andrew_

The Lunacy of Lego Investors

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Usually I don't post topics like this, but I have been increasingly become frustrated over the past few years over the presence of "lego investors". I would like to invite discussion as to what people think about it. I do realize that people are free to do whatever they want - the secondary market for Lego is extremely valuable and they do provide a useful service, since they perhaps add liquidity to this market.

Is lego investing that profitable?

My first reaction when I started to think about this topic is whether or not is it worthwhile. These days it is starting to sound more and more like the day-trading movement - a crowded field driven by internet forums, filled with people trying to make a quick buck. I highly doubt it is that profitable. In the early days, there were probably a few people who got lucky since they had multiple copies of the UCS Falcon (or Green Grocer or whatever sets skyrocketed in value). They sold them, and now everyone wants to replicate that. However, the vast majority of sets do not behave this way.

In terms of total time and effort "invested", it seems like a terrible idea. Suppose that one is a Lego investor of extraordinary ability and one is able to sell their sets with a 30% markup on average (note that a lot of series have not risen in value at all since their discontinuation). Over the course of one year, if one turns over $50,000 worth of Lego, one makes a tidy profit of $15,000 - seems amazing, right? However, first consider that $50,000 is about 500 mid to high end lego sets (average $100). To make this work, you would have to sell about $200 worth of Lego every single business day of the year!! The amount of work that must go into this must be insane - posting on ebay, reposting on ebay multiple times (due to expired auctions, no one buying your listing), dealing with flaky buyers, driving to the post office, spending time shipping at the post office, buying inventory. Also consider the hidden costs involved - ebay fees, taxes on new items purchased, shipping fees, gas, shipping supplies, the opportunity cost of not working somewhere else. Worse yet, some people "part out" their sets hoping to sell the individual pieces for more than the total value of the set. I once saw an internet posting where someone was complaining about the amount of work that needed to part out 80 (!!!) identical copies of a star wars set. These people must have either no other skills they can use in real life, or must be in a state of complete delusion to resort to this type of masochism. The other thing to consider is that a lot of inventory does not sell or move quickly. In order to sell this much lego over the course of the year ($50,000 in our hypothetical example), one would need significantly more Lego in inventory over the course of that time. Where does one get the capital to buy thousands and thousands of dollars worth of Lego? Where does one store all of this? Do they all live in storage warehouses? These people's houses must look like cases from a "Hoarders" episode. Analogously to the day-trader movement, the vast majority of Lego investors probably make nowhere near the amount of money they would like to - probably better for them to pick up overtime hours.

Who buys these sets?

These days, who are the people that are buying the Green Grocer (or Carousel or whatever sets these investors like) for $1000? Is it someone who actually thinks that the Green Grocer is intrinsically worth $1000 to them, and it brings them that much pleasure? Is it another investor (maybe more likely)? Are these sets actually being sold, or are they just sitting in the market? If anyone has insight into this, feel free to share.

Why the obsession with minifigures?

Why would I spend $25 on a few minifigures from a set, when I can purchase the entire set for $60? I suppose the only reason is that if I lost a minifigure and wanted to replace it. However, many times if I punch in a lego set number into Ebay, there are many more results for the minifigures in the set, rather than the set itself.

Impact on me

I am fortunate in that I am not that into the pet favorites of the Lego investor world (Lego SW, LOTR, Carousel, ...). If someone gave me a Green Grocer (and I didn't know the price), I would think it is alright, but I wouldn't get super excited either. Many times, on my local online buy and sell, I can sniff out who is a Lego investor. Their main characteristics are 1) Lots of listings for the typical sets, 2) High prices, 3) Refusal to negotiate. Most of the time, I just avoid them and purchase from someone who happens to be selling something I like for whatever other reason. Almost always, one gets a worse deal from a Lego investor.

