Death of Lego Investing? Rerelease of Taj Mahal

[DeanLearner]

33 minutes ago, rodiziorobs said:

It may prod them to drop their prices in order to secure a sale sooner rather than later (even at a lower return) since the likelihood of an idiot coming along in time has diminished.

Woah those are some pretty scary stories. 

But as you, and @kibosh said, what will probably just happen is that the market adjusts a little and people are more inclined to sell sets at slightly less stratospheric prices. For the most part, I don’t think prices get to extortionate levels, and I’ve been happy to pay a bit of a mark up for the opportunity to buy a set that’s unavailable.

However the bottom line is that I don’t think it will stop people “investing” in Lego, because if they’re anything like me, they’re still collectors first, and investors second. The idea of investment is simply an excuse I tell myself (and my girlfriend!) for the cupboards full of unopened boxes of Lego that were too good an opportunity not to buy at the time, but that I can never quite bring myself to open (or realistically sell)!

 

[kibosh]

22 hours ago, DeanLearner said:

However the bottom line is that I don’t think it will stop people “investing” in Lego, because if they’re anything like me, they’re still collectors first, and investors second. The idea of investment is simply an excuse I tell myself (and my girlfriend!) for the cupboards full of unopened boxes of Lego that were too good an opportunity not to buy at the time, but that I can never quite bring myself to open (or realistically sell)!

 

I have a ton of unopened sets as well.  Every set I buy though is one that I can make use of down the road in future projects.  I do sell off some of those sets from time to time to offset costs, but that wasn't the reason for the purchase when I bought the set.

[koalayummies]

On November 2, 2017 at 9:48 AM, rodiziorobs said:

TL;DR: Don't be an idiot and pay too much for stuff.

Didn't really want to come back to this topic but this needs to be addressed. Citing auctions one saw on ebay is not proof, there are shill bidders, shill buyers, shill sales, i.e. fake, not real. They intentionally drive up the auction price posing as an independent bidder when they are either the same person or a part of the scheme.

Every single one of those cited anecdotal 'examples' could have been a shill sale, ghost sale, fake sale, done in order to create the illusion that an item has sold for 'x' amount previously, convincing someone that is the price its going for if they want to acquire said item. With something like a Lego set this could be done endlessly to achieve the desired effect.

Your third to last and second to last paragraphs have merit but throughout the post calling anyone who pays too much an 'idiot' and making sure to end strongly on that note while effectively giving a pass to the motivating factor of greed. 

Arguments in this thread that deserve highlighting: 'anyone who can't afford what they wanted before it retires is an idiot' and 'anyone who pays too much for said item that they can no longer obtain for reasonable price is also an idiot'. Don't think anyone is expecting a no-longer-in-production product to be sold without a reasonable profit incentive to the seller but 400%+ markups generates similar outrage as expressed towards the colloquial 'pharma bro' as is evidenced by the members in this thread expressing their desire to see an end to this sort of price gouging. 

Edited November 3, 2017 by koalayummies

[anothergol]

Consider that these days, an investment can be just something that doesn't depreciate. I don't even think a bank gives you enough interests anymore to cover inflation, these days.

In that sense I don't think a Lego set (especially the licensed ones) can be a "bad investment", especially when bought on sale in the first place.
It requires storage, though. But that's pretty much the only risk you take, that & getting it stolen, like any other concrete investment.
If you sell an old Taj Mahal set at the price of the new one, well you haven't lost money.

 

While I hate scalpers responsible for the rarity of items (even though, in the case of say Nintendo, it's Nintendo to blame, limited quantities are on purpose), the one who invests in Lego isn't really hurting anyone. He's storing retired stuff and asks a price for it.
While I wouldn't buy an overpriced Classic Space set, well, many are available, to those who want one. Without them, they would simply not be available at all. And that would have changed nothing to the availability or price of a Classic Space set back then.
I'd like to think that people selling rare parts on BrickLink at crazy prices are a$$holes, but let's face it, if they were selling those parts cheap, they would be sold out & nowhere to be found anymore. So when you need a rare part, well it's expensive, but at least it's there. I'd rather blame Lego for not producing it anymore.
The same problem applies to parts btw: I could name several rare parts that are now not rare anymore. Like this one in DBG, it had been produced before this year, and it was very rare & priced at 2eur or something. Well they're cheap now.

