The "brag" thread: Post your recent great finds!

1265

Nice pickup...."Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee."

gelkster

What else could follow that massive haul but getting the exclusive baseplate for #5978 for FREE? 😄😄 Just had to stop & pick it up on my way to work. 

Bumblepants

@gelkster and the two 2x3 blue plates!

Bobflip

Plot twist: The plates were $20 each.

gelkster

Only just now noticed the 2 punched studs on either side of the rear pit, & the 1.5-stud wide chip at the foot of the ramp. 😖   Ah, well. Beggars can't be choosers.

FollowsClosely

A quick second update on the one that got away, then returned.

I have spend 4 hours digging into the lot. I have a good understanding of what is here and I have a plan to move forward.

The following group of instructions are all in my to build queue. I am somewhat confident that all sets with instructions below are included in the lot. The only exception is that the mmv; I can only find the blue building the tan one is not to be found.


So far I have pieced together:

• 6086-1 Black Knight's Castle (no instructions)
  
• 7097-1 Trolls' Mountain Fortress
  
• 6034-1 Black Monarch's Ghost (no instructions)
  
• 6054-1 Forestmen's Hideout (no instructions)
  
• 6066-1 Camouflaged Outpost (no instructions)
  
• 1596-1 Ghostly Hideout
  
• 6035-1 Castle Guard (no instructions)
  
• 6918-1 Blacksmith Attack
  
• 7949-1 Prison Carriage Rescue
  
• 7950-1 Knight's Showdown
  
• 70400-1 Forest Ambush
  

My Brick List: https://brickset.com/sets/list-74781
According to brickset the above sets are worth $1081. Only $500 to go to break even. On the topic of breaking even, I expect to break even by just selling the Star Wars crap, I mean sets.

The 80s and 90s castle sets are mostly missing instructions. The sets are all 100% complete with the exception being a few feathers that I am expecting to find in the bottom of some tub. The smaller sets have been easy to pull out as they have been mostly together and there are multiple copies of almost all of them.

Switchfoot55

So awesome! I can only hope to score a lot like this some day!

...Star Wars crap you say? You plan on listing here, or just locally?

Lo1sJess

A couple of those goats really want to come around the beltway to Mount Vernon……..

FollowsClosely

A quick third update on the one that got away, then returned.

I am 14 hours in and I have another 14 sets pulled out, 24 in total.

Thrilled to have the instructions for this set from 1992.


Large chunks of this where already assembled. I pulled out two complete sets (from multiple bins) in just a little over an hour.


Just had to locate the figs for the above two sets. I see at least one more of this set in the lot.

Two sets identified in the lot. Large chunks of this where assembled. One set is complete and I expect the second to be complete as well.

The vehicles where already assembled, the two towers where not at all and distributed amongst three bins. 


Missing the king. Unfortunately I don't expect to find the $50 fig in this lot.


Another castle that was 70% assembled. Missing one flag.


One set I pulled out form multiple tubs. A second set was still in sealed baggies.


This came together in under 30 minutes as there are two copies of this set in the lot. The second one will take much longer as it is mostly apart. I have already pulled all the figs and animals for the second Mill Village Raid set.


This was all assembled minus a dozen or so pieces.


Another great set that is 100% complete. This was not assembled at all and took over an hour to locate the pieces.

This is my main working space as you can see I am currently working on the second Mill Village Raid.


My journal Brick List: https://brickset.com/sets/list-74781
A short video of my work in progress: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SL_Dy6jmwiY

So far I have pulled out:

• 6086 Black Knight's Castle (no instructions)
  
• 7097 Trolls' Mountain Fortress
  
• 6034 Black Monarch's Ghost (no instructions)
  
• 6054 Forestmen's Hideout (no instructions)
  
• 6066 Camouflaged Outpost (no instructions)
  
• 1596 Ghostly Hideout
  
• 6035 Castle Guard (no instructions)
  
• 6918 Blacksmith Attack
  
• 7949 Prison Carriage Rescue (x2)
  
• 7950 Knight's Showdown
  
• 70400 Forest Ambush
• 7947 Prison Tower Rescue
• 7946 King's Castle (x2)
• 7948 Outpost Attack (x2)
• 7079 Drawbridge Defense
• 6009 Black Knight
• 70402 The Gatehouse Raid (x2)
• 70404 King's Castle
• 70401 Gold Getaway
• 7189 Mill Village Raid

Keilup

FollowsClosely said:

My journal Brick List: https://brickset.com/sets/list-74781
A short video of my work in progress: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SL_Dy6jmwiY

Fun to see how you're documenting it.  Fun/smart idea. You (we) will enjoy looking back at that one day down the road.  My rough estimate so far looking strictly at the used value listed on Brickset is around $3300.  What a haul.  All's I can say is WOW!

FollowsClosely

@Huw did a great job on the brick list feature, it is under utilized for sure. I will continue to update the brick list as I make progress. The only limit to using that feature to track is that it can not account for multiples.

As for the value; the castle stuff is going to be around $3,500 as there are sets not entered yet. I will keep 2/3 of that as medieval is my passion. The rest of the lot I will most likely sell off. I am surprised by the value of some of the Star Wars sets. I have ignored that theme since 2018. There are three Commander Cody figs!

eMJeeNL

FollowsClosely said:

@Huw did a great job on the brick list feature, it is under utilized for sure. I will continue to update the brick list as I make progress. The only limit to using that feature to track is that it can not account for multiples.

As for the value; the castle stuff is going to be around $3,500 as there are sets not entered yet. I will keep 2/3 of that as medieval is my passion. The rest of the lot I will most likely sell off. I am surprised by the value of some of the Star Wars sets. I have ignored that theme since 2018. There are three Commander Cody figs!

