Death of Lego Investing? Rerelease of Taj Mahal

[ShaydDeGrai]

32 minutes ago, JanetVanD said:

I think "scalpers" is a bit of a harsh term for people who just hope for a return on their investments. ...

In many cases this is probably true, the very definition of a "good deal" is when both the buyer and the seller walk away with what they wanted, regardless of price.

That said, I've seen scalpers in action who deserve a little harsh treatment.  I was in a Lego store once shortly after the Star Wars UCS Snowspeeder came out.  The store had five of them and this guy came in and took the three off the shelf and had a clerk get their last two from the back room.  While he's in line to check out a kid, maybe twelve or so, and his mother come up to him.  The boy tells him it's his birthday and that they came to the store specifically to get _that_ set.  He then, very politely asks if he could have one of the five kits.  The scalper just shrugged and told them that he was there first and that if they really wanted the set, they should have gotten there sooner.  Needless to say the kid was very upset, started having a meltdown in the store.

Then, after the scalper checked out, he had the nerve to go over to the mother who was trying to calm the kid down and tells her she can buy one of the sets from him for $300 ($100  more than what he just paid less than two minutes earlier).  She used language you don't often hear in a Lego Store and the scalper left.

I very much want to believe that this sort of behavior is atypical for most "Lego speculators" but even one incident like too many and I have little sympathy with people who deliberate upset a child on their birthday just to try to blackmail a quick profit out of a loving parent.

For those who care, the Lego staff were much more sympathetic and called around to the next nearest Lego Store (fortunately there are four within an hour's drive of each other where I live), tracked down a copy of the set and had it set aside for the boy and gave him that month's promotional polybag "in advance" (I'm sure he got another at the other store when they actually bought the kit).  They were very apologetic regarding the other customer's behavior but since he was under store's policy limit of 5 copies per buyer their hands were tied.

[MAB]

They could have stopped the buyer buying all five if they had wanted to. 

[Markalus]

There are so many potential variables with the straight up re-release of Taj Mahal that have already been covered in this thread. Only time will tell what effect it has. But there are already signs the 'market' is saturated anyway. Several big collector sets that have retired in recent years have not inflated, in fact, some have deflated. Pet shop is one that springs to mind. According to Bricklink the average sale price for a 'new' set in the past six months  was $223 Australian dollars (n= 171 total bricklink sales). RRP for this set was $269 Australian dollars. If you have stockpiled those I would say that's a pretty bad investment. 

[Artanis I]

On 20/11/2017 at 8:19 AM, MAB said:

They could have stopped the buyer buying all five if they had wanted to. 

They could've tried, but it seems he's the type to spout that legal rights "liberty & justice" kind of speech ("this is America" free market capitalism etc), then threaten to sue for lost potential income or some crap - that sort of behaviour that gives Americans a bad name. I think their hands would be tied.

*Hey, you... just because you have a legal right doesn't mean it's right to be an ar$ehole!*

Edited November 20, 2017 by Artanis I
filter changed the insult to "egg dispenser" which is inaccurate

[koalayummies]

Despite how anguished and despairing I feel after reading it, thank you for sharing that story @ShaydDeGrai. A despicable man making a child cry on their birthday because of greed over a kid's building toy. I feel sickened and enraged. Wrathful. 

[MAB]

8 hours ago, Artanis I said:

They could've tried, but it seems he's the type to spout that legal rights "liberty & justice" kind of speech ("this is America" free market capitalism etc), then threaten to sue for lost potential income or some crap - that sort of behaviour that gives Americans a bad name. I think their hands would be tied.

 

1

If he had complained about lost income, then they could have got him on being a reseller.

 

I imagine they had already agreed to sell all five to him as, like most stores, they want to sell their stock to people at the prices advertised. Then they had the problem that someone else wanted one once it was then OOS. The behaviour was pretty bad if it happened that way, the guy should have just paid for what he bought and left without interacting with the mother.

 

[wgemini]

Scaplers are typically only annoying during sales. There was a 60% off sales a couple of month back. The guy in front of me grabbed all the Rex's AT-TE sets (4-5 of them). 

I think Lego reselling is dead anyway for the more "sure" sets like modulars. The Pet Shop can be easily found below retail despite being retired. 

[randomboy]

I was talking to a LEGO Store employee the other day and he said that LEGO is planning on keeping the re-releases (Taj Mahal and Millennium Falcon) on the shelves/available online for many years so fans who have been wanting these sets for years have time to save up for them and collectors who are hoping to make a profit in the future don’t have this option. 