Edited November 6, 2017 by anothergol

[MAB]

On 01/11/2017 at 7:07 PM, koalayummies said:

Not everyone can afford everything they would like. Really surprised that needs to be spelled out. Not everyone has the disposable income and capital to buy, room to store, hoard and sit on product in order to huck it for five times the MSRP later.

These are fellow Lego builders we are talking about here, fellow Eurobricks members who have mentioned in frequent threads how they have to balance their desired Lego set acquisitions and have missed out because the set was retired before they saved enough. This isn't something that's being made up, if need be the posts can be provided. Then they look to the secondary market and see unscrupulous people asking for five times the price they paid for it. So its their fault they're not as privileged as others to be able to obtain everything they want when they want it.

Edit: done with this discussion. One can defend greed however they want; if they didn't do it others would, everyone else is doing it, its their fault for not being born with silver spoons... whatever. 

If someone cannot afford something for the two years or so that many sets are available at retail, then resellers are not their enemy. They either (i) will never get it if lego retires the set and there are no resellers or (ii) get the chance to buy it, just at a higher cost, if resellers do exist. Although if they cannot afford it during the lifetime, then they probably will not be able to afford it on the secondary market. In fact, I'd go as far to say they should either prioritise their lego spending during the two years (don't buy lots of smaller sets if they really want a bigger one) or forget what has past and buy what they want from the current retail line.

On 02/11/2017 at 12:56 PM, kibosh said:

It will most certainly affect scalping.  Scalpers will be much less liking to sit on a pile of expensive sets if they think they might just get rereleased down the road.  And consumers will learn to be patient and wait for them to become available again.

 

 

Maybe you use a different definition of a scalper. In my view, scalpers have nothing to worry about due to re-released sets, as a scalper is someone that is into short time trading not playing the long time game. Scalping in the lego market concerns buying up high demand current retail sets and selling them at peak times (eg. Christmas) when LEGO gets short stocked. In my view, by affecting the long term investments, LEGO will be encouraging the longer term investors to change how they operate and actually end up fuelling this short term scalping instead.

On 02/11/2017 at 3:38 PM, DeanLearner said:

Hmmm, that’s an interesting point. I wonder whether that’s down to the emotional component of Lego investment. Perhaps people are happy keeping hold of an asset when there is a certain pleasure to simply owning it: an attachment people are never going to have toward shares or other more abstract investments.

1

This (my bold) is one definition of a collector. If they get pleasure from owning something, even if they do not build it, then they are a collector (if they do it for multiple sets). You do not have to open sets to be a collector.

On 03/11/2017 at 5:31 PM, koalayummies said:

Arguments in this thread that deserve highlighting: 'anyone who can't afford what they wanted before it retires is an idiot' and 'anyone who pays too much for said item that they can no longer obtain for reasonable price is also an idiot'.

2

Where has that statement been made?

[HawkLord]

I’m not a hoarder, scalper, or invester regarding Lego, so the Taj Mahal doesn’t bother me in the least. I hope it’s successful enough to draw Lego into re-releasing other past sets, including things even older to appeal to nostalgia - like ‘90s era Castle...

With that said, if I did have a closet full of sealed sets, I’d really start thinking about offloading some now. Granted the Taj Mahal’s success still needs to be measured and if it tanks in sales maybe Lego would back-off the re-release concept, but the UCS MF is doing very well and I can easily see Lego dipping into other SW re-releases.

[Freezingvettes99]

I figured I would ad my two cents in this thread, I am a collector but I enjoy building my sets and putting them on display.  I always keep the boxes and instructions in case someday I want/need to sell them.  I collect mostly Star Wars UCS sets, Pirate ships and Classic Space.  I have both UCS Millennium Falcon sets and was excited about the 2nd version because it was substantially different from the 1st.  

