Where do they get the...

MvdS

Just wondering.

There are a few guys on eBay, for example user: www.sc and user: pickyourbrick who keep offering old LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Batman figures, year after year.
To name a few:
* The Joker
* Bib Fortuna
* General Grievous (1st edition)

Where do these guys get there figures?

I don't believe that they've got hundreds of boxes where these figures belong to, 'cause the other figures/vehicles belonging to those boxes don't get nealry as much offered as the above figures.

Do they got a connection with LEGO?
Are they custom made?

Can anyone help me solve this puzzle?

Orthobotrex

I saw a guy on flickr who took a shot of his collection of Anubis warriors which he said he would sell/trade, or something to that effect...so, to me, there are only two reasons why a person like him can sell a lot of figs:
1) He's rich, or;
2) He's filthy rich! :-)

I checked out the feedback of one of the guys you mentioned, they look legit...perhaps he bought a lot of those sets when they were still at their "reasonable" prices. Or even at a sale or clearance, perhaps. No conspiracy needed.

drdavewatford

Some people had the foresight (or just dumb luck...) to pick up a large number of Batman sets when they were being sold off for almost nothing at the end of their run. And they've probably been living off the proceeds ever since !!

MvdS

I know they are legit.

But could they have bought hundreds of sets of each box?
Every week a new Joker, Bib Fortuna and General Grievous is being offered by these guys.

davee123

You're probably best off asking the seller.

Sometimes, people get special deals from LEGO-- often times when this happens, you're expressly forbidden from re-selling the LEGO, but sometimes not. I've had the opportunity to get hundreds of Shadow Knights, hundreds of Exo-Force characters, and a few others.

Some people got good clearance on particular sets, but rather than sell the PIECES (which don't sell all that well), they sell the minifigs, which are sometimes worth the cost of the entire set if the clearance price was good enough.

Some people STEAL the minifigures from stores (this is sadly more common than it should be) by purchasing the sets, taking out the figures, and the RETURNING the sets to the store. This happens now and again with AFOLs reporting purchasing sets with no figures in them (more often with Star Wars).

Hard to say without asking the seller, but there are a lot of possibilities out there, some totally valid, some underhanded.

DaveE

Yellowcastle

^ That certainly would suck for those of us who collect more than we can build. I'll be honest in that I'm now considerably worried about this since a majority of my sets come from Toys R Us and Target...

doriansdad

They are probably pro resellers and stocked up on a few thousand of these sets when they went on clearance. Most of these resellers have a very close relationship with Lego store owners so they know exactly when items will be going on clearance and how much stock they can buy. Last lego sale there were a few pro resellers at my local lego store who dropped over $20k each buying all of the clearanced Star Wars sets and old train track. To their credit they made sure all of us regular customers who lined up for the opening got in on the action but they bought every sale item within the first hour.

davee123

I'll be honest in that I'm now considerably worried about this since a majority of my sets come from Toys R Us and Target..

Just be sure to look at the sets before you buy them. If they look like they've been opened, you can ask to open the sets quickly at the register (in front of their staff) and check for the presence of minifigs.

DaveE

brickmatic

^ Unless you want to keep them MISB ;)

Yellowcastle

^ and ^^ I am usually pretty good at double checking the boxes but previous comments seem to indicate that people are getting pretty good at resealing with glue. Here's hoping it's both uncommon and easy to spot. It's hard to believe, though, that it's come to this.