So I was visiting a friend who is relocating and I noticed that he had some lego sets that he intends to sell. Since he knew I collect legos, he asked me for my opinion on the lego sets. There was a Taj Mahal fully built (no box or manuals) with some bricks that have faded. I would say the faded bricks are about 20% on one side. A Cafe corner which looks complete (No box or manuals). A Grand Carousel which looks 90% compelete (No box or manuals) and some castle set that is 70% complete. How much should I offer for those sets and tell him that they are worth?

If you want to be fair to the guy, it's hard to say without doing an inventory of the sets and finding out which parts make up those 20, 10, and 30% additional parts respectively, whether they're ultra rare on bricklink or not, and what the cost of effort of selling is worth to him. Price it from there.  

Well he knows the value for Taj Mahal as it is complete from the looks for it.  He expects $800 for it as I talked to him . I was thinking of offering him $500 for tajmahal , $300 for grand carousel , $200 for cafe corner ..$1000 ?

 

So I was visiting a friend who is relocating and I noticed that he had some lego sets that he intends to sell. Since he knew I collect legos, he asked me for my opinion on the lego sets. There was a Taj Mahal fully built (no box or manuals) with some bricks that have faded. I would say the faded bricks are about 20% on one side. A Cafe corner which looks complete (No box or manuals). A Grand Carousel which looks 90% compelete (No box or manuals) and some castle set that is 70% complete. How much should I offer for those sets and tell him that they are worth?

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as for the 10196 CG, even a 90% complete set can be only worth say, $100.  it really depends which elements are missing.

A faded Taj Mahal would not interest me in the least.  I bricklinked mine with "new" parts for this very reason, white is very finicky in Lego-world.  A complete CC, even w/o instructions would be a nice pickup.  Like JA said, the Carousel value really depends on whether a handful of pieces are there.  The baseplate, sound brick, and sails.  Am I missing any?

See pictures attached 

See pictures attached 

 

​The trick is to take the pic of GC when it's not moving...

Edited May 21, 201510 yr by Grolim
removed quoted pics

Aside from what looks like a little cat puke on the Taj, I'd be all in on these.  Carousel looks good to me, don't see any subbed out pieces on the CC so I'd say go get 'em.

A perfect, clean, complete Taj will fetch $1200 right now with no instructions or box. I just sold one with a fellow BPer a few weeks ago. The faded whites on this would make me really nervous on this. A faded one just won't have the same selling power. 

 yeah, 10196 looks good.  from what i can see it has most (if not all) of the key pieces : tan breads, 8 roof flaps, and the very hard to find green baseplate.  not sure if the soundbrick is there or working.

 

Aside from what looks like a little cat puke on the Taj, I'd be all in on these.  Carousel looks good to me, don't see any subbed out pieces on the CC so I'd say go get 'em.

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So I managed to purchase all in pictures for $1000. Very satisfied with the condition of sets. All are complete as per visibility.

 

Very nice score!

Awesome

So I managed to purchase all in pictures for $1000. Very satisfied with the condition of sets. All are complete as per visibility.

​That's an amazing score. If I bought that, I don't know which sets I would want to sell. None of them are in my collection and I would be tempted to keep all of them.

For $1k, wow that`s impressive. Congrats!

​That's an amazing score. If I bought that, I don't know which sets I would want to sell. None of them are in my collection and I would be tempted to keep all of them.

​Agreed, it would be tempting to hang onto them all if you don`t already own them. You could sell the Cafe Corner and pay for a good percentage of the $1k for an even better score, but this is already a fantastic price. Basically, he bought the Taj at a discount and got everything else tossed in. Sweet. 

I thought about selling it but decided to hold off as I would not be able to buy them again for that price.

Now they sit on my display. 

Also did end up buying Town Hall. Green Grocer, Pet Shop, Fire Brigade , Grand Emporium for $1340 (all used with boxes and manuals)

 Great pictures, great lot, very jealous but congrats

Very nice but please put the Taj on table or something. That side's baseplates are going to warp / bend or worse yet, fall   

I think the taj is comparable to the the 10181 Eiffel Tower in base dimension.  If so, the $20 (or so) 4 legged sofa side IKEA table should work.

Great deal

Very nice but please put the Taj on table or something. That side's baseplates are going to warp / bend or worse yet, fall   

​I agree. It would be horrible to see the Taj fall to the ground and disintegrate into over 5,000 pieces.

Nice buy.

​I agree. It would be horrible to see the Taj fall to the ground and disintegrate into over 5,000 pieces.

​I will put it in a better place. Thanks for the advice.

siddji, this ended up being an amazing score and you've made for an excellent collection for everybody to enjoy.  Looks like you need a Market Street now. 

siddji, this ended up being an amazing score and you've made for an excellent collection for everybody to enjoy.  Looks like you need a Market Street now. 

​I kinda agree that now I am tempted at completing my collection. 2 weeks ago I would have never dreamed of buying a Green Grocer let alone a Cafe Corner for the price they are demanding now. But now I might splurge , if I can find a deal on a Market Street.

Might sell the Grand Carousel to replace the Market Street or a used SSD. 

​I kinda agree that now I am tempted at completing my collection. 2 weeks ago I would have never dreamed of buying a Green Grocer let alone a Cafe Corner for the price they are demanding now. But now I might splurge , if I can find a deal on a Market Street.

Might sell the Grand Carousel to replace the Market Street or a used SSD. 

​I just sold a MS about a month ago, would have loved to have found a way to get that to you and get a GC back.  I know some don't consider MS as part of the Modulars, I think most of those people don't have one because it looks great next to the others in the medium blue.  Good thing is you can sell GC and buy a MS with several hundred $$ left for other stuff.

​I kinda agree that now I am tempted at completing my collection. 2 weeks ago I would have never dreamed of buying a Green Grocer let alone a Cafe Corner for the price they are demanding now. But now I might splurge , if I can find a deal on a Market Street.

Might sell the Grand Carousel to replace the Market Street or a used SSD. 

You will miss the 10196 once gone.  There still isn't nothing else like it.