I do have a bit of an issue with an exact remake of the Taj Mahal though for this simple reason; I bought my son a like-new (used) in the box set a couple of years ago for getting a 4.0 in school.  It was a deal we made at the start of the year.  I didn't have any interest in this set when it was released so I didn't purchase it.  I paid around $2000 for the set. 

It just kinda sucks that Lego is basically ruining the value of its own brand.  That has always been the mystique of Lego, sets were available for a time and then retired.  I don't have an issue with updated re-releases because they are different, exact copies of the originals is just plain wrong in my opinion. 

[MAB]

3 hours ago, HawkLord said:

I’m not a hoarder, scalper, or invester regarding Lego, so the Taj Mahal doesn’t bother me in the least. I hope it’s successful enough to draw Lego into re-releasing other past sets, including things even older to appeal to nostalgia - like ‘90s era Castle...

With that said, if I did have a closet full of sealed sets, I’d really start thinking about offloading some now. Granted the Taj Mahal’s success still needs to be measured and if it tanks in sales maybe Lego would back-off the re-release concept, but the UCS MF is doing very well and I can easily see Lego dipping into other SW re-releases.

Star Wars has a very big following and a decent number of those fans are middle-aged well-off people (the original SW fans all grown up). I'm not so sure the Taj Mahal has such a big following among the lego buying population. Although it is a nice set, it is also a bit boring as a display piece. I have a sort of rule that I will only display things that look good as they are, and I'd want them displayed if they weren't made from LEGO. The Taj Mahal looks impressive due to the size and it being LEGO, at least for a while. But I don't think I'd ever want to display a non-lego large Taj Mahal. And now people cannot even say it is the biggest ever LEGO set, so it no longer has that going for it either. I had one before and I sold it although quite a while before the peak in prices. I don't think I'd buy it again. The build is OK, at least the first time for a quarter of it :-)

[Blondie-Wan]

On October 30, 2017 at 11:35 AM, Doom2099 said:

I was completely shocked today to see that the Taj Mahal is being rereleased!  I wonder if I'm the only one that thinks this can potentially destroy what collectors and investors have been doing for the last decade plus.

Goodness, I hope so. Well, not collectors, but there's a big difference between collectors and investors. I fully get the desire to make money by selling discontinued sets at a premium on the secondary market - in fact, I recently decided to do that myself with some sets of lower interest to me, in order to allow me to buy the new UCS Millennium Falcon - but I don't think it's necessarily good for the greater overall LEGO fandom, particularly the kids who still make up the overwhelming majority of LEGO lovers.

On October 30, 2017 at 11:35 AM, Doom2099 said:

We've seen this before, though long ago. Early in the Millennium, ebay and the new craze of buying online from people far away demonstrated prices going crazy. Lego responded with the Legends line, and sets like the Metroliner and Club Car which were selling for big money fell back to earth.  Of course now the originals and Legends versions both still sell for a fortune. But Lego has just shown they can turn on the rerelease machine anytime now. Legends died a relative quick death thanks to not as much interest as hoped, but would that happen with Cafe Corner and Green Grocer? Probably not. Then Lego will rerelease more and more, killing off interest in their biggest old sets one by one.

I think the overwhelming majority of interest in the big old sets is still from the people who love to have and build and display (and play with?) them, as opposed to people who see them purely as investments. Heck, it has to be that way, even for the investors - after all, the investors have to have someone to sell to other than other investors, or there's no market.

On October 30, 2017 at 11:35 AM, Doom2099 said:

Basically, anyone sitting on large unopened sets from the last 10 years should be worried I think. Lego has decided to say investors resale value is not important, and just the threat of a possible rerelease for any set can start sending prices down across the board.

I'm sitting on a ton of unopened sets from the last 15 years - mostly not large ones, but still, and they do include a few large ones - and honestly, I'm not really terribly concerned about their aftermarket value. The only thing that concerns me is the enjoyment I'll get from them; my biggest fear concerning their value is whether or not I'd be able to replace them all if I lost them to fire or theft or something.

On October 30, 2017 at 11:35 AM, Doom2099 said:

Any thoughts? What do you think will get rereleased next? What is immune besides Monorail? Is Lego doing the right thing for new fans, and spiting old ones? Is Lego no longer going to outperform gold?