Obviously I don’t know if this is the actual reason LEGO is doing this, but I’m very happy that I’ll be able to put money away over the next two years to afford both of these amazing sets.

 

[Dragunov2]

I prefer it this way, rerelease of the sets.

I buy and build Lego Creator and UCS sets, cause I like to build and display them, not to resell them at prices way too high to people who still want to buy the set cause they couldn't the first time...

I know a person who bought three MFUCS in the store I work, one for him and the others to resell them once none are available anymore.

Those people have no passion for Lego and just want to earn way too much money on the head of another!

[Bricky Dee Williams]

So, any rumors for what this year’s rerelease could be? Brickset put out a comprehensive article last year with good guesses of future rerelease options. 

So, do we have any indication or idea of what this fall could hold?

Please let me know if this is in the wrong topic.

[MAB]

On 7/28/2018 at 8:18 PM, Dragunov2 said:

I prefer it this way, rerelease of the sets.

I buy and build Lego Creator and UCS sets, cause I like to build and display them, not to resell them at prices way too high to people who still want to buy the set cause they couldn't the first time...

I know a person who bought three MFUCS in the store I work, one for him and the others to resell them once none are available anymore.

Those people have no passion for Lego and just want to earn way too much money on the head of another!

If he bought one for himself, then that is clearly not true. Many LEGO fans invest in LEGO to varying degrees.

[BrickG]

Who cares? 

Re-release all you want LEGO. People shouldn't be using LEGO as an investment or retirement fund anyways. I have zero cares about people being upset their old sets are losing value. There's about 100 billion other more important things in the world.

Basically to LEGO investors I say "TOO BAD SO SAD". :)

[MAB]

Why shouldn't people invest in LEGO? People invest in all sorts of items.

The death of LEGO investing is not necessarily good for LEGO buyers / collectors. If investors didn't put one (or 10 or 100) away for sale in the future, then finding new copies of retired sets is much harder unless LEGO re-releases the one you want. And chances are they will not re-release it. There are so many new sets to release that they cannot possibly offer all old sets too. And at any time there are plenty of new sets to choose from too if someone wants to pay only RRP. Nobody forces someone to buy an old set at a mark-up from an investor. For most retired sets, if you want it then either someone had put one away and will sell it to you (at a mark-up) or you cannot buy it (in new condition).

 

[LEGO Historian]

People do not need resellers to buy old sets.  I've been a collector for 53 years... and I sold off my entire collection over the last 8 years to focus on documenting the history of LEGO sets, parts and retailer products.  I have seen many collectors, both old and new, sell off their collections.  In one case it was due to the need for living space for an infirmed relative that was coming to live with the collectors family.  In other cases collectors die off, lose interest or have new challenges to their life, a divorce, whatever.  We don't neep investors to be able to buy a set you alway wanted on the secondary market.  Between Amazon, Ebay, Bricklink, Brickowl, etc.... there are plenty of places to buy retired sets.  All having resellers does is perhaps reduced the number of sellers for the hot sets, but not eliminate them.  If there are only 15 Millennium Falcons available on Bricklink instead of 53, that probably won't impact who buys what. 

Edited August 20, 2019 by LEGO Historian

[MAB]

11 hours ago, LEGO Historian said:

People do not need resellers to buy old sets.  I've been a collector for 53 years... and I sold off my entire collection over the last 8 years to focus on documenting the history of LEGO sets, parts and retailer products.  I have seen many collectors, both old and new, sell off their collections.  In one case it was due to the need for living space for an infirmed relative that was coming to live with the collectors family.  In other cases collectors die off, lose interest or have new challenges to their life, a divorce, whatever.  We don't neep investors to be able to buy a set you alway wanted on the secondary market.  Between Amazon, Ebay, Bricklink, Brickowl, etc.... there are plenty of places to buy retired sets.  All having resellers does is perhaps reduced the number of sellers for the hot sets, but not eliminate them.  If there are only 15 Millennium Falcons available on Bricklink instead of 53, that probably won't impact who buys what. 

Who do you think is selling them on amazon, ebay, Bricklink, Brickowl? It is mainly resellers, not people that need to sell quickly. And sure collectors die off or need to sell for other reasons, but that is a small part of the resale market. Take a retired license from a few years ago, such as LOTR. If someone wants to buy a new set now, who are they going to buy from? Do they wait for a LOTR fan that has the set but never opened it to become bored with it or otherwise needs to sell it?

