Hello all, 

I've been a longtime lurker here on Brickpicker, pretty much from its inception.  I came out of my dark ages around Christmas of 2010 when I bought a Hogwarts 4842 for a friend on Amazon and saw a link to some of the Modulars...they looked so cool and I just had to have one as a guilty pleasure!  Unfortunately I had just missed out on Green Grocer's retirement by a few days (as well as the Carousel and Taj Mahal), and noticed that in the 2-3 weeks since they had been discontinued that they had already skyrocketed in price.  I was pretty astonished at that, and that became the inspiration to invest/resell.  

 

My first "pick" was some Lego Star Destroyer 8099s I found in abundance at the Walmart 50% off clearance for $14 I think (it also ended up being my first "dud"!)...I picked 4 of them off the shelf nervously and told myself "I guess I'm going to do this!", and ended up going back to that store the next day to buy about $200 worth of clearance stuff.  My friends thought I was nuts, and a couple of months into it I had a set of garage shelving full of sets.

 

That morphed over the past 3 years into a couple of storage units packed full, with over 2000 sets (my brickfolio hasn't been updated since early in the year).  I've been lucky to acquire some of those "missed" sets over the past few years (Green Grocer, Cafe Corner, UCS Falcon, UCS Star Destroyer, Taj Mahal) for my personal collection, but I do a lot of investing as well.  I pretty much put the breaks on investment purchases following last year's post-Christmas clearances, but I got the itch to go out after Christmas this year to check on the 50% off Walmart sale (which we all know didn't happen!).  I did pick up some Batcaves and Jabba's Palaces though, as well as some of the retiring Technic sets, but I missed out on the big sales around BF and through the fall.  

 

The investment game has changed a fair bit over the last 12 months, and it seems like the investor community is exploding (thanks a lot to this site!).  A couple of years ago things were a lot easier...less competition, regular BOGO50 at TRU online without limits including exclusives, etc.  Now there's quite a bit more work involved to get the same level of profits, and Lego seems to be holding some of their prime sets on the market longer...I think from this point I'll be mostly selling, but taking advantage of some "obvious" deals here and there.

 

Anyway, tl;dr: I've been buying and selling for a few years now, hopefully I can help pass along some advice that I've learned along the way!

hello I'm sure many people would love to hear about the storage unit aspect (and others). 

Welcome to the forums! ....it's a great place filled withinteresting people and helpful advise :)

Welcome to Brickpicker!!

Glad to see you posting, I hope you'll join in some of the other discussions as time goes along. :-)

Wow, cbaker1974, you weren't kidding. You've been a member since the beginning of January 2012! Glad to see you posting all the same though. Grace us with your wisdom! Haha. Well, you just earned your first award for simply being around so long. Enjoy your "Founder" award! :thumbsup:

Welcome!

Hope to see you post more.

Welcome and feel free to share any information or opinions!

Welcome to Brickpicker!!

I completely understand your lurking!  Over this summer while tending a newborn and trying to work in sleep, I still browsed through the forums even if I wasn't as active as I was pre-baby.

 

You've got a lot of posting to do to catch up - how about some pictures of your storage setup and collection (which sounds pretty awesome).

Welcome to the site!

Welcome to the forums! Look forward to your posts!

Welcome ex-lurker!

Welcome to Brickpicker!

I want to see pictures of the storage unit.  Pictures like that both make me jealous because of my small collection of 200 or so sets, and it makes me happy because of how angry my wife would be if had 2000 sets!  Right now, she is indifferent, but she was making fun of me until I showed her Willie's house pictures.  

I'll have to upload some pics of the storage unit next time I get out there...but here's some of the storage history...

 

When I first started out, I was just stacking sets in a closet, on the floor, next to the bed, etc.  That got old pretty quick, so I got a set of shelving from Home Depot...at this point my friends said I was crazy and had "taken it too far".  They are a little under $40 or so per set.  They are 36" wide x 18" deep.

 

I like these because the normal "large' sets like HP Hogwarts, Helm's Deep, etc. will fit almost perfectly without the top shelf touching.  I ultimately ended up with 7 sets of shelving in the house before I had to get a storage unit...now I have 5 sets of the shelving at home:

 

 

 

Pardon the mess!  I just moved a couple of months ago and am still getting my workspace setup, and some of the orderliness has gone out the window this month.  Essentially I use the shelves at home to hold things that I'm going to list on eBay relatively soon...everything else goes to the storage unit.  Eventually I'll have a work table setup in this room for packing, etc.  I buy boxes from Uline in bulk in a range of sizes that match up well with the different set boxes that Lego puts out...for the big ones like Helm's Deep I do 24x16x4, for Winter Toy Shop 20x16x4 and so on.  Bubblewrap comes from Amazon or eBay depending on who is cheaper, plus packing tape.  I've got a cheap postal scale and use an old Zebra thermal label printer to print my Fedex/USPS labels on...I have a ton of free label rolls that UPS gave me a few years ago, so I still use those.  

 

Once you get to any kind of regular volume, standardizing packing materials saves a bunch of time.  I used to stomp through the house trying to find a box to pack a set in, or cut a box down, etc. etc.  With the standardized boxes, the packing becomes a no-brainer.  It does require a little investment (Uline will ship free for orders over $250 or $300...they have a warehouse in my area tho so I can pick up for no charge), but the time savings is immense.  I recycle packing materials when I can, but the purchased bubblewrap makes it a lot easier...I need to find a cheaper source since I use alot.

 

The storage unit is a 10x10 in a climate controlled facility (basically just a big heated/cooled warehouse that they subdivided into individual spaces).  I've got 10 shelving units lining the side and back walls, with a folding table set up for staging.  I may need to put in a couple more shelving units as space got real tight after last year's Christmas clearances.  

 

I always unpack sets and don't store them in Amazon/TRU shipping boxes...too much air (makes for inefficient storage)  and i like visually seeing the sets so that I can quickly pull some if my stock is running low at the house.  I will usually make a trip at the start of the week out to the warehouse to unload/unpack new purchases and to bring home anything i intend to sell.

 

I like these because the normal "large' sets like HP Hogwarts, Helm's Deep, etc. will fit almost perfectly without the top shelf touching.  I ultimately ended up with 7 sets of shelving in the house before I had to get a storage unit...now I have 5 sets of the shelving at home:

Do I spy the "roaming gnome" in the middle pic here?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKlavkQwIQM

Very cool setup. 

Nice intro and pics....welcome. I enjoyed reading your analysis of how things were easier "back then"....I'm newer to Lego but I have the same feeling about other past investment ventures. Gotta keep adapting and keep a close pulse on the market.