[UK] For Sale - #7194 YODA (UCS)

Paperballpark

Hi everyone,

I'm putting this out there for a friend, who knows I'm into Lego. She has set #7194 Yoda which was bought for her son, but never built. It was apparently intended to be built, and he opened the box and some of the bags, but decided it would be too much hard work, and apparently he much prefers playing with the minifig sets anyway, so it never got built.

So as her son had no interest in it (and still doesn't), and as it's just sat in her loft otherwise (which she's trying to clear out), she's decided to sell it. She could put it on ebay, but she wants it to go to someone who will really appreciate it, rather than, in her words, "some spoilt brat"!

So what we have, is set #7194 Yoda, complete with box, instructions and all parts. The box has been opened, and some of the bags have been opened, but the set has never been built. Everything is in decent condition, apart from where the box seals have been torn when opening it (shown in photo).

Obviously it isn't going to be of interest to someone wanting a MISB example, but for anyone else who wants the set, it should be of great interest indeed.

I've had a look around on the internet over the last few days, and I'll be blunt, this set does not come up for sale in this condition, in the UK, very often at all. Indeed, there hasn't been one in the UK sold on Bricklink (in any condition) for at least 6 months - which is as far back as their history goes. There are currently none for sale in the UK on Bricklink, or on ebay either.

Even the majority of the ones that have sold on ebay in the last few months were of questionable condition, with the box or instructions often missing or quite badly damaged.

Because of all this, including the condition (which is effectively 'new in unsealed box') it's obviously very difficult to set an asking price. So I'm not going to. What I'm going to do instead is ask anyone who is interested to send me a private message, with your offer (reasonable offers only please), along with roughly where you are in the UK, by Friday 20 November. I will then let my friend know all the offers that have been submitted, for her to choose which one to accept.

Once payment has been received she'd post it out (I assume via Royal Mail), and postage costs would be on top. I have no idea what the cost of postage would be, but I would guess around £20 with sufficient packing and insurance. She'd also be ok with the buyer collecting it if they wanted to (she's in the Birmingham area).

Despite the difficulty in gauging an asking price, I do have a reasonable idea of what it should fetch, and obviously my friend doesn't have to sell it at all, if for whatever reason she decides not to once she has all the offers.

If you have any questions about it, just ask on here, and I'll put them to my friend.

Photo 1 : Front of box.


Photo 2: Side of box (showing seal tears)


Photo 3: Instruction booklet


Photo 4: Opened bags


Photo 5: Unopened bags

Paperballpark

If it helps, I checked how much it would cost to Bricklink the set yesterday, using sellers in Europe (it's not possible to BL it only from sellers in the UK).

There are quite a number of parts that are pretty rare (Sand Green and Dark Orange mostly), so going for the cheapest seller for each element, the total cost is about £400. Obviously that probably uses dozens of sellers, whereas anyone BLing it would want to use as few sellers as possible, which would inevitably increase the price further.

In addition to that, there'd be the cost of postage from all the different sellers.

Hopefully that might give some idea of the set's value.

david325

Can't beat a Brickset blind auction with potentially no winner. 

Paperballpark

Fair point. I'll speak to my friend about whether to put a specific price on it.

The reason I haven't is that it's actually very difficult to work out what would constitute a fair price, given there's so few sold in the UK. I didn't want to set it too low (given it's for a friend), nor too high, so I thought that as most people who are interested have probably done a bit of research already, they'll probably have a good idea of the amount they'd be willing to pay.

We'll see. Like I say, I'll discuss it with my friend.

Lobot

For info, I've just checked the Bricklink sales data for the last 6 months in the UK for the set:

New:

Times Sold:  10
Total Qty: 10
Min Price: GBP 257.26
Avg Price: GBP 304.48
Qty Avg Price: GBP 304.48
Max Price: GBP 375.87

Used

Times Sold:  12
Total Qty: 12
Min Price: GBP 77.88
Avg Price: GBP 134.34
Qty Avg Price: GBP 134.34
Max Price: GBP 170.70

I hope that's helpful :-)

Paperballpark

Thanks for that. That's not for the UK though, that's worldwide. If you sort by currency, you'll see that there's none sold in the last 6 months in Pounds.

Also, I think the Used price guide is quite misleading. If you look at the current Used sets available, most of them don't have the box, or instructions, or both. Others have been built, or the instructions/box are tatty. Therefore I don't really feel that the Used prices can be used as a guide for this example - especially as you can't see what condition the ones which have sold have been in.

CapnRex101

I don't think the fact that some bags are sealed has much bearing on the price, although the box and instructions look to be in very good condition so £134.34 would be too low a price.

However, I am interested so will keep an eye on this thread to see if an asking price is forthcoming.

drdavewatford

In terms of setting a price, you need to bear in mind that there are no guarantees that this set is even complete if some of the bags have been opened, and there's no way of checking without opening the rest of the bags and comparing the contents against the the Bricklink or Peeron inventory.

Also, the lack of recent UK sales isn't really a consideration IMHO - you can buy from mainland Europe without duty to pay, the prices are often lower, and the shipping costs are usually little different from the UK.

Your friend might just be better off listing the set on eBay and letting the market decide the value.

LegoFan1970

I got one in March 2015 from eBay for £160 including postage (from somewhere outside the UK) including Box, Instructions and all Bits in very good condition.