Surprising appreciation

Astrobricks

I’m sure many of us have been caught off guard with the prices being paid for relatively mundane sets on the second hand market during the pandemic. I just looked up #41340 Friendship House which I picked up two of at about $40, and now I see it listed as going for $150 new on BL. 

What sets have surprised you with their supposed value lately?

CCC

PF medium motors. 

Charmiefcb

Juniors/4+ X Wing. I think it's still available and some re sellers have more than doubled the price on it.

Astrobricks

Set numbers please :)

Russell844

Goat.

BrickByBrick

Set #70626 Dawn of Iron Doom. Retail price was $60, last 6 month sales average $219 new. I can't believe the time twins minifigs seem to have become the most expensive Ninjago figs.

The_Rancor

#9525 Pre Vizsla’s Mandalorian Fighter. Was £50 retail when originally launched in 2012 but now averaging £150 bought price new on Bricklink. It’s not massively steep but quite a few similar sets of the same era have not gone up that much - likely due to renewed interest in the Mandalorian mythos and maybe a little more appreciation of the Clone Wars. Plus, Pre Vizsla is a fantastic Mandalorian minifig.

Another step up in the same release year was #9526 Palpatine’s Arrest (AKA I AM the Senate set). Retail was £60, current new price average £215. I mean, it is the set that allows you to reenact all your meme fantasies though!

Astrobricks

^ and ^^ It sure looks like it’s the minifigs driving those prices. I notice Huw has added the information of how many figs are unique to each set (thanks @Huw!). #9526 is 6 of 6, and #70626 is 5 of 6.

1265

Back in 2010, TRU discounted #2853590 Chrome Stormtrooper online for $0.99 each.  I purchased 80 of them.  I already had 2 from their in store promotion, but jumped on them when I saw them listed at that price online.

Astrobricks

Personally, I’m not really minifig oriented, but while we’re on that theme, I (and 5674 other bricksetters) have the GWP #5002123 Darth Revan which is now going for anywhere from $75-110. 

HenkdeVries

I'm always surprised to see GWPs being sold for way beyond the RRP like #30628 which I see on offer here in NL for at least €50.
 
And #21310 also surprised me, prices are going above €300 easilt for MISB. But then again I am not a collector of modular buildings and those older ones are also crazy expensive...

Marshallmario

    #21310 Old Fishing Store seems to have really gone up in value rapidly. It was available thru Lego until Oct. 2018 and I remember it being on sale for $100.00 at the very end? (am I right on that?) It’s now at $350.00 and I’m not sure I can afford to open the one copy I have. 
      The designer had several other seaside sets that he submitted but were not chosen. Has anyone heard anything about instructions for these other sets being available after a certain waiting period?

graphite

CCC said:

PF medium motors. 

This didn't surprise me at all.  LEGO announced they were done with PF, but limited what people could buy.  A lot of people rely on those for various creations and the new system just doesn't work well for the "turn it on and let it go" type of function that the PF allowed so of course they are going to go up in price.  Its a shame because LEGO probably could just keep making them and make money on them even they don't want to put them in their own sets.

Fizyx

graphite said:

CCC said:

PF medium motors. 

This didn't surprise me at all.  LEGO announced they were done with PF, but limited what people could buy.  A lot of people rely on those for various creations and the new system just doesn't work well for the "turn it on and let it go" type of function that the PF allowed so of course they are going to go up in price.  Its a shame because LEGO probably could just keep making them and make money on them even they don't want to put them in their own sets.

I think there's likely a pretty good market for 3rd party PF-compatible motors and electronics.  I don't know if it would be worth the startup costs necessary to get initial designs/manufacturing, etc, but I think especially if you could come up with a wall-plug style system with a control panel like the 9v trains.  Personally I've been thinking of building out something that I could plug into the wall and then use to drive potentially all the Fairground sets at the same time off one control panel using like an Arduino or a Raspberry pi or something similar. I have to imagine that I'm not the only one that would be interested in such a system and the flexibility it would bring.  Not having to have battery packs for everything would be amazing, even if I have to run some wires to different places.

CCC

graphite said:

CCC said:

PF medium motors. 

This didn't surprise me at all.  LEGO announced they were done with PF, but limited what people could buy.  A lot of people rely on those for various creations and the new system just doesn't work well for the "turn it on and let it go" type of function that the PF allowed so of course they are going to go up in price.  Its a shame because LEGO probably could just keep making them and make money on them even they don't want to put them in their own sets.

That they appreciated doesn't surprise me. How much they did does though. The last ones I sold went for almost 4x cost price. Towards the end of the PF run, I was always adding a couple to orders to meet GWP thresholds and on a couple of occasions bought only m motors. Most sold for about 1.5x cost but they suddenly jumped in price. The last ones sold to a company that charges customers a fortune for online lessons with "free" genuine lego packs sent to them, so no doubt they needed genuine lego ones to go with their kits rather than the cheaper knock offs.

nwr122

Items in my collection for which I can see no reasonable explanation for the increase are: -

#21027 - Berlin Skyline
#21026 - Venice Skyline
#8019 - Republic Attack Shuttle

All were purchased for building but are sat in a backlog and I just look at them and think why???

The_Rancor

Republic Attack Shuttle was heavily featured in Season 7 of the Clone Wars, particularly in the last episode or two.

Not sure why the Skylines have gone up though - I can only hypothesise people wanting a metaphorical holiday escape in these times through a building experience?

autolycus

nwr122 said:

Items in my collection for which I can see no reasonable explanation for the increase are: -

#21027 - Berlin Skyline
#21026 - Venice Skyline
#8019 - Republic Attack Shuttle

All were purchased for building but are sat in a backlog and I just look at them and think why???

Once I receive the Dubai skyline that I ordered yesterday, I will have every skyline set but those 2. There were several times I almost bought them within a year of retirement. At that point, I would have paid no more than a $5 premium. I had no other skylines yet, but I was interested... Now the cheapest new Venice in the US on Bricklink is $170. Berlin is much worse at $180 for used and ~$250 for new. Most of that price jump occurred in 2020. As much as I'd like to complete my collection of the skylines, I just can't justify that price.

Astrobricks

#21026, #21027, and #21032 Sydney (currently $110 new on BL) are the oldest retired skylines, so their appreciation kind of makes sense if people started collecting them late and want the full set.

nwr122

The_Rancor said:

Republic Attack Shuttle was heavily featured in Season 7 of the Clone Wars, particularly in the last episode or two.

Not sure why the Skylines have gone up though - I can only hypothesise people wanting a metaphorical holiday escape in these times through a building experience?

Thanks for the explanation @The_Rancor

nwr122

Astrobricks said:

#21026, #21027, and #21032 Sydney (currently $110 new on BL) are the oldest retired skylines, so their appreciation kind of makes sense if people started collecting them late and want the full set.

That's helps, thanks @Astrobricks