LEGO still is going to retain a ton of secondary market value; it hopefully just won't be insane, and we'll hopefully see less of things like thefts of LEGO from stores and homes, using LEGO for money laundering, etc.

On October 30, 2017 at 12:06 PM, MAB said:

It won't really affect collectors but will obviously affect investors. They have just lost $2000+ that they could have got last week. I feel sorry for the buyers that have got one shipping to them right now - or maybe for the sellers when the buyers refuse it and want a refund.

I doubt many people would buy a secondary market Eiffel Tower now.

It looks like the money will now be in licensed sets where the license is likely to lapse - so things like LOTR where they are unlikely to want the license again just to re-release old sets.

I truly do feel for anyone who recently shelled out big money for the original Taj Mahal (though my sympathy is tempered by the fact anyone who can drop $2000 for a LEGO set originally sold for $300 is already better off than most people in this world). But for anyone who bought one and has been sitting on it for the last nine years? Why? They still have a fine, lovely set that's still worth what they paid for it (and a bit more) on the secondary market, and alternately they can still enjoy building it instead of selling it. But they haven't truly "lost" any money - you can't lose what you never had, and if someone bought Taj Mahal for $300 in 2008 and just kept it around all this time, they never had the $2000+ they might have gotten for it if they'd sold it. And it's not like they bought a set and its value actually decreased.

As noted, I do plan to sell some sets shortly that have increased in value on the secondary market, but even though it wouldn't benefit me personally as much as the present reality, I'd honestly be happy for those sets' fans if they were still widely available at retail, even though it would mean I'd make far less from them than I think I'm going to.

[Blondie-Wan]

_____________________________________

As for what set(s) I think would be good candidates for reissue, one obvious example to me would be the LEGO Ideas Curiosity Rover. The original had ridiculously limited availability, being sold only online, not in stores, and with two production runs that yielded two exceedingly brief windows of availability, each just days long, a few months apart. It's also not a very large set, and what's more, it doesn't really have a lot of "special" parts - no printed elements, and most of the parts are in common colors, and probably regularly in the factory inventories. LEGO could probably easily whip up a new batch without having to do much more than set up a production line for packing together the parts assortment and printing the boxes and manuals. I'd personally welcome that reissue. But I don't know if they'd bother with that particular set.

[kibosh]

 

2 hours ago, MAB said:

Star Wars has a very big following and a decent number of those fans are middle-aged well-off people (the original SW fans all grown up). I'm not so sure the Taj Mahal has such a big following among the lego buying population. Although it is a nice set, it is also a bit boring as a display piece. I have a sort of rule that I will only display things that look good as they are, and I'd want them displayed if they weren't made from LEGO. The Taj Mahal looks impressive due to the size and it being LEGO, at least for a while. But I don't think I'd ever want to display a non-lego large Taj Mahal. And now people cannot even say it is the biggest ever LEGO set, so it no longer has that going for it either. I had one before and I sold it although quite a while before the peak in prices. I don't think I'd buy it again. The build is OK, at least the first time for a quarter of it :-)

I have not agreed with much of what you said, but I agree with this.  The Taj Mahal re-release is perplexing.  it's not an overly exciting set.  It's a bunch of common white bricks.  I'm guessing this will be clearanced at some point.

5 hours ago, Freezingvettes99 said:

I do have a bit of an issue with an exact remake of the Taj Mahal though for this simple reason; I bought my son a like-new (used) in the box set a couple of years ago for getting a 4.0 in school.  It was a deal we made at the start of the year.  I didn't have any interest in this set when it was released so I didn't purchase it.  I paid around $2000 for the set. 

It just kinda sucks that Lego is basically ruining the value of its own brand.  That has always been the mystique of Lego, sets were available for a time and then retired.  I don't have an issue with updated re-releases because they are different, exact copies of the originals is just plain wrong in my opinion. 