Killing the spirit

I know certainly that if I got into lego investing (just for the sake of the money), it would kill my interest in Lego as a hobby. Who would enjoy spending countless hours each week parting out huge numbers of sets, constantly reposting ebay ads, etc.? It is also disappointing to search for information regarding a set on the internet, only to be greeted by a page which does a side-by-side comparison of the set with others on its investment merits (what is its ROI going to be? when is it EOL?), disregarding any of the characteristics that makes it an intrinsically good Lego set.

What can we do?

I am the last person to make normative claims regarding other people's behavior - Lego investors can do whatever they want, whether it is to their own benefit, or their own detriment. Some of my own thoughts:

- To the contrary, I think that a complete set is worth more than the sum of its parts - I don't "part out". Furthermore, I don't value particular subsets of a Lego set (ie. minifigures) to be vastly more valuable than the rest. Parting out sets reduces the number of complete sets in the market, making the complete sets more rare and costly - I would hope that a non-investor recognizes this.

- Whenever possible I avoid dealing with Lego investors. As mentioned earlier, this happens naturally, since almost always their terms are not favorable (high prices).

- Prevent friends from being seduced into the delusional belief that they can make thousands by just buying and selling a few Lego sets.

- Encourage Lego as an interesting and stimulating hobby and toy for its own merits.

- TLG: hopefully they re-release some of the inflated sets - not that I want to buy them, but just to mess with the investors :) I've already seen this happen - within minutes there are floods of panicked messages on brickpicker coming from people who have loaded up on 40 copies of the set, only to see it being re-released at half the secondary market price.

Comments, feedback and discussion are welcome :)

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The re-release of retired sets is the only way to stop it.

Selling on eBay isn't as complicated as you make it out to be, eBay will auto relist for you if unsold. You don't drive to the post office anymore, they pick it up from you for free. That said I don't ever recommend anyone sell on eBay.

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It seems to me that any product where there is any sort of slight speculation that one can sell it for more than they paid for it, is going to attract one or more people for that very purpose. Examples would be Beanie babies, Pokemon cards (or any of the many popular trading cards for that matter), sports shoes, etc... Lego has been particularly long-lasting when compared with those items, but also has a very large market to sell to, increasing the likeliness of finding a buyer and making a profit. 200 in sales a day is cake when millions of dollars are changing hand everyday for Lego products.

Now, there is also a psychological phenomena perhaps at play as well via one's internal reward mechanism, similar to the feeling gamblers and day-traders pursue. Consider that some Lego parts and sets have enormously increased in value. Obtaining one of these parts or sets, or correctly speculating a set purchased at retail will inflate in price, can provide an overwhelming sense of euphoria. Selling it and returning a profit also provides a sense of satisfaction and self-reliance.

The otherwise effect to me is the most negative impact of this behavior. I am a collector, builder, player, fan of Lego. I purchase only one of a set, and keep each separate form others. There are sets I want, but are far too expensive for me to buy now, whereas a speculator may have multiple copies they are just waiting to sell. They often seem to be traded as future commodities, and rarely are going to the hands of someone who intends to open and enjoy the set the way that I would want to. This is the only detriment I have personally to the market, but I realize its a free world, free market, and some people pursue money more than leisure. I am not upset at these people, I just try to enjoy the time and sets that I am fortunate enough to have.

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Well, the good news is that LEGO doesn't like selling to re-sellers and will ban those people from stores.

Some guy is trying to sell last year's monthly builds (all 12) for $250! Really? Each monthly build has a value of $20?

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I just realised how much green grocer has gone up. I sold one with the instructions a couple of years ago (built once and displayed by me) for I think about $350 and I thought I was making out like a bandit. I only sold it because I had another one, thank goodness. I have regretted selling some of sets, I rarely do it anymore.

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In addition to all of the aforementioned peeves about lego "investors", I'll add my most recent beef:

Logged in on day 2 of the Mars Rover Cuuso set on sale and forgot to buy, came back that night or the next morning and it was sold out ("out of stock"). Bummer, I thought, but it will come back in stock. I called S@H and got the low down, was told an estimate of when it would be back. So I logged on everyday for weeks. I went away one weekend on a trip and came back to a "Sold out". The Mars Rover had come back up for sale for ~10-12 hours and I had missed it!!! Phoned S@H and they confirmed the set was fully sold out, never to be sold from Lego again! A quick search of eBay showed sets for 3 times the retail value, HOURS after it had sold out. I wound up paying a $15 higher scalped from a bricklinker with only one extra set.

