pacific493

How to sort this lot really depends on how serious you are about buying more bulk lots in the future. The sorting stuff you've got is probably adequate for the lot you bought, but will be inadequate if you plan to buy more lots or buy lots on a regular basis. I have been buying bulk lots and selling individual sets mad fom those lots for almost 6 years, and can say from experience, it would be a lot easier to include excess storage/sorting capacity where you are now than it is to expand later. I started off with about what you've described buying (less the stack on drawer cabinet) and, in the intervening years, have expanded to where now I have 16 Akro-Mils drawer cabinets (total of around 350 drawers), 16 large Plano tackle boxes, 20 small Plano tackle boxes, 16 x-large Plano tackle boxes, 35 12"x7" plastic bins, and 40 6"x18" cardboard bins. I'm not saying that you need to buy that much storage, but there is no way I ever thought when I was starting out that I would end up with such a large amount of storage and it would have paid to plan ahead.

Yes, what an awful state of affairs...the ONLY people who will end up with the Emerald Night are those who actively seek them out and pay secondary market prices...I guess that is other than anyone who actually took the time to actively seek out the set in the 2+ years it has been available from numerous retailers at MSRP. That "poor kid" wandering through the Lego website or store has had plenty of opportunities to buy this set at MSRP.

I'm curious how you can find out the "stop date"? Any idea on what the stop date is for the Death Star 10188?

What kind of sets are you watching on Ebay? I mostly deal with vintage sets and there are much better deals to be had on Ebay than Bricklink. I have bought some old train sets off of Ebay with the original boxes for less than half what they would have cost me on Bricklink.

Does anyone have any idea how long this set is likely to be available? I'm not sure that I want to pull the trigger on it right now, but it seems like one of those sets that could disappear very quickly.

I sell a lot of sets on both Ebay and Bricklink, and I would advise you not to give up on Ebay, but to be careful who you buy from and to always check the seller's feedback before buying. In addition to selling, I have bought a lot of sets off of Ebay and am always very careful to make sure that I am either getting a good enough deal that I won't mind if a few parts are missing or that I am buying from a reputable seller who has a good track record of standing by their listings. When I sell, I do my best to make sure that every set that I sell on Ebay is complete, but I invariably miss a piece or two every once and a while, and am always happy to send any missing pieces (this is generally reflected in my feedback). I wouldn't give up on Ebay since you are likely to find much better deals on sets there than on Bricklink where prices tend to be higher.

There are few things better than winning an auction and getting a nice surprise when the item arrives. Congrats!

Very cool MOC! International shipping is a killer, particularly where parts are concerned.

I mostly sell Pirate, Castle, Space and Town sets from the early 1980s to early 1990s, but I also sell Technic sets from the same period and Star Wars sets from time to time. I have gotten a number of collections recently that were heavy on Pirate sets (particularly Caribbean Clippers). You can check out my Bricklink store All Vintage Bricks. However, I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 to 600 additional pounds of Lego that is not listed in the store, so if you're looking for something in particular, drop me a line.

There are a few other considerations as well. One is that it protects people from knowing what you are bidding on. Although this is not as relevant for many buyers, for some items, there is a small universe of buyers. If you are one of those buyers and get identified as such, people can search by your bidder ID to identify auctions to bid on. You can obviously avoid this by setting up IDs for buying only, but that's kind of a pain IMHO. Also, sniping helps me set a limit and stick to it. Generally, if I put in a bid of say $500, chances are I'll kick in another $10-50 to win the auction. With sniping, I can set the limit and then I can't get into a bidding frenzy if my snipe bid is not the highest at the end.

The software just drops the bid in a few seconds before the end of the auction. Nine times out of ten that I have used the proxy bid system alone, I have been outbid in the final seconds by someone else because they can basically just sit there and keep bidding until they pass the highest bid that I placed. However, if I snipe, no one else can figure out my highest bid with enough time to beat it...they either have to place a bid that beats mine or they lose. Sometimes it works out and other times it doesn't, but I certainly never won as many auctions, particularly for larger collections, before I started sniping. Before I would always get outbid by $10.

I have never sold many instructions on their own, but I would probably spend that much to get those instructions (at least for the Carribean Clipper) if I had a set in good condition that I was going to sell but did not have instructions for.

I have gotten a lot of great deals on Ebay, but the best was probably one of the first big collections that I bought. I was screwing around with sniping software and figured that I would test it out on a collection that had about 100+ sets in it, including about 30-40 large sets from the late 1980s, early 1990s (Black Seas Barracuda, Metro Park and Service, Big Rig Truck Stop, Futuron Monorail, Black Falcon's Fortress, etc., etc.). I did not think there was a chance in hell that I'd win with the bid I placed (about $750), but I did. When the collection arrived, not only were the parts, minifigs and instructions mostly in mint condition, but it included a complete Dacta Space set #9355 in unopened polybags, which I didn't even realize was included. Sold that and made back a good chunk of what I spent on the rest. I've scored pretty well on a number of other collections that I bought, but I don't think anything will ever top that one.

As a seller of vintage sets, I can tell you that instructions make a big difference in the marketability of a used set. There are some sets that will sell without instructions or a digital copy, but I have found that the original instructions helps sets move more quickly and at a higher price. Needless to say, the original boxes add even more to the value.

That's correct. Most of the collections that I have purchased did not have boxes with them. I have a few sets with boxes (Fire Control Center, Pier Patrol, Futuron Monorail, Mega Core Magnetizer), but the vast majority do not.