I'm sorry you grossly over paid for this set, but LEGO is not "ruining the value of its own brand".  The value to LEGO is sets on shelves for sale to the consumer.  The value of LEGO is it's quality.  The secondary market has no bearing on the value of the brand to LEGO.  If there were no secondary market, sales would go up, and the brand value would go up.

Copies of originals allow a for a new group of LEGO buyers to purchase a set.  It allows LEGO to potentially gain more lifelong customers.

11 hours ago, MAB said:

Maybe you use a different definition of a scalper. In my view, scalpers have nothing to worry about due to re-released sets, as a scalper is someone that is into short time trading not playing the long time game. Scalping in the lego market concerns buying up high demand current retail sets and selling them at peak times (eg. Christmas) when LEGO gets short stocked. In my view, by affecting the long term investments, LEGO will be encouraging the longer term investors to change how they operate and actually end up fuelling this short term scalping instead.

In my opinion, scalpers artificially create demand by reducing supply through purchases.  As they reduce supply, demand goes up, as do prices.  The "I have to have it now crowd" will still keep scalpers in business to a degree.  Normal, patient consumers may be willing to wait for a re-release of a set they want in the future.

[x105Black]

10 hours ago, Freezingvettes99 said:

I figured I would ad my two cents in this thread, I am a collector but I enjoy building my sets and putting them on display.  I always keep the boxes and instructions in case someday I want/need to sell them.  I collect mostly Star Wars UCS sets, Pirate ships and Classic Space.  I have both UCS Millennium Falcon sets and was excited about the 2nd version because it was substantially different from the 1st.  

I do have a bit of an issue with an exact remake of the Taj Mahal though for this simple reason; I bought my son a like-new (used) in the box set a couple of years ago for getting a 4.0 in school.  It was a deal we made at the start of the year.  I didn't have any interest in this set when it was released so I didn't purchase it.  I paid around $2000 for the set. 

It just kinda sucks that Lego is basically ruining the value of its own brand.  That has always been the mystique of Lego, sets were available for a time and then retired.  I don't have an issue with updated re-releases because they are different, exact copies of the originals is just plain wrong in my opinion. 

4 hours ago, kibosh said:

I'm sorry you grossly over paid for this set, but LEGO is not "ruining the value of its own brand".  The value to LEGO is sets on shelves for sale to the consumer.  The value of LEGO is it's quality.  The secondary market has no bearing on the value of the brand to LEGO.  If there were no secondary market, sales would go up, and the brand value would go up.

Copies of originals allow a for a new group of LEGO buyers to purchase a set.  It allows LEGO to potentially gain more lifelong customers.

I never understood this mentality.  It's just saying that you want the next one to be different so that yours is still valuable.  I'm with kibosh in saying I'm sorry you spent that much so recently, but there's never a good reason that a new group of people shouldn't have the same thing the old group got (especially when we're talking about plastic bricks).  There's no real good reason to change anything, aside from actual updates to the build.  Arguably a few updates could have been made here, but they are really unnecessary, and I believe the point was to avoid the additional costs of a redesign.

[MAB]

12 hours ago, Blondie-Wan said:

_____________________________________

As for what set(s) I think would be good candidates for reissue, one obvious example to me would be the LEGO Ideas Curiosity Rover. The original had ridiculously limited availability, being sold only online, not in stores, and with two production runs that yielded two exceedingly brief windows of availability, each just days long, a few months apart. It's also not a very large set, and what's more, it doesn't really have a lot of "special" parts - no printed elements, and most of the parts are in common colors, and probably regularly in the factory inventories. LEGO could probably easily whip up a new batch without having to do much more than set up a production line for packing together the parts assortment and printing the boxes and manuals. I'd personally welcome that reissue. But I don't know if they'd bother with that particular set.

I think that was one where they had an agreement about the maximum number of sets they could produce, further complicated by being an Ideas set so paying royalties to an external designer. If they were to remake it, I'd hope for a new design at a different scale not just a rehash. (Disclosure - I own two copies, one built, one sealed).

12 hours ago, kibosh said:

Copies of originals allow a for a new group of LEGO buyers to purchase a set.  It allows LEGO to potentially gain more lifelong customers.