The entire experience just pissed me off! I am a Lego fan foremost, a collector, and I enjoy the builds. That's it. The scalpers took all the joy out of getting this set. [sarcasm]I am looking forward to the release of the Ecto-1...[/sarcasm]

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In addition to all of the aforementioned peeves about lego "investors", I'll add my most recent beef:

Logged in on day 2 of the Mars Rover Cuuso set on sale and forgot to buy, came back that night or the next morning and it was sold out ("out of stock"). Bummer, I thought, but it will come back in stock. I called S@H and got the low down, was told an estimate of when it would be back. So I logged on everyday for weeks. I went away one weekend on a trip and came back to a "Sold out". The Mars Rover had come back up for sale for ~10-12 hours and I had missed it!!! Phoned S@H and they confirmed the set was fully sold out, never to be sold from Lego again! A quick search of eBay showed sets for 3 times the retail value, HOURS after it had sold out. I wound up paying a $15 higher scalped from a bricklinker with only one extra set.

The entire experience just pissed me off! I am a Lego fan foremost, a collector, and I enjoy the builds. That's it. The scalpers took all the joy out of getting this set. [sarcasm]I am looking forward to the release of the Ecto-1...[/sarcasm]

Oh now you have me worried, wanting to get the GB set... I better be ready next Sunday.. :-/

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AS said as before, all colectable gears/things, generate a secondary market and then investors come in to the game.

I think is inherent, but sometimes is a little odd. i look for some old set what i have in my childhood on bricklink, and there is a lot of them, not a lot expensive, just the price of similar set have today, that´s Okay (not ok-ey) for me and i dont mind if they are used....the problem is with the new sealed bla bla bla.....why a old set is 100 bucks (for example) if you can find the pieces for 20 bucks¿?, or even worst (and i think where some investors make money), the minifigs!!!!!!!!!!!, look around for some prieces of minifigs!!!!!! thats crazy, if you what magneto,wolverine and deadpool, you got in one set (30 bucks more or less if i dont remenber bad) and buying by itselfs....puffff near 50 bucks son i dont get the point...30 bucks for a hulk mini what is in a set of 60 (with other minifigs and pieces....)

The things value is what people are ready to paid, i can build a car and sell it for 20 bucks, if some one paid it, next car i build i can sell it for 20 or 25, an investor buy it for 20 and try to sell it for 30, other investor buy it, resell for 40....and the prices stop when no one want to pay that.

Would be nice if lego re edited sets (even if it done "special editions" vintage collection" and rise the price a bit)....or have a market kind "pick a brick" but more big and huge.

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I don't have objections to people buying the sets then flogging them later. I just feel sorry for those who buy the sets who maybe think they're getting a good deal, especially if the sets are still for sale somewhere cheaper!

I do have an objection though against these comic con things where Exclusive lego items are given to non-fans who go and flog them for horrendous prices. That is not very fair and personally I think it would be nicer if only VIP members that have been registered for say 2, maybe 4 months, could get them. Not marketers who take advantage of free-bees.

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...

The entire experience just pissed me off! I am a Lego fan foremost, a collector, and I enjoy the builds. That's it. The scalpers took all the joy out of getting this set. [sarcasm]I am looking forward to the release of the Ecto-1...[/sarcasm]

Oh this got me too. I have collected every Cuusoo set since the inception, and this one is now a gap in my collection, because I have not yet bought it from the re-sellers, but am going to have to.

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I had the same experience with the Mars Rover 21104. I wanted to buy one at $30.00, I will never buy one at $60.00 or more.. And now there are at least three resellers on BrickLink selling them for $70-$118, each with 10 or more copies. It is this type of speculative behavior that ruins it for the rest of us.

