I've been watching the stock levels in a few places for a few of the more key/likely/older items people are hoping to retire soon.

 

 

SInce I'm in the UK, I'll go through that, but perhaps you might extrapolate across the pond!

 

Whilst these are still in stock on the LS@**** in the UK, it's interesting to see what stock levels of the other retailers are doing...

 

 

1. VW Camper Van (John Lewis Exclusive)

- This is argubly the most interesting that I've been looking at. It's been out of stock twice in the past couple of weeks. I cheekily even phoned up to see what was going on with it. (but they'd got it back in stock before I can ask if it was coming back in again) However they only got a small number (12 possibly) which have all gone again.

 

2. Sopwith Camel (John Lewis Exclusive)

- 32 in stock, though I'm sure that a few weeks ago there were a 200+ so I'll watch the speed at which these are sold and see if I can spot any trends there.

 

3. Town Hall (John Lewis Exclusive)

- 142 in stock, previously above 250 a couple of weeks ago, so plenty of supply for last minute stocking up if LEGO EOL's it.

 

4.Tower Bridge (John Lewis Exclusive)

- 19 in stock, hovers around 20 or so at any time, I've not seen it less than 10 but not more than 20 either.

 

5. Pet Shop (TRU and Smyths Toys)

- Smyths let me put 999 in the basket so I'm guessing their checkout software doesn't know current stock levels.

- TRU had 20 a week or so ago, currently 18, so a slow seller recently, but then why would it go down during Double VIP points except for the 2*

Nice research. I think it will be handy for your fellow countrymen. Keep up the good work!

A useful bit of research for us guys over this side of the atlantic

Thanks, interesting stuff.  Of course we have no idea if/when stock will be replenished.  Please not that Smyths quantities are often total fiction as I've had a lot of issues with them where I place an order for multiple bargains only to be disappointed at either the checkout stage or with a follow up "not in stock" email.  As for Amazon, I NEVER buy from their resellers, only direct.

 

As for which one(s) in your list retire first, I've now not got the faintest idea as I keep hearing different stories.

Well if I were to guess right now, having only followed it for a few weeks I'd say the Camper Van will be first of the above. The rest seem to be in reasonable supply for the time being, I think trying to monitor the rates at which they sell will be more interesting but difficult without very frequent "adding to basket" of items, otherwise if something jumps from 38 to 40 for example, I don't know if they sold all 38 before restocking or just a few.

 

Bizarrely if people hoard sets or buy in bulk, resellers might be tempted to stock up again, which in turn feeds back to Lego to say "they're still selling" make another batch and push any retirement date back a month or two.

 

I'd be interested to find out what the minimum production size for lego was, I guess 10k for some of the CUUSOO stuff otherwise it's not time efficient/cost effective for them to do small production runs. That said if it's just "compile a load of generic bricks in a box", they're more likely to stick around or be able to produce small numbers of the sets.

The T1 Campervan stock is plentiful on the Shop @ Home site. I don't think John Lewis are going to stock this anymore, they've had none since Christmas and it's not even listed anymore on their site, so using them as a guide is probably pointless

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Good research. Whilst its impossible to know exactly when things will go EOL, all information helps us to spot the signs.

Or TLC could just a chop set with no warning and confound us all, like with 10230.

At a call to the german lego customer service, they said, that the Camper Van and Tower Bridge will be available this year. Could be speculation. But to be sure, i bought 20 T1 and 20 TB.

New stock of VW is scheduled to arrive at Amazon next week.....

At a call to the german lego customer service, they said, that the Camper Van and Tower Bridge will be available this year. Could be speculation. But to be sure, i bought 20 T1 and 20 TB.

 

Assuming you actually bought from Lego... That's a lot of money especially when you could've got the VW Camper during 2x VIP and the Tower Bridge from Amazon Italy.  That's

Yes, i bought direct from LEGO. But as you mentioned, in the 2x VIP Point range. And with a extra cashback of 5 %. So i think, it was a good deal.