the vynsane asylum

Diabolical wrote:I was at TRU the other day and saw they mini Lego Christmas sets (Christmas Tree and Snowman), which I was going to get for a certain someone's twins, until I saw the price - $3.99 - for what appears to be a 30 piece set.

seems just a bit higher than reasonable, really, when you consider that a 300 piece set is roughly $30 (except for a 300 piece SW set, which would be $50). basically you're looking at $0.10/piece when thinking about a "good value" so it's only slightly not a good value at $4.

anarky wrote:For Easter (?) we bought one of the mini sets they have in Target's stocking stuffer (or basket stuffer) section. The packaging indicated it had a man, two animals, and some bricks. Turns out, it was one of those shitty "guess which one piece you get!" deals. We haven't repeated that mistake for Christmas.

were those the duplo sets? yeah, they were semi-blind packed (you could see which pieces were in the pouch, but it was only one of an array of people or animals.

Rollo Tomassi wrote:My friend out in Cali says he likes to buy those "Limited Edition" Lego Figures in the checkout line. He says they are like $3 or $5 or something. I said 'WTF? You're paying $5 for a single Lego guy?!? Are you batfuck insane?"

are those the 'collectible minifigures'? series 3 is currently out at certain retailers (meijer, fred meyer, TRU). they're supposed to be $1.99, that's what LEGO will sell them for online and in brand stores. the early releasers are just getting greedy. apparently the TRU in whitestone, queens has them for $4.49!

Speaking of deals on LEGOs, where do you find deals on more recent sets? Does Amazon.com have them any cheaper than say TRU.com? Do places like biglots ever have leftover LEGOs at them? Or should I just keep my eyes peeled on ebay?

Because LEGOs are fucking expensive.

I've seen some Atlantis and Power Miners Legos at Big Lots & TJ Max/Marshals. TJ Max has them at about 75% the price of what the stores do. Big Lots are a couple bucks off each set.

Target has been having sales on Legos lately. They also have some Atlantis and Space Police sets on clearance still. Walmart seems to put clearance prices on Legos once in a while, but the discount isn't much.

Amazon doesn't seem any cheaper than TRU.

Yeah, I've doing some cursory searching, and just as an example, Amazon has a Firehouse set for $215 and on ebay I can find a loose complete one for $50. Since I plan on opening it and buiding it anyway,I think just being patient on ebay is the way to go.

Rollo Tomassi wrote:Speaking of deals on LEGOs, where do you find deals on more recent sets? Does Amazon.com have them any cheaper than say TRU.com? Do places like biglots ever have leftover LEGOs at them? Or should I just keep my eyes peeled on ebay?

Because LEGOs are fucking expensive.

you should join http://www.ToysNBricks.com - they've got the best Sales & Deals forum for LEGO period.

TRU is good when they have a BOGO50 or B2G1F sale, but otherwise their above-MSRP prices aren't worth it. amazon had some pretty insane deals leading up to xmas, and any time walmart reduces prices online, amazon matches it. target's sales don't seem to be all that great - every once-in-a-while you'll get a 10% off sale and maybe once in a blue moon a 30% off sale, but their clearances are almost clockwork. walmart is even less impressive in terms of sales, and their clearances are hit and miss.

i've bought a LOT of LEGO over the past year and paid MSRP maybe three times total, thans to TnB up there.

Rollo Tomassi wrote:Yeah, I've doing some cursory searching, and just as an example, Amazon has a Firehouse set for $215 and on ebay I can find a loose complete one for $50. Since I plan on opening it and buiding it anyway,I think just being patient on ebay is the way to go.

if it's above MSRP on amazon, it's a reseller, not amazon themselves. if that's the fire brigade modular building MSRP is $150. if it's anything else, it's probably a CITY set and it can't be more than $100, more than likely $75.

Target should also be clearancing out a good deal of toys, including Lego, starting soon (if not already). They do every year. Wal-Mart might, too, but their clearances are done at the store level and vary (something I can never convince people of when one person reports a major clearance elsewhere and everyone else bitches about their store not doing it).

vynsane wrote: you should join http://www.ToysNBricks.com - they've got the best Sales & Deals forum for LEGO period.

Cool. I'll check it out.

if it's above MSRP on amazon, it's a reseller, not amazon themselves. if that's the fire brigade modular building MSRP is $150. if it's anything else, it's probably a CITY set and it can't be more than $100, more than likely $75.

It was set 7945 which came out in 2007. So it was probably people sitting on them and gouging prices on a "rare" discontinued set. MSRP was $60.

Target is having a LEGO sale. I bought the Yellow Semi with the LEGO emblem and the Bank Vault set. I also found the little red sports car set at KMart on their clearance shelf, for $8 instead of $11.

I also have been on ebay buying Fire Dept. related things. I got 7239 Firetruck, 7207 Fireboat, 7206 Fire Copter, and 7945 Fire Station.

So, adding this to the Airport, Airplane and Tanker Truck I bought when I was shopping for the kids, I have the makings of a small town starting.

But I also got the passenger train. It was $130 but I got it during a BoGo1/2 sale when I bought the Large Castle for my daughter. And now I think I really want to start buying extra track and getting the Train Station and Train Crossing sets.