Do I now have to stay awake until midnight, May 31st, just to get one copy of the Ghostbusters car?

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I made the same realization regarding the Hayabusa - I really want it, but do I want to pay $150+ for it?

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In many ways, however, I think Lego is somewhat immune from the worst of it. First, it's really not all that hard to find sets that are several years old. Secondly, you're going to have to hold on to that set for a very long time before you can hope to profit on it. I already see parents complaining about the price of Lego on a regular basis, so I can't imagine them spending double or more on an old set when there are dozens of new sets, the ones kids are going to want, are readily available.

This isn't like the Transformers Alternators craze from several back. Hasbro had a crap distribution channel, whether it was intentional or a consequence of corporate disorganization I don't know. What it meant that very few sets made it to the stores and those that did were promptly snapped up by vultures. At the time those were $20-$30 but because they were so hard to find you had people willing to pay double or triple the price. People started hoarding all Transformers, new and old and values skyrocketed. Then some guys got their hands on old molds and starting producing fairly good reproductions in China, all the way down to stickers and packaging. Then the bubble burst and everything went back to being more reasonably priced. To this day values haven't returned to their original heights.

Lego is too widely distributed for it to be a viable investment. The ability to build whatever you want negates the need to even hoard an old set and it's trivial to buy individual pieces. So I think whatever investing happens is going to be more focused, centered around minifig packs and stuff like that.

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I don't think the GB set is something people have to worry about with regards to that... there's plenty of them around. I've just picked mine up.

The price increases on sets are unavoidable I think... as people have said, anything that has the appeal of Lego coupled with each particular product only being available for a certain amount of time before ebbing discontinued will create a secondary market.... and unfortunately sets are simply going to rise to the value that people are prepared to pay for them. If everyone stopped buying USC Millennium Falcons for £800 or more then the price would drop... eventually. Actually with the rumours of a new version of that the old one might just drop anyway!

The Comic Con figures are the thing that is really distorted. People now know that they're available and they'll immediately have a resale value of £100s in a matter of days. Then again... the current Chinese clones of Lego figures may not be to everyone's tastes but having an identical replica of those figures for £2 or so may just make the prices drop as people just won't pay that much anymore as some of the exclusivity has gone.

Same as the TC-4 figures from Toys-R-Us... those things flew out with some people picking up as many as they could from a store simply to resell... no huge profits but they at least doubled their money on each figure. It's now happening with the polybag giveaways from newspapers here in the UK... the week after they're hitting eBay with people having 10s of each one.

I recently got into a theme that had finished... and then looked at picking up the final two waves of that theme... thankfully after some patience and frugality I was able to get everything but the UCS set for roughly original price... all boxed but for one set. I don't need sets to be sealed as I'll be opening them anyway... I don't even need sets to be complete as BrickLink can rectify that. Thankfully some things have a more balanced financial nature to them... unlike the Falcon's and SDCC exclusives of this world.

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For the most part, all sets have a fairly long shelf life, so I feel that if you snooze when it's readily available at Lego.com, LBR stores, B&M, amazon etc, you lose and you're SOL. And that's life. It sucks but you missed the boat. You had your chance and you let it slip. It's standard for items that are retired to raise in price a year or so after it's retired. They don't make it anymore and people who didn't know about it or weren't into it now would like one. I wasn't familiar w/ the modulars when I got out of the dark ages, so yes, I had to pay a premium or trade to complete the line. But I'm not angry, mad or bummed about it. B/c I know I wanted it, and I know that older stuff that's no longer made will most likely rise in value if it's an interesting line or set.

Now for rare cases like the LE 4x4 Crawler last year and the Mars Rover earlier this year...that's definitely driven by the secondary market and resellers. Those sellers know they can capitalize on Lego's popularity and the completists out there, so they buy them in droves cornering the market to sell at a premium once the small allotment has sold out. That's where Lego can't be too thrilled, and that's where it hurts the collectors out there who just want one set for themselves.

