Subject:
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Re: Are we? or are some of us builders? (was: Misnomer: we are all Lego collectors!)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Fri, 15 Jun 2001 02:21:09 GMT
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Viewed:
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871 times
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In lugnet.general, Kyle D. Jackson writes:
> In lugnet.castle, James Howse writes:
> [Snipped a lot!]
> > However, LEGO(company) knows where the money is and it's not with the
> > builders. And since they're a company who wants to collect money, they need
> > to go where it is, generating hype, imposing value and rerelasing sets which
> > go for overinflated E-bay prices.
> > Yay for them, I'll be in the corner building something with my collection.
>
> I was following this "essay" pretty well up until this close.
> I don't catch your point. You seem
> to be saying that LEGO has re-released a particular set because of
> eBay prices to make tons of money? Well, given the price they're
> selling the set for (compared to eBay), they are hardly even close.
> And if anything the eBay prices will drop because of the availability
> again of the set. In fact the price is so good I suspect many of
> the "builders" will be buying them just for the parts. Sure, it's
> not bulk bricks with infinite selection, but it seems pretty good
> to me.
> Again, I'm not really sure what you were taking issue with...
If a set sells on Ebay, LEGO(company) isn't making money from it. But if
it's being sold as a set, LEGO(company) can (and has) rerelease exactly the
same set for a lower price and hence get a slice of the market real cheap.
So suddenly all the people that want the set (as a set) and want the set
(for the parts) have a source, earning LEGO(company) a quick buck.
Reading it over I'm not sure what different people will get out of my post.
Mostly I was trying to elucidate the claim that there is more to playing
with LEGO(products) than merely collecting, and the spirit in which some
people go about "collecting" (as used in the perjoritve sense) is in some
ways anti-LEGO(spirit)i.e. creating ones own models, telling stories and
playing, all hard to do with a MISB box. Thus the claim "We're all
collectors" does not hold up except in a general sense that does not conform
to common usage of the term.
The other point floating around is that I was a little dissatisfied with the
"July Surprise" and was very disappointed to note people being chewed out
for not toeing the party line and having ecstatics over it. To me the
rerelease smacks of short term profiteering that has nothing to do with a
long term goal of making LEGO a better brand. If it was about builders, the
parts would have shown up in the Bulk Selection (mmm tutor walls in decent
sized quantities), it's not, it's about the set itself, it's value to the US
market and the collectors and completists out there.
In the big picture though, I have no brilliant ideas for LEGO(brand) nor
(and this was part of the point of the last paragraph) any spending
leverage. As a builder I buy more LEGO(bricks) rarely and always at a less
than retail or second-hand. Both these methods reduce the profit LEGO makes
from me. I can hardly expect LEGO(company) to listen real hard to me if I'm
not part of thier bottom line, can I?
James (who probably hasn't clarified much...)
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