How should I go about selling a large number of unsorted LEGO sets?

Question

Here is my problem. Over the years my son had me buy a large number of Star Wars sets (including 10179, 10188, 6211, 7676, 7675) and he built them. Then he traded (or lost) most of the mini-figs except for those in the death star. He has all but 3 and they are for sale on e-bay.

They all were taken apart and I am sure that 99% is in all of the 10 plastic staorage boxes I have.

My problem is how do I sell them and what to ask? I see that the 10179 is going for 2400.00 new in box. Really? Who would pay that much. It is just a Lego. I have a huge list of other star wars kits totaling 24 in all. I can get all the kit numbers if you like. Plus, I have 60-100 dollars of gift cards for the LEGO store that I will throw in to help get missing pieces or whatever from LEGO itself.

I am in the Sacramento area of California and found this site. Thought I would throw it out there.

Answer 1

You have three basic choices, depending on how much time you want to spend:

1. Sell the collection as-is (with as much honest description as you can muster and great photos if you're selling on-line).
2. Sort the collection into sets and sell them as-is with parts / figs missing.
3. Sort into sets and replace missing parts / figs.

These three are not mutually exclusive.

Personally, I'd go with the first option unless you have a lot of time on your hands and are a real enthusiast. Otherwise, your time is probably worth more than any additional profits you might make. At the same time, there are plenty of us who would love to take on a collection like this.

Answer 2

One of the issues I see is that you're missing most of the minifigs, these generally aren't available individually through the LEGO store.

As you've seen for a complete boxed set of some of these kits are very expensive to buy second hand; they are no longer in production and some people are willing to pay that much to own them.

In terms of selling what you've got, if you can sort them back into their correct sets that would help in terms of maximising your potential profit, however there's clearly a trade-off with your time to do that. If you do go down that route there are a number of sites that have inventories for most sets, even the older ones that don't have them listed in the manuals:

• Peeron Set Search
• Brick Link Star Wars Sets

Brick Link is the site to use for selling LEGO bricks, many sellers on there sell bricks individually (albeit with a minimum order), which may be an option but is quite a lot of work. Alternatively you could try contacting a local seller and see if they are interested in taking your stock on.

Finally you could look into finding some local brick fairs and trying to sell it there, either in bulk or parts.

Answer 3

Unfortunately, what you have is a gigantic pile of unsorted LEGO that came out of sets that you originally spent nearly $3,000 on. With a gigantic pile of unsorted Lego, that may have a couple of minifigures in it, you probably won't get very close to $3000.

You can try your best to get them sorted into their original sets, but your best bet is to create 1 pound lots and auction them on Ebay, or try to sell them individually - you might be able to offer them for sale for something like $10 per pound, or more.

If you try to sell the entire lot all at once, you are probably going to see offers come in at around $5 per pound.

Sorting used LEGO is a lot of work, and if you aren't willing to do it - you'll take a hit in terms of what you are likely to get.

Answer 4

You should check the value of the used sets on this site: http://www.brickpicker.com/

For 10179, you can get easily 1600$: http://www.brickpicker.com/bpms/set.cfm?set=10179-1