Otherwise, for the general sets out there that aren't limited, I don't mind a secondary market and if prices rises or falls then so be it, it allowed me to purchase old sets I didn't know about, and hopefully it will do the same for others out there getting in to Lego too.

Edited by Gooker1

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Do I now have to stay awake until midnight, May 31st, just to get one copy of the Ghostbusters car?

That's my plan! And don't get me started on 41999! Limit to 2 per customer my gluteus.

Of course as Robianco was getting at, it's all going to come down to how large the production run is vs. the mass appeal of the set. I don't think Lego anticipated the popularity of the Mars Rover correctly. The issue with Mars Rover, Hyabusa, etc. is outside of the scalper/speculator market, the set has major mass appeal as a educational/science product. These tend to sell out a lot quicker as compared to the Geek effect products (BTTF Delorean, Minecraft, etc. are all still on sale). So we are probably good on the Ecto-1, still I'm not getting burned $25 on it, and I'm up at midnight regularly (I hadn't realized the set was $30, I paid $55 right after it sold out, plus shipping, and had to wait 2 weeks for a slow bricklinker... sucked the fun right out of it).

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Frankly, I hate this kind of speculation. And I've to say that I hate it even more because sometimes I was tempted from it! :grin:

The secondary market can be a good thing when it it not "sick", because it allows to everyone to get some old sets that are not in production anymore. But in the case of the LEGO one, I think it is a bit sick.

I agree with the user above that told that the only way to curb the problem is to re-release old sets, but don't seems that LEGO want to take this route. LEGO has a great value now, and I think that prices are becoming too hight.

The main problem is that this phenomenon damage all the simple LEGO buyers:

  • When there is an offer, often it is very difficult to take advantage of it because "investors" buy great quantity of discounted sets in order to earn reselling that after a certain amount of time.
  • There "investors" take artificially hight the price of sets in the second hand market: they prefer push up the price even when there is not much to earn for them, so that people have many difficulties to buy sets at an honest price (typically on auction sites such as ebay).
  • Many lego fan, especially recent ones, get accustomed to hight prices so that consider a good purchase to buy a set with a price that is a little bit lower than usual (but madly high price, anyway). I hope that people such these will understand the great damage that they create agreeing to buy sets at this conditions and stop to do that... but I know, it is impossible.

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Sounds like a whole lot of "Boo-hoo-hoo" to me. Get a job, get some money and buy what you want! I just sold a PotC Black Pearl in a damaged box for 200$+ that I bought for 30$. Why am I the bad guy for someone willing to pay me?

THESE ARE TOYS!

They are not a necessity to live a complete life. Don't be mad or upset at people who are willing to buy/sell at a higher rate/price than you are.

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Anything that gets "retired" be it a Lego set, American Girl doll, or a Hallmark Christmas ornament is going to have someone try and resell it for a higher than retail price all because of the perception of rarity. As stated above, the only way to combat this would be the company to re-release the retired item. When there is a flood of brand new releases of the formerly hard to find item, the secondary market price goes down.

Case in point was the eBay prices for the original Transformers toys. Before Hasbro started releasing limited edition reproductions, finding a mint/complete toy was pricy. If you were smart, you would just piece one together from not perfect auctions. The release of the LE sets generated a lot of seemingly mint/complete sets listed, but the process started to drop.

Recently, my wife found out that American Girl was going to bring back some of the most requested retired dolls. Will that make the older dolls drop in price? I am willing to bet yes.

Now, I have only been out of the dark ages for a few months now, and buying Lego sets off eBay has not been fun. I see several people talking about piecing together sets, and I have tried doing the same, but only on a smaller scale than the large modulars. I have also started buying the sets new (only the PR and Simpsons’ House) because I can, but the secondary market price for the older, retired sets is keeping me from buying anything that is not currently on the self. A friend of mine bought two Simpsons’ House sets so he could build one and keep the other in the box till it was at least double the resale price when it is retired. That is the mindset that I believe “collectors” have when they buy anything and just leave it in the box and not use/play with it. I am guilty of it too. I have several unopened toys in my basement, but where I once saw $$$ I now see the enjoyment value they bring my children with they play with them.

