dotmike

Thank you for your thank you! On the basis of your report I went along to Sydney CBD and picked up some discounted LOTR. Sadly for me, I was a bit late and all the Helm's Deeps had gone and I just got the last Weathertop and two of the six Uruk-Hai Armies. I asked the cashier if there were any more sets in storage but he noncommittally said they only had what was on the shelves. Speaking of shelves, they have a huge display of Architecture sets at that store - White House, Brandenberg Gate, Burj Dubai tower, Seattle Space Needle, Guggenheim Museum, Empire State Building, and the unmentionably bad opera house which may or may not be based on this city. So if you were waiting for a discount to get into this series...

I'm inclined to agree with you. (Although, I am feeling guilty not making a mere 15 km circuit to take in two local MYERS on the off-chance they've slipped up.) However, I hope someone less lazy than me can report if they've discovered stores anywhere in Sydney who have put the sets out early? You know, with gloom & doom financial reports and stock downgrades, you'd think MYER would be keen to move any stock they can, and not hold it back. I certainly am not going to buy the LOTR sets without at least some discount applied. If TRU beats them to it with a 20% sale in the next few weeks, then that's who I'll buy them from. That's at least a $600 purchase (taking into account the multiples I'd buy to get a discount) they've kissed away today.

The Myer "Super Saturday" flyer would seem to confirm a 3 for 2 sale on toys tomorrow: http://www.myer.com.au/resources.ashx/Files/666/File/170A0A795E9914EDB6CBE677BF84E7A4/super_sat.pdf (Bottom of the left column. Only exclusions are "Nursery".) The question is, does your local Myer have LOTR in stock. As of lunchtime Friday, Myer Miranda (Sydney) did not. Does anyone know if Myer Sydney CBD has them in yet?

Thanks for the confo, and based on that I ducked into Miranda this morning. Interesting situation: of the three planets, Big W also had only two, but they were Naboo and the Death Star, plenty of each, at the sale price. But up the escalators at Toys R Us, they had ONLY Tatooine! (At full RRP of $15.99.) It's almost as if the LEGO truck arrived yesterday and the black shirts took two planets to Big W and one planet to Toys R Us. I can't imagine a reason other than some sort of preferential deal? Sounds anti-competitive to me. Well, stuff them! I'm not buying any. Seeing them in the flesh, they look like less like LEGO and more like overpriced Christmas tree baubles anyway.

Great news, thanks for posting! Yes, I think those sets were intended for February so they are indeed a bit early. Hope it's not just that Big W. I'd really like the planets, but I think I'll wait until there's a Sydney confirmation before venturing out. As you say, a rookie manager could have jumped the gun. I thought for a moment from your photo they had boxes Series 2 minifigs behind them! If that were the case, the store would be more crowded with AFOLs than Brickvention. (Well, maybe Series 1 would do that.)

Gotta be quick with the ~50% clearances: once word gets around, the pro-AFOLs pounce and buy up multiple sets so they can part them out on BrickLink. New sale: Myer currently have "Buy 2 get 3rd free" on toys. (Just a reminder, if you find 3 things you want of equal RRP, this works out to a 33% off sale.)

The Kmart deals are probably universally better, but if they've run out of stock and you suddenly decide you like Ninjago (like I have after getting a few heavily discounted sets), then Toys R Us are offering 30% off all Ninjago. Haven't seen any other Toys R Us post-Christmas LEGO discounts, although they'll probably be the first to get the 2012 range and sometimes they have a % off sale to bring down the inflated prices to get the stock moving.

Excellent list, the sort of thing that makes this forum so great! Just adding for completeness, I also saw: 7985 - City of Atlantis - $69 ($120)

Yes, that's odd. Maybe they've sent them all to the stores? I was in Westfield Miranda this afternoon and David Jones there had just shy of a billion Pet Shops and Fire Brigades. By "billion" I of course mean about 15 of each, but I've never seen so many modulars together in that store. I'm not sure how many they'd sold, but you'd think 30% off $269.95 and $299.95 = $188.95 and $209.95 respectively would help. Another odd thing: Myer in the same Westfield had virtually cleared its floor stock with its one day 30% off toys. Again, I've never seen Myer so deplete of LEGO! Just one solitary and battered Tower Bridge ($399 - 30% = $279.30) and a handful of Ninjago, Duplo and tubs of bricks. Nothing else. Normally full racks were cleared. "Bring on the 2012 stock," I imagine them saying!

There's some semi-decent prices there so it's probably worth a look. Probably a good indication of post-Christmas pricing. Kingdoms Mill Village Raid 7189 $68.00 Ninjago Fire Temple 2507 $130.00 Lighthouse Island 5770 $45.44 Star Wars Bounty Hunter Gunship 7930 $55.00 Star Wars Darth Maul's Infiltrator 7961 $90.00 Pharaoh's Quest Golden Staff Guardians 7306 $12.38 Cars 2: Big Ben 8639 $88.00 POTC Isla de la Muerta 4181 $28.00 POTC The London Escape 4193 $68.00 City Space Shuttle 3367 $34.48 Kingdoms King's Carriage Ambush 7188 $48.87 Cars 2 Mack's Team Truck 8486 $50.00 Creator 3 in 1 Apple Tree House Set $50.00 Kingdoms Dragon's Prison 7187 $23.07 Harry Potter Hogwarts 4867 $70.00 Technic Flatbed Truck 8109 $103.60

A creature constructed from entirely translucent orange pieces, with generous use of flames, could be quite spectacular! All underneath a collapsing bridge. For once, a LEGO model where the structure is meant to be unstable!