I was looking at them on ebay, but the Lego store basically has them for regular price, and everybody on ebay seems to jack up the price and then piles on exorbitant S/H. So does the Lego store have any kind of SalesCode for 1st time buyers?

trains are the most expensive of the regular LEGO offerings (aside from the super-large sets like the modular buildings, the new space shuttle and the 'imperial flagship' pirate set). all the train stuff you see now is relatively new, so it won't be on clearance for a while, but it should be getting to that point about mid-year this year. if it's not imperative, wait it out and see. TRU might have more BOGO50 or B1G1F sales soon, too.

most of the clearance stuff out now is from the beginning or middle of last year, although there are some sets from themes that ended as of jan. 1 that were relatively new, but are already on clearance (space police sets that were released in october come to mind).

Anybody ever bought anything from dealers on bricklink? I was comparing prices on stuff compared to what ebay dealers sell them for and it looks relatively cheaper for a lot of things. The drawback is they don't list the S/H prices, and I don't know about the safety protocols vs ebays. I suppose if I paid by paypal it wouldn't matter...

I was looking at some of those Modular building on the lego.com site. Those things are sick! I want a dept store! I want something that is obscenely tall so my Firetrucks have to extend their ladders all the way to save some douche on the top floor.
Also there was a kickass Town Plan from a few years ago with an awesome looking vintage theatre and gas station, but it goes for $200-300 now. But damn, it looked nice.

i'm actually a seller on BL. when i find stuff on clearance, i buy one for me and two to part out. i've also bought some stuff, most notably when i built that flying car - that cost about $85 all told, between about 7 different vendors. the largest order for that build was with one guy, ichiban, who had most of the rare/expensive pieces i needed, for about $40. he's also the guy i took most of my 'store terms' page from when i decided to start selling. speaking of which, generally you have to check their 'store terms' for shipping costs. i keep my shipping to first-class only, don't inflate the prices, and then have a 'handling/packaging' pricing structure to pay for shipping materials and such (*cough*paypalfees*cough*). i don't buy from anyone who doesn't have their shipping costs at least partially stated in their store terms.

I was going to buy some Harry Potter Lego on that site. But the guy said his shipping charges would abuse my ass. I figured he just meant they were really high, but I wanted Voldemort's Revenge so bad, I ordered it. The next morning, around 6:30, there was a knock on the door, and this big Hagrid-looking motherfucker in a Notorious BIG jacket had the set in his hand and told me to drop my pants.

Thank God there was a cancellation policy in his terms.

anarky wrote:I was going to buy some Harry Potter Lego on that site. But the guy said his shipping charges would abuse my ass. I figured he just meant they were really high, but I wanted Voldemort's Revenge so bad, I ordered it. The next morning, around 6:30, there was a knock on the door, and this big Hagrid-looking motherfucker in a Notorious BIG jacket had the set in his hand and told me to drop my pants.

Thank God there was a cancellation policy in his terms.

it's generally the price you pay for such quick delivery.

seriously, though, buying full sets on BL can be a double-edged sword. the sellers there are LEGO enthusiasts, so you know if you buy an old set, it will be complete (or they'll tell you how it's not complete) whereas on ebay, you never know what you're going to get even if the seller says it's complete. on the other hand, the sellers on BL know what they have, so you'll pay an arm and a leg unless the pieces are, like, chewed on or yellowed, or complete replacements, whereas on ebay you might get a real steal of a deal because they just don't know what they have.

vynsane wrote:seriously, though, buying full sets on BL can be a double-edged sword. the sellers there are LEGO enthusiasts, so you know if you buy an old set, it will be complete (or they'll tell you how it's not complete) whereas on ebay, you never know what you're going to get even if the seller says it's complete. on the other hand, the sellers on BL know what they have, so you'll pay an arm and a leg unless the pieces are, like, chewed on or yellowed, or complete replacements, whereas on ebay you might get a real steal of a deal because they just don't know what they have.

Right now I'm just looking at primarily City sets that came out in the last 5-10 years. A lot of the BL dealers seems to have excess quantities of older stuff. Plus, since I'm just gonna open it the second I get it anyway, I'm happy to buy a loose complete set or an opened used set as opposed to a MIB set. For example, there was a large Garage set that came out a couple years ago, retailed for $99.99. On ebay everybody wants to sell it for $150-200. But on BL there's at least a couple for $80. Even with S/H thats gonna be around retail or slightly less. Anyway, I dipped my toe in with a older Fire Station Tower set that ebay generally has for $100, and this guy had for $35.

When I was looking at the vintage Space things on ebay last year, I generally found that people who had poor descriptions, titles, pictures etc didnt sell very well. I repeatedly bought jumbled messes of Lego parts for $20 and when I got them, they had 5 complete sets of old Lego sets in them. it was just the person had no idea what they had. it was their kids' old toys and they were clearing them out because the kid had moved away or whatever.

yeah, i guess what i'm trying to say is you'll find a moderately good deal and know exactly what you're getting on BL, with little risk of getting ripped off, whereas on ebay it's a little more risky and hit-and-miss, you could get totally ripped off, or get a hidden treasure. it's like the difference between a low-risk and high-risk investment, i guess.