What was it and what was your motivation?

I have yet to see a Lego set costing over $100 where the temptation was too great to resist.

After emerging from my Dark Ages, the Lord of the Rings sets came out.  In order to collect the whole wave, you needed to get "Battle of Helm's Deep", which had a MRSP of 129.99.  To this day, it is probably the best "castle" or fortress setup I have seen in recent years.  It is a very fun build to watch it come together.  

For me it will going to be the upcoming Arkham Asylum set of the Lego Batman movie.
I think it really looks awesome and really many cool minifigures with it.
 

I received Black Seas Barracuda as a kid, which looking at Brickset the MSRP is over $100. So clearly a Christmas present when I was 6-ish. Motivation = want?
 haha

 

As far as a set greater than $100 that I, myself, have purchased, was likely Helm's Deep. But it was on a sale at B&N, so I got it for barely $100, so that was nice. Since then, I have purchased way too many to count that were that high. Grr! LEGO has a lot of my money!

My first with a sticker price over $100? That'd be either the 9719 Robotics Invention System or 9735 Robotics Discovery Set. My dad definitely had multiple $100+ Technic and Trains sets before that, but they weren't really a part of my collection and I generally wasn't allowed to play with them, at least not without his supervision.

However, the first set I got that equates to over $100 in today's money was probably 6082 Fire Breathing Fortress, which cost $64 1993 dollars (the equivalent of $109 2016 dollars). Other sets from my early days as a LEGO fan that cost what would today be more than $100 include 6195 Neptune Discovery Lab and 6339 Shuttle Launch Pad, but I think I got 6082 before those ones.

Edited December 16, 20168 yr by Aanchir

The first set I got costing $100 was set 7190-1 Millennium Falcon as a Christmas gift from my parents. To date it is still the only Millennium Falcon set I own, and although I have thought of buying one of the new ones to replace it in display, I still have a nostalgic love for that old set.

Hello
The first set for which I have paid more than 100 dollars (99.95 Euro are currently about 104 dollars) is the 41101 Heartlake Grand Hotel.
But it will not be my personal first set for more than 100 dollars, but a Christmas present for my daughter.
Hopefully there are also nice and useful parts in it that "someone" can use when the dark ages of my daughter come in some years.
You can also think of a little bit selfishly about yourself in the future, right? - It is deeply human and not a shame.
If the Dark Ages do not stay with my daughter - the better.
But female Lego fans in the age between maybe 16 and 29 will probably  also not happen too often in the future

For myself, I have not cracked the 100 dollar limit - but I am only since the end of October 2016 out of my dark ages and a AFOL , so ... ;-)

 

Lapidem


Translated into English by the Google translator - hopefully understandable for the native speaker

Edited December 16, 20168 yr by Lapidem

4483 AT-AT for my birthday when I was around 10? 

I fondly remeber my dad coming back from shopping with an almost trans clear toys r us bag with the monster in it: it did spoil the surprise but I was very happy nontheless. 

When I got back from the dark age I think it was the 2014 Star Destroyer, it was gonna be retired soon and no way in hell I was going to skip this dude.

They are now displayed next to each other in one of my curios :) 

Parisian Restaurant. I really wanted a nice modular. Found out I'm not the biggest fan of modulars, which is probably for the best.

The only other >$100 set I have is Ragana's Magic Shadow Castle.

The Pet Shop modular.  It hooked me!  I now have all the modulars.  Assembly Square will probably be the most I ever spend on a set.  But that Disney Castle is awful tempting...

Since the Dark Ages? The Modular Fire Brigade was my first big ticket item. I had just skirted the $100 threshold by getting Helms Deep and the 2011 Millenium Falcon at discount. Fire Brigade was the first for me to dive in big time. 

21005 Fallingwater was the set that brought me out of my dark ages, but I got a discount on it through the Wright Foundation so it came to less than $100. So I think 21010 Robie House would have been the first time I actually paid over $100. Neither one was much of a hard sell - they're Frank Lloyd Wright LEGO sets! Of course I'm going to get them! - so it was just a matter of taking the time to save up for them.

