2017 Brickset Secret Santa

CapnRex101

Everybody in North America should now have received their assignments. Let me know if you haven't and I will rectify the situation.

Good luck everybody and have fun!

HugeYellowBrick

So my recipient has some free-with-purchase items on his/her wanted list. I have those items. How do I calculate the £15 price guideline? Free or Bricklink or eBay prices?

Hanzo

I personally would count them at their estimated RRP like when they say this gift is a X dollar value type deal.

FowlerBricks

^That should work.

M1J0E

Has anyone tried sending items direct to their recipients from S@H?  After combing my usual spots for deals today, based on the recipients wanted list I’ll have to choose something direct at normal price.  But it seems far more efficient to send it direct to them rather than have it  sent to me then me resending it on.  Twice the time & twice the cost to have it sent to me first.

bandit778

HugeYellowBrick said:

So my recipient has some free-with-purchase items on his/her wanted list. I have those items. How do I calculate the £15 price guideline? Free or Bricklink or eBay prices?

A lot of it will depend on what you value the items at, I personally don't worry what freebies are worth as a lot are just a bonus for buying what I would have brought anyway and I don't sell Lego so I don't look at the prices of what I have.
I know others points of view differ but at the end of the day this is just a bit of fun to give someone a nice surprise Christmas morning so ultimately it will come down to the individual.

snowhitie

@hugeyellowbrick Well, the idea is that you spend around 15 pounds/20 euro on the gift. If you have a poly or a minifig that you got free but that is worth more on bricklink or to yourself, maybe better keep it. If you don't mind too much about the worth and just want to make someone happy, chuck it in ;) Like @bandit778 said, the perceived value is very different amongst Legofans.

@M1J0E If you want to send some items straight from sh@p/amazon/... that is off course okay, I would however, notify you coordinator who can then let your recipient know that they should expect a gift that will not be gift-wrappend. So they should then not open the packing box until the 25th.

For everyone, a question that came up a couple of times, if you want to see which loose figures someone is after you can use this url: https://brickset.com/sets/wantedby-Snowhitie and then change the Snowhitie by your Santee's nickname.

Shib

^also worth considering looking at their owned list - e.g https://brickset.com/sets/ownedby-Username - as another source of inspiration if you are stuck, such as a person with a wanted list that is all stuff massively over the budget.

omnium

snowhitie said:

For everyone, a question that came up a couple of times, if you want to see which loose figures someone is after you can use this url: https://brickset.com/sets/wantedby-Snowhitie and then change the Snowhitie by your Santee's nickname.

I think your link is for sets you want. Did you mean this for loose figures?

https://brickset.com/minifigs/wantedby-snowhitie

snowhitie

Yes, d'oh! I'm sorry ;) Thanks @omnium

M1J0E

Thanks for the tips @snowhitie that got my secret Santa contribution done & done!

Speedman29

If your Santee is a bit vague and their wanted list and owned list is all big expensive sets, stalk them through the forum. Last year I read back through a few months of posts to see what they were buying/selling and talking about to get a picture of them.

As for value, look on Bricklink for rough guide prices or if its a polybag have a look at marketplace and see if somebody has sold one recently. This is my second year doing it, so I was thinking about it a few months back and kept a look out for Christmasy sets cheap before the festive rush. Its so long since I got one thing I've forgotten how much I paid so its gone in as an extra!

TBH as long as you put a bit of thought into it and make an effort then people are happy with anything. Last year I got a microfighter, Chinese New Year chicken and a couple of polybags and a bauble to open before the 25th. I was chuffed.

If you're shipping via Royal Mail, buy the postage online and just print out the label and tape in place. It normally saves you a few pence on the cost dependant on the weight.

TheOriginalSimonB

^I may (or may not) have to buy a new printer so not much of a saving!  But good idea though.

Matt89190

I may (or may not) have set wheels in motion with stuff for my recipient. Or maybe a "wheel" is simply a made-up concept created as part of my long-game to create confusion...

Calv

I completely forgot about secret santa this year so I will sit this one out and will be back again next year. All you others have a good time and I look forward to seeing the results. If there are any other laggards and we can be accomodated I will gladly join in again this year.

Bricklover18

Updated my wanted list...

MaffyD

Number 2 in a series of weekly posts. I have either:

1. further refined my idea of what to gift;

2. started putting together my gift;

3. posted my gift off; or

4. not yet started anything.

This may or may not contradict previous updates about my activities. This is entirely accidental and deliberate.

NB: this may or may not be the second post, and the frequency may or may not be weekly. Just to make sure the actual information contained in this post is precisely zero. Or is it?

Thanks for reading!

Muftak1

^ What he said!

MattDawson

I've yet to see a post saying a Santee has received their gift, but apparently 5(?) have already sent theirs... surely one must've arrived by now? Or are people keeping stum to preserve the mystery? 

EDIT: For the person who is stalking me, no, this wasn't aimed at you!

snowhitie

@Calv you have been added to the mix thanks to the magic of the season, you should have a PM.

I've done my stalking as well and getting organised.

gratefulnat

Christmas stocking stalkers are stalkers I wholeheartedly appreciate!

I believe I might have a package nearly ready to be sent, most likely, could be a little more stalking is needed before the stocking is sufficiently filled!

bandit778

Can't believe so many are this organised and have the Secret Santa thing all worked out already.
Really need to get down to some proper stalking as some serious inspiration is needed. Hopefully the phone taps, video cameras and private detective I've hired can find me some useful hints and tips into my recipient. 

Russell844

I am waiting on one more thing and then I'll be done.

Speedman29

Might have shipped mine already.....of have I?

William_Townsley

That’s everything bought, 

I’ve planned well this year! 

