doriansdad

Lego is not cheap but offers excellent VALUE. Business 101 - never compete on price if you offer a premium product. Lego learned well from Jobs at Apple. Kudos.

I know a few who do, one even has a couple of storefronts in my state buying, trading and selling Lego. It is very easy to make a living doing this in the USA but a much bigger challenge to make a "good" living, and impossible to do overseas. Ultimately you will spend 18 hours a day working for not much money. The new reporting rules for Paypal also mean you are going to be paying taxes on any significant ebay/bricklink operation as well which certainly does not help things. For me buying, selling and investing in Lego sets is a fun hobby that will pick up more steam if TLG is still around when I retire. If you are interested and reside in the USA and therefore have access to very cheap prices and deals I would start with a small scale operation on ebay and go from there.

Did you call Lego Direct? I don't mean PAB...contact customer service and you should be able to purchase them for $3.05 each...at least I was able to as of 6/20/11 without a problem.

I pieced together Market Street and Cafe Corner off Bricklink and Lego Direct. Each set has a few rare pieces that are no longer produced and really drive up the price. I managed to build each set with new correct pieces for $350-$380 each. If you are willing to use different colors then it can be done more cheaply...just time consuming. Past re-releases have failed for TLG so I don't see them trying it again. I too came late to the modular series and wanted to collect them all but I didn't really mind spending the money....supply and demand at its finest and after all it is the underlying driver of any collectors market. My advice is grab the Green Grocer before it too is $800+. I bought the 5 high doors from Lego Direct so those are certainly still in production. Now that the red roof slopes are back the only rare parts for the Cafe Corner are the now discontinued 1x2x3 white panels....the new version has the extra side wall that makes the winds look way too small...and the blue arches which you will also need for Market Street. These parts are now either impossible to get in the quantity needed or if available are very expensive.....best bet is to pay the $700 for a new set on ebay if you must have them.

There is also limited and valuable shelf space to consider. With the new super hero line coming out Jan 2012 a licensed line has to go. That line will be HP IMO. Introducing a very cheap way to get Voldemort is a huge clue about where the TLG is going with this line in my mind....enjoy the send off.

I bought a sealed first run of this set a few months ago for $1200 here in the USA. I bought it from a reputable dealer in our town as I was always afraid to spend this kind of money on ebay or bricklink just to end up opening it in 10 years or so to find junk lego inside the box. I purchased it for 2 reasons: Firstly for me this set is both the definitive Lego set to own as well as the definitive Star Wars collector's item to own. As a fan of both it made sense. Secondly I bought this for my son who is now 8 and will give it to him for his 18th birthday. He was there when I purchased it and it will be a good lesson in patience, time and investing. $1200 for a high profile collectors item is very cheap. It will be very interesting to see if he ends up opening it to build, sells it still sealed or holds onto it for another 10 years or so. It will also be very interesting to see if my modelling of collectors item pricing was accurate - I fully expect this to easily sell for over $5k in 10 years and if Lego either discontinues the Star Wars license or goes out of business then my estimate is much much higher. Only time will tell. The dealer keeps asking me if I have opened it as he is curious to find out what set number this was (he feels it should be very low)....it will be fun to eventually find out if my son does decide to build it. For what this set symbolizes it is still very affordable IMO.

Lobo you have the wrong pieces for the window frames on the second level of your cafe corner. The set comes with (20) white 1x2x3 panels with hollow studs. You are using the new Lego part that has the thicker side wall which creates a very small window opening. The correct parts (no longer made by or sold by Lego) look much better....try to find them if you can.

My 8yo son is very excited over the Pet Shop. We are building all of the modulars together (started with Cafe Corner a few weeks ago). I am sure he could do it all by himself in small chunks but is is much more fun to build it together. I would definitely recommend this set for your daughter if you are willing to help out from time to time. One other idea may be set 4954 but it is out of production and would likely cost more than the Pet Shop. There is a great review of it here on eurobricks: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=28360

Hello, I am looking to buy 4 white hoses (new or in very good condition). They are design number 73590c02a and lego part number 4235542. They are completely white and have the tabbed ends. If you have any to sell please message me and I will reply promptly. I am located in the USA. Thanks for looking.

This happened to me as well. I thought it might be an isolated incident but now it is clear they had no sets at all to ship. Unforgivable considering they had this for pre-order for so long and gave a discount to do so. I used a Groupon as part of my purchase that is now expired as well. I have emailed customer service and will post any updates here. If they don't offer a gift card or some compensation for my lost coupon I will never shop there again.

Well I didn't get around to calling customer service yet but Lego emailed me again this time stating my ARF had shipped on its own. The Tantive I presume is still on backorder and will ship in the next few weeks.

I purchased the Tantive set right when the sale began at 9PM EST and the set was marked as available. I received an email from Lego a few hours later stating they received my order and the ARF appeared on the invoice. A few hours ago I received another email stating my order was now back-ordered. Hoping they still ship out the ARF...I will probably call sometime today to verify with customer service and try and get the ARF shipped out separately. Also hoping my name still gets put into the drawing for the UCS Falcon.

Good news on a possible new UCS set. I am interested in trying to figure out which set this would replace as I have had to wait a few years to purchase the sets I like. Would this likely mean either the Death Star or Tantive would be discontinued? Thanks in advance for any educated guesses.

While the prices are higher I have found that with the new pricing policy stores are able to give a good discount very quickly. Typically in the USA you can buy any set at 25% off every few weeks or the usual buy 1 get 1 50% off. The regular retail prices are definitely high no doubt tho....but I don't see prices for any product or service falling unless it is for outdated technology.

Thanks for the link....but we are waiting for 40 - 50% off or a combination of gift card deals / cashback bonuses to achieve the same...if it weren't for Daigon Alley and the the soon to be released POTC Queen Anne I would buy from Amazon at that price.

My son and I are really excited for the new MF as we did not have the original and no space for the UCS. We are going to drop this bad boy right behind the Cantina set in the display room:) My 8yo son is excited about the advent calendar simply because it is Star Wars.....he could care less about the Clone wars but should get a kick out of Yoda Claus even if he does have the awful cartoon head. Ewok attack looks sub par so will probably pick up the Pod Racers set. Eagerly waiting for the Tantive set to go on sale somewhere.

In 6 months? It will still be selling for $20 on ebay in 6 months. Give it 3 years and you will see $50-$60 for it.

I would love a Goonies theme. I loved that movie as a kid and enjoyed watching it again with my 8yo son. We would love minifigs of Chunk and Data.

Home One is now available again at S@H for 50% off. Expected ship date Jan 22nd.

We visited our local lego store in Oregon Jan 1st and they did not have this or any other Harry Potter set in stock. They were also missing some star wars lego sets that they were meant to be selling Jan 1st. The manager stated the shipment never came from Lego and apologized. Life goes on. From now on I will make sure to call first. A pre-ordering system sounds like a fantastic idea to solve this problem. Maybe Lego can throw in a pre-order bonus as well (maybe an exclusive minifig). Sounds like this idea would be a win all the way around. Still eagerly anticipating this set :)