MAB

It is difficult to compare with other themes as they are so different. HP was popular and had numerous sets over about five years, disappeared for about five years before returning for a few years, then disappeared again before coming back again. It also remains a child focused theme (with small sets) with larger sets for older builders.

I reckon most people that were collecting LOTR back then were adults and not likely to have aged out of collecting. And most likely had enough money to buy at least a decent number of them. One of the problems with the LOTR range was that it was not that attractive to kids and hence the smaller sets especially did not sell anywhere near as well as the smaller sets in more kid friendly ranges.

If anything, parts that cannot move are less likely to get scratched than those that can, unless you are forcibly crushing the parts together. The size of the bags and number of parts inside is more about packing and sealing them. If there was not much room left in a bag once the parts had been randomly dropped into it, then there is a chance that parts would spill out if they had a different arrangement inside the bag. Plus, there needs to be enough room to crimp and seal the bag without getting the heat sealing jaws near the parts. Both these things means bags will be partially filled instead of completely full. Then when it comes to putting bags into boxes, they don't want to waste time having to arrange bags within a box to get them all in. if one bag is put in at the wrong angle on top of another bag creating a void, they don't want to have to remove everything before repacking it all. Better to use a bigger box than necessary so even if a blockage occurs, they will still all go in. I imagine that is why there is so much air space inside the boxes.

And they already did the gold mountain though PAB with the 2p/2c metallic gold parts from the Monkie Kid sets.

It is the same with all LEGO sets. They are themed and packaged similarly within a theme to highlight their similarity and to indicate which sets go well with which other sets.

If the appearance of the box on a shelf was not very important, then they'd make the boxes as close to cubic as possible to save on packaging material and weight for the same volume. The fact that most boxes are large and somewhat flat (two dimensions large and one dimension small) implies that the image area shown on a shelf is important. Of course brickheadz goes against this, presumably as they want the branding of those sets to be seen as more cubic.

I've opened 1000s of sets and have the same experience. And often if I won't be parting them out for a while but selling off the minifigs straight away, I'll open them up and store the parts back in the boxes, typically requiring less than half. Some people enjoy knowing they have a mint condition product, exactly as it left the factory. Enjoying the box doesn't necessarily mean enjoying the box art. It means enjoying the sealed box. If you open it up and sell the contents, you have an empty box which is useless to someone that collects sealed boxes.

It really does depend on the build. I only very occasionally now display at a convention and if it is a huge build it does need a lot of figures to look "lived in". Whereas the builds I can display at home are much smaller and cannot take so many figures. And these tend to be close detailed scenes rather than a larger epic-scale display. I find a reasonable rule of thumb is about one figure per 200 or 250 parts. Of course it will be different if you use a load of small 1x1 or BURPs at the other extreme and similarly flat landscapes will be different to vertical buildings. Maybe it should be based on standing area instead!

It is interesting isn't it, all those years without castle and yet the historic forum remained quite lively. Castle was gone from shelves but never really went away. Star Wars sets have provided some excellent natural and greys parts packs and come with strange characters that you can hold for a year or two, then sell for more than the set cost. If a new LEGO Castle theme came onto the shelves today, I'd probably leave most of them on the shelves. I'd buy the torsos, helmets, weapons and shields from online PAB or maybe BL depending on the relative prices. But I think I'd leave the sets on the shelves. I doubt they would provide much I hadn't already got. But I would keep buying Star Wars sets with their valuable minifigures to be sold off and keeping the free parts that come with them. It's funny you call those "older", the Tournament Knight was 2 years ago! Although it is incredible how quickly he increased in value, presumably due to people collecting armies of him even though he is really a one off in the sense that other knights would have their colours not his. Similar rises were seen in the S2 Spartan and to a lesser extent the S3 Elf back in the 'olden days' of CMF and also rises to the S6 Roman Soldier after some time. I remember buying up Romans on ebay for £3 and sometimes £4 thinking it was a lot for a generic figure. But just last week sold the legs, torso, helmet and shield of a used one for about £20. The Spartan and Elf actually decreased in value for a number of years, I guess with people stopping army building them as they were so expensive. Whereas these newer knights could be bought reasonably cheaply not so long ago and once you start a faction you keep going but newer people don't get into building that faction. I guess it depends what you are into. If they are on their way to a large castle then combined with that they would look epic. Whereas if they are just on an isolated baseplate, then for me they are a bit boring. At one stage I amassed over 100 of the S6 Roman soldier. But with all my builds I would use maybe 20 at most at any time. More than that and the army becomes the focal point rather than the actual built scene. So I got rid of most of them. I did the same with S3 Elves, Gorillas and Tribal Warriors, S4 Musketeers, Hazmats and Vikings, S5 Guards, Dwarves and Lizard Men, S6 Aliens, Bandits and Surgeons and many others in later series. Now I tend to stick to 16 for a faction or part of an army. Once I have that many, I am unlikely to use any more of them. I might have multiple similar groups in an army, but too many of the same and they will just sit unbuilt in a box. Luckily most of the ones I collected in high numbers where wanted by other people in high numbers and so made a nice investment when never used.

Opened modern small sets are never going to be worth much, with or without the box. Having the box will not make a huge difference in the future. There are just too many sealed sets and those are what future collectors will want if they care about the box. Whereas people that want the (used) set won't care about the box. It is not like the pre-2000 days when it was uncommon for someone to buy then store new sets. I've also sold many older boxes and instructions to collectors piecing together vintage sets. That is only possible since many were destroyed once the set was opened. These days huge numbers of people are investing in new sets that are kept sealed. I have recycled 1000s of set boxes after parting them out for sale. To have stored them all would have cost way more than their value. I can understand keeping the boxes of larger sets although even with these, boxes are unlikely to make a huge difference in the future again due to how many people are storing perfect sealed sets that future collectors will have access to. And if they buy to display the set, they are unlikely to care about the box.

