MAB

And I disagree with you. Although TLM2 (and TLM) was aimed at kids, there were loads of Easter Eggs in it relating back to past LEGO themes and characters and that meant that they were attractive to adults too, if they were interested in parts for those themes. If they were aiming it only at kids, they could have put in much more interesting prints for the characters (like they do in City Space) and left out the boring old fashioned classic figures. AFOLs wanting Classic Space minifigures did buy it. AFOLs are not a single entity, there is a huge variety of interests. Note all AFOLs are interested in just large sets like Titanic and the Eiffel Tower. Those interested in Classic Space will have bought the TLM1/2 space sets for the minifigures and printed parts. And it could well be the same for Classic Castle too. AFOLs interested in Castle are likely to buy a small 4 pack of minifigures with maybe a couple of shields of similar Castle specific parts, even if it was part of a theme aimed at kids. If they released a set like this now: Would any AFOLs buy it? I think yes. Not the ones interested in large scale models, but those interested in Castle probably would. And even more likely if it was mainly minifigures plus a few parts in a cheaper set.

Here is the 2022 thread, in the right place. No doubt a 2023 can be created once there is some definite data to put into it. Rather than chat based on speculation / leaks.

Or, that they thought there was a lot of demand for Classic Space army builders and so ended up overproducing this set. A store near me had them at 20% off within a week of release. I bought 20 sets and the yellow and pink figures sold really quickly, the Benny figs sold but slowly and I was keeping the white ones. I also bought another 10 sets much later at 50% off (the lowest I saw it) to part out, and the figures were barely moving then. I kept some sealed, and they still haven't sold. I think the demand was there, but the supply was too much. I don't think it was necessarily bad selling, just overproduced. But if it was a bad seller that could have a consequence for Castle too. They made a battle pack style set packed full of nostalgic Classic (THEME) figures that AFOLs say they are desperate for, and LEGO found out the demand they thought was there was not there after all. Will they see battle packs for Classic Castle any different to battle packs for Classic Space and decide not to do a Castle battle pack. It could also happen at a store level, when the toy manager remembers that a small set with old fashioned style figures did not sell well and they decide not to go for the next range with a small set with old fashioned type figures in. The Space Squad set did sell out quickly (at least near me). Initial stocks seemed to sell well. But then it came back into stock and remained on shelves for ages indicating over-supply. It could have had low demand, or it could have had high demand but very high supply. I imagine a Castle pack would go the same way unless they decided to cut the supply to cater for the probably lower than expected demand.

It is harder these days. It used to be that just about any set would increase enough to make at least a little profit and many sets would do very well. These days, most will sell well enough to break even and some do better than that. This is why it really depends on the buy-in price instead of picking winners. If you can get a set that sells well enough when it is discounted by 30%, it will probably do better than most other sets at full RRP. Maybe this is the reason for the more aggressive quick flip type behaviour seen more often these days, where some sellers try to clear shelves and create demand during the early days of the release instead of investing longer term. It was quite amazing during the shelf-life of LOTR that not that many people seemed to be buying for longer term investment. It was possible to buy sets very cheap and minifigures from other dealers for very good prices. I was paying about $3 each for new Eomers, $5 for Rohan warriors. I even bought a bag of almost 400 mixed LOTR / Hobbit minfigures, horses, wargs, etc for £400 / about $500 at the time from someone buying sets because he wanted the bricks. About 40 were Frodo variants and about 20 of Gandalf but even so they were a great investment. But that was before non-LEGO people started to see the value. I doubt I could ever get such a deal again.

In past years there have been GWPs in November/December.

From what was written in the OP, it doesn't sound like hoarding but collecting. They are stored away and occasionally taken out and looked at and enjoyed, suggesting that they are not chaotically distributed in an unmanageable way. They do not say they are spending significant amounts on lego, just that they have hundreds of sets. They also do not think their behaviour is self detrimental, they even say that they enjoy it and it causes them no pain. They are a sealed box collector. It may be that they are a true sealed box collector, or just waiting to get a bigger placed to be able to display their sets in future. They dont say. If they get bored with their collection, then they will probably have a nice investment to sell, depending on what their interests were.

