Investing Thoughts

[anakinisvader]

Investing in lego takes the fun out of the hobby. If you have kids, imagine the joy of getting a new set .... when there's about 100 sets sitting at home. There's no novelty in the toy anymore. You can keep it out of sight but still, your life will be surrounded by lego. Good luck keeping them separate. And I'm going to predict the POTC and HP line will be lousy after market as I see demand for them not that high.

I'm not sure about PoTC, but I think HP will appreciate pretty well. The Hogwarts Express and the Burrow set are already going for about $150 each.

The only bad investment I've seen so far is that wonderful blockbuster movie "Prince of Persia". Yes, I know people were beating down the doors to get these sets. Heck, I even offered them to my kids for free and they turned them down. So I gave them 5 bucks each to take them off my hands.

[Martin]

Hey thanks all for your input to my earlier post about my (relatively small) lego portfolio. It has been awesome keeping track of prices and sales into the run up to Christmas and I used some of your ideas and added:

- Medieval Market Village * 2 - retirement strategy...thanks!
- 2* both LOTR Orc Forge and Uruk-Hai army because they were at >50% discount - Discount strategy...thanks!
I am also thinking that Uruk Hai army might be the "Clone walker battle pack" of LOTR given the speed at which these are going off the shelves in the UK - I had to drive down to the local Tesco to get the above LOTR sets off the shelves at the sale price...the online store had sold out!!

I also sold all (LOL 3) my Minecraft as the price was right....so far (1 month) my portfolio has yielded 16% on the capital invested in the sold items, and 2% on the total money invested in LEGO which is a LOT more than the interest in the bank account and a HUGE amount more fun.. Warren Buffet eat your heart out! But therein lies the challenge with LEGO investing you can beat the market but the volume of trades is limited so its hard to make a living from it!

One thing I have noted is that the US Lego site has indicated sets for retirement but the UK site has not! I think retirement is Global retirement or can Lego retire for one region / country only? I see the US is selling out but none of these sets are sold out in the UK.

Cant decide whether to extend portfolio to Re Cargo train and a bunch of seaplanes???

Chat soon

[Neo]

also I fully believe in Karma. When you find good deals always 'pay it forward' and try to share your good fortune with other charities, especially during the holidays. many people in the world aren't as lucky as we are to have resources and education. Always give to charity! It has a funny way of coming back around.

Hear, hear!

Agreed! It's nice to hear from like minded people!

Give the gift of Lego to charity and make a child's Christmas special!

This year I am experimenting with giving a customized Lego toy creation ... why?
It is a essentially immortal toy should the owner decide to to keep it since the toy is built from standard lego parts and can be easily repaired it should it break.


With respects to the gift of Lego to charity - the charity I gave to this year and last has had a gift target value/price evaluation of $10 with a max of about $15 which limits my Lego gift selection even when I buy legos on sale. This year I attended the toy give away charity event that the toy drive was for so I could observe the demographics of the children/gift recipents. Knowing the demographics, I postulated that I could get toys that would match the kids better. Well, it turns out that the kids belong to young mothers of less established families. The children's age distribution was mostly from 3 years old to 7 years old and over half the children were girls - rather than giving regular Legos What was I thinking??? -- I should have focused on Lego Duplos!

[Brickmythic]

And I'm going to predict the POTC and HP line will be lousy after market as I see demand for them not that high.

Not since the original Batman sets & minifigures have we seen a theme appreciate as fast as the 2010-2012 Harry Potter Lego theme so your predictions may not be accurate!

Last year we had the Ninjago Ice Dragon spike pretty fast; one of the few sets other than HP that has more than tripled since going EOL within a year of retirement.

Even bigger ticket Hogwarts Express from 2010-2011 is more than double its original RRP. The set itself is one of the worst Lego trains TLG has produced last decade or so(and the 3rd or 4th HP train), but figures like Ron, Draco, Ginny and Luna keep driving the price up.

so sets that are actually pretty decent from the line such as Hogwarts Castle, Diagon Alley, and Forbidden Forest will be quite astronomically expensive a christmas or 2 from now. like absurdly high. I predict Forbidden Forest to be one of the first battle pack sized sets to reach $75.00. Both 2010-2012 Hogwarts castles help to recreate the best school/deathly hallows scenes by far (compared to the old and clunky Hogwarts castles with fewer exclusive and less beloved minifigures).

who knows you could be trolling us...
hehe

Neo, keep fighting for the good cause bro!

[harry99]

^ I fully agree with your HP predictions. You will find Forbidden Forest for $50 in no time. Also, not the same extent though, Freeing Dobby will catch a good coin too.

I picked up both, Forbidden Forest and Freeing Dobby, from WalMart for $5 each - and that was in Canada (earlier this year - in the spring).

[iccarus]

HP sets are already doing well. I snagged both the big and little Hogwarts sets over the summer at ~30% off. Sold both during the holidays for 3x what I paid for them.

[emazers]

All the Big Harry Potter Castle's are all going for big bucks, the 4842 was just discontinued and is climbing fast, the only other one that you still get that will be big bucks is the Potter 10217 Alley, and The Imperial Shuttle 10212 is the one to get quick, as Lego.com shows sold out, so if you don't have one yet, or you have a few bucks to get 2 or more get them as soon as you can.