 

New sets also do this. And they also appeal to existing LEGO buyers / collectors.

8 hours ago, x105Black said:

... but there's never a good reason that a new group of people shouldn't have the same thing the old group got (especially when we're talking about plastic bricks).  There's no real good reason to change anything, aside from actual updates to the build.  Arguably a few updates could have been made here, but they are really unnecessary, and I believe the point was to avoid the additional costs of a redesign.

 

I wonder how many people would be happy if LEGO just kept recycling old designs, maybe changing colours but not actually designing much new. No doubt many people would love to see a re-released Cafe Corner, but I'd much prefer to see a new corner building, even a cafe, just not the old one. I'd prefer to see a new one in the style of modern modulars, not a like-for-like copy of something they did a decade ago.

[x105Black]

17 hours ago, MAB said:

I wonder how many people would be happy if LEGO just kept recycling old designs, maybe changing colours but not actually designing much new. No doubt many people would love to see a re-released Cafe Corner, but I'd much prefer to see a new corner building, even a cafe, just not the old one. I'd prefer to see a new one in the style of modern modulars, not a like-for-like copy of something they did a decade ago.

It depends on the set, really.  If it was a good design that people still love, and it still holds up, why change anything?  There are still a lot of people out there who would buy it, so make it.  With other sets, a remake or update would be fantastic.  I listed the original yellow Castle set in the other thread (about which sets you would like to be re-released), but I'd honestly love to see them revisit the concept and update it to modern standards.  Hell, I'd like a Creator Expert version of the set at 2+ times the size.  As for Cafe Corner, it's a high demand set, so why not reissue it?  Sure, there are those that would prefer a new building, but if the old one would still generate good sales, it's a no-brainer to me to just skip the development phase and re-issue a new wave of the set.

[splatman]

1 hour ago, x105Black said:

As for Cafe Corner, it's a high demand set, so why not reissue it?  Sure, there are those that would prefer a new building, but if the old one would still generate good sales, it's a no-brainer to me to just skip the development phase and re-issue a new wave of the set.

My thoughts on CC: Reissue it with a interior.

CC originally came without an interior. TLG was probably only testing the waters with the whole modulars thing, as they probably did not want to go all out with a fully fitted-out set and the price that would entail, because they did not know how well it would do. It took off, and so every Modular since then came with an interior.

Re-releasing CC w/ an interior would mean only some designing would need be done, as the exterior would be left as it is.

[MAB]

6 hours ago, x105Black said:

It depends on the set, really.  If it was a good design that people still love, and it still holds up, why change anything?  There are still a lot of people out there who would buy it, so make it.  With other sets, a remake or update would be fantastic.  I listed the original yellow Castle set in the other thread (about which sets you would like to be re-released), but I'd honestly love to see them revisit the concept and update it to modern standards.  Hell, I'd like a Creator Expert version of the set at 2+ times the size.  As for Cafe Corner, it's a high demand set, so why not reissue it?  Sure, there are those that would prefer a new building, but if the old one would still generate good sales, it's a no-brainer to me to just skip the development phase and re-issue a new wave of the set.

Let's assume that the re-issue would take the place of a new one, as it would otherwise be in competition with other current releases. I don't think CC does stand up to current design standards. I really wonder if the demand is there for CC if it was re-released, just with updated parts where the old ones are no longer produced but little else changed, but also at modern prices. I guess the question is why do people want the old one - is it due to the value and rarity or is it because they genuinely want that particular build?

[antp]

unlike for the Taj Mahal, some parts of the Corner Café do not exist any more (e.g. 5-brick-high doors) and others may not be in production currently. So a re-release is unlikely. And since a modernized version requires some work, why not just make a brand new building that every modular collector will buy ?

[AFOLguy1970]

Looking at the CC, it does seem to clash with the newer modulars.  To me, it appears somewhat blockier and less detailed than the more current offerings.  It is still a nice structure, and I would not mind having it in theory, however having it redone does create a couple of issues:

(1) Those who already own it would not benefit much from a re release as it would presumably take the spot of the new one (similar to what happened with the Winter Village Toy Shop.  

