Hewman

There are unscrupulous people selling them on ebay. In shop at home news, there are a couple prices up for sets coming out on October 1. The tower bridge is $380 (could have been much worse) and the winter village baker is $95 (overpriced in my opinion but at least it's cheaper than the winter toy shop, as it should be). No sightings of Harry Potter on the Aus shop at home site, so still awaiting confirmation of RRPs.

Have a great one, ISC!

Walter Kovacs, thanks for your detailed analysis. last year I produced some multivariate statistical models of the prices of the 2009 and 2008 Star Wars sets. Without going into the boring details, the only factor that was statistically relevant in determining the price of the sets was the overall weight. Number of pieces was completely useless at predicting price. This is something that I'm sure many had suspected, given one large piece might take as much resources to make as 100 technic pins. Anyway,thanks again for bringing this up.

Stop with all this useful info! I'm trying to cut back on my Lego spending (in order to buy Harry Potter and the Egyptian theme next year)and you're not helping . Did you check it out, it wasn't extra off top of sales prices or anything insane was it?

Short answer: No they're not worth the hype. It's true there are some beautiful designs and I've bought about ten or so different figs. However, there are a few reasons why they aren't worth the hype. After spending a fair bit of time barcode searching in shops here in Australia and paying $4 AU each (about $3.70 US) which is recommended retail price I decided I can't be bothered doing that for series two. Now I like my figs to have suitable sets to belong to, and many of the collectible figs don't easily fit into other themes (and I have neither the time or talent to make MOCs for each fig), so this rules out many of the figs for me. However I have the clown and magician from the first series so I purchased the mime, weightlifter, circus guy as they all fit in with a carnival theme which I have some sets that can work them in. Although I do admit that I purchased the Pharaoh purely because it looks great, and now with talk of the new Egyptian line I'll have somewhere to put it. I do like the look of the Spartan but at the price being asked on bricklink I'm more than happy to give it a miss. I have a feeling it isn't the number of people wanting this fig that's making the price crazy, more the quantities that these people want it in. I think there's a few hardcore fans of 300 out there. Finally there is the quality issue. These are a long way below Lego's usual standard and that is a big turn off.

Thanks for the great info guys, but there's now a dedicated thread for this theme, and it would be fantastic if you could repost it there for everyone. Cheers Hewman

If anyone in Adelaide wants a kingdoms advent calendar for $36, try your closest imagineif store, they currently have 10% off lego and my local at Newton had 4 calendars in stock last night.

I'll be putting any PotC purchases on hold too because of this new Egyptian theme. If the pics are near as good as what I'm guessing them to be PotC is going to be the big loser, and not being licensed, my wallet will hopefully be the winner with the Egyptian sets.

There are some cracking bargains at the bricklink shop of the Toy Corner owner. Get in real quick because they'll either sell, and if they don't it won't be long until the prices are back to normal. Highlights include 7199 temple of doom, around $70, ditto power miners titanium command rig. Just over $13 for 8014 clone battle pack. Also if in Adelaide he might allow local pick up. bargains there be here

Grab them online, it's what I've done, I'm sure they'll arrive before I spot them in the shops, plus even with shipping, the ones I wanted cost me under $4 each and no having to barcode check in the store or hunt around to see who has them in stock. Although if you're keen on the Spartan, it won't be so cheap unless you buy all 16 at once which some sellers on bricklink are doing at a reasonable price.

Those prices beat those that I was talking about today, so everyone, get to Big W if you want toy story 1 or 2.

Maybe you could notify one of the ambassadors?

Lunch time update: Went to Toys R Us and the toys r us truck scans at $59.99. Although in another part of the shop they had the lego toy truck on a shelf with a big yellow price tag on shelf saying "exclusive $69.99" so maybe wait until tomorrow to get one from myer for $40. I scanned a toy story 3 set (conveyor belt one) and rang up at $60, a genuine 40% off RRP, although shelf didn't mention discount, it scanned according to catalog. Myer Adelaide had all the kingdoms (excl calendar) sets and today is last day of buy one get 50% off 2nd toy, so if you're after say a big castle and slave 1, it'd still be much cheaper to buy today. For those in Adelaide I've been holding onto some news until my new credit card cycle kicks in (Friday, but I'm impatient), but if you're looking for some really good discounts on toy story (not toy story 3) sets, send me a message. I just don't want to publish it on the web in case it gets cleaned out before I get a chance to shop on Friday. I called the store today and still plenty of the sets in stock. Sorry for the mystery folks. If any of my friends interstate are interested, send me a message and I'll give you a price list and will grab them for you when I get the chance. Edit: These prices are 40-50% off RRP, so not quite giving them away but very good value if you had no luck at k-mart clearances.

Beautiful! I love the use of the Hogwarts game fig as baby Harry. The mixed colours of the bricks works really well too.

Thanks mate, not exactly worth grabbing a second one at that price!

Toys r us Adelaide still had quite a few series 1 figs by the counter for $2.99. I'm not sure of the fine print in their catalogue but quite a few toy story 3 sets were on small discount, so I don't know if these are excluded from the 40% off. In some cases the discount put them down to RRP. There did seem to be plenty of stock of the sale sets, and I can thoroughly recommend the SP3 set they have at a genuine 40% off. Also, has anyone seen the Prince of Persia Quest against time set on clearance at k-mart, if so do you remember the price?

I don't know if I'm speaking on behalf of all Australians but I'd call it a letter box, ie the one you have outside your place for deliveries, as opposed to a mail box that are located around the place in cities and towns to put your outward mail into.

Have you got both versions of the Imperial Trooper there? One with and one without a ring on the belt?

This is by far the most complete review of one of the brickmaster books that I've seen. Thanks, it really enables us here to make a highly informed decision about whether to purchase it or not.

No idea, that's what impressed me the most. No idea, that's what impressed me the most.

For those that like their AFL and Lego, here they are combined Chapman goal No, I had nothing to do with this, it was sent to me by a friend in the media.

OK, probably straying off topic, maybe it's better discussed in a star wars thread. I just saw plenty of the large castle set in target and a quick calculation shows it's almost 25% off RRP once the sale starts tomorrow, so even better than the 20% off the rest of the Lego. Given they had the games in with the Lego I assume they're 20% off too, so for anyone that couldn't grab one at Myer, this mightbe your chance. I saw Creationary and a few others but no Harry Potter game.

Yes I am, although I've just bought the kingdoms one, and am going to take the jester and wizard out of the one I made up and add them to the kingdoms one, along with the $18 set to give me 13 figs plus a skeleton. Once my home made one is complete I'll put a link to it in my sig. Although it won't be as good as last years in terms of value as I've included quite a few collectible minifigs. For those that are interested, last year's is here

The issue with Star Wars is that for it to sell they'd have to put new minifigs in it and every new minifig increases licensing costs. It wouldn't surprise me if they'd have to sell them for $70-$80.

It looks like K-mart are finally discounting the Prince of Persia sets. The Battle of Alamut was down to $99 at my local K-mart in Adelaide tonight. This was the only one they had in stock so I'm not sure if more sets are discounted at other stores.