legoskeelo: Buying-selling-collecting

legoskeelo

Hey I'm newly signed to these forums but have been aware of the site for a couple of years. I'm 34 from the UK and have been buying - Selling - and Collecting alsorts of toys/games from a very early age.
I buy and sell as a hobby not just lego but vintage toys, board games, ccg such as Magic the gathering, citadel miniatures, Star wars, Consoles and games, pretty much anything that has intrinsic value. I've sold collectables at Comic expos to Car Boots.

I just wanted to give you my take on the current Lego collectable market as I know alot of people on this site tend to buy alot of Lego for Re-sell as well as a Future Investement.

Anything no matter what it is be it a House / Car / Gold Bullion / Food / Lego is only worth what someone else is willing to pay and this is the bottom line of Investing. buying lots of Lego at RRP to sell at a later date seems very risky IMO, Sure seeing the odd USC set fly of the scales in value on Ebay may encourage you to buy buy buy. However any good trader will tell you that buying and selling is an educated gamble and nothing more.

I have found myself buying Lego the last year or so because the sets available at the moment are really well designed and have a good potential to increase in value above retail. I have sold sets in the past but they have been OOP sets that I have found at car boots. I've bought very low and made a small fortune on the sale, one example would be I found a box of lego which I paid £20 for which contained 4 lego Kingdom sets Jabbas sail Barge and the second edition Slave 1!

I've not bought new to re-sell however like I said, Ive bought a few sets which I personally percieve as future winners.

Some of the sets that are talked about as good Investments on these forums and are bought in droves, my gut Instinct tells me the opposite purely out experience. but people being people like to follow like sheep.
If your a youngster or have limited funds I highly recommend visiting Bootsales, charity shops, flea markets etc you dont need alot of cash and you can make a really high return on something you spent very little on. It also gives you good experience in trading in anything.

heres my little tip for buying, works for me anyway.
ask yourself these 3 questions.

-Do I Like it.
-How much appeal does it have. (for example buying Lego Harry Potter, hits 2 collector markets Lego + Harry Potter fans)
-Is it Cheap enough.

All this said though My Favourite Lego set to date is 10188 Death Star. It has so much appeal, to adults, children, fanboys/girls and collectors it really is an Instant classic toy which shouldnt be passed up if you can afford one :P

I hope my 2 cents help but again everything anyone says including myself is just an opinion or conjecture :)

dimefield

Just what i need...another little in my head telling me to get a Death Star!

MinifigsMe

Hi legoskeelo, welcome and thanks for your input. I think you're telling most of us what we know, and I know very few people on here buy any lego at RRP. Most sets to resale are bought at 30-50% off, so that selling it RRP later shouldnt' be hard and still makes a reasonable profit. The exceptions are of course the exclusives, that us brits can't get elsewhere, hence the huge jump in the EN, it couldn't be bought for less than £70, so to get that 50% profit it's jumped already (to 150% or so).

@dimefield - get it you numpty. Don't buy anything else until you have. there. simple! ;)

dimefield

@Savage_Steel hmm double VIP points on Death Star...

drdavewatford

She's right, @dimefield - just get the Death Star. Unless you're a hopeless case you can't fail to love that set.

vickicara

Welcome.

Looks like your trying to teach folks how to suck eggs here.
Most people have been buying and selling lego for a long time, many with bricklink shops etc.

I also have been in the business of buying and selling and the worst question to ask is Do i like it? Completely irrelevant and probably the worst mistake people make is to personalize their style and taste thinking everyone else must like this too!

I'd also disagree with your sheep theory! I bought 15 green grocers because everyone was doing this after the cafe corner price boom.

So far i have listed 6 (bought for £540) and sold them for £1670 less £108 fee's (BL,PP etc). Within 2 1/2 years.

That being said your opinions here are always read and welcome... and enjoy the forum!

Si_UKNZ

There does seem to have been a surge in resellers recently though, unlike when GG was around. It will be interesting to see what happens when MMV and FB have been retired a few months.