Outrageous Retired Set Prices, Are you willing to pay?

Comments

• Coder_X Member Posts: 29

  April 2011

  I personally can't afford those high prices but I guess it's all a matter of supply and demand... it's basic economics.
  They 'could' lower the prices, but would you? knowing you can get almost twice as much for it?

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• LegoCity750 Banned Posts: 4

  April 2011

  @Coder_X Well, If it was a universal change, the prices would be lower. If one seller has it for $550, and 25 other sellers have it for $300, the "one" seller would probably lower it then.

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• pantenkind Member Posts: 258

  April 2011

  I agree, the prices are high....believe me, I want a ucs falcon bad but I absolutely refuse to pay 1300+ for it. That being said I cant blame the sellers though, I mean if I had some and could sell them for more I would too. Heres hoping for a LEGO re-release sometime in the future! :-)

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• RabbitWizzard Member Posts: 26

  April 2011

  "If one seller has it for $550, and 25 other sellers have it for $300, the "one" seller would probably lower it then."
  Would you be willing to sell a set for 300$ even if you know someone will pay 550$ for it?

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• wagnerml2 Member Posts: 1,376

  April 2011

  The high prices on retired sets is troubling to me because it might encourage people to purchase sets for wrong reasons. During my dark times, I owned a sports memorabilia shop. We sold baseball cards, football cards, autographs and the like. The card companies began to put "chase" cards into the packs at low ratios. These cards were serial numbered and were very had to come by. Some were autographed or contained a swatch of a jersey. Thus, they had a huge value, some more than $500 to $1000. As a result, kids would come into the shop, pay high prices for the packs and if they didn't get a chase card they were looking for they wouldn't even look at the regular cards in the pack. They were now buying things more for their perceived value rather than what they liked. It so damaged the hobby that I sold my entire collection and got out. My son has no sports cards and we only collect Legofor that very reason. While it's nice to have a few MISB sets for value, I hope that the marketplace doesn't get such that people forget why they love the hobby.

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• LuciusMalfoy7 Member Posts: 107

  April 2011

  These are troubling to me. I just started my HP collection with the new revival theme, having missed out on all of the earlier sets. I wanted to perhaps purchase the previous two versions of Hogwarts, or at least one of them, so as to make a larger castle. But when I looked, both versions were going for around $300, $500!!! I refuse to pay such inflated prices.

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• TonyV5 Member Posts: 14

  April 2011

  One of the worst in the UK is the 8421 Mobile Crane original RRP £89.99 now for sale on Amazon Uk for £699.95 nearly an 800% mark-up!

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• RabbitWizzard Member Posts: 26

  April 2011

  I'm watching the crane on (german) ebay for some time, it's going for about 120€-150€ built once and "unplayed" with carton and instructions. I think thats alright and one shall be mine soon. The prices at amazon aren't good indicators for what you have to pay (irl) for a rare set. Except if you want it NOW!

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• Si_UKNZ Member Posts: 4,179

  April 2011 edited May 2011

  One of the worst in the UK is the 8421 Mobile Crane original RRP £89.99 now for sale on Amazon Uk for £699.95 nearly an 800% mark-up!

  A lot of the Amazon prices are 'dream' prices just put up by chancers, e.g. people who want to keep it really, but if they were offered silly money they'd sell it.
  Certainly this is something I do sometimes, and as RabbitWizzard says, you can usually get them cheaper if you look around.
  
  However, not Cafe Corner of course; really, its a factor of how good the sets are; people don't want to part with them, and that's what marketplaces are all about - the best things cost more, it's just life.

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• doriansdad Member Posts: 1,337

  May 2011

  I am in the process of building Cafe Corner after buying all of the pieces new off Bricklink for around $350....so I don't know why anyone would pay $550 for used.....maybe I need to start reselling Cafe Corners lol.
  
  I did not mind paying the high price for this set knowing that it will be worth $1k before too long. Green Grocer will do well as well (as did Market St which I can do for less than $200 new right now on Bricklink.....check on over at the "piecemeal" thread in 2 weeks or so I think I may have found a lead on the hard to get tabbed white hoses).
  
  Fire Brigade onwards everybody and their dog will be buying huge supplies so their prices will be low forever more.....good for those that will miss out on these sets. In fact the reseller market is so saturated now I don't see any set at all commanding the huge markups they once did. For the bigger "shippy" retired Star Wars sets you may eek out a small return after selling fees but that is about it. Nowdays everybody is educated on Lego's product cycles and reselling.
  
  Now to try and find a cheap cloud city boba for my son....might need to sell a few Cafe Corners to pay for that lineup of rare figs :)

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• doriansdad Member Posts: 1,337

  May 2011 edited May 2011

  Just wanted to add if Bricklink ever offers a feature that allows you to price an entire set of parts in the cheapest possible way from multiple sellers then prices would gravitate to that total due to competition. As of now it can be cumbersome to source parts on Bricklink which is why I have seen Cafe Corners built from parts go for over $600 on auction sites with no box and no instructions. It is advantageous for Bricklink to keep it this way so I don't see it ever happening unless some third party software figures it out.

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