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Found this at Target today. The 20% off Super Hero cartwheel coupon worked on it as well.

I would usually say there is the after Christmas clearance to look forward to .. but here I am sitting in my pjs, sipping tea, watching tv and ordering Lego at 50% off while it is snowing outside .

Riiiiiggggghhhhhhtttttttt!

The sound after making a 50% off purchase.

Today I dug this one out of my loft to accompany my EV. I forgot what a nice little set this is, good selection of minifigs, a building and a vehicle. I know the perception of the EV is hugely divided on here, but for me, one of my favorite sets, and I personally think 8038 looks great next to it, albeit a little cramped!!!

we need to close this thread until next year... January 1st

Niko (new-sealed) was offering the same price (+ $1, for $276 shipped) on eBay yesterday. If you miss out at Target, it's worth checking the eBay listings. You don't want to be the last one on your block without a motorized Sandcrawler tooling around, launching Jawa utility vehicles* *Many essential parts sold separately (see the Sandcrawler thread). Modifying lego sets, especially UCS sets, can be dangerous and should be performed only under parental supervision. A motorized Sandcrawler is not a toy. Children and pets should not be permitted to play on, under, or around the vehicle.

Tiger's Nest Monastery, Paro Taktsang by Anu Pehrson

not sure if anyone saw this or not.... http://www.target.com/p/lego-city-space-port-spaceport-60080/-/A-17408581

I respectfully disagree. The Pet Shop was a great "filler" set for anyone who made a Modular block. It fit. It blended well. Palace Cinema is a wonderful set, that doesn't fit IMO. Looks like it doesn't belong.

I was going to start that later, but my daughter decided she wants to build the Gingerbread House. Finally time to open one of these treasure chests up and see what all the fuss is about.

Changing Seasons has been deeply discounted at a lot of places, but I admit, I actually really like this set. I think it's a clever idea. Some final thoughts on this sale: I was thinking all day how in a few short years TRU has gone from being the worst place to get discounts to being the best place to get them. Pretty interesting. I wonder if it speaks to how they are doing or how the market is doing. I was also thinking how interesting it was that some TRU forget/don't mark some of the sale items on the shelf. I spent most of the day at 3 different TRUs. I bought way more than I wanted to, but at these prices I couldn't say no. I focused primarily on the sets that were definitely outgoing - Here are a few observations - Jurassic World - stuff didn't even sell out at the discounts. A couple stores still had LOTS of T.Rex Trackers, and a few Raptor Rampages. Scooby Mansions - One store sold out of 5 of them while I was there, another sold about 7 out of the 14 they had on the shelf. Bionicle - This stuff did not move at all. Speed Champions - Slow sales, but far from shelf wiping. A-Wings/Tie Advanced - All sold out. Hurricane Heists - One store had about 10 of them at $30. These all moved today. The website has them at $35. I don't think this is any sort of investment winner, but I found it interesting that they moved so quickly. Minecraft Nether Dragon - This one disappeared even from the store that had about a dozen. Shuttle Tyderium - This is concerning to me, as I have a ton of them - But these did not seem to move even at nearly half off and promo. I am baffled, as I think this is a sharp set. Mighty Micros - These seemed to move OK, but I was a bit surprised any stayed on the shelves. I like these sets at these prices. Anyway, just my own observations. I actually didn't buy a lot of stuff I would have liked to. I am hoping they kick in one more last minute sale next weekend. Or actually, I am hoping they don't. FWIW - At the store level, if the sale ends at the end of the day, it switches instantly at midnight - So if you're doing any overnight shopping/1am shopping, be aware.

If you buy loads of diapers and wipes, it totally throws them off.

Deals please. Argue the merits of the minifigs, or sets or movies in the appropriate subs. Thanks!

You sell the figs and you're left with some stupid jet or jeep with a bunch of stickers on it. You also have to compete with $4.50 Dimensions packs with lots of the main hero figs and numerous counterfeits. It's just not worth the 15 minutes to part out and ship each set for me.

City>Super Heroes Bionicles>Superheroes Basically every theme performs better than Superheroes. Throw Ant-Man out and you have a whole lot of crap.