I think set 8078 Portal of Atlantis was the first set over $100 for me. I remember spending the whole day building it, and it is still one of my favorite sets.

Mine was the iconic 7897 Passenger Train I got when I was eleven or so. I was new to lego at the time, and the set was a surprise gift from my grandpa, so no motivation. (It did however motivate me to get more train sets)  It took about a day and a half to build, but that set is what really made me interested in lego. 

On 12/16/2016 at 8:47 AM, TheLegoDr said:

Since then, I have purchased way too many to count that were that high. Grr! LEGO has a lot of my money!

You and me both.   It also doesn't help that I prefer old 90s sets to modern ones. Like that Imperial Trading Post I just picked up for $200. I think I have a problem. 

Edited December 19, 20168 yr by Snugboat

When I looked into Lego Dimensions, the starter packs were like $89. I'm glad I waited to see if Black Friday sales prices would come back and got mine for $29. I ended up spending $54 on mini figure Fun Packs... so far.

70751 Temple of Airjitzu

The minifigures and the enjoyable build is just too hard to resist. After this I had bought other sets above 100 USD.

Pre dark-ages: it turns out I had none. Even the largest set I had - 5590-1: Whirl and Wheel Super Truck - cost just $80 at that time.

Post dark-age: first set that got me out DA - 8297 Off-Roader.

10246 Detective's Office the day it came out - built over two nights when the kids were in bed, within two months I had bought Pet Shop, Palace Cinema and Parisian Restaurant - damn you TLG!!!  I now spend far less on sets and more on BL but I do still get sets I really like, but rarely ones with that big a price tag as they are bigger and space is a premium.

First over $100 set was also the first set I bought myself.  It was 7710 Push Train.  It was the least expensive train set at the time I could find.  I had to walk to several stores downtown to hunt for the best price on sale.  No Internet back then. 

 

7676 - Republic Attack Gunship when I was like 14 years old. I remember the set having Clone Commander Cody was the biggest motivation to negotiate for it for my birthday. The overall set and the building experience way exceeded my expectations. Despite it's flaws still one of my favorite sets today.

My recent emerge from my Shadow Age is also thanks to a 100$+ set: 41180 - Ragana's Magic Shadow Castle. Yeah I became overly obsessed with medieval fantasy, and when I checked what kind of fantasy stuff is available I couldn't say no to a dark castle despite it having no minifigures whatsoever.

8 hours ago, Esvald Forceswoop said:

7676 - Republic Attack Gunship when I was like 14 years old. I remember the set having Clone Commander Cody was the biggest motivation to negotiate for it for my birthday. The overall set and the building experience way exceeded my expectations. Despite it's flaws still one of my favorite sets today.

I feel like such a derp. I read your description of the Gunship and thought "How old is he now? No way he's an adult by now." Then I realized I would have been 14 around that same age! Oops...  

Technically, it would be 70816 Benny's Spaceship, Spaceship, SPACESHIP! but I bought that on sale so it didn't cost me $100.

My first set that actually cost more than $100 was 70810 Metalbeard's Sea Cow. Benny's spaceship was fun but this was the set I needed to own. I wasn't expecting the build to be so massive in size and weight. To this day, it is still my favorite set.

Easy: 10197 Fire Brigade. First set I bought as an adult. Actually, I bought two at once, for a total of 270€. Nowadays, you'd be hard pressed to get just one of them for that price

Don't think any set I got as a kid had a MSRP of over 100€. Even 100DM would be farfetched. The biggest ones I got new were the first Octan Gas Station and a larger Technic set.

In recent memory, 10182 Cafe Corner. My reason, it was a great looking building. 

My usual motivation for buying sets of that price is minifigs-but I also need to really like the set- or be a building I can use for my town. 

Well I never spent over $100 on a set. But these two came close 10144 Sandcrawler & 10193 Medical Market Village. I believe it was some sort of sale from "Shop at Home". And I figured I was never going to find in a brick and mortar store. 

Plus, I have some honorable mentions that I got on some sort of discount: 7676 Republic Attack Gunship, 10176 King's Castle, 75054 AT-AT & 7094 King's Castle Sige.