What do you mean by direct supplier? As LEGO won't sell to individuals or small businesses at trade prices. Even physical toy stores must stock a range of other brands and get very little choice about sets they can take and when if buying from LEGO. Small retailers pay more than bug ones, get less choice over what they can order and usually get stock months after larger retailers making it harder for them to sell. It is possible and quite easy to sell retired sets, if you bought them prior to 2018. But for more recent ones it is tough, since so many people jumped on the trend of lego investing. That has meant both more competition for selling and also for buying. Deep discounts on clearance are rare now.

The online BAM has been a complete disappointment. For us (UK) the initial selection was OK but the parts selection actually shrunk and pieces never replaced. Unless they start putting in the instore parts, I cannot see it being of much use.

That's great. And some nice decoration on the outside of the box too so it is not just a boring exterior.

Fortunately I invested mainly in stuff I like. When LOTR was out and being cleared at 50% off (sometimes more), I bought loads. If I like it, others will like it. My view was if it sells for decent money, I'll sell it. If it doesn't, I'll use it. These days it is nice that if I want a £50 set, I can sell or trade a Wizard Battle or Witch King Battle (paid £6 each). If I want a £100 set, out comes an Uruk Hai Army (£12). A couple of months ago I wanted to extend Lonely Mountain. Out comes a spare set (£50) and selling just three figures makes the rest of the set free. And the next time I want a £200 set, the spare Smaug can fly off. I bought 16 of the business card holder set on clearance as I thought the letter tiles might be useful one day. I've kept about 5 sets worth for my own use. But now some of the individual 1x1 tiles sell new for more than the complete sets cost me. Back when Roman soldiers were selling for £3-4 on ebay, I bought loads again thinking I'll either use them or sell when the time is right. Same with Team GB, Shakespeare, Forest Maidens, Classic Kings, many CMFs ... It turns out Shakespeare has a good torso and legs for historical figures, so I kept them. But the tile, head and bald hairpiece sell for what I paid for the complete sets. There have been a few duds (Simpsons S2, and most DFB have really dropped), but if you buy at the right price, you can still break even on those too. Investing is great for your own collection if you do it right.

I think it is better to have a place for people wanting to discuss investing since that keeps it out of other threads where building and playing is being discussed. Plus making a living or making hobby money on products that you understand the market for is not that bizarre. It is one of those things that if you don't like investing, then don't read investing threads just like if you don't like technic then don't visit the technic sub-forum.

Flick arrows, just what we need! Kids will love it of course, but I think I'll stick to static bow and arrows. I would have preferred an arrow-less bow that matches the current bow and arrow. I imagine it will get used for many archers in future, not necessarily for Legolas or other licensed elves. Just like the equivalent stud shooter has become a staple of just about every theme from Star Wars to Friends. I think most adults tend to prefer the SW blasters over the stud shooters for SW displays, but they are easy enough to replace so long as both are produced.

So do I. I play with my LEGO. But I also invest in it to help fund future purchases. And this is a thread about investing. The clue is in the title and the previous posts. There are plenty of other threads about playing with LEGO.

It would depend on whether they produced enough and released loads of stock in one go, as it calms down the initial panic buying from resellers that fuels resellers to keep clearing shelves. Benny's Space Squad (which is a similar style army builder set) for example sold out quickly when it first started appearing in a few places but within a few weeks they had plenty of stock to distribute and it was easy to find everywhere throughout the shelf life. And even now is barely worth much more than RRP. I think they handled that one well. Resellers are soon put off buying up everything if everything keeps getting replenished and they cannot quick flip for a profit. Whereas if they release a little and often (like Black Falcon parts through online PAB), there is the continual cycle of in-stock to out-of-stock, which leads to people panic buying to get what they want from resellers at high prices, which fuels the reseller purchases. They also screwed up the release of the 9574 "Green Ninja" in the run up to Christmas 2012. He was hyped up for months then sets were released in batches and every batch was getting bought up and quick flipped and loads of parents complained about secondary market prices. That lead to the first big crack down on resellers that I remember.

