My wife and I are quickly running out of pieces in the Lego city display we are working on. I have been searching eBay to find some bulk brick auctions and have put some on my watch list. But the idea just came to me that there may be some sets out there where the minifigs sold separately would be worth more or equal to the set itself. Getting some of these sets and selling the minifigs might be a good way to accumulate pieces. I'm not looking to make any money on this but would at least like to break even or maybe a little less. Does anyone know of good sets that I may be able to do this with? Color really isn't an issue since we need just about every color but grey would be the one we need the most of.

Desert Skiff, Battle Packs, maybe Rancor Pit and Jabba's Palace for a good price? Lots of the lower end sets with lots of minifigs like battle packs and stuff.

Desert Skiff, Battle Packs, maybe Rancor Pit and Jabba's Palace for a good price? Lots of the lower end sets with lots of minifigs like battle packs and stuff.

Thanks. The desert skiff is one that I was looking at. I would have to buy a ton of them to get a lot of pieces but it may be worth it since the pieces would end up being free after selling the minifigs (hopefully). I was also looking at the Rancor pit and Jabba's Palace. If I can get a good price that would work out too and those contain some good pieces.

Some others I was thinking are...

Mines of Moria (9473) @ 776 pieces

Mini Modulars (10230) @ 1300+ pieces (no minifigs but a good price per brick)

Helms Deep (9474) @ 1300+ pieces

I know a bit about this myself, you really need to target brand new sets and sell the minifigs in bundles to maximize profits. People were selling off the Hobbit complete set of dwarves with Bilbo and Gandalf for over $200 at Christmas time, the sets totaled less than $300 retail so you could easily sell off the enemies as well for profit and keep the pieces. A this time, I imagine the best areas to focus on would be monster fighters as they will likely be gone soon and people will want to ****** up the rare minifigs, but the big money maker is probably super heroes. They are new sets out now and people are paying a premium for characters from them. This summer, the new LOTR sets will be out but I don't see the kind of gains you are looking for to come from the minifigs. All of the sets you mentioned area great, but the one key one I would look at is the unexpected gathering as well.

funhouse escape. it has 5 very sellable super heroes/villians

Definitely check out the LOTR/Hobbit ranges. I think Mines of Moria would be a good option for grey parts and possibly Helm's Deep as well.

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I am going to check out what all the minifigs from these suggested sets are going for and find my best options and try this out.

Hmmm. I should try this too. I need a crazy amount of grey, green, and brown to build my mountain, and trees.

I went out yesterday and bought Daily Bugle Showdown, Attack of the Wargs and Ninja Turtles Turtle Lair Attack. I paid less than $35 for each. All 3 have good parts for the city my wife and I are working on. I am going to list the minifigs on eBay today and see how close I can come to the $35 for each that I paid. If I can come close or break even then I will do this about 10 more times to get a bunch of pieces. Like you dgoodfellow I really want some trees and am also looking for a large amount of green, grey, brown and tan.

I think that the most popular licensed themes like SW will yield the best results as far as this search goes. The rarer the figure the better the price you'll get. I'm told that Jabba's Palace if bought at a decent price can yield a good return on the minifigures.

keep me posted how it works out. Where did you find the Attack of the Wargs for $35? I was just looking at that one on amazon as a great source of brown, but looks like it is around 45 there.

keep me posted how it works out. Where did you find the Attack of the Wargs for $35? I was just looking at that one on amazon as a great source of brown, but looks like it is around 45 there.

It was at Shopko. It was $48.99 with BOGO 50% off and I used a $10 off $50 coupon they sent out recently. Came to around $32 before tax.

Have the minifigs sold yet? Any update?