(2) The original has neither an interior (important to many Lego fans) nor a storyline (important to the design team), therefore extra bricks would be needed to alleviate that.  Consequently, that would drive up the price significantly.  I really hope we go back to the 169.99 price as Assembly Square made me poor for a few months.  

[Isavarg]

If people collect Lego only for the purpose of hoping that it will go up in value, then they are collecting it for the wrong reason(s). People should collect it because they enjoy building the sets and making their own creations. It does not bother me one bit, and I really wouldn't mind seeing other sets released.

[MAB]

3 hours ago, Isavarg said:

If people collect Lego only for the purpose of hoping that it will go up in value, then they are collecting it for the wrong reason(s). People should collect it because they enjoy building the sets and making their own creations.

 

If they are an investor, then hoping that it will go up in value is the only reason to "collect" them. Personally, I don't care what people do with what they buy. If they want to open it and build it as they enjoy doing that, that's fine by me - and this covers many collectors. If they want to open it and mix it up with other lego, again fine - this covers many more collectors. If they want to display the sealed box without building it, that's also fine - obviously, now this is getting more niche. If they want to put it in a dark air-conditioned vault to preserve it in the state it was originally available, also fine. If they want to invest in it to make a profit later, again fine. If they want to review it on youtube to make money from it, fine. If they want to open it, cut the parts to customise them, paint it or draw all over it with a Sharpie, play with it in a sand-pit, make youtube videos of it being thrown, dropped or crushed, etc, also fine. I don't think it is up to anyone to tell anyone else what they should or shouldn't be doing with their own property. Different people can enjoy doing different things with the same item. The vast majority of lego retail sets are available for months to years, what one person does with them when they purchase one or more sets doesn't affect anyone else.

[x105Black]

You have a point, MAB, that anyone can do what they want with their sets.  But of those listed in your post, I have the least sympathy for the investor in the case of a re-issue.  That said, I'm on board with whatever anyone wants to do with their LEGO that they paid money to obtain, absolutely.

[MAB]

Just now, x105Black said:

You have a point, MAB, that anyone can do what they want with their sets.  But of those listed in your post, I have the least sympathy for the investor in the case of a re-issue. 

 

I'm fairly ambivalent towards resellers if they lose money (or not make as much money as they could have) due to re-issues. Although I have even less sympathy for the guys who trash lego sets for advertising money when youtube cuts the amount they get paid. But as I already said, I don't think it will stop resellers selling lego. Some sets will still do well longer term if picked carefully. But more damaging is that resellers will change their behaviour and go for more quick flips of current and recently retired sets than holding long term investments. The former will make it harder for buyers of current sets, the latter will make it harder for buyers wanting older retired sets. Whether a particular set is remade or not, just the possibility of a remake may make numbers held by resellers fall (compared to now) and so secondary market prices might actually increase, and possibly increase at a faster rate once retired.

 

[LEGO Historian]

There were 4 people who purchased the old Taj Mahal set on Bricklink in October.... as of right now it appears that only 1 of those 4 buyers went thru with the deal.  3 backed out... including one buyer who paid $4500 for the set.  I do bet that that one seller was really depressed.... 

 

[MAB]

10 hours ago, LEGO Historian said:

There were 4 people who purchased the old Taj Mahal set on Bricklink in October.... as of right now it appears that only 1 of those 4 buyers went thru with the deal.  3 backed out... including one buyer who paid $4500 for the set.  I do bet that that one seller was really depressed.... 

 

Yep, I can fully understand buyers refusing to complete sales for them. It is even worse for sellers in countries with distance selling regulations where the law allows returns for items purchased online for a couple of weeks.

[JanetVanD]

I think "scalpers" is a bit of a harsh term for people who just hope for a return on their investments. If they bought the sets legitimately and view them as future assets, good luck to them. I won't get myself in knots about the high prices on the secondary market (I just won't pay them) nor will I shed any tears over someone's potential income dropping due to a re-release. Investing is a risky business; you win some, you lose some.

Personally, I'm delighted the TM is being re-released as I came out of my dark age a few months after the original retired!