Flipping LEGOs for Cold Hard Cash! And Some Pitfalls to Avoid

in #hive-1420109 days ago

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Over the last few days I've been back digging through some more old LEGOs to get them put up for sale. I usually try to work through at least some of them once or twice a week, but there are times when I just don't have time. I know there are some people who turn LEGO sales into their full time job and list them for sale all over the internet, but that would drive me insane. You won't ever see me doing that!

Before we jump into my LEGOs today, I always like to share some of the most expensive LEGOs that you can own. Believe it or not there a mini-figure carved from wood that's worth over $100,000 and was used in a LEGO movie. But today's special mini-figure is made of solid 18K white gold. This R2-D2 was produced in 2018 and part of a giveaway, and only one was ever made. If you happened to be the lucky winner of this tiny piece of molded gold, it's worth around $39,000!

minifigpriceguide.com

minifigpriceguide.com

As a collector of silver and gold this would have been right up my alley. But would I be willing to pay that kind of crazy money for this one figure, no! I could buy some extremely rare gold shipwreck treasure for far less money, and I would definitely appreciate it more. However, if I had won this for free I sure wouldn't have been complaining!

Moving onto my pictures of the day. Today I have some Harry Potter items I'm finally getting around to listing. Harry Potter LEGOs have not ever been really lucky for me as far as sales go. I picked up a bag of some mini-figures awhile back and decided to finally do something to get rid of them.

I'll be selling these mini-figures in Quidditch uniforms along with a couple of brooms as a set. The Harry Potter is of course cracked, making it hard to sell by itself. But as a group, maybe? I'll soon find out! I'll ask $12 and the first offer of $7 or more and it's out the door. I think I only paid $5 for these and it came with lot of bits and pieces that will part out for about 4 times what I paid. A profit is a profit, although next time I would pass on Harry Potter stuff.

Harry and Ron came in there too, I'll throw them together for maybe $5, I may get lucky!

Now for some pitfalls to avoid when buying LEGO's in thrift stores...

While General Grievous may have been a cool character from the Star Wars saga, this one was a bad bet. It came in one of the bins I purchased sometime back. However, it's missing his head. Normally replacing a head is inexpensive and worth while, but in this case the new head would cost around $15 and if I'm lucky he would sell complete for $20. Then the killer in the equation is you have to pay shipping on the part and you end up losing money. I will probably just throw this up for $5 and see if I can find someone willing to pay that much for it.

This figure came with no hands, and there is a reason for it. Look at his arm with a big crack, the hand likely fell out after the break. Also take a look at the crack in the torso as well. This mini-figure is only worth what someone will pay for the unbroken parts, and often it's not worth the effort. I have some bins with these kinds of odds and ends that might prove useful on another figure down the road. Otherwise it's worthless plastic...

Another example of hand loss with an arm crack. Our little orange friend here isn't worth much anyway, but with a broken arm will likely end up in the parts bin.

This one is a little hard to see, but if you look closely at the back it is cracked on both sides. Definitely only good for part like the head and legs... He also is missing hands, adding insult to injury...

And sometimes you find Mega Blocks in with your LEGO's. This is an incomplete Halo build missing shoulder armor on it's left side and it's weapon. With those it's worth maybe twenty dollars, but as is the first person that offers me five dollars I will scream "sold!" Replacing these parts won't be cheap.

Another Mega Blocks Halo piece, and empty shell that I might get two or three dollars from if I'm lucky. It came in a bin of other LEGOs so if it sells it's a bonus, but often the auction site's selling fee makes it not worth the effort to sell. This may be sitting around for a long while until I have nothing better to list!

So those are some of the current LEGOs I've been working on, but I have several sets to sort out still. Mini-figures are often easy to sell so I focus on them first. I really can't complain because I've made money on almost all of the items I've bought this year. But while shopping for LEGOs in the thrift store bring along a small magnifier and look closely at the arms and torsos to make sure they aren't cracked. Broken or incomplete items can really cut into your profit margin!

That will wrap up my post for the day today. I hope you enjoyed seeing that awesome white gold R2-D2, I've got to find about those kind of LEGO giveaways in advance. I think you have to subscribe to their "club" to receive their magazine every month, so that's not going to happen. Those thrift stores continue to have all sorts of LEGO plastic gold, so don't to forget to check the toys while you're there. Thanks for stopping by and for all of your support everyone, have a great day!