[LEGO Historian]

On 8/20/2019 at 5:47 AM, MAB said:

Who do you think is selling them on amazon, ebay, Bricklink, Brickowl? It is mainly resellers, not people that need to sell quickly. And sure collectors die off or need to sell for other reasons, but that is a small part of the resale market. Take a retired license from a few years ago, such as LOTR. If someone wants to buy a new set now, who are they going to buy from? Do they wait for a LOTR fan that has the set but never opened it to become bored with it or otherwise needs to sell it?

The term reseller has so many possible meanings... I was a reseller when I sold my sets, a collector who buys one set to play with and puts another one away to eventually sell to recap his expenses, is another reseller...  and then there are those that are not interested in LEGO at all, except as a profit motive.... those are the ones I am talking about as resellers (in that sense).  Once LEGO becomes (or maybe the right word is "became" unprofitable for them, they are off onto the next money making venture.  Those resellers I am glad to see leave the LEGO market. I don't think that a LEGO collector would leave a kid who wanted a set that the "reseller' just bought up the supply of... in such misery.  I think LEGO collectors who resell would have a heart, and remember when hey were young and waned a set they could not find.

I am pleased that THOSE resellers are (hopefully) leaving the LEGO market.

 

 

[MAB]

While I am sure there are people that sell LEGO with no interest in it, there are plenty of people that sell LEGO that have an interest in it. I often buy three of a set (usually in 3 for 2 type sales) and will look to sell two of them at 50% markup so that I effectively get my one free. But I don't really see myself as any different to the guy that buys 3 (or 300) and sells all of them as he has no interest in LEGO. Of course, I could feel I am superior in that my profit is being sunk back into LEGO, but the other guy is presumably sinking his profits into something he enjoys (or food or housing). In that sense, we are no different - we are both buying a product to sell to someone else at a later date at a higher price.

If I had just taken the last 20 sets off a shelf when the stock was being cleared at a deep discount and a kid was crying as he doesn't have it would I let him have one to buy? Probably, but just one. Would I leave one or more on the shelf in case that kid comes along after me? No. Although I typically buy clearance items online and collect them so it is rarely a problem.

 

[LEGO Historian]

4 hours ago, MAB said:

<SNIP>

If I had just taken the last 20 sets off a shelf when the stock was being cleared at a deep discount and a kid was crying as he doesn't have it would I let him have one to buy? Probably, but just one. Would I leave one or more on the shelf in case that kid comes along after me? No. Although I typically buy clearance items online and collect them so it is rarely a problem.

 

I guess we are on the same page.... I once bought 34 of the 760 (USA) LONDON BUS Sets ($7.65 each) from a Detroit area toy discounter (bought closeouts and out-of-business inventory) back in 1980.  There were 35 sets on the shelf, and a lady asked me if she could have one, after I had loaded them all into my shopping cart (1980 was a few years after the London Bus was discontinued).  She said her husband was British, and wanted one for him.  I let her have it, and was happy to take the other 34.  The sad thing is that I opened all of the sets (they were classic window intensive with 24 per set), and only built one bus.  The remaining windows (about 800) became classic window inventory for my skyscrapers. 

25 years later I did resell sticker sheets and instructions, and made a lot of collectors happy.   

Edited August 21, 2019 by LEGO Historian

[MAB]

11 hours ago, LEGO Historian said:

25 years later I did resell sticker sheets and instructions, and made a lot of collectors happy.   

Imagine if kids had bought those sets, built the buses and stuck the stickers on them and played with them in their garden. Happiness for them at the time, sad collectors later.

 

[Gomek]

OK so a couple quick points...

This has not been the first time Lego has re-released sets. Metroliner, Main Street and others were re-released in around '02 or '03.

Lego has always been a little flaky and unpredictable with these things, often times cutting a product short before it's even on the self a week (Research Institute) and never (to the best of my knowledge) letting people know what the production runs on sets are.

As many noted, and who I agree with... The only people I really feel bad for are the people who bought this on the secondary market just prior to re-release news, and paid top dollar.

And as I've pointed out before.. Lego 'investing' is heading toward a bubble that is going to burst. There is way more Lego supply out there than demand. Right now a lot of that supply is in the closets of hoarders and speculators, but that won't always be the case. That will spell the end of investing WAY before a few re-releases affects the over-all market value of Lego.

AND not to be morbid and state the obvious.. but a lot of collectors will not be buried with their Lego, so a good portion of everyone's collection is going to hit the open market at some point.