Bearing in mind the "broker" here will be getting about 6 or 7% commission on what you pay for it and so they might try to convince you to spend as much as possible on their picks. So just like real financial investments, you have to remember the broker is out to make money for themselves and not for you. Most sets will go up a little on retirement, so picking ones that do is not a skill. Convincing people to buy them through commission links is the real skill. And remember a set has to increase by about 10% (excluding postage) before you have broken even. The Fairground Mixer retired six years ago. The RRP was £120. The average selling price over the last six months for a new set was £187. Bricklink and paypal fees will be about £13. So that is down to £174. If you sold one now for £187 ("over 50% increase, that's huge!") that is about 6.4% average growth per year. Better than keeping cash, but not great considering the space and work necessary to store it and sell it. Especially when you think worldwide 36 sold in six months, and there are 110 still on BL - so about three years worth at the current sales rate. And all this is completely ignoring taxes that might be due. Whereas if you bought it at 30% off or got a decent GWP at the time of similar value, the average growth per year is about 13%. It shows that the return rate is more about the price you can buy the set at than being told the right sets to buy at RRP.

LEGO has long used purple to denote "girly" sets. The box of just about every Friends set over the past decade has been purple, so LEGO fans might associate purple with Friends. They also did purple (but not blind CMF) bags back in the day ...

I didn't look at them for long. Maybe the new ones have slower phophoescence, so less bright but longer lived.

It would be interesting if they did a Castle Xtra type pack - maybe a few different helmets, some weapons, some shields, the arched windows and the bars that fit them, and then a handful of mixed grey and natural bricks. Something like the Witch King Battle set minus the figures, but with a few accessories instead. I bought a load of that set when cheap for the parts (and to sell off the figures) Although now LEGO has changed so much from the 80s/90s and even 2000-10. I'd worry how people (adults) would react if they did the old style pocket-money Castle sets again, with one minifigure and a few parts. If they did something like this at maybe £5 / $5 each as polybags (or £8 / $8 with a horse) or like the City starter boxes with two minifigures plus parts I can just imagine an adult going into a store and clearing the shelves of the lot to army build (and to show the lot off on instagram or youtube) whereas in the past that would not have happened. It could be just as frustrating as putting soldier parts into BAM and one person clearing the lot out.

There used to be a few sites that did this. Wallofbricks was one, there was another worldwide one whose name escapes me. This one currently tries to do the same: https://www.pabfinder.com/stores There are others for individual stores such as https://brightonbricks.com/pab-wall The problem with them is that they need to be kept up to date by fans, and fans are not good at keeping them up to date to the point that they tend to be useless. I think the same would happen if stores updated them. If they say they have such and such parts in stock when checking online, and they don't have those parts in stock when you arrive, then there will be complaints. And the type of parts that someone would travel for are the type of parts that will sell out fast. Especially with BAM parts, it would be impossible to keep track of what is in stock unless they kept all stock separated in drawers and took parts out themselves and not allow kids to do it (as they inevitably mix them up) which takes away all the fun of the BAM bar.

I got the Funky pack at the weekend. I don't know if they have changed the formulation, but the heads I received don't glow anywhere near as brightly as ones from Monster Fighters, after the same exposure to light.

The numbers are in that thread. The number of licensed vs unlicensed sets is pretty much equal, even though the number of licensed themes is larger. Given the huge variety in product types too these days, it is difficult to get exact numbers. City, Friends and Ninjago are huge themes in terms of set numbers these days, way bigger than Town was back when the classic themes were also regularly on shelves.

I posted it a while ago, it'll be on another thread. While there are more licensed themes than in-house, licensed themes tend to be much smaller. You can add them up each year from data on sites like brickset.

Castle isn't an evergreen theme any more. If it was, it would be on the shelves. And there would be no problem. There is plenty of room for in-house evergreen themes on the shelves, just look at City, Friends, Ninjago. There are more in-house sets on shelves than licensed.

Sealed sets don't have batteries in the remotes, so it is not going to be an issue. Rust is the only likely issue but the set would have had to be in a very humid environment to do damage to contacts in a sealed remote control.

Yes, if you store it underwater or have rats. No if you keep it in a good environment. They don't have batteries in them when manufactured so long term storage of unused ones, like any electrical equipment, is not likely to cause an issue. Used ones with batteries left in them are much more likely to be damaged by leaks if stored for long times.