Disclaimer:

I am not a financial advisor and this is not financial advice. Please do your own research before investing your hard earned money in any project or commodity.

All pictures are mine unless otherwise indicated

Header created with ideogram.ai

References:

https://brickfact.com/blog/lists/the-top-10-most-expensive-lego-minifigures-ever

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@thebighigg! @lanzjoseg likes your content! so I just sent 1 BBH to your account on behalf of @lanzjoseg. (3/5)

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I've heard this business around before and thought the market is really small. Awesome tips that you shared and good luck selling them :)

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The market is actually huge, because there is demand world wide. I've sold things that go Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Europe, but most in the US. You have to be a really big seller to make a living doing it, and this is just a hobby for me. It wouldn't be fun if it were a real business for me!
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You are a collector of Legos. I just buy them as they interest me... no rhyme or reason.
Good luck selling them. Be sure to update us!
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That's always fun, buying what you like is entertaining. I do have a lot of them around and if I didn't go and buy more I probably have six months worth of stuff to sift through at any given time. I really don't collect them much, I usually sell off anything that is worth at least five dollars. I will update you, I'm still waiting for parts to come in the mail on a couple sets so I can list them!
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Your Legos are beautiful... $100,000, that's money, my friend.

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Wow… What a lucky winner of a solid 18K white Gold R2-D2!!
Do you know what kind of giveaway this was?
I can't see anyone myself including parting with a one-of-a-kind, especially an 18 karat one-of-a-kind!!😇😀

I have no idea, but I think it's advertised in their monthly magazine. It's some kind of club and you get some free sets I believe. I've never really looked into it though. They seem to do these kind of giveaways frequently, but some of the best they have given out at Comic-Con San Diego. I'm definitely up to going to one of those conventions!

This sounds interesting, especially with giveaways, that appreciate in value!👍🤗

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The price is so crazy if you want to buy it, but well if you are the one winning the giveaway, it will be so much better right? Who is the lucky one winning it? must be super happy with it.
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I don't know who won, I just know it wasn't me! I'm sure they are very happy with it, they may have sold it already after they won it to a big collector. Since there is only one in the world it would be hard to track down!
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This great collection of legos, I'm sure I would be happy armed with the legos, as for the figures of Harry, I showed them to my daughter, she tells me that she likes those legos figures, especially because she is a big fan of those perliculas, and now they are also making a series of those books.

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There are a lot of kids who like them, but serious collectors aren't after them because LEGO made too many. Typical, they made so many there is little demand. Maybe the new books will up the interest again!

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Since when has Goodwill been selling LEGO pieces and minifigs? I didn't even know this was a thing at Goodwill.

What kind of volume are you looking at weekly or monthly? How much is shipping on one order you send out?

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Goodwill has whatever happens to have been donated. Sometimes there is almost nothing and it's a wasted trip from the LEGO stand point. I usually check out cutlery and pitchers in housewares as well. Sometimes people donate old silver cutlery items without realizing they are silver and the store misses it too. Cheap silver! It's always a gamble, sometimes you hit the motherlode other times you walk away empty handed, the latter being the most common outcome.

But since I don't do it for a living it doesn't really matter! Some people specialize in certain parts and buy them in bulk whenever they can, so there is a fair amount of competition. Some months if I find some good stuff I've sold a few hundred dollars worth of stuff, others less than fifty. It just depends how much time I'm willing to put into it which honestly isn't very much, this is just a side hobby that makes a little extra spending cash!
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Supercool all of them but General Grievous my fav. I could help making the head with 3d printer but shipping will be more expensive than buying a new one

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That's the problem with LEGOs, shipping is often more expensive than the parts. You could print them but then you are in copyright violation at least here in the US... I have considered though!
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I think to make LEGO a full-time job in the US, you probably need to have decent collections or be lucky enough to have great collections that can earn you the jackpot, especially that type of that wooden stuff that can earn you 100k$, I might be wrong

I wouldn't want to, it would become a job rather than a hobby. The instant that happens it's no longer any fun! You also would need steady sources of old sets which I don't have. My buys are sporadic when I happen to stumble onto something nice which is pretty rare. And it's tough to make money selling items at $0.99 a piece, paying auction site fees, and then shipping. Not worth it!

There are auction sites fees? I thought you just pay for them and then go ahead to just sell and make profit?

I wish, no places like eBay take a cut of the selling price. That's why they have made so much money over the years. Fees everywhere... It gets really old to be honest.

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