MAB

They've already shown an image on it on the official website, just not done the press release type announcement. I'm not sure what purpose those announcements serve any more. Everyone that knows it is coming, knows it is coming. LEGO might as well just do the press release on the day of release, so if people see it they can buy it.

I remember comments of the time saying that the set was too expensive, too big to display, too black for dust, not enough minifigures and that there was only one exclusive figure. It also didn't help that they sold Saruman's skirt piece and the Zamor sphere palantir on the bricks and pieces service ( both under $1 each at the time!). Of course, there was also positive discussion from those that bought it.

The original sets were of a different time. Sometimes popular sets sold fast and that was it, they had their production run(s) and that was that. Especially for the one year themes/sets, they didn't necessarily make more production runs due to demand to keep a popular set on shelves. If anything, stores were proactive in clearing all stock near the shelf end date. Anything popular wasn't discounted but wasn't replenished near retirement date whereas poor sellers often got discounted heavily by supermarkets. Whereas LEGO tended not to heavily discount like supermarkets and sometimes stock hung around, and that would be what brickset records. Orthanc was D2C. It stuck around a long time as it was not a regular retail set. Retailers want new inventory on their shelves, not sets that have been out for years. Whereas for D2C sets, LEGO could keep them in stock, selling slowly over a long time period. I'd imagine Orthanc was the worst selling LOTR set. For its time, it was very expensive and Saruman had been done in a very cheap set. There weren't huge numbers of adult LEGO LOTR fans back then either so far fewer people willing to pay high prices for sets compared to now.

They are no longer cheap, but Saruman's torso and skirt piece (or plain white legs for a cheaper option) with standard elf hair and head make a reasonable Celebor.

They also gave Sylvester and Tweety Pie a baseball bat and giant hammer to beat each other with.

Remember that these have to appeal to the general public too, not just fans of the franchise, to sell in high numbers. I had heard of about a dozen of the original DC series. And I bought a few of them like the throwback Batman and Wonder Woman, and Bat-Mite but only for his comic. For a second series, I doubt I would have heard of many of them if your list is anything to go by.

I can see that it is useful if you already have a list of element IDs but some databases like Brickset get their information from LEGO direct anyway. I cannot really see the point of building a list of element IDs from Brickset and uploading them without knowing whether a part is for sale or not, when you might as well just enter the set number at PAB and get the same inventory and know whether the part is for sale or not. Bricklink is more understandable, if you have used studio to design a set and export parts lists.

Being a large set also helps with getting votes. How many people look at the detailed piece counts on the design page before voting, and how many just look at the gallery to vote where this information is missing? Maybe it would be better if there was some restriction into the total amount you could vote for weighted by part count, a bit like selecting a fantasy football team where players cost different mounts. But no doubt they want to keep it simple, with the flexibility that they choose the sets, as it seems to work in that whatever they pick they seem to sell well. For each round, five different sets could have been chosen and sales would probably be the same, the only difference is that different people would receive life changing amounts of money.

Or twelve cars, at least one of each team but two teams with two racers.

I agree. Once a family of parts has been introduced, a new sized member being added is a natural progression and not copying even if another company filled in a gap in that family before LEGO did.

Yes, but once your model hits a particular band in terms of size range, the bigger the set, the higher the return and presumably the chances of being selected are unchanged unless you change band.

They cut down on their short lived themes of the early 2010s because they put many of the same ideas into a small number of much larger evergreen in-house themes. Look at the size and breath of Ninjago, City and Friends compared to what they used to do.

Remember that designers get 5% of net sales and the larger a set, the higher the price. With a fixed allocation, significantly larger sets bring in significantly more reward than small ones. It then becomes a balance of being 'big' vs 'small' and getting chosen for the ones that make it to production. If you are going big, I imagine the probability of being selected is no different for a 3000 piece set and a 4000 piece set, yet the reward is 33% higher for the latter. So 4000 is a target. The closer you get,the bigger the reward.

Some of the brick built ones are fairly decent. The rock blister pack showed very effective but simple drums of different sizes and cymbals although the HP wands are a big improvement for drum sticks. They also showed a guitar which was not so good but not bad for a creator style build.

Ebay, or Facebook or similar local marketplaces. However, "valuable" lego doesn't sell quickly at higher end prices. If you want a quick sale, you'll have to be under the low end of sold prices, and significantly lower for local pickup, even more so if you have no history of selling.

Yeah, for UK the Nazgul torso is now £1.50 instead of £1.03, but still OOS. I was stupid, I put 50 in my cart and was about to checkout but thought I'd just buy the 9 I wanted for me and fill up the cart to £50 with other parts I want, instead of over buying and selling on the excess torsos. As for bl vs pab prices, the high pab prices tend to stop high volume of parts making it to bl but don't always set the bl price. Sometimes a part will be expensive on pab, but if enough sellers have them as it is in a cheap to mid range set, it is still competition between sellers that set the price. If the part is only in an expensive set and expensive on pab too, bl prices are more likely to be similar to (or often even higher than) pab prices. In the case of the flask, it is potentially as they won't sell very well at $2.50. Remember the volume sellers make money on selling volume rather than highest price. If they are paying 50c a piece, selling at $2.50 will give them $2 profit per piece but it will be a slow seller at such a high price and others will get the piece and prices will drop over time. They are unlikely to sell 10000s at that price. Whereas $1 gives them 50c profit per piece and it will likely sell much faster and they can shift them quickly and move on to the next cheap part they can get.

I'm surprised they haven't done a bottle suit costume yet.Ideally green like a beer bottle, but probably more likely red for a ketchup bottle.

Now out of sock!

Nazgul torso has gone to out of stock already. I had 9 in my cart, but all got removed while I was picking other parts.

It depends on the timescale the MOC is displayed. Blu-tak can harden and can be difficult to get out of any holes once hardened and can also leave marks if left on for years.

You can buy small round magnets that just fit into antistuds under a tile/plate. Then put a magnet in the book and let magnetism do its job. Even if you cannot get it to stay by itself in an antistud, if you use rare earth magnets the attraction is strong enough to hold a couple of pieces together.

And the Mouth of Sauron didn't even make it into the theatrical version of ROTK so has zero screen time, yet has two minifigures.

Depending on the theme, sometimes you can pull the minifigs and get a large part of the complete set price just for them. If you know the sets, look the values up on bricklink. Then you can decide if it is worth sorting them or not before doing the work.

I bought aliexpress versions of the Iron Hill dwarves and Gondor soldiers, plus a Sauron and Witch King. I think I paid about 80c each. I bought them just for the armour and helmets. I'm not a fan of the minifigure prints so don't use heads, torsos or legs, but if you are painting the accessories they are still cheap enough.

If you know the set numbers, then bricklink, rebrickable, brickset, etc have those numbers. Or weigh them and quote the weight.