Covi

Trying to solve the shipping quest...it's a hard quest. Only for heroes like Santa. ;-)

rdflego

I've sourced one or two small things for my recipient but haven't finished yet. Good news is that I have an excellent box to ship everything in :D

snowhitie

@Covi regarding the shipping quest, I was looking into that as well. If you use a service like UPS service point, it seems its about 8,2 to another European country, but then the recipient has to go and pick it up in a UPS location. So maybe that's an issue for some people. It might be differnt for different European countries, but I tried 4 and it was all the same.

Otherwise, I've found a site 'goedkooppakket.be' that you can use to send cheaper parcels. I've just sold some medical equipment on the local gumtree and someone in the Netherlands is buying it. Instead of the 16,40 it would cost me with bpost, using this website it would be 13,4. I think they are registered as a freight shipper and have a contract with bpost for lower tariffs. it looks all legit and thinking of using it, unless they buyer prefers to use the UPS service point.

Covi

@snowhitie
I use most of the time PostNL when shipping abroad. The offer good service and cheaper then BPost. Tracking is included.
https://onlineverzendservice.be/

snowhitie

@covi thanks, I never realised that you could use that in Belgium. Cheers!

HangedSanchez

I've had a stroke of luck with my shopping so far! Researching my target on Monday, I saw a few sets on their want list that might be good.

Checking my phone first thing Tuesday morning, lo! one of them for sale via Facebook, sealed and less than 50% RRP! Impeccable timing, and a good start!

plasmodium

Last year I just had a bit of a revelation as to what to get my santee - the idea struck me more or less fully-formed a little while after having just scanned through their profile. This year I'm sitting here waiting for inspiration to strike, but I'm going to have to get my act together and do some proper thinking if nothing hits me soon...

historyman

I’ve started to get a few things together now

FowlerBricks

Well, I've got mine almost ready to ship...or do I?

Jern92

This might be a silly question, but I've been trying to buy something off Bricklink and get it sent directly to my Secret Santee. However, I'm running into issues where Bricklink doesn't let me use a delivery address in a different country from where I am. I have tried writing to the shop in question about whether I can send them a separate delivery address but haven't received a reply for ages so I don't think I will.

In this situation, in order to actually get the stuff delivered, do I simply change my account details to the name and address of my Secret Santee and then make the purchase that way? Obviously I'll still be using my own credit cards, but that seems like the only workaround for the problem.

AllBrick

Had it for about two weeks... Excited :D

FowlerBricks

^and so it begins!

bandit778

Weeeelllll, it turns s out the old saying  'you get what you pay for' is totally justified.

It appears my private detective wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Turns out he read my address instead of my recipients and I now have a complete log of everything I did last week.
The up side is I have a list of bad habits that really need taking care of and it also appears that I need to spend less time reading the forum and need to get out more.

The down side is I'm no further forward with getting info on my victim... I mean gift recipient.

Back to the drawing board.  :(

historyman

I've finished getting everything for my SS!

gratefulnat

Package ready for delivery to the post office.

dave_benny

Gifts all sorted.  Today's task is box sourcing & wrapping.  Should be a good opportunity to get a head start on all other Xmas wrapping but just seems too soon somehow! 

FowlerBricks

Mine is off and away!

bandit778

After my first trip up at the first hurdle, I thought I'd get back to basics and do a bit of good old fashioned stalking.

It started well, I managed to get a bit of time off to head out to my recipients home town. I even found the street fairly easily....

Unfortunately it was after that it all started to go wrong.

I waited until dark and found myself a nice tree to hang out in to give myself a good vantage point of the address in question and settled in to observe.
 It was at this point when the neighbour of my chosen target decided to have an early night and whilst shutting the curtains spotted me in my impromptu hiding place and decided to ring the police. 

I of course knew nothing of this at the time but when I heard the police sirens decided a hasty exit was going to be necessary but unfortunately as I was climbing down, slipped and ended up hanging upside down by my trouser belt on a most unforgiving tree branch and that is where the local police finally found me.

No matter how much I protested my innocence to any major wrong doing, all was in vain and so here I am.



My apologies firstly to my Secret Santa recipient as your parcel may be delayed for a while depending on how long this little mess takes to sort out and secondly to their neighbour who I have been told is now traumatised buy what went on. :(

snowhitie

@bandit778 as discussed in PM, I've contacted someone called Saul and he'll try and get you bail so you can salvage Christmas for your Santee.

MaffyD

 Oh my goodness! Well! This is so exciting! First off, I’m at home all day at the moment as my better half is not feeling great - she was in hospital last night for a few hours because her brittle asthma flared up. Thought they’d make her stay the night, but recovered enough to come home with me at midnight. She hates not being in her own bed. Anyway, what’s important is that I was in when the postman knocked at our door (silver lining eh?) and gave me this:



Opening it up, I got these:



and I'm absolutely flabbergasted! Two presents? Wow! And then the letter. Can I just say sorry to my Santa, because my list is... awkward, to say the least. But honestly, I'll be really happy with my surprise!

But for now, you’ll have to imagine there’s a tree over there:



So so so excited! Anyway, for my monthly update, I can confirm that I have definitely thought about a present. MINE! Only joking... or am I? :-)

eanair

^ That wrapping paper is fab!

Box & packing material stolen, eh I mean borrowed for keeps, from work....Let the wrapping & packing begin!

MaffyD

Ooh, must also say that the wrapping is lovely, and the outer package was protected by SO MUCH bubble wrap and foam - I don’t think I’ve ever had such care being taken with a delivery! You are something special, Santa! :-)

historyman

Feel overwhelmed by this delivery from my secret Santa. Thanks so much! They will go under the tree when we put it up next weekend. 

MattDawson

That's definitely the Santa I grew up expecting. o.O 

plasmodium

Well, well, well, what have we here?