Some history on me... growing up I really liked the LEGO space themes. Classic Space, Space Police, M-Tron (probably my favorite), Blacktron, Ice Planet... all awesome! I still have all the sets too. I used to build space bases, fly around the space ships, explore new planets, put the bad guys into Space Police jail. Lots of fun.
When I saw that the LEGO Ideas program was putting out a set in the theme of Classic LEGO Space, I was sold. The set was announced in late 2014 with a You Tube clip that built a story behind the set. The set was officially released on 28 December 2014 in the US and fans like me went nuts. I ordered one fairly quickly and soon thereafter LEGO Shop @ Home was sold out. As you can imagine, the price on eBay, BrickLink, and other sites started to go higher. I think everyone expected the same thing as #21110-1 Research Institute. Released on 2 August 2014, it's run ended on 14 December 2014. After just 4 months, LEGO ran out of inventory and they weren't producing any more.
I was able to get 2 sets. One for me to build and one in the hopes of selling at a profit to fund my addiction... I mean building hobby. This was good until LEGO announced that they were putting the set back into production. The limited inventory was gone as it popped back up on LEGO Shop @ Home and then even at Amazon.com. After a few months, Amazon.com started to discount the set. I picked up a few more thinking they would all sell out soon and it would be great to get a few at a discount to sell. I was wrong. The price plummeted even after LEGO was done selling them and it has remained there as the excess inventory is still out there.
So what is the lesson learned from my quick blurb? 2 things actually... one is that The LEGO Group has realized that short run sets that are very popular are not good for the fan base. They have tended to (not always though) do second production runs often when they see a large demand. This was done again with the Disney Collectible Minifigures. So wait it out and don't spend more than you should on sets. The second thing is if you are looking to sell a set in one of these hypes, you need to sell it early. After the hype dies away, the market goes with it. The key warning was when Amazon.com put them on sale (side note, as of today 7 March, they are still on sale) and then I should have known selling them would be tough. If you can get a really good discount, then go for it. Otherwise, hold off as it is hard for the small seller to compete with Amazon.com.
So here they are... I have 5 that I am storing. They have all been purchased for retail price or lower. At this point I can't sell them and make a profit because you can get them on Amazon.com for less then retail price with free shipping. I can sell for less than retail price, but I can't offer free shipping on them without taking a loss. Any thoughts on what I should do? Feel free to let me know what you think at store@bricksforbricks.com.
