The LEGO sets I bought as an investment.

[Toronadian]

Wow. I don't have that kind of money and space to invest in Lego like that...damn. Do you sell anything at a reduced or regular price to anyone when the item is still in-stock (like fellow collectors or something that you know personally or whatever)? Or do you hold onto it all until it goes out of production. Just wondering, as I personally only collect and don't know too much about reselling.

[picabo78]

Nice. Glad you left room for the fan to circulate. LOL.

[Gooker1]

Nice. Glad you left room for the fan to circulate. LOL.

LOL - noticed that too.

That's awesome! Thanks for sharing that with us. Lego heaven!!

[The-Daryl]

Wow. Well you could build a nice sized fort out of boxes. The ultimate lego build

Speaking of which do you actually build/display any of the sets, or is it purely business?

[kwkw]

WOW and i thought my collection was big...I wish I could be that type of seller, good job that looks like a lot of hard work not just buying the sets but acquiring the capital to start something like that must have been tough, my hats off to you emazers!

[lego the hutt]

Helms Way...

[c4dreams]

Awesome. Now I have, when my wife is giving me a hard time, I can just show her those pictures and say, "see...I hardly have any compared to this guy!"

Anyone want to calculate the approximate value of all of that stuff? $25K?

[anakinisvader]

I like the Spidey pillow. You cant have a lego room without a Spidey pillow.

[ninjagoyo]

Hey, I have that same vacuum!

Okay, now the thread is officially as far off topic as possible.
It's cool, but can a mod split it into some other thread so I don't keep clicking on this wondering what's new about a sale that ended a week ago?

[The-Daryl]

Helms Way...

Hehe glad someone else noticed... That's actually why i asked if any ever got built/enjoyed or if everything was a box for profit :)

Okay, now the thread is officially as far off topic as possible.
It's cool, but can a mod split it into some other thread so I don't keep clicking on this wondering what's new about a sale that ended a week ago

Haha, ya I keep clicking this thread also, and feeling tricked! About the last eleventy seven posts could be split into "Investing" and still make sense :)

[CreatorCrazed]

I love this thread! Always great to meet fellow Lego investors. I have to ask though, do you find the sets on the bottom of the stack begin to buckle over time? We have industrial shelves for our resale sets. Smaller ones go on the shelves and the larger ones stack on the top shelf. Some stacks are 5' tall. We "stand them up" on the bottom layer, then lay them down on the second layer. Seems to make the stacks more sturdy and keep the bottom set from being smushed.

Our operation got too big to run out of our finished walkout basement home, so we rented a warehouse. Fully insured! Although, I don't think any amount of money would console me if there was a fire. We are also collectors, so we have a special relationship with the tiny plastic bricks. :)

[legohunter]

Wooh.... A mountain of lego box sets. I don't have a house and that much of much money for this investment. I should show these pics to my wife and let her know how little my collection was.

[Brickmythic]

Nice stash bro!
so this is why big sets aren't appreciating in value as fast!

you missed out big time on Volkswagon Van and Maersk Train. hopefully you have some tucked away under your bed or in a closet somewhere.

Looks like you missed out on Harry Potter. small sets like hagrids forbidden forest and quidditch.

also you'll need an improved way to store your product without heavily damaging boxes over time.

also look out for scammers, big set sellers will get scammed several times a year by ebay criminals who buy a set then take the goods out, refill it with megablocks and misc lego, and return it to you saying its not as described. Luckily you have plenty of overhead but thats usually what forces casual sellers to eventually stop. ebay and paypal will always side with the buyer and good luck getting anything reversed.

be careful and good luck sir!

[simplylemonade]

Phew, good thing I got an extra forbidden forest with TRU's B1G1 sale!

"also look out for scammers, big set sellers will get scammed several times a year by ebay criminals who buy a set then take the goods out, refill it with megablocks and misc lego, and return it to you saying its not as described."

That's ridiculous! Is there no way to protect the seller from this?

[SpaceViking]

That's ridiculous! Is there no way to protect the seller from this?

not really. one option is to sell on craigslist, with a 'no returns' policy. ebay/paypal/amazon typically side with the buyer in a dispute. My 'defect' rate is around 2%. I sell so little that its much less than "several times a year". But it does happen.

This is one reason why I think its important (for a smaller seller) to invest only in sets that you like. After a couple of fraudulent transactions, you may say "THWI"... and end up never selling some of them.

[Brickmythic]

Phew, good thing I got an extra forbidden forest with TRU's B1G1 sale!

"also look out for scammers, big set sellers will get scammed several times a year by ebay criminals who buy a set then take the goods out, refill it with megablocks and misc lego, and return it to you saying its not as described."

That's ridiculous! Is there no way to protect the seller from this?

thankfully it doesn't happen often! I've bought and sold 3 big ticket sets in the last 5 years that had the contents replaced with inferior blocks.

Its also happened a few times with smaller sets I've purchased from Target and TRU.

2 years ago I bought a passenger train from TRU in south pittsburgh (one of the 2 best TRU's in Pittsburgh with great managers and crew) that had the contents completely removed and replaced with sandwich bags of misc. blocks and mega blocks.

