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richard marchetti wrote:
> In lugnet.market.buy-sell-trade, Gary Istok writes:
> > A few weeks ago I did receive an email from these people questioning how I
> > personally felt about a LEGO Price List. I told them that I didn't object to
> > it, as long as it had a price range, and not a set figure.
>
> I think I received this email, and deleted it as unsolicited email.
>
> I agree with Istok's essential proviso but hasten to add that in addition to a
> price range a truly robust pricing scheme would include a method of grading a
> set for completeness and condition. Lack thereof leaves you with something
> still intrinsically useless and no more helpful than MSRP.
>
> I have two intimate experiences in collecting items that have existing
> priceguides to aid the collector -- I have collected comic books, and helped
> my ex to collect Fireking Jadeite (her favorite color). The Overstreet Comic
> Book Price Guide was usually fairly accurate, but I remember Wizard's prices
> being vastly overpriced. So to with a Jadeite book I have seen -- the prices
> were scandalously high, and simply NOT what I had seen things going for in
> real world cicumstances including eBay (which I consider generally quite high).
>
> So, it's all well and good to have a guide -- but one lacking certain
> essentials is not worth very much. And with Lego, unlike some other items, I
> would contend that dating bricks or even attributing them to a particular set
> is a near impossibility.
>
> The best Lego price guide in some ways was eBay itself, where one could check
> previous auctions even to several months back. There was range of prices and
> often item descriptions gave some sense of the completeness and condition of
> the set. I have noticed that eBay doesn't go very far back in time at all
> with this service any longer -- I can only assume that they perceived existing
> auction results as limiting the price potential of auctions currently underway.
>
> -- Richard (writing in a hurry)
Richard, I did mention set condition, but not completeness (which is also very
important).
I have seen two recent sets go for wildly differing prices. One was a USA 725
(Town Plan from 1963) that went for $207 in very good condition to as little as $35
in incomplete condition with a box in bad condition. The other was 325 (Shell
Station from 1966-70) which went for $227.50 in great condition with box and
instructions, to a low of $25 for one with no box, no catalog, and one of the
(unique to this set) very important Garage Doors missing (I bought that one!).
Also, boxes and instructions are less important to modern sets (with all those
specialty pieces), than they are to say 50's and 60's sets - where no box means
only white and red basic bricks with a few classic windows/doors (no box means 90%
of the value is probably gone from old sets).
Gary Istok
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