Need an opinion on what to do with a water damaged sealed Imperial Flagship

wagnerml2

OK.  At the risk of running into a plethora of Memes of a wet Han Solo and whatnot, I need to pick the collective wisdom of the group for a moment.  I am doing a large show in Chicago this weekend and went into my finished storage room last night to retrieve my last sealed IF to take with me only to find the carpet sopped and the box pretty much ruined because the condenser line of the AC unit behind the wall had sprung a leak and saturated the room.  I am attaching pics to show the damage to the box.  So, here is my question.  I have a nice open box that I could put the sealed contents into and sell the set as new but unsealed, or, I can leave the set in the current box and sell it as sealed.  Which do you think is more appealing to a buyer?  Thoughts are welcome.

Bumblepants

I'll give ya ten dollars fer that.

Serious answer though might include the condition of the instructions and sails. If those have molded or something could be a huge loss of value. Might be worth breaking the seals to at least inspect that sort of thing.  With the box like it is popping the seals wouldn't hurt much more. Anyone buying this set will be a builder not a sealed box keeper so verifying contents condition is probably the way to go.

Dawn

As buyer I would rather have a good open box. As a seller, at least you can verify the content and make sure the instructions and sails didn't get damaged.

MattsWhat

Not sure about anyone else, but I wouldn't buy it sealed for fear of the instructions being wet and ruined - I'm not sure when they started being put in bags.
It doesn't hit the MISB crowd anymore so I'm not sure you would lose much by breaking the seals to be honest.

JudgeChuck

Just my personal opinion, but I would be more interested in the unsealed, but undamaged, box. Surely part of the appeal of sealed boxes is that the set is in pristine condition, which this is not?

stlux

With that box condition, as a buyer I would also want to know the condition of the instructions and sails. Are these sealed in plastic for this set, or just dropped in the box?

SprinkleOtter

As someone who has tried selling an original Arkham Asylum with "sat-on" box at a fan convention, I can tell you that an unappealing box is worse than no box.

dougts

agreed with the rest - take it out of the ruined box to inspect the contents - this protects you from unknown damage.  I'm guess buyers would rather have an open box with sealed bags than a damaged box mystery

wagnerml2

Thanks to all!  That was my leaning as well, but I wanted to make sure I was thinking in the right.  To be honest, I'm so pissed off that I wasn't sure that i was!

piratemania7

Oh man!  First, condolences - not only do you have a house issue to fix but also a LEGO one; so hoping the show in Chicago this weekend is the light at the end of the tunnel!

In terms of the box, absolutely agreed with everyone above.  Just careful slice it open and determine whats inside, if everything is pristine perhaps slap it all in the nice box and to your point, sell as new open box - and maybe give whoever buys it from you the water stained box? 

Unfortunately that MISB marker is gone - but the fact that it is the IF and the bags are sealed and *fingers crossed* the sails and instructions are ok - should make up for it and not take away too much from the final $$$ price.

Let us know what you do and how it turns out!

CCC

Definitely unsealed. The sealed ones looks like it could be damaged, at least opened the buyer can check.

Good luck!

Pitfall69

The sails should be in a sealed bag and the instructions should be in a bag, but it isn't sealed completely. The Fire Brigade was released in 2009, the same year as Brickbeard's Bounty and those sails were in a sealed bag and the Fire Brigade's instructions also came in a bag. The Imperial Flagship was released in 2010, so you should be ok in that aspect. Moisture could get into the bag that holds the instructions though. 

TigerMoth

Pitfall69 said:

The sails should be in a sealed bag and the instructions should be in a bag, but it isn't sealed completely.

The instruction books for at least some Imperial Flagships were definitely not in any sort of bag, which wouldn't bode for them if they've been somewhere damp; the sails were completely sealed.

Pitfall69

^Interesting. I would assume that all the larger sets would have the instructions in a bag. I wonder why some weren't? Packaging issue?

TigerMoth

Pitfall69 said:

^Interesting. I would assume that all the larger sets would have the instructions in a bag. I wonder why some weren't? Packaging issue?

Firstly, Imperial Flagship may not be be what as large and impressive a set as you think it is - or rather, the books aren't.  It came with two thin affairs of 72 and 84 pages - not the sort of things that have ever been in bags.

If you want to know when bags for manuals became common, dig back through the posts here. There were grumbles about manuals for the more impressive sets getting mangled, but I don't think it was as long ago as 2010. And if "earlier" sets had bags, it might've been because they were around longer and later - although, as I said, manuals like these weren't in bags anyway.

This was also in the days when iconic sets weren't really iconic, sets were for kids, and books got screwed up at the bag of the toy cupboard.

Pitfall69

This could be an interesting separate thread "What's in the Box?" and hopefully it doesn't involve the head of Tony Stark's main squeeze ;)

SumoLego

(The Packers/Bears game is really boring.)

And, I won't be fooled again!

wagnerml2

Good news is that my copy had both the sails and the instructions in sealed bags, so all is well.  Repackaged in the new box and we are off to Chicago this afternoon to get set up for the weekend.  If any Bricketters are going to the Chicago Toy Show this weekend, stop by and say "Hi!".  I'd love to meet some of you.  I will be at booth 204 in the PEC East building.  I know that there will be at lest 3 other people there with purely lego setups.  Should be a good time!!

wagnerml2

And I'm very proud of all of you!  It took to post 17 to get a meme.  Over/under was 7.  :)