Just last year there was a news story of a wealthy man who was stealing Lego sets to sell online for a profit just so he could buy the more expensive sets. Dude had the money to buy them already, but figured there were people out there who would pay almost double for the hard to come by sets…and he was right.

There is no end to the cycle till the distribution makes the sets widely available, and the older, sought after sets are brought back, even if for just a limited time, but there will be those who always see gold where others see a toy. Why else do places like TRU, Target, etc have policies on how many Hot Wheel cars you can buy at one time, or a stor banning if they catch you bending the cards on the action figures?

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One thing that may affect the resellers (as well as the rest of us who only collect as a hobby) is that at some point, everyone runs out of space to store LEGO. That means you either have to sell, trade or give away LEGO before you can buy anymore (UNLESS you want to buy or rent more space...a no no for most of us.) I am praying that the greedy resellers reach this point soon and that most of them drop out of the selling market.

For most of us with decent jobs, it makes little sense to hold an expensive inventory and do all the labor required to resell it. We can make far more doing our day jobs and extra work we might pick up on the side. If you are retired and have the extra capital, it might make sense, but reselling still eats up your valuable time. And your time is valuable regardless of what you may think.

I am not against all resellers, just those who ramp up the prices beyond belief. There are sets I've had to pay a bit more for from resellers, but I won't not pay more than double the original price unless the set is exceptional in my book. I see no reason to collect every set in a theme because this means that you will be held hostage by resellers at some point.

I do resent resellers buying up every copy of every set marked down in the store because that strikes me as just being greedy. it would be great if store limits worked, but there does not seem to be a surefire way.

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It is a bubble that is going to pop. I have watched various Lego investing sites for the past few months pretty regularly. I see so many posts of people pulling money out of their 401ks, spending "all I had this week", etc on sets that they anticipate reselling. Some can do it successfully, but some seem to be spreading themselves too thin.

Some get into it to help subsidize their Lego hobby, I know I have been tempted to do so. However, I fully believe the market just won't hold. There are a couple major items to any market: (1) scarcity and (2) information. There has been a large increase in the number of "resellers" or "investors" in the secondary market the past couple of years. These people are stockpiling massive collections (literally massive, like storage units full) of sets for sale later based on historical times when there was significant scarcity for a particular retired set. With the increase in resellers, scarcity will go down, and profits will go down. We won't see the extreme EOL gains on these sets any longer since there will be literally hundreds, if not thousands in the secondary market. There simply will be too much supply for the demand. Another aspect of scarcity is in my mind, I would rather just buy the sets coming out from Lego at much cheaper prices. Lego investors are primarily targeting AFOLs coming out of the dark ages. As a recent AFOL out of the dark ages, I have wanted retired sets, but filled that void with new sets coming out as I can't pay the prices for the retired sets on the secondary market. I can buy loads of sets with thousands of pieces for the price of a Green Grocer.

Information: This will hit the Lego secondary market in a couple of ways. Information regarding Lego investing is becoming widely disseminated. With stocks (pretty much worldwide), there is widely available information out in the public. Any information not in the public is illegal to make investment decisions on. Due to this, stocks will pretty much reprice based on any information out in the public, and no one usually has information that the general public don't. This is the efficient market theory which minimizes the quick profits. The same will occur with Lego, it is no longer a secret regarding the money to be made with them. That information will bring down the price as more and more investors flood to sell (back to scarcity), and there will no longer be a price gap due to misinformation (few people knowing the value of Lego retired sets).

It isn't the resellers that ramp up the prices, but the buyers who buy at those prices. If you have no buyers at a particular price point, sellers won't sell. The prices wouldn't be where they are if there wasn't a market for them at that price.

I only do get frustrated with them purchasing up all the deals so quickly, but I don't know that it is them solely responsible for out of stock items. I don't have anything against them personally, as I know there are lots making good money. To each there own, but these are my personal thoughts on the future of the Lego secondary market.