SW Advent is one of the better Advent calendars .. so for a personal build I'd say yes. I think the reseller fairy tale for Advent calendars is sort of over, unless LEGO decides to ramp down production next year due to the glut of calendars available this year. I think that's unlikely, as they seemed to have produced right around the correct amount (meaning, they are not over-abundant in retail stores now, but people were able to buy most of them until late Nov/early Dec quite easily via the normal retail channels).

Even though the ban is more symbolic than anything else (there are always easy enough ways to make purchases), it still feels as if I was just kicked in the nuts.

Finished one. Started another. Expect it’ll be the holidays before I have the time to finish the Shuttle

@donbee Here's your reminder

Looks like Target is running $10 off $50 and $25 off $100 with promo code TOYS online and cartwheel in store starting tomorrow. LEGO included. Also, LEGO Dimensions Starter set for $29.99.

Any retailer I buy from, only one account, ever. Not because of ethics, buying power or laziness, it's all I've ever needed. Good deals will come, slow and steady.

I got lucky and picked this up in an EBay auction for $12 plus $10 shipping. All the minifigs are there except for one skeleton crystal head dude. Less than 10 pieces missing and they will be picked up soon with some other stuff on Bricklink. I already have this set loose, but didn't have a box.

This month (November 2016) marks my first complete year as a LEGO reseller and active BrickPicker, as well as the second anniversary of coming out of my Dark Ages. Okay, I was reading catalogs and buying a few cool sets for my kids every year before 2014, but nothing like the full-on assault of having to catch up with all that LEGO has offered in the past. To celebrate these milestones I thought it would be a nice idea to contribute some of my key lessons from the past year back to this community. First of all, a little background. What really got me out of my Dark Ages was LEGO Trains, actually, it was a Fleischmann N-scale model train set that I used to have when I was a kid and which my dad brought over from Europe to the US 2 years ago. Enthusiasm over introducing my son and daughter to model railroading quickly turned into disillusion because I realized that none of the US manufacturers made tracks compatible with my N-scale track, and that just buying extra rolling stock was going to set me back hundreds of dollars for single-purpose items, which break irreparably when played with by (young) kids. Then a little light-bulb went off in my head: What if I bought LEGO trains instead – we could build our own trains, cars etc., and whenever we wanted something different, we just take it all apart. So with my wife’s blessing, Santa brought the Blue Cargo Train set (60057) and two Horizon Express sets for Christmas 2014. Unbeknownst to her, I had also managed to get an (already retired) Maersk Train, a few My Own Train carriages and some other random train-related bulk lots. I participated in a RailBricks contest (the last one they did before unfortunately shuttering the magazine) and started my decent into the delightful madness that is the world of AFOLs. Since I’m a train guy, you won’t hear stories from me about having to have this or that Star Wars ship, or those exclusive SuperHeroes minifigs. Sure, my son has a Millenium Falcon and Poe’s X-Wing, and the key SW characters as buildables, but our LEGO buying was first focused on Chima (my son loved it), then shifted to Bionicle, and now my kids’ playing revolves around Harry Potter – we don’t own any of the sets, but have a few minifigures and a lot of imagination. My daughter has a lot of Friends sets which she loves, but is slowly growing out of her interest for these (my kids are 10 year old twins at the time of this writing). Then November 2015 hit, and I started investigating the value of some sets, and joined the BrickPicker forums. My first purchases started rolling in ….. Pirate Chess Sets from LEGO Shop-at-Home, and a few handfuls of 10697 Brick Boxes from WalMart. As I really love the brick, I had determined I was going to start my own BrickLink store (having designed several train cars and placing tens of BL orders I had gotten familiar with how this worked). And I read and read and read on BrickPicker, and participated in the discussions, and grew wiser and smarter and, I must say, warier as time went by. Here are the key lessons I’ve learned from my first year: The buying part is easy. The buying part is fun. Great adrenaline rush. But for many of us, there’s too much to buy. Just because it’s 50% off doesn’t mean you NEED to buy it. Case in point: I picked up a 31033 Vehicle Transport at Target in January 2016 for $10 (RRP: $25, so 60% off). Not a particularly nice set, it had just been released, available everywhere, and who will buy from you as a beginning Ebay seller? Needless to say, this set still sits unsold on my shelf. It’s all about buy-in. Where previous strategies mainly revolved around getting your hands on as many of the expensive sets as possible before they quickly but inevitably