Resurrecting the Skull's Eye Part 3: The Bricklink Purchases

I approach buying Legos on Bricklink like generals approach a war.  Making a large purchase (as I am about to do for my Skull's Eye project) is like storming an enemy's  beachhead; poor planning or execution will cost you... Dearly.  Ok so I exaggerate a little bit but the point holds.  With the plethora of stores hawking their plastic studded wares Bricklink can be overwhelming to those looking to pinch pennies as I am.  Here is how I do it. 

My Bricklink purchases are made after hours at work.  No, this is not because I am trying to hide my Lego addiction from an indignant spouse (my wonderful bride is the biggest supporter of my habit God bless her!).  It is because my work computer has 2 screens, and I am going to need them.  I open up no fewer than 8 windows (4 per screen to start) each to the homepage of Bricklink.  I then do a search for the 8 pieces that I think are going to be the most rare. 

Filling the carts

I start with the ones I have labeled as exclusive (as per my earlier blog entry) and then move into the mid-range pieces filling in however many remaining windows I have choosing the parts based on my past experience with their exclusivity. 

These become my 8 starting stores and I then search for my Wanted List in each one of them.  9 times out of 10, if I have done a good job of parsing out the pieces into the 3  categories, this will yield all of the parts I need being in the carts of these various stores.  If not then I find stores that have the missing ones until I have all of the parts accounted for.  Obviously the is a lot of overlap and by the time I have all the pieces accounted for my carts are swelling with repeats.  Thus begins the slashing (and why I want the 2 screens).  Like some sort of perverse reality show I begin eliminating repeats leaving only the most inexpensive offering for a given piece in the cart of it's respective store.  Along with the cold numerical considerations there is also a certain amount of judgement which must be employed at this stage.  Yes a given piece may be cheaper in store A but if that is the only piece that is cheaper and store B has that same piece for a mere few cents more then it is not worth the shipping to buy that single part from store A.  Often whole stores will get eliminated for this reason because even if I can save a couple of bucks on pieces it isn't worth the 7 or 8 dollars I would have to pay in shipping.  Judgement is also needed as it relates to the size of pieces.  Baseplates or other large specialty parts are going to require a larger box for shipment, so packing more small parts (even if they are a bit more expensive) in with the larger ones that are going to have to be shipped in a larger box anyway can potentially save you money somewhere else.  So really my technique is part science and part my gut instinct mixed with past experience. 

When it is all said and done this time around I am left with items in 6 stores and the sense that I have had a mind numbing out of body experience.  Bricklink does not have a lot of automated tools to assist me in my technique, I have to track which pieces are accounted for on my own as there is no online tool that lets you fill your wanted list with the cheapest option across multiple stores (at least not that I have found, if someone knows where this feature is please let me know!).  At the end of one of these crusades (which can take, on a project like this, multiple hours) my head is spinning and I am always wishing I had enough money to just order from the first stores that come to the top of the list.  But I have the parts I need and the supreme satisfaction of feeling like I have won a battle. 

Normally, completing my orders would usher in the time that would find me bouncing around with the anticipation of a child on Christmas Eve waiting for all the parts to come in so I can build the new set.  This time, however, I have a task to occupy my mind and hands: the sails. 

Ressurecting The Skull's Eye Part 1: Developing The Parts List

A key aspect of any resurrection project is understanding the different categories that a set's parts fall into.  There are three categories which, in my mind, describe each of the pieces in a set. 

The Basic Pieces
The Mid-Range Pieces
The Exclusive Pieces

The basic pieces are those that are common in both type and color.  A prime example of these are bricks and plates, the foundations of any set. 

These will be availible in almost any Bricklink store or lot of loose pieces on eBay.  On a resurrection project they are the parts you won't have to worry about finding or paying an arm and a leg for.   

The mid-range pieces are a little more difficult to find than the basic ones but are still fundamental to the set.  A great example of these types of parts are hinges.  Most Bricklink stores will have hinges, but there are so many differnt types and colors that the exact combination you need is often a bit harder to find and may not exist in a single store.  

The final category is the exclusive parts.  These are the ones that, whether in type, color or both, only came with a few sets and therfore there are less of them floating around.  Due to the limited supply the price for these parts goes up accordingly.  An example from the Skull's Eye is the compass. 

 
My approach to shopping for parts (which I will describe in detail in a later post when I get to that point) is to figure out where I am going to get all the exclusive parts and see how many of the pieces in the other 2 categories I can get from those stores.  Most of the time it is 95% of them or more depending on how many exclusive parts there are.  For now I need to figure out which parts are in which category.   

In the case of the Skull's Eye I identify the following pieces as being exclusive and for the following reasons:

1. The compass shown above (only availible in Pirate themed sets).
2. The printed 4x3 panel on the back of the ship (the piece is common but the printed skull and crossbones is exlusive to this set alone... already dreading the price on that one).
3. The green flags wich cover the cannon ports on the sides (a common piece but very rare in this color).
4. The blue palm tree top pieces that make up the bottom of the lanterns (I only know of one other set that these came with in that blue color: 6271 Imperial Flagship from 1992, my guess is they were included here because they had been overproduced for that earlier set).

It's a Go!

After having looked into it I have determined that trying to ressurrect the Skull's Eye is a reasonable project and am giving the project the green light!  I am in fact a little behind as I have already made the first purchase: the hull.

