Sorry guys, but I have to brag a little bit about today's accidental 1 store find. Last night my wife, kid, and I drove to Arkansas for a 1 night/1 day trip to Crate of Diamonds State Park. We've been before, but our kid hasn't and we wanted to let him run around and look for diamonds. We didn't plan to pick stores between here and there, but we did stop on the way and pick a couple of WalMart's. We had some decent finds on the way, but no specific LEGO home runs. Today we went to the park. We didn't find any diamonds, but we had a good time. On the way back we decided to stop at a random WalMart in the middle of nowhere Arkansas. It had three full rows of clearance. Here's what we bought: 10xFriends 3942 Heartlake Dog Show @$12 each 11xNinjago 9455 Fangpyre Mech @$12 each 3x3368 Space Center @$49 each 4x4208 4x4 Fire Truck @$9 each 4xNinjago 9449 Ultrasonic Raider @$49 each 5x9470 LOTR Shelob Attacks @$12 each 5x9471 LOTR Urak-Hai Army @$19 each 5x9472 LOTR Attack on Weathertop@$35 each 5x9473 LOTR Mines of Moria@$49 each 3x9468 Vampyre Castle@$69 We found several other non-LEGO items as well. This is my first significant foray into LOTR. Honestly I don't know what to make of that theme, but these prices were excellent so I decided to bite. Arkansas has much higher sales tax than Texas, but even after the 9.75% sales tax these were still excellent deals. It appears that there are no investors in the middle of nowhere Arkansas. Of course the woman at the checkout had some comments.... There were many other LEGO items we left on the shelf. A bunch of Monster Fighters that we feel like we have enough of, some Star Wars battlepacks that were at a good price, some discounted super hero sets, and even some City sets that were really good deals. If we'd had more space we would have cleaned them out. We would have cleaned them out of polybags, but oddly only 1 was discounted, and it was a Star Wars Republic Frigate that we got for .97. We were in my wife's SUV (thankfully) but with everything we bought and everything we took on the trip we were out of space.

Just curious if you can post a pic if the receipt. Feel free to blackout sensitive info.

All boxes are in excellent condition. The only "damage" is the stupid red and white sticker they put on them that's difficult to remove.

If you use a high end/professional hair dryer or a heat gun, and hold it over the stickers, the glue will start to melt amd the stickets come off. Although, some toy collectors want the retail stickers on the product though. Awesome haul though!!!

When we list things we usually just take it off of the one that we take pictures of...messing with stickers can be a huge waste of time.

Booooo! I'd be pissed if I wasnt informed i was going to receive a box with a nasty clearance sticker. That's false advertising, double bubble.

The problem with being 16 and not all that rich is that if I saw great deals like this, I couldn't capitalize on them. :down: It also doesn't help to be a very stingy, deliberate buyer.

All boxes are in excellent condition. The only "damage" is the stupid red and white sticker they put on them that's difficult to remove.

I use undu on all of my stickers. Check it out

The problem with being 16 and not all that rich is that if I saw great deals like this, I couldn't capitalize on them. :down: It also doesn't help to be a very stingy, deliberate buyer.

+1! Which is exactly why you are lucky enough to be getting a summer job. You can probably double your collection with the money from your job because you have exactly zero living fees (unless you parents start to charge you rent!) ;)

Good luck..it's awesome to have access to out of the way WalMarts where there is less competition for these items.

This is purely speculation, but it seems like some WalMarts function as "collection centers" or something such as that for clearance items. There is one near me in DFW that almost always has a good clearance section, and seems to have 2-3 times the amount a normal WalMart has.

I think this is indeed the case. There's a Walmart by me that is the source of my most INCREDIBLE finds (Helms Deep for $25.00, Queen Anne's Revenge for $39.99, etc). I've only found more standard clearance at other Walmarts in the area.

I remember some employee telling me that there is usually one store that collects clearance from other stores and attempts one last clearance on it before they send it back to be "reclaimed" by the company (I'm not sure what that entails). This is probably so the other stores aren't all aren't stuck with a ton of clearance items and forced to post huge losses, etc.

I really wish I had an inside look into the Walmart clearance process...

Also, Josh, how far South Texas are we talking....?

I love that state park! Sorry for not being related to legos but diamonds are cooler! Me and my dad used to go there every year!

Also, Josh, how far South Texas are we talking....?

I'm in Kingsville today, about 30 minutes from Corpus Christi, and may hit a couple other areas near the Gulf.

Don't forget to take a walk on the brown water beach ;)

+1! Which is exactly why you are lucky enough to be getting a summer job. You can probably double your collection with the money from your job because you have exactly zero living fees (unless you parents start to charge you rent!)

I do a funny little thing called saving. You should look into it. :gulp:

Just curious if you can post a pic if the receipt. Feel free to blackout sensitive info.

Here's a partial. There are too many other non-LEGO things that we bought there as well that I don't want to disclose and don't want to spend the time blacking out. This snippet shows the most things in a row that are LEGO.

Booooo! I'd be pissed if I wasnt informed i was going to receive a box with a nasty clearance sticker. That's false advertising, double bubble.

I know you're messing with me, but we do disclose in our listings that price tags and stickers might appear on the items. If I'm listing multiples of something on a BIN I'm not about to take pictures of every individual item. We've never had an issue with this.

I remember some employee telling me that there is usually one store that collects clearance from other stores and attempts one last clearance on it before they send it back to be "reclaimed" by the company (I'm not sure what that entails). This is probably so the other stores aren't all aren't stuck with a ton of clearance items and forced to post huge losses, etc.

I've suspected this...I think I found that store for all of Arkansas this weekend.

I love that state park! Sorry for not being related to legos but diamonds are cooler! Me and my dad used to go there every year!

Did you ever find any?

Don't forget to take a walk on the brown water beach

Gotta love that brown, lukewarm, jellyfish-riddled Corpus tide.

I'm in Kingsville today, about 30 minutes from Corpus Christi, and may hit a couple other areas near the Gulf.

I live way down in this corner of Texmex. Kingsville is an hour north of me. I wouldn't bother coming further south, I don't think I left you much.

=P

I know you're messing with me, but we do disclose in our listings that price tags and stickers might appear on the items. If I'm listing multiples of something on a BIN I'm not about to take pictures of every individual item. We've never had an issue with this.

Lol yeah just joshin ya. By the way, i sold 1 lot of hot wheels already Thanks again for the shipping advice.

Lol yeah just joshin ya. By the way, i sold 1 lot of hot wheels already Thanks again for the shipping advice.

I meant to tell you a 4x4x4 cube for just a normal Hot Wheels. I was thinking it was one of those long Monster Jams things...

Yeah we found two diamonds over the years... kinda pathetic. Both were given to my mother hah

I'm in Kingsville today, about 30 minutes from Corpus Christi, and may hit a couple other areas near the Gulf.

I live way down in this corner of Texmex. Kingsville is an hour north of me. I wouldn't bother coming further south, I don't think I left you much.

=P

It's all good. Didn't find any "special" clearance, but I cleaned them out of the MF they had left, they had VCs still so I grabbed all except a couple that had badly damaged boxes.

It's all good. Didn't find any "special" clearance, but I cleaned them out of the MF they had left, they had VCs still so I grabbed all except a couple that had badly damaged boxes.

That's the main risk I deal with when letting clearance here drop. The kids are completely fascinated with tearing open the boxes, polybags, and minifig pouches especially.