retired without much fanfare, the LEGO reselling game is undergoing a massive change. Buy-in price seems to be the key factor now. As a beginning buyer I was excited when I saw 20% off. A year later, 40-50% is where my heartbeat starts increasing. Selling takes time. It’s not difficult, it just takes time. Time to establish yourself as a trustworthy seller. Time to wait for prices to rise to a level you’re comfortable with. Unless you stumbled upon something truly desirable and unavailable, or if you are able to price significantly below others, don’t count on things selling within the first 30-day listing period. Darth Revans, Iron Patriots and Silver Centurions are obvious exceptions, but those don’t come by often. For other items it is a slow, slow game – listing and relisting. The game changes continuously. What works one month might no longer work the next month. Every Bob and Sally has LEGO items in their Ebay store. More and more people join and try to eke out an ever smaller amount of profit. Amazon throws up a gate. Ebay and Target stop a lucrative giftcard cycle. You need to stay in touch or your investments become much harder to sell, or your profit evaporates. Making a decent profit is not easy. At least, not for big(ger) sets. Just look at Ebay: You bought a set for $100 and want to make good profit. If you sell for $150 (shipping included), you will pay ~$18 to Ebay/Paypal in fees, and ~$10-$20 in shipping (in the US, depending on where you live). That’s $30-$40 off of your selling price, so you end up making $10-$20. A small profit is also profit, but you’ve spent time on this set, buying it, storing it, packing it, listing it, checking comparables etc. Unless you’re shifting hundreds of these sets a month, this will not be worth your while. Your time is valuable. Even if you consider this “only a hobby”, before you know you’re in your car driving from one Target to another. I have 6 or 7 Targets in a 15 mile radius from my house, and a similar amount of Walmarts. Popping into one is a quick affair. But when those clearance rumors swirly, and stock checkers are unreliable, your “quick check what they have” becomes a 3hrs+ road-trip. Plus, with 800+ LEGO sets on the market, you’re quickly spending 20-30 mins per store checking resale values, BL part-out costs etc. Then you need to list. Take a picture or two. Research what others are listing for. Do your administration (which for a detailed oriented person like me means adding a row for each set in a 30+ column spreadsheet tracking all sorts of aspects of your purchases). And for those of us who do the part-out route, there’s time in sorting out the set contents, setting up an organizational system, updating BL inventories etc. Choose your game plan. There is too much going on (what with LEGO producing 800+ sets a year as mentioned before) to play all fields. Unless you’re sitting on vast amounts of spare capital, you cannot AND go deep on expensive sets, and cover all themes (Modulars, SW UCS, GBHQ, SHIELD Helicarrier, Advanced Technic models etc) and part out, and BrickLink …. Pick one strategy that best fits your lifestyle. Your options are: Good old-fashioned investing – buy expensive sets for true investment purposes, i.e. stash them away for 3-5 years post retirement and see if that magical 3xMSRP has appeared. Clearance hunting for quick flip – grab those 50-75% off sets, and list them within a year to see if you can get >MSRP to get 75-100% ROI. Diamonds in the rough – take a punt on a few sets that you believe are “iconic” and not soon remade. Remember: First rule of fight club is that nobody talks about fight club. Sit back and watch others scramble over the “common” sets, and rake in the profits when the sets are retired and people realize they “need” them. Or at least, that’s the theory. Buy for part-out. Split your sets into minifigs, buildings and vehicles, and sell them separately for more than the original sets’ cost. I’ve had some luck with this strategy, though it was never my game plan – especially with Dimensions (minifigure and video-game discs sold separately, with the minibuilds as parts for my BL store inventory). Buy for parts. Look at which sets have good BL value, but be careful: unique/niche parts can drive up the value but see very little sales. Be selective. Don’t be a sheep. Tied to the previous point. It is so easy to get carried away. “Great deal on this SW UCS – now 30% off!”