I knew going into this that the hull was going to be the most expensive part of the project.  Whenever I have a piece (or pieces) like that which are essential and exclusive to the set, I always check both Bricklink and eBay.  In this case it turned out that eBay won.  I found a seller offering the complete hull in excellent condition with free shipping for less than any of the stores on Bricklink.  As the hulls would have added substantially to the shipping cost of any Bricklink purchase this was a no brainer for me.  $35.00 later and I am off and running (or sailing as the case may be)!

The hull from the eBay purchase.

After getting the hull (which along with being essential commmits me to the project) my next stop was Peeron for the set inventory.  This past weekend I went through all of my spare parts to see what I had and develop the shopping list which will guide my decisions on how to get the pieces I need and form the basis of the future Bricklink purchases.  I was pleasantly suprised by how many of the parts I already had.  This is the beauty of some of these older sets, as Lego did not have as large a pool of pieces to draw from they had to make do by using the ones they had in creative ways.  This translates to sets containing a lot more of the basic pieces which are easy to come by.  I was delighted to find that I had about 30% of the pieces already spread throughout my bags and bins of "spare parts". 

With the hull on order and the shopping list in hand I am ready to tackle the next challenge: figuring out how I am going to get the pieces I need.    

Buying Lego Sets - A Guide

I have written previously on how to buy second hand Legos and also how to potentially get incredible discounts if you a willing to purchase sets minus their figures.  These are, however, special cases and not very helpful to the would be buyer who just wants to purchase a currently available set at the best possible price. 

THE BASICS

Because of Lego's expansive world wide brand recognition and the fact that none of their competitors are really serious threats Lego prices vary very little from place to place.  They also rarely go on sale and when they do the savings are usually quite minimal (I have collected Legos continuously for almost 3 decades and can count on one hand the number of times I have seen sets on sale at greater than 10% off in a retail store that was not going out of business).  In light of that if your primary goal is speed and you don't mind paying full price you can walk into pretty much any store and  purchase the set you want with assurance that another place in town won't be selling it cheaper.

I got very excited as a kid when the set pictured below was 3 dollars cheaper at a Wal-Mart we stopped at while on vacation (my hometown did not have one at that time). 

My excitement over three dollars in savings was justified because a difference in regular price of even that paltry amount is rare between major retailers.

BEST SELECTION

As Lego's product line has expanded the major retail stores (Wal-Mart, Target, etc.) have not greatly increased their shelf space.  As a result they tend to carry only the "best sellers" so to speak.  They will have most of the major sets, but will likely not carry all of the sets for a given theme so depending on what you are looking for they may not have it.  They also usually do not have specialty sets like the Imperial Flagship which i had to order from Lego.com as it was the only place you could get it.  

If you want the best for selection or are looking for something unique there are 3 places to go.

            1. Lego.com: This one is obvious but it still needs to be stated.  Every set available  is on sale here.  Around Christmas they usually run a sale where if you spend enough you don't pay shipping and they will run year round promotionals where they give away little sets.  

            2. Lego Retail Stores: These stores are factory direct from Lego and are basically their shop at home site in a retail setting.  Same sets and same prices, the advantage of course is that you don't have to pay shipping.  They also have monthly events which often involve give aways and have sale racks as well.  These retail stores are now located in many major cities, check here to see where the one nearest to you is.

            3. Toys R Us: Lego has some sort of special relationship with this national retailer and as a result they too have a fairly comprehensive selection.  The advantage of Toys R Us is that there are a lot of them around and that you, again, don't have to pay shipping.  They also run regular sales often buy one get one 50% off which can result in substantial savings.  The disadvantage is that their prices are always about 10% higher than everywhere else so unless you are taking advantage of a sale this is probably your most expensive option. 

BEST PRICING

While there is no silver bullet that will always allow you to avoid paying regular price for a set I have had some success with the following buying options. 

            1. Amazon.com: The online retail giant will often be a bit cheaper than everywhere else.  And, as most sets are over $25 many orders will qualify for their free shipping.  Their selection is roughly equivalent to the other large retailers, they will have the best sellers but not necessarily everything else. 

            2. eBay: When buying on eBay look for a buy it now option.  Often sellers will take advantage of the sales I described at Toys R Us (buy one get one 50% off) and then sell the two sets at 80-90% of MSRP.  Especially if they give free shipping this option can end up saving real money.  Bidding on Lego sets on eBay, however, is something I would recommend that you avoid.  Prices almost always go sky high above what you can walk down to Target and pick up the set for, this phenomena is something I don't understand.  I got this harbor set from eBay $10.00 off MSRP with free shipping.

            3. Bricklink.com: This site is the Lego collector's bread and butter.  It is like eBay exclusively for Legos and minus any bidding.  Any set, past or present, is available here.  The advantage to this site in terms of new sets is that due to the competition you can usually find them a bit cheaper.  These sellers do the same thing as the eBay sellers but  often with slightly tighter margins due to all the competition which means slightly better savings.  Furthermore if you are willing to get it slightly used or minus the minifigures you can realize even more savings.   I picked up the castle below which retailed for $100 for a mere $20 because it was missing a few parts that I replaced with a subsequent $5 purchase.

One warning is that the online sellers are located all over the world so be careful to make sure the store you are buying from ships from your country or your shipping costs will be through the roof. 

            4. Craigslist: This options is the most hit or miss of all the options but it also has the greatest potential for savings.  You can often find people who are moving or moms who are trying to clear out a kid's room and are offloading Legos, including new ones, cheap.  Not something to depend on, but it is worth checking. 

Happy Building

The Lego Chronicler