I hope to some degree parting out stays around as I do like being able to stock up on a lot of certain pieces rather than trying to buy whole sets with pieces and minifigures I don't need or want.

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It's a mixed blessing. There will always be a market for older retired products that are no longer available through first party channels. Be they classic cars, comic books, dishware, whatever. and many people have enjoyed happy and productive careers providing services that match those desiring these older products with the products themselves for a profit. In the end all benefit. It is market forces working properly. But then we get speculator bubbles. That's where rather than seeking to fill natural demand for something the speculators rush in to capitalize on a thing before there is a market desire. They grab up actual product and start to interfere with the first party merchandise flow. They distort production volumes and manufacturers planning and expectations. And when it all implodes, when the bubble bursts it does great damage to the producers the customers and the supplies of product. Comic books in the 90's are the classic example of this.

Unfortunately there really aren't too many things either the manufacturer or the consumers can do to prevent or mitigate this type of behavior. For the manufacturer it behooves them to take steps to make product more widely available, but they must be cautious to prevent over production being caused by the bubble which can implode on them. For the consumer? Their best and only option is to simply drive the prices down. Don't spend 3 or 4x retail price for a set. Search carefully and accept a lovingly used set for a fraction of that. Try to avoid feeding the speculator market.

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I reckon private resellers (Ebayers and BrickLinkers) mostly fall into one of three categories:

1. Investors, or scalpers, who are looking to make a quick kill on hard-to-find sets (e.g. Green Grocer) and minifigures (e.g. convention exclusives),

2. Micro-businesses run by people who have lots of time but not a massive income, and

3. Hobbyists who are looking to offset their spending on LEGO

I believe the OP is conflating all three. Hobbyists (type 3s) who also sell sets or parts do it as part of their past time. They're not really motivated by profit: any margin they make gets pumped back into their collecting.

As for the micro-businesses (type 2s), there are lots of people who have time on their hands but modest incomes. They may be retired or can't get conventional jobs for a variety of reasons such as disability, caring for family or studying full time. For them, it means an extra income at relatively little risk. In countries where taxes are high (which tend also to be the ones where LEGO is most expensive), I suspect that the micro-businesses aren't paying taxes on their profits, so the margin is larger than one might assume.

I don't have any love for the investors (type 1s), but I do buy minifigures and parts on BrickLink and I'm glad that the type 2s and 3s allow me to get exactly what I want without having to get entire sets.

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I myself think that too, that these investors are obsessed, and for an ordinary Lego fan with a normal life it's very annoying that you can't buy for instance the new GB set becuase these investors already stacked them up to sell i for double price and left the stores dry. You can't go when you want to buy it because the stock is already gone the 1st day. They not just killing the fun for themselves but for some of us too.

IMO it's not a problem if you have an older and popular set to sell it for a little higher, But to lve like this everyday, I couldn't do it, always checking auctions and the need on the market... however there will always be someone who has enough budget and dedication for a set to buy for 1000 $, and investors know this.

Edited by Csacsa234

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I keep a trackrecord of all my sets: what I paid for them, what they are worth now and what they originally retailed for. I do this as a serious collector, not as an investor. So far I have paid roughly 2000 euros more than what I should have if i had bought them at retail prices. Thank goodness my wife is quite a nut as well. It is a hobby we enjoy as a whole family and when we got back into Lego we just had to get Cafe Corner, Green Grocer, Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower, Carroussel, Ucs Falcon, etc. Fortunately now we have got all the older sets we wanted so now we just focus on new stuff at normal retail prices.

I agree with the original poster: don't ruin your hobby trying to make a living out of it. I luckily earn much more money with other skills. However, i must admit to one sin: when the 41999 came out i was so desparate to get a copy that i drove to the Lego Store while on holiday and picked up 2 boxes right off the shelf. I sold them immediately for twice the price. I figured: it was the going rate and usually I pulled the short end of the string. Wouldn't do it again though: too much work, waste of my free time.

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