[Collector245]

I also thought I'd add another problem in Lego investing. The use of colors. For example the Green Grocer, when it came out it was one in a few sets that used sand green. Now sand green is used in many sets, thereby devaluing the Green Grocer. 

[Gorilla94]

I see my Lego collection both as a piece of art and a toy i use for my photo montages. It´s about fun. I buy what i think is worth it for me and i am willing to pay a bit more if there is a figure like the caveman from series one, that is out of store since years and in good condition. i don´t expect to get my stuff for free. If someone took good care of his figures for years i am happy to give him a few euros more than he paid back then, too. But there is a point where it is enough and you are just a scalper. I bought a lot of old cmfs for the regular price they were at their release date because other AFOLs knew i was still a university Student with small budget. When i am at a store feeling for the minifigs i want i often help others to get their favourite one even if i know they are rare and i could make a profit by keeping and selling them. If old cmf prices would collapse, i´d be glad for kids, that would like to buy for example a lizzard suit guy, and army buiilders searching for spartans, even if my collection looses market value that way. That´s the spirit a community should have.

Investors buying tons of Millenium Falcons and boxes of Cmfs are one of the reasons why Legos prices explode that much and even if they aren´t terrible persons they are a bad influence on our hobby. I also experienced an adult ***hole punching children, that came too close to the cmf box where he felt for every single desireable figure and left only tons of non-rare and unpopular ones for everybody else. He even damaged a lot of them because he brutally grabbed the bags searching for figures without capes or fragile accessory. When Wall-E was released it was THE big Christmas gift. It was sold out at every Lego Store i have been at while hundreds were offered for double the price by local traders on eBay. I am glad, when this bubble collapses and i would be happy if it financially ruins people who punch kids or abuse the emotions of parents to blackmail them at Christmas.

 

[MAB]

2 hours ago, Gorilla94 said:

If someone took good care of his figures for years i am happy to give him a few euros more than he paid back then, too. But there is a point where it is enough and you are just a scalper. I bought a lot of old cmfs for the regular price they were at their release date because other AFOLs knew i was still a university Student with small budget.

It is an interesting dilemma. Let's say the going rate for a new and sealed Spartan, for example, is about 15.00 Euro. So if you put one on eBay or bricklink at that price it would sell quite fast.

If you had one or a load of them, would you sell them to someone else for say 6.00 Euro, a bit above the original price?

How would you then feel if they sold them at the going rate?

 

To me, selling things at a price that buyers are willing to pay is not scalping.

[Gorilla94]

1 hour ago, MAB said:

It is an interesting dilemma. Let's say the going rate for a new and sealed Spartan, for example, is about 15.00 Euro. So if you put one on eBay or bricklink at that price it would sell quite fast.

If you had one or a load of them, would you sell them to someone else for say 6.00 Euro, a bit above the original price?

How would you then feel if they sold them at the going rate?

 

To me, selling things at a price that buyers are willing to pay is not scalping.

To be honest? I buy what i need. I have some friends who study history or are Disney fans so i sometimes keep a few sealed figures like Donald Duck or Ceasar to have a little something for birthdays. Besides that i would never buy stuff and keep it sealed. If i sell something it´s because i don´t need it anymore. I will never be in the situation where i sell a "load" of sealed spartans. A single one is one thing but if you buy a big amount of a very popular figure just with the only intention to resell it with profit, i would already say that´s not the nicest thing to do with all the normal customers who would like to get one. If you say 6€ is not enough after buying it for 2€ and making 200% profit i´d say thats already very close to scalper behavior. I was often lied to on the flea merket ebay app about how poor they are and hooow much their child would want these figures... while they were so stupid that they were using the same account for their professional selling activity. Such people are on a moral level not better than confidence tricksters. But it´s easy to avoid them. If i sell something - and that doesn´t happen that often - i sell to people i know from forums a bit.

[MAB]

OK, so rephrase the hypothetical question. If you had any opened set that would easily sell for $100 on the open market, but you paid only $10 for it originally and no longer want it.

Would you sell it for $20 to someone else? If you did how would you feel if they then sold it for it's then current value of $100?

Would you be a scalper if instead of $20, you sold it for $100?

 

For me, value is not what something cost. It is what something is worth. And it is worth what someone is willing to pay.  So in the example above, if you sell for $20 then you have undervalued it. It doesn't matter than you made a profit on it compared to the original price you paid. It was worth $100 at the time you sold it.