or cashiers. Don't be a LEGO "piggy" and buy up every set that was supposed to go to kids. Now if there are two or three sets, no big deal. But if you want to stay under the radar, a reseller shouldn't be rolling up to the register with 20 or 30 sets in a cart.

My youngest son went as Emmet, though it had to be modified with extra layers, snow pants and a warmer hat because of the terrible weather that blew through at the time:

"That's no moon"

There are now exactly 100 available on ebay. So I wonder if TRU resets it to 100 every night and don't actually put the full inventory in there up front? Will be interesting to monitor over the next few days.... EDIT: I just punched in a few other sets on TRU ebay and all of them seem to have a quantity of 100. So I'm guessing there is some sort of auto restock if they have 100+ of something that occurs every night. Hard to say if they have 150 total or 150,000....

I had a Sopwith Camel that was double sealed that I ordered direct from LEGO. The weight was the exact same as my others, so I decided to keep it.

Went to a tru and saw 4 promo modulars and asked if I could buy them and they said no they can't sell th. so I go to look around in the lego section and there are 20 town halls sitting on the shelf. The store was about to close so I will maybe try and go there in the morning when a new shift is there and just put it all in a cart and see if they will let me check out

Man you're really lucky to work in such a cool team. (unless you're the boss and told your employees "anybody who will not be disguised tomorrow will be fired !")

merged

I have two slightly damaged GEs (one has crease and one has box image tear on front) that I am planning on returning to WM. I'm offering them up to BPers (for purchase) prior to doing so. I will ship and the cost to you will be my cost + shipping. Ideally I would prefer these go to BPers that have been unable to acquire one yet. If you are interested PM me. (Mods: I've already passed this post by Ed)

...you damned reseller. *click* edition: ( woops )

Well if they don't deliver, I won't pay

Hi there I arrived on Brickpicker a littlebit by chance actually. I consider myself more a collector than an investor. Lego has been a long time hobby now although I do not own a huge collection. I think I cannot (yet) consider Lego as being an investment or a business. However, as my collection is increasing, I tend to look for more specific sets, collector ones and to be able to get them, selling part of mines becomes reasonnable, if not necessary So I begin to consider buying 2 sets from time to time to keep one and resell one. This does not represent a large amount of money but helps my Lego budget to stay in line

Oh it's American. No other country would call that piss colored rice water beer. Blue moon is about as Belgian as Taco Bell is mexican.

Everything in moderation. I cannot fault buyers who are able to buy 20, 30 or more of these sets. It's the fault of the individual store manager to not implement the promo properly. That being said, buying behaviors such as this will cause a retailer like TRU to stop promos to avoid future aggravation and headaches with other consumers. The excessive one time buying of sets like this brings way too much negative attention to the entire LEGO reseller and investment community. Even though it might be a nice short term score, buying practices like this will only hurt us all in the long run.

What you're forgetting is that retail organizations (and large businesses in general) completely over-react to minor things. Your numbers make sense, and work on logic. A lot of businesses don't always do that. Also, let's not forget the point of the promotion was to move $75 worth of OTHER LEGO SETS. It clearly goes against the spirit of the promo itself to buy the sets to get a free set, and unless every TRU manager is dumb, they are going to take notice. General employees may take notice. Other customers may take notice. There's something to be said for keeping a low profile. They literally need to get one old fashioned complaint letter to get wheels moving. Or they look at their own numbers and see something is up. I know we all want to say that retailers (TRU in particular) are really dumb, but obviously they have some people doing their homework there, and that homework gets easier and easier with all the analytics and instant access to information. The following retail changes have occured in the last 12 months alone, and this is a partial list: 1. Walmart has stopped their 50% off LEGO After Christmas clearance. 2. K-Mart.com no longer accepts (Many) coupons for LEGO. 3. Barnes and Noble coupons exclude LEGO. 4. Target.com has begun pricing their hard to find/retiring soon LEGO sets at higher than MSRP regularly. 5. TRU (most of them) have stopped selling their PROMO items separately, and are actually getting corporate orders to NOT sell them. 6. TRU Coupons (some of them) are starting to exclude LEGO. I know I am not going to change anyone's behaviors, there are some folks who are short sighted and frankly don't care about "the future" of LEGO Investing, they want to get as much money as they can right now. I am not claiming you are like that, but there are lots of folks who are. Some on this site, many others who don't bother. But to deny that the impact of increased LEGO reselling visibility/reseller actions helped bring about these changes is really silly. I am not trying to take any sort of high road here or call anyone out, I am just pointing out that there is a cause/effect relationship between resellers and retailer policies. I am not one of those sky is falling sorts, but anyone who wants to do this long term should think about their actions and encourage others to think as well. Lots of people have pointed out increased competition/lower prices, harder to find deals, etc etc. It's not going to get any easier from here. And we certainly can't be surprised when retailers adjust.

9 dollar????? Srsly? We have to pay about 60,- dollar pfff

No honey, I'm really sorry but no room for groceries this week!

My money is on the horde

In 1999, the Confederation des Brasseries de Belgique (The Confederation of Belgian Breweries) sued the then-named Coors Brewing Company over its use of the term "Belgian White." The CBB alleged Coors' advertising was misleading, and could confuse American consumers into believing Blue Moon was made in Belgium. Budweiser is even more Belgian then that Moon thing

A mon calamari can go really wild if he feels trapped.

"Epic" ? Pets included are parrots, frogs, a dog, a cat, a fish... I can't see any phoenix, unicorn or dragon. ^^

I will probably be heckled for this, though I ask you to respond respectfully. Lego is at or approaching being a $5 Billion corporation. Does everyone really think that the mass effect of people on Brickpicker and other sites who buy up inventory have such an important effect on Lego that we actually cause them to adjust sales forecasts and run complete new builds of products? When we were mass buying up the SSD's they did not come through and keep producing 50,000 more they retired it in the US. We can cause spikes shortages and out of stocks but to think that Lego adjusts their overall marketing strategy based upon the frenzy of people scooping up something like Town Hall and that they either were going to retire it or no will not retire it based on the last few days of sales I think makes a much higher opinion of ourselves than we deserve in terms of their overall strategy. The majority of their sales goes to end users (through authorized retailers) and direct through LEGO Shop at Home. In the US I think they do not like at all what most of us do buying up sets are doing and they try to ban and block it where ever possible so that the sets are available for their original intended base. But I do not think there is any great focus on us. I would liken it to if any of you have lived on a farm and owned a horse. There are constantly flies buzzing around the horse and it will swat them with its tail whenever possible, and there will always be flies and it will always swat them, but is a horses main reason in life to swat flies? It doesn't care about the flies it just wants them gone but it goes on and eats, runs, and has fun whether they are there or not. The same with Lego. Whether TH, GE, PS, TB, ToO, 3E or any of them go away we can make small ripples in the pond. But I think we are ripples. Lego is an ocean. That said I am stocking up on everything. Cheers!