Wow that's a great score only on the Figs even! Do they come with White Rangefinders? ;)

FollowsClosely

A fourth update on the one that got away, then returned. I have completed most of the classic castle sets. Now I have moved on to the LotR sets.


All the sets in the back (9474, 9471 x2, 9473, 9470) are complete. The 8 figs in the middle appear to be alone with the sets (9472, 9476) not in this lot.

FollowsClosely

A fifth update on the $1,500 lot. Pirates of the Caribbean:


I am starting to get to the bottom of the easy to assemble sets. The Pirates of the Caribbean sets where all 50% or more disassembled. I had to pull a few parts and figs from my collection.

I have currently parted out $1,976.54 in MSRP, $5,401 in current value. I have listed $3,500 on bricklink and sold $400 (7 sets) so far.

https://brickset.com/sets/list-74781

On to the Star Wars...

FollowsClosely

I am mostly done with the one that got away, then returned. I have parted out 70 sets with street value just over $6,000. I am keeping 25 set or about 1/3 of what I parted out. I would estimate that about half of all the pieces have been pulled out of the 19 tubs.


There is still 2K-3K of Star Wars set, and maybe 1K in City sets in the lot. I am saving them for my kids sort and keep or sell. They have pulled out 7 Star Wars sets so far.



This lot started out with 19 tubs. Now 9 remain. One is filled with instructions stored with hanging file folder frames in numeric order.

As you can see by the figs there are plenty of good sets still to pull out. Including lots of Star Wars and City sets. There are also two castles sets from the 80s (6074 and 6080) that I have pulled out, but not yet built. I am considering restoring the discolored pieces. I already own these two, so I may just keep the figs as they are in such better shape than the well played with ones I have from my childhood. 


Here are 2 of the 4 tubs of sets that are going on bricklink.


The following set have earned a spot in my collection, some new and some as duplicates.


... and maybe 7066: Earth Defense HQ as it brings back some nostalgia.

And to wrap this up; the following chart show the number of pieces (red) and the dollar value (green) sorted out over time. As the chart shows I generally selected the high value sets first and by time I got to the Space Police set (the last 4 days) my value/piece count was getting lower and lower.

Bobflip

I've been doing a lot of deyellowing over the last 12 months. It works well, and to an extent it can be done with just heat without the UV light. I'd built a small box with UV strip lights that I leave on the radiator, but parts that are covered by other parts and didn't have UV light will still deyellow.

The main tip I have is when you're done, *really* rinse them off. I haven't found my ideal system yet, but I'm currently going for a big rinse, a soak, then another big rinse before individually checking how deyellowed they are and drying them off with a towel. If the bleach evaporates from the surface it leaves lighter patches, like the whitish line he showed that developed on the partially submerged parts.

WesterBricks

Tonight I drove across town to buy a Mindstorms EV3 kit, arrived and it was actually two #45544 core kits and two #45560 expansion sets, plus two extra motors and some random FLL challenge parts. All for $100.

Missing one charger and some cheap parts, but all of the EV3 components and rechargeable batteries work.

Tom79

The day before yesterday I made a quick stop at a thrift store while I had to wait for my daughter, unfortunately the toy section was bereft of anything interesting so I was on my way out thinking this was a complete waste of time just as right next to the cash register out of the corner of my eye I spot this big Lego box... #6285 Black Seas Barracuda! Unfortunately, €100 so definitely on the less thrifty side of things but still quite tempting, if only I could be certain this was complete as inside was just a big bag of pieces (& sails). The people at the store couldn't say if it was complete either but if it wasn't they would allow me to return it so I took a chance. Turns out to be mostly complete, some broken (clips on those red flags), yellowed and missing pieces (half the crew) but overall not too bad. Adding loose pieces I have lying around all I'll be missing is the crane, the figurehead and one small pirate flag. And as a bonus there was half a #6074 Black Falcon Fortress (I just left the minifigures and yellow castle wall in the picture here, no Falcon flag unfortunately) and a Dogshank bigfig!

Now, should I go back and ask for a refund as it wasn't complete? :-D

pxchris

Tom79 said:

The day before yesterday I made a quick stop at a thrift store while I had to wait for my daughter, unfortunately the toy section was bereft of anything interesting so I was on my way out thinking this was a complete waste of time just as right next to the cash register out of the corner of my eye I spot this big Lego box... #6285 Black Seas Barracuda! Unfortunately, €100 so definitely on the less thrifty side of things but still quite tempting, if only I could be certain this was complete as inside was just a big bag of pieces (& sails).

Now, should I go back and ask for a refund as it wasn't complete? :-D

€100 is an absolute bargain any day of the week, 100% complete or not!

WesterBricks

@Switchfoot55 check it out, I just picked up a treasure trove for $200. Haven’t sorted it yet, but there is clearly a modular Palace Cinema, some vintage crater plates, and a big variety of other sets.

There are instructions for Voltron, I’m crossing my fingers that it’s here, and instructions and stickers for the Speed Champions Jaguar pair which is on my wish list.

WesterBricks

Hot dog, I just found some of the Upside Down in a trash bag in the bottom of this collection.

Switchfoot55

WesterBricks said:

@Switchfoot55 check it out, I just picked up a treasure trove for $200. Haven’t sorted it yet, but there is clearly a modular Palace Cinema, some vintage crater plates, and a big variety of other sets.

There are instructions for Voltron, I’m crossing my fingers that it’s here, and instructions and stickers for the Speed Champions Jaguar pair which is on my wish list.

A SOLID haul to be sure! Keep us updated what you find hidden in the depths of those bins!