I was doing a project and presentation with a school here in the city, and wanted the passenger's train since it was the cheapest set I could pick up with Power functions at the time. So I bought 2 during a BOGO, sold and shipped the other to help with costs, and when i finally had time to start the project, I cracked what appeared to be a sealed box to discover a bunch of megablocks in baggies, they were sorted too.. which was really strange, red, and black megablock bricks! Of course the power functions were gone!

luckily Aram, the store manager let me do a return and understood me and my wife's situation.

If you guys are ever in Pittsburgh, The Ross Park TRU and West Mifflin TRU have the kindest and chillest crew by far. Never a bad experience.



back to point: basically in almost every case the professional thieves will replace the box with baggies of other legos. usually plastic or sandwich bags, after carefully resealing the factory tape. It doesn't happen often

so I'm all for TLG utilizing new tape and packaging, it would save lots of frustration in the long run. the current seals they use are pretty suspect at times.


Emazers, what an amazing collection you have! Thank you kindly for sharing with us your tips and pictures, that is truly a sight to behold!!!

[Edmond Dantes]

I've had it happen to me only once, and with a $20 PoTC of all things (off the shelf at Target). Someone had cracked it open, taken all the pieces, replaced with with puzzle pieces (of all things) and carefully resealed the tape. I didn't notice anything amiss until I looked at the set more closely at home - and opened it to verify my suspicions.

I only buy large sets online from TRU, Amazon, B&N, yoyo, Target.com, etc. I haven't run into an issue yet that way.

[lemus]

2 years ago I bought a passenger train from TRU in south pittsburgh (one of the 2 best TRU's in Pittsburgh with great managers and crew) that had the contents completely removed and replaced with sandwich bags of misc. blocks and mega blocks.
[...]
So I bought 2 during a BOGO, sold and shipped the other to help with costs, and when i finally had time to start the project, I cracked what appeared to be a sealed box to discover a bunch of megablocks in baggies,

Brickmythic, my question is: did you contact the person who bought the other set to find out all was well? Or did you receive some positive feedback from them indicating there was no need to worry?

Sometimes I worry about the hypotetical case of me selling a sealed set to somebody that actually was tampered with and I did not know about it. That is why I not only inspect the seals, but I compare the weights of all sets for which I have multiples and compare with BL weight and have a record in an spreadsheet separate from my BL inventory. Plus I mark sets with post-its indicating the origin. Just in case I ever get a complaint I will know if the set I sold was from a local target or from amazon for example.

[emazers]

I haven't missed out on Harry Potter, I have 40 Potter Castle's 4842 and 54 Potter 10217 Alley's. And I am always boxing all my sets up, I just got 300 of these from Uline, check out the link below. They are perfect for the large sets, Lords Helm, Black Pearl, Queens Revenge, Star wars Falcon, just about any large set.
http://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-4 ... ated-Boxes" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Re: Investing in Lego

Postby emazers » Sat Dec 29, 2012 1:24 am
I do have a Account with Lego to buy Wholesale, and You only have to order at least $500 worth of Lego's to keep your account active. Here are some prices, which sometimes you can get cheaper somewhere else. All are 2 per case.

1- Pirates of the Caribbean Black Pearl- $140 per case 2 per case Plus $10 Shipping for each case. Costco had them for $60 each last year
2-Queens Revenge- $168 Per Case plus $10 Shipping each case
3- Star Wars Falcon 7965- $196 Per Case plus $10 Shipping each case
4- Star Wars Republic Frigate- $168 Per Case $10 Shipping each case.
As you see any set that sells for $119.99 The Wholesale Price is $83.99 each piece, plus shipping.

"But Cannot buy the Hard to Find Sets like the sets you see on Toys R Us Page, You have to set up a special account with Lego. Which is just very hard to do as you have to buy a huge amount of Lego's. Two sets I will be getting when Amazon has them cheap and Maybe if Lego or whoever gets them cheap is the
1-Haunted House
2-The New Batman Asylum These will be around a good 2-3 years but once discontinued and these will never be made like this will be a great investment
3- And on the Harry Potter 10217 Alley set the price should skyrocket once they are sold out, I have 54 of them, after Ebay and Paypal fees should clear $100 and Up,
4- And The Imperial Shuttle 10212, I have 58 of them and paid $180-$209 for each one, so here is another one that Lego will never make like this one again, since these are about done if you can get a few you can make money. "But the key again is you have to wait at least a year to make good money. So if I only Make a $100 each for the Shuttles thats $5800 Profit, out of all the sets I sold on Ebay the only 2 that I can call a Dud, are the Star Wars 7754, and the Imperial Landing Craft 7959.

[StrykerCat]

I have accumulated extra sets that I will eventually resell. I'm one of those builders/collectors who can't resist a bargain. Recently I became concerned about possible taxes on capital gains in the US and wondered if any of you have given that any thought? After ebay fees, losses due to "item not as advertised" (and yes - ebay always sides with the buyer so I've gotten burned a few times myself), if I also need to pay capital gains taxes, I'll lose money by selling sets. Do you keep accurate records when purchasing sets? I usually don't because I don't really want to know how much I really spend on my hobby.