May the 4th advice

[JasonM]

Briefly spinning off from the sets to look for topic, I was wondering if some of the LEGO veterans could offer some advice for tomorrow.

So, tomorrow, LEGO is supposedly going to be having a big sale on their Star Wars sets (in honor of Star Wars Day), and if you buy more than $75 worth of Star Wars product, they'll send you (or give, if you're buying in a store) a special limited-edition TC-14 minifig.

With that in mind, I have two questions:
If the sale is actually quite good, are there any currently-produced sets that anyone here would recommend acquiring for frame parts? For the most part, I'm getting my pieces from bricklink (plus my local LEGO stores' pick-a-brick walls - MAN that's a bargain), but I really agree with what others have said about buying sets resulting in having a lot of parts sitting around for inspiration that you weren't expecting to get.

Secondly, this limited-edition minifig. This is something I would never in a million years even think about acquiring, if there weren't a chance that I might have an excuse to drop $75 anyway. Once upon a time, I was deeply into Star Wars, but Mr. Lucas managed to rip a whole lot of that out of me. I realize that lots of previous limited-edition minifigs have gained in value, and while finding someone to give me cash for it might be a challenge, it seems to me that I might be able to trade it to a bricklink vendor for some amount. So, the question is, given that I would only be acquiring it to trade it away, and hopefully somewhat soon, do you think it would be worth it to do so? Say, for instance, that I come up with $50 worth of Star Wars sets to buy, would it be worth it to spend $25 more to get the minifig for trade value? I realize it's only a guess, but I'm not familiar with the second-hand LEGO market, and I'm curious about others' opinions.

Thanks for any advice anyone has!

- Jason

[ferrelferret]

The planet series sets have a good amount of pieces for frame builds. I really like the sebulba podracer and the TIE Interceptor.

You can see all the Star Wars sets I picked up in the good sets for parts thread.

~ferret~

[MittenNinja]

also, keep in mind that while some sets might not be good for frames, they might be phenomenal for building stations/scenery.

[Wordman]

Say, for instance, that I come up with $50 worth of Star Wars sets to buy, would it be worth it to spend $25 more to get the minifig for trade value?

I'm no expert, but I doubt it. Even assuming everyone really wants this figure (which I can't imagine being true, really) it probably would be on par with sought after figures from, say, the first few Minifigures Series, which are pretty universally available on Bricklinck for well under $10.

[JasonM]

I was starting to get the impression that that was the case. Thanks, all!

The sale prices have been posted over at Toys N Bricks (from the New Zealand/Australia site), and for the most part, they're not all that great, unless you're in the market for a Super Star Destroyer or an Imperial Shuttle... which I'm not personally.

- Jason

[morganm]

Say, for instance, that I come up with $50 worth of Star Wars sets to buy, would it be worth it to spend $25 more to get the minifig for trade value?

I'm no expert, but I doubt it. Even assuming everyone really wants this figure (which I can't imagine being true, really) it probably would be on par with sought after figures from, say, the first few Minifigures Series, which are pretty universally available on Bricklinck for well under $10.

While I agree with your analysis of the Collectable Minifig Series being under $10 I disagree with that being a good indicator of what this special edition minifig will be worth.

Star Wars always fetches a premium price even in Lego form. You can browse Bricklink and casually find minifigs well over $25. There are plenty of Darth Mauls is over $10, Darth Vaders over $15, certain Boba Fetts start at $25, a mint Greedo starts at $36, a Watto cracked on both sides with NO hands goes for $53, and plenty of other examples. Currently the chrome TC-14 droid starts at $45! In fact you can pay hundreds of dollars on rare minifigs.

In these cases you are way better off buying the set that has the figure or in this case achieving the promotional criteria to get the figures. Because if you want to pick it up on the second hand market later you are going to get gouged.