. Sure, but if you have a budget (and I recommend you have one from the get-go), plonking down a few hundred bucks on a set that you’ll likely have on a shelf for the next 2-3 years might not be the wisest decision. Plus, there are many others who jump in on this, so you need to battle your competitors in a game that is not your strength. Net, stick to your own plan. Document. Document. Document. Keep track of what you spend and how much you earn. A spreadsheet is good enough. Don’t count on profit until you have it in your PayPal account. Account for all expenses – boxes, shelving, tape, you name it. Find the right marketplace. Depending on your location, you have multiple options. Each marketplace has its plusses and minusses. The key ones are: Ebay. First choice for many. Used by bargain hunters, savvy shoppers and has generally a good, sizeable audience. To really have a good experience, you need to be honest in listing (duh), take lots of pictures, price right, ship fast, and have a return policy (and ideally, a generous one). Also, you need to use PayPal, and unless you work yourself up to Top Rated Seller, count on 12% of your total sale price (including shipping!) to be taken as fees. Amazon. Until very recently the absolute best place to start selling. Everybody shops at Amazon. Unfortunately, unless you pay $1k and provide proof of purchase (and potentially a letter from TLG proving you are an authorized reseller), you cannot list LEGO anymore. I was lucky to get grandfathered in based on a few sales I had in the spring and summer. FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) is the best one of the lot – limited effort (buy, add to inventory, pack and ship to Amazon – they take care of the rest) and a lot of eyeballs. This comes at a price: up to 20% of the sale price goes to uncle Jeff, but the “Prime” label makes up for that by commanding a premium price from buyers, and people happily click away. Plus, you get a chance to be featured in the Buy Box. Just be aware of returns – you might have to swallow the occasional destroyed item. Craigslist. Flea-market audience. Has the hassle of having to meet with people (and finding a place where to do this can sometimes take a lot of back-and-forth with your buyer), but once the sale is made you have no risk and no obligations. Also: no fees. BrickLink (and BrickOwl, its key competitor). AFOLs only. Limited eyes, but limited fees (1-2%). Your buyers know what they want. Shipping is extra, so no need to accounting for shipping costs in calculating your price. The only downside is that setting up shop properly is not easy – adding shipment methods, figuring out how to price those methods correctly etc. all needs some research. Of course you can do without, but you get more sales if you do it right. Facebook selling groups. No real experience here on my end. I’m part of my local Buying/Selling group, but what I see is not instilling much confidence: used cars, pitbull pups and phones. I doubt anyone will want to buy a LEGO set at a reseller premium there. Others have reported more success. There are other apps and marketplaces: Offerup, Kijiji in Canada, Gumtree in the UK, Marktplaats in the Netherlands and Belgium …. I have no experience with these but from what I’ve heard, they fit in with Craigslist/Facebook above. Conventions, flea-markets, garage sales. Very interesting venues, each with their own dynamic. You could get away with charging a premium at conventions (and potentially at flea-markets), but often your participation comes with a fee, so you need to account for that. Again, not an area I have dabbled in so far. Read up on key threads. Check what happened to 41999 to understand how the horde can get carried away sometimes. Read the Amazon/Ebay/CL threads for tips on how to get started, and for answers to commonly experienced questions. Check out the Ethics forum to understand what is being frowned upon – if we don’t keep certain practices and standards, retailers will counteract and remove things like the ability to stack coupons, or the acceptance of printed coupons, or even the privilege of a hassle-free return. And before you make your first purchase, check the speculative bubble thread – if you are still convinced you want to do this after reading that thread, you’re probably strong enough to handle what’s coming (or rozy-eyed enough to not care). Master the art of stacking. There are published deals (50% off at Target!) and there are “make your own deals”. The latter have the benefit that they are YMMV (your mileage may vary) – others likely won’t be able to replicate them. Several retailers (Toys’r’us, Kmart/Sears, Meijer, BAM, Ebay, Galeria-kaufhof and mytoys in Germany to name a few) have coupon and discount policies that allow for the stacking of offers. Combine sale pricing with credit card discounts, with reduced-price Gift Cards, with 20% off coupons, with Buy-one-get-one-free (BOGOF) offers, with points/rewards program certificates, until your buy-in price approaches $0. Then rub it in other’s faces on the "What LEGO set did you buy today" thread. Get in on those loyalty programs. For the price of a small piece of your soul, join as many rewards programs as you can. Ebay Bucks, TRU Rewards, Shop-Your-Way, Meijer mPerks, BAM club membership, Barnes & Noble membership, you name it. Carry the card. And if you don’t mind carrying multiple credit cards, use store-specific CC’s for your purchases, and earn discounts and cashback. Just pay them off every month, please. Be truthful in accounting. This goes two ways: Don’t get into trouble with the IRS. If you sell for profit, you are generating income. Better report it (plus in the US you can deduct the expenses incurred in making the sale, such as car mileage, shipping materials, storage materials etc.). Officially you should also register yourself as a reseller in your state/county (unless you block people in your state from