Great find, Tiger! The ads help put it in context for me: in the space of a day I've gone from reading the Businessweek article, to controversy over girls should/shouldn't be girly, to finally getting it. Nice touch having the modulars in the opening sequence: It sort of connects it to "our" world!

Well, I would hope the 482 pages of this thread would have made people just a little bit more lucky... :) Become a frequent visitor here and the kind people will quickly tell you when a decent sale is approaching. The weekend Myer 3 for 2 toy sales have always been reported by Friday afternoon at the latest.

Myer has a new Toy Catalogue starting Thursday, 1 December 2011. It has the Winter Toy Shop at $89, which is notable because this was formerly an independents' exclusive (Toyworld, etc) in Australia.

One or two decent prices on the Creator sets at Big W starting Thursday: Hillside House is $68. This is $20 less than Big W's regular price, but actually 32% off Australian RRP and on a par with Amazon.fr, so not a bad price for a nice Creator house if you don't already have this set or for a gift or for pieces to make other houses...

20% off at Target starting Thursday for a 2 week Christmas Toy Sale.

Don't forget Myer usually has an extra 10% of catalogue items at some stage during its Toy Catalogues (usually near the beginning and end). Arrr, that be a fate worse than eternal enslavement aboard the Flying Dutchman for the Aussie AFOL! Okay, no one has to give their collection to anyone, as long as they don't accuse them of making up sales. After all, TanTile's timely report kicked off the search and got a lot of people their Black Pearls at 20% off last weekend. Without him, we might still be expecting it to be an exclusive to the independents.

I was under the impression the Tiger was going to give you HIS collection if he was wrong? (Of course, I may have read that too quickly.) But didn't you say $147, not $146? So, judges' decision, because of that error, both you and LT have to donate your collections to Aussie Sales thread readers! It's a kangaroo court here.

Probably because of their US connection - they're a different kettle of fish to other retailers, basically a big warehouse where palettes of goods are stacked in bulk for customer members to buy. Their stock may have come direct from the US. I saw them mentioned on the From Bricks to Bothans forum, where Deak Starkiller saw they had a cheap price on the set even by US standards, and I posted it as a long shot here (though I don't know if that's what inspired Mainee to take a look or he just happened to be there yesterday). I won't make anyone cry by telling what the Pearl is going for in the US. Er, yes I will: That shot was taken in Arizona, USA, but presumably the "warehouse look" of the shelving is identical in Sydney, Melbourne (where Mainee spotted it), and Canberra Costcos. They don't carry many LEGO items, but Costco could become a valuable Australian source for select sets, where the prices are perpetually on sale.

Great to know, thanks for the report! That's going to be one of the cheapest around for a while, even with 20%'ers at stores that start with T. Now the dilemma is: is it worth joining Costco just to buy the Pearl? I think it's $60 to join, isn't it? Back when I first saw Costco in the US had them and thought it was a long shot that Australia would too, I actually considered joining because I was itching to go and check, but then thought that would be silly just on the off chance. It would make it the price with the join fee more than the RRP of the Pearl, but other bargain priced LEGO might come up in the future (as it apparently has in the past). Or I could buy multiple Pearls and sell them to subsidise the join fee. What to do, what to do.

Just done a quick scan of the LEGO carrying dept stores of Westfield Miranda (Target, David Jones, Myer, Toys R Us, Big W). No one there had broken embargo on the Pearl. The modular Pet Shop is now on the shelf at David Jones, though not on sale (yet), so it's $269.95. Three of them when I was there. DJs feels like it's gearing up for a sale as it has extra displays given over to LEGO and many multiples of City items, 20 Marinas, 10 yellow trucks, etc, etc. About 10 modular Fire Brigades at that store so there should be plenty around come sale time even though that set is rumored to be nearing end of life. Target had their 20% going but no one else. Plenty of stock everywhere, though the past 25%'er at TRU seems to have helped run down their POTC range, so there's lots of space for Pearls when they wheel them out from the storeroom...

You're absolutely spot on! The set has recently gone into LEGO Australia S@H: 4184 The Black Pearl $169.99. So, that makes it: Big W everyday $147 Target/TRU @ 20% ~ $136 Myer @ 25% off = $127.50 MyerOne at @20%+10% = $122.40 Myer 3 Pearls for 2 = $113.32 Other shops for mugs who don't buy on sale: $169.99

That's great news for people wanting to buy the Pearl locally! It effectively puts an end to those rumours that it would be an exclusive for hard-to-find independents. (I have to admit, I know LEGO Australia is greedy, but I didn't think they were that mean.) I'm just confused about the relative pricing. Big W is pricing the QAR and The Black Pearl the same, but overseas the RRP of the Pearl is lower than the QAR: 99.99 USD for The Black Pearl and 119.99 USD for the Queen Anne's Revenge. It looks like Big W is continuing to discount the QAR by around 25% off its RRP (199.99 AUD) but not discounting the Pearl by as much. So what does that make the Australian RRP of The Pearl? $149.99? Surely it can't be much more, especially as Amazon.com are currently selling it for $84.99 USD ($82 AUD). Anyway, good to see the boat coming ahoy next week and good too to see POTC should be getting into lots of Christmas stockings! (And the juicy sales we hope are coming up.)

Target have all four current Brickmaster book/sets on sale for $25 each starting tomorrow. Might be good stocking fillers for younger builders? Last year I think they started around early November. They kicked it off with a short notice one day 25% off sale, then followed up a few weeks later with a more sustained sale. Traditionally, David Jones also has a decent sale in the week leading right up to Christmas Eve. They might shake things up if turnover is slack.

I think so. There's no mention of online shopping on the voucher and there's a bar code for the cashier to scan.