To sell off as bulk or attempt to complete sets and sell ??

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countryboy
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To sell off as bulk or attempt to complete sets and sell ??

Post by countryboy » Mon Mar 04, 2013 7:25 am

My collection is starting to get too big and am contemplating shifting my focus on another hobby of mine.. With that said, i currently have approximately 7-800 lbs or so of loose lego that i have acquired over the years. Many of these acquisitions came with manuals and in total i probably have at least 150 of them if not more. I have put together some of the more valuable sets (Pirate ships, etc...) but still have many to go. The vast majority of the associated boxes that go with these manuals and the loose lego i do not have.

Question i have is.... Is it worth attempting to put together the sets and sell of as complete sets (Less box) or rather just sell off as loose lego by the lb? I just don't think i have it in me to piece count it all and setup a BL store. I do have i would say 50% of it already sorted to a certain extent based on categories but there's still allot that is not sorted...

Any comments or views would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

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hatcher
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Re: To sell off as bulk or attempt to complete sets and sell

Post by hatcher » Mon Mar 04, 2013 8:49 am

Best guess is that you would get more for complete sets then by selling in bulk. However, how much is your time worth to you? If the time it takes to assemble and ensure each set is complete is going to negate the potential increase in resale value, then it might not be worth it. If your primary motivation is to get rid of it, bulk would definitely speed up the process.
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Luciant
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Re: To sell off as bulk or attempt to complete sets and sell

Post by Luciant » Mon Mar 04, 2013 4:46 pm

I agree with Hatcher. If time is no concern, and you don't mind building / sorting, then I would put them together into sets and sell them that way. You will get more for sets than you will bulk, but it boils down to a time / benefit analysis for what is right for you.
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SlickP
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Re: To sell off as bulk or attempt to complete sets and sell

Post by SlickP » Mon Mar 04, 2013 7:20 pm

If you have all the legos totally mixed up, then it's going to be very time consuming. Personally, I would build the sets that are worth the most value and not worry about any sets that don't sell well on ebay. Or if you have kids or nephews/nieces pay them to build the sets for you!

Neo
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Re: To sell off as bulk or attempt to complete sets and sell

Post by Neo » Tue Mar 05, 2013 5:14 am

The seller get more $$ by selling complete sets with instructions - add the original box and the value goes up. Naturally, some sets will be in high demand and fetch much more (e.g. Batcave, motorized Star wars AT-AT walker) while other sets will have low demand and low value (e.g. Atlantis, Prince of Persia) but overall complete sets will be worth more than anything that would be sold in bulk.

The buyer always pays more for individual pieces rather than in bulk but that is because the buyer is also paying for the effort in sorting and cataloging and quality control -- the extra $$ the seller gets -- is because the seller did the sorting, cataloging, and quality control to insure that the pieces are in good condition and are truly Lego parts.

If you have a New in Box (NIB) set that has an after market value (e.g. Green Grocer, Monorail) AND there is a possibility that it will be sold later - if the set is disassembled then keep the parts separate from the rest of your collection in the original box(which you save for storing them). Make sure that if a set has multiple builds (e.g. creator T-Rex) that all the extra parts for the other builds are there in the set as well and you will have a happy buyer. A happy buyer is a returning buyer and customer. Business is not just about the money but about the positive mutual relationships between buyer and the seller.


HTH

Walter Lee

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