buying from you). For my state (Ohio) this was really not a big deal – a small fee, some paperwork, and a twice-a-year reporting duty (so far always $0). Also, configure your selling accounts (Ebay, BrickLink) to automatically charge sales tax on purchases made by local buyers. You can only do this on Amazon if you have a professional selling account – when you sell as an individual you’ll just have to pay the sales tax out of the sales price. As a benefit: I get to buy tax-free in the few places that haven’t banned resellers (Amazon, Walmart) as long as it is for store inventory. Think about how you account for points, freebies etc. There are many ways to skin the cat, but I prefer this approach: Points never count as a discount on the purchase made to earn them, only as a discount on the purchase where they are used. Freebies count as a $0 purchase, and everything I earn on them is (gross) profit. So, those sets I bought at LEGO S@H for $75 to get the free Gingerbread House really cost me $75, even though I sold the GBH for $50 and made $40 profit after fees and shipping, and got 150 points as part of double VIP. Get approval from your S.O. (Significant Other). Some of us are blessed with AFOL partners. Some of us have bargaining partners – if you want to do this, then let me do my thing. Some of us have eye-rolling partners. And even some of us have to pretend and work undercover. Oh, and some don’t have partners, but I’m giving them a break and will not tap into my arsenal of AFOL bachelor puns. At least come to some sort of an arrangement. LEGO should never be the reason a relationship ends, and should never be more important than your S.O. I had big plans (and still have big plans) regarding my BL shop as well as regarding my LEGO Train building hobby. They’ve been slowed down – my wife protested against the amount of time I was spending on this and she was right. <Insert doormat pun here> Practice self-constraint. No you don’t have to buy it all. Often I go all the way through the checkout process and then take a breather. A quick comparison with other sites. Read some reviews. Think "yes it is x% off, but you still pay $y". And after amassing a closet full of LEGO: “First sell enough until you have more funds and more space, then buy again”. What also helps me is that I have a (very short) list of sets I really want to have for my personal collection. If there ever is a good deal on those, I’ll jump on it (ideally using Ebay Bucks or Credit Card reward dollars). For the other deals: there will be more deals in the future. Be helpful and you’ll be better off for it. Just like you need to build up a reputation of trustworthyness on Ebay or Amazon, I advise everyone to do the same on BrickPicker. Look out for your fellow BP-ers. Help them score a deal when needed. Post those deals when you see them (even if they don’t interest you), or at least, post them after you had your fill. Because all the goodwill you’re building up will help you get better deals yourself – via member-to-member private messages, or just by being "in-tune" with what is happening on the marketplace. And unlike many other platforms on the vast World Wide Web, Brickpicker is a very civilized, high-intelligence online forum. Conversations are kind, well articulated and insightful. Moderators intervene at the right time, and with clear principles. And everyone likes a giggle. Unless you are a professional reseller (and I know there are several that frequent BP), remember that this is supposed to be a hobby. You’ll enjoy it more when you keep your love of LEGO alive. Scale back when you don’t have time. Sell if you need cash. Pop seals and build if there’s something you’ve now taken a fancy to, or if the market for the set has cratered. But please, please don’t get in over your head. To conclude my story: I have spent considerable time over the first half of 2016 on building inventory, writing software to manage my BL store’s sales and pricing analytics, and sorted through about half of my sets and parted them out. I listed ~20k parts on BL, and have seen some nice sales coming through. However, as this is my hobby, I’ve had to take a break from adding to my BL store and it has been in hibernation mode over the past months as other priorities took over. I have continued to list sets on Ebay and Amazon to keep some sales going. I bought well – some initial purchases were not as good as some later ones when I got clearer on what I needed to look for in sets, however, those were offset by some lucky finds (Ghosts for half price, anyone?). I resigned myself to contributing to reporting sales and delightful banter to BP, and with ~3.5k posts to my name in just a year, I think I’ve been quite successful at that strategy at least. To round it all up, some statistics from my first year: Total resale purchases including supplies, shipping costs and fees: $7.3k Average discount over MSRP: 44% Total sales revenue: $3.0k ROI on those sales: >175% (But I sold quite a lot of freebies which drive ROI up) Average fee paid (Ebay, Amazon, BrickLink/BrickOwl): 11.2% Parts amassed for my BL store: ~110k Here’s to a great second year! View full blog article

