BrickUpdate

@clcwong In my experience, LEGO Store employees mean well, but they are not informed of many product decisions in advance. They hear rumors just as we do, and make their own educated assumptions. Most times: they don't know about things until they happen publicly and officially.

Do we have a price for this set yet? I've read through this thread, but don't remember seeing that. I'm in the US, but any price would help gauge things. Thanks!

@Badsneaker do you have a link to the picks of Jamie's original design. I remember seeing them a long time ago, but can't find them. Thanks!

Wow - I am simply amazed at these! Great new parts, very clever ideas. Great work LEGO!

My family has been deeply involved in collector markets since the 1970s. For something like this, I can only envision one scenario: prices in general going down, because demand is going down. When LEGO releases new Batman sets, that wipes out big segments of the market who would have bought the older sets at higher prices. It also reduces the perceived level of scarcity of anything that says "Batman" and "LEGO" on it. Of course, there are always the small segment of the aftermarket who are purists, collectors who want every variation. But that is a small portion of the aftermarket, which is already a small portion of the overall LEGO market. The Batman sets are one of the few LEGO themes where prices went up 300% or more in the aftermarket. This is rare, even though we like to think any "retired" set is really valuable. Most aren't, you can find entire retired lines at or less than original retail on the aftermarket. The exceptions are Batman, some trains, UCS Millennium Falcon, modulars, and many others. But again - just a segment. Think about this: if the pride and joy of your LEGO display is a retired Batman set, then you walk into any TRU, or go on Amazon, and there are TONS of similar sets, consider how that effects perceived value. If they re-issued the UCS Millennium Falcon with 10% new parts, do you think people would pay $1000-$1800 for the now-retired version? How many people would? It's like any bubble, when perceived value goes down, the bottom drops out.

Nice - very excited by this. Wondering if LEGO is realizing the market for printed bricks, as they have for the value of minifigs. They could do all kinds of releases just for printed bricks. Will probably be picking up multiples of this. I'm surprised the price is so low. I would have imagined $29.99 - something similar to the Minifig clocks. Thanks!

@Locutis I totally agree - you could buy 10 of these sets and have a row of brownstones, and then use the pet shop pieces to create a larger apartment building with shops on the ground floor. Though, come to think of it, how many sand blue apartment buildings have I seen in my life?

Wow - it looks great. I can see buying multiple sets of Pet Shop to put more brownstone buildings on a longer blog, and change out the pet store to a different type of ship. Barber shop maybe? Toy store? Lots of ideas.

This is very helpful - I have been thinking about this topic. Is there an on/off switch here though? Or do you pull the batteries to turn them off? Is there a way to string together multiple lights to one power supply (battery box)? Thanks!

Really like this set! Also - very impressed that LEGO kept photos from leaking.

I picked up the Tantive, really just to get the ARF. It's not a set I am especially excited about, at least, not with the discount they offered. Regardless - another day, another LEGO purchase!

I haven't seen anyone mention this yet - but how much do you think the ARF trooper will be trading for on the aftermarket once this sale is over? Given what we know of the sale right now, i will probably buy the Tantive and be done with it. I am not really dying for it - I really don't like those huge clunky pieces in the front, but otherwise it's a nice ship. Thanks everyone!

From a collector standpoint - there are 3-4 figs in there that trade for about $10 each on BrickLink, so that makes the set worth the price they put on it. From a kid standpoint, these builds look like fun! Perfect? nope. But not bad either. That said, I agree with some of the other comments - Santa Yoda seems really odd to me, like that 1970's Star Wars Christmas special that LUCAS notoriously hates.

Great see this MOC come together - channeling the image of the Pet Shop from memory. Maybe you have a career ahead of you as LEGO psychic - building sets that have yet to be released.

Shadow ARF trooper - better in my opinion than a chrome ARF. More usable in MOC's. Have they given away figures like this in the past? Wondering how much preparation I need to take - will they sell out in a few hours, or will it be okay if I visit the store in the evening? Thanks for all the info everyone!