This has to be possibly the worst pricing I've seen on there... Or for 11p more you get the whole set!

This is called sealed box collecting and plenty of people do it, with variations to it. If I am going to keep a set sealed, I normally buy two. One to open and enjoy, the other to keep sealed. Probably plus a few more sealed sets to sell once retired.

Yes, I know. And this is a real issue for previously hard to find coloured parts that have now become common without appearing in any recent sets. If you want to avoid the illegitimately produced parts it is easy to avoid non-production parts, but production ones could be real or could be illegitimate. We simply don't know. It happened on BL a couple of months ago with printed parts. 1000s of Jokers and C-3PO figures. BL suspended them but they are now back. They said they bought all the sets, but BL thought otherwise. The issue then is if they are sold on to other sellers. If they have just a few instead of 1000s, they appear more legitimate. But the source could be the same. I imagine the same has happened with monochrome parts.

I think the numerical values are same everywhere, in whatever the local currency is. If you want $35 off, you get a $20 voucher and 3x$5. You can enter as many money off vouchers as you like.

They would have had an agreement with Warner Bros to do the special anniversary gold characters. If they get an agreement with Lucasfilm / Disney to do a rainbow of Vaders, then they could do them. But it seems unlikely to me that they would want their property used in that way.

No they don't, it depends on the price paid for the set. For example, the Razor Crest (in US $600 - 3900 points, in UK £520 - 4160 points). UK gets 800 points per £100. US gets 650 points per $100. The idea is if you spend £100 you get £5 voucher for 800 points, and if you spend $100 you get a $5 voucher for 650 points. When it comes moving regions it depends on the currency rate that has changed significantly recently so currently looks bad for the UK.100 points is worth 62.5p or 77c. The ratio between these is 1.23, and the excahnge rate used to be about £1 = $1.25 so was about right. Now the pound has fallen, the rate is £1 = $1.10 so it looks worse that it used to be. But it is still 5% of the local currency. It only affects you if you change the region, earning points in one country and spending them in another. As for sets costing more, it depends. Take the Razor Crest again. In the UK it is £520. That is after tax, the ex-VAT price is £433. Remember US prices are shown before their taxes are added. If you compare that to the US price, their price should be 433x1.1 = $476 with the current exchange rate or $540 if the rate was £1=$1.25. But they have to pay $600. Even if you compare our VAT inc price of £520 to their price £520x1.1 = $572, cheaper than their $600, and that is before they add taxes. Now is actually a good time for US buyers to buy from the UK as our prices appear low to them due to the poor exchange rate (for us, good for them).

I have the existing minifigs and expanded the original Council of Elrond set, so I'd probably skip it if redone. If they did other sets alongside I might buy in again, but a one off repeat is of no interest to me. It will be a difficult balancing job if they decide on just one big set.

Are they officially released by LEGO? If not, they are bootleg. Illegitimate, whatever you want to call them. Darth Vader is not pink or yellow or green, which is presumably why they don't sell pink or yellow or green ones.

I also think there is a big difference to 20 years ago. They are producing a number of seemingly niche sets for the rich but what does it matter if some of those don't sell so well? LEGO are making huge profits and have a huge fan base compared to 20 years ago. Some of that fan base is very rich. If Queer Eye fails because it is too niche or any of the much more expensive sets fail because they are too expensive then they reduce to 50% and the masses will buy. LEGO are probably still making money on them. Presumably a lot of the expensive sets are selling well enough as they keep making them. Another big difference now is that LEGO is a commodity. That helps smooth out the sets that fail, as they soon get snapped up when discounted. And LEGO don't seem to be doing the mistake of spending huge amounts on single use items. And the final big difference is licensing. Licensed collectables will keep LEGO alive, even if some choices fail.

Can't you just tell the bootleggers you want those specific colours? At least for current production colours. I imagine getting sand red would be hard unless they find 20 year old stocks of pellets. As to others, maybe if they blend colours together to create "N choose 2" binary coloured figures.

Not for me, they are like joke glasses.

Nothing new that is monochrome though?

Hopefully this advanced search works ... https://www.bricklink.com/search.asp?viewFrom=sa&qMin=15&sellerCountryID=US&invNew=N&catID=238&colorID=3&sellerLoc=C&searchSort=C&sz=500 This should search for all new yellow heads for sale by people with at least 15 heads of one type in the US. You can change the 15 to 50 or whatever minimum number of each type you might buy. When buying bulk, I normally do a search like this to see what sellers in my country have available in bulk. Skip over uninteresting ones and make a note of any that are interesting. It helps to identify what domestic sellers have available in large stocks. Chances are if they have 50+ of one interesting head, they'll have others in bulk too. Or you can add the interesting ones to a wants list and then use that to search stores. PS you can also add extra terms after that link such as -glasses to turn off any modern looking with glasses. The downside is bulk heads tend to be priced relatively high compared to if the seller has just a few. And it might be better going to online PAB instead.

If it is anything like how my son played with cars and helicopters at that age, the passengers would all need wheelchairs afterwards!

Simple, you make them look like a minifigure. Some disabilities are hidden in real life, and they will therefore also be hidden in minifigure world. The good thing is that means there are plenty of parts that can be used to represent a specific person with a hidden disability. And no other minifigures need to know about the disability unless the minifigure wants to declare it somehow. Just like real life. And I really suggest anyone that quoted his post remove the offensive word from the quote.