I blame the bad DC movies.

Books-a-million

Looks like target fixed all prices... I do not know what to do whole day, planned to buy LEGO all day long...nvm, was a glitch???..prices back again...

Bought 8 Pirates Chess sets over the last few days. £ 31.79 each with 4 snow globes using £ 5 vouchers & £20 of VIP points

Ugh... caved and bought 2 Wall-Es from Target. All the Toys R Us stores near me haven't had any in stock in a while. Was hoping to get a few more in the 30-40 range before end of life but this set has rarely been discounted below $50 so this may be as good as it gets without having to leave the house.

Thank God I've pretty much taped up my wallet at this point. Just going to drink coffee and build 31038 Changing Seasons right now. More building, less buying. Winter is coming.

Living the OA dream baby! It doesn't get any easier than this. I dunno but I am never touching Lego again in the USA from a retailer at less than 40% off.

My bank is colluding with my employer to enforce said action. Cash advances should be a civil right

That's great, I will do that - Not sure how long I will want the reminder though.

much more dignified Disnified than slave Leia. somehow i don't think RTT will be on a frequent remake schedule. stacking 75150 + Droid Escape + 75135 battlepack has ended up in my cart now a few times. i'm all out of gc's.

this is the first and only set from The Force Awakens to go to SOLD OUT at us LEGO Shop at Home so the light is already at the end of the tunnel. i loaded up at 50% off at walmart this summer but was tempted to get a few more with the discount, the sale, and 10% gc 2x Resistance Troop Transporters and a microfighter to get to $100 i think gets you pretty close to 50% off sipping coffee from your kitchen table. ghost microfighters make some money and to get you over the FBM hump in October.

I don't think any other stores have it on sale. The Resistance Troop Transporter is also a great price.

not his style

Can't you add marbles or playing cards or something?

Weak year for Books-A-Million deals, but just got an email for Millionaire Club members: 10% off all online orders, 20% off all in-store (and discounts do apply to Lego this time), and (the ad says) BOGO50%OFF on Lego in-store (offers and selection in store may vary)... may just have to visit BAM today...BAM's prices are usually high... but that means you can often find already retired sets lingering on the shelves. http://view.e.booksamillion.com/?qs=ca7bc250899d65d518a8bc73747758d4285ad370eab37f133d78e4ee046284a2ce0283439c603a91de45b3da29295695f61306321d2325b0e30b87da1ca12528

Starcraft: Ultralisk by Mike Nieves

Kmart has several sets approaching 35% off before SYW magic. 30% is usually the cap because they know that coupons and points can easily get it much lower. Act fast! http://www.kmart.com/search=lego?discount=30&filterList=discount&catalogId=10104&storeId=10151&levels=Toys %26 Games_Blocks %26 Building Sets

This is the most disturbing thing I have seen today and I watched 3 episodes of Ash Vs. Evil Dead.

How much are you losing by not taking advantage of TRUTH/TRUST and double rewards while waiting for this potential transaction? I'd say the math does not support this decision.

you guys are clueless about star wars fandom if you think that a (hypothesized) AT-ACT is going to make a dent in the price of an out of production retired OT Hoth AT-AT. you're talking apples and oranges. almost like saying Poe's X-wing should have dented 9493's price. the ship has sailed for non-1%er Timmy to get his AT-AT until 2018ish when it is inevitably re-released. between now and then, the intestinal fortitude of the reseller will determine the price on this set. it was a year ago today that i bought my last 75054's from amazon. sniff ... sniff. they grow up so fast...

Christmas Town 2016: My fiancee has to finish decorating the tree to make it look presentable and I have to finish tying the lights to buildings and update the sidewalks, park (or Brick Bank), and add the vehicles and townsfolk back in. 1st Street: 2nd Street: 3rd Street and 10173 Holiday Train 10254 Winter train and 3 Horizon Express One photo with no flash, for the blurry nighttime effect.

Yes, the 10% GC from last week.