Would you sell a MOC?

[Paul B Technic]

Has anybody ever considered selling a LEGO MOC? Would you even do this and if so how would you price it? Would you base the price on the cost of the pieces?

I am really keen to hear from anybody who has done this or would consider it in the future.

[tchuk-norst]

Yes. I would base it on the amount of pieces, yes, but more likely I'd price it based on my attachment to it. Some MOCs I make really quickly and like enough to keep them up for a couple of months. But, if it is something I slaved over for the course of weeks or months, something I had to order pieces from BrickLink or another site to complete, something I put a bit of my soul into, then the price would increase.

[Kristel]

I was asked about and considered this once, and was going down the route of valuing the parts based on BrickLink 6 month averages. I never did figure out how much the total was because I realised that I couldn't let it go. The original building had too much sentimental value.

[eurotrash]

The original building had too much sentimental value.

I agree, but I would recreate it, at BL-cost plus labour costs and postage, if asked. But with my standard of MOCing that is an irrelevant question.

Edited July 5, 2013 by eurotrash

[Kristel]

I agree, but I would recreate it, at BL-cost plus labour costs and postage, if asked. But with my standard of MOCing that is an irrelevant question.

True, a copy of the original would not have the same sentimental value. The process from taking an order to delivering a product would be measured in months considering the time overseas shipments can take. I don't know how many buyers would be that patient.

[Paul B Technic]

Thanks for the replies. I have put these on eBay and I will see what sort of bids I get. Asking $350 for them each.

[ISDAvenger]

I would sell my ISD if offered the right price for it. Granted it would hard to part with considering all the labor that went into building her.

[Redhead1982]

Interesting topic. I was told I should put my lighthouse for sale, however, I'm not sure anyone would buy it. And even then, the shipping would be risky, as I'm not sure how stable the round structure is for long distance shipping. And as I'd want to keep the island, just letting go of the lighthouse, is not really a complete MOC. On the other hand, putting a price to it, is even trickier - to price the parts according to BL, is managable and but your own work, that's where I don't know how to make a price. All in all, I'm still keeping it for myself, and I'm just more likely to take it apart then really sell it.

[Balrog]

If I had built something really really cool and someone comes and offers the right price for it, I would probably sell it. Or rebuild it at BL prices.

[Kivi]

If I'd ever do it, it would only be a replica of moc, and it would be quoted at BL parts prices plus time and labour and all other costs, as the others have already said. But considering the size of most of my mocs, it probably won't ever happen.

[Sebeus I]

Initially my answer would be Never, for no money in the world.

However, what if someone would actually offer me a crazy amount of money for my MOC?

I really hope that never happens, I wouldn't know what to do...

Parts and time put in a moc have a price but does sentimental value has a price too? I tend to grow fond of my mocs over time.

[TheLegoDr]

That is a tricky question. I think of course cost of bricks based on the average is the smart thing to do. To value your time, put a number to it. Most people get paid an hourly wage, or at least can calculate an hourly wage. If you're satisfied with that, estimate how long it actually took you to build your MOC and then add in that as labor. Yes, it will be much higher than just pieces alone, but that's the point of MOCing -- to just immerse yourself into something that you want to create or re-create.

The main problem is if someone wanted to buy my MOC and I didn't want to get rid of it, but the price was well above what it cost me. You could certainly sell it and then rebuilt it OR rebuild it and then send that to them as the finished product. I think it would all depend on timing. If they want it immediately, you would probably have to sell our MOC and then recreate it with the same pieces later. Others may be willing to wait as you piece it together. If they do wait, you'd need to have to source all of the pieces yourself before getting paid (more than likely) and then they could back out of the deal, unless they were under the agreement that they pay you first, you rebuild it, and send that to them. There would be a lot of trust involved too.

Best of luck with your MOCs.

[Paul B Technic]

Has anybody ever considered selling a MOC? If so how would you price it? The cost of the parts plus a percentage because of the time you have invested in to it?

The MOC I am thinking of selling I have not even built yet so this is the reason for my question, if the buyer would expect instructions then I would prefer to do these as I built it rather than having to create these afterwards.

Any advice on this would be appreciated.

Paul

[Pizzareno]

I built this towtruck http://www.flickr.com/photos/42922809@N03/8710040530/ and my father-in-law really liked it (because this was based off one of his trucks I guess :)) so I built him one. Then one of the AA boss guys saw it and wanted one too, so I will order the parts and build another for him. I never actually set out to build and sell them but it just has worked that way. As far as pricing is concerned I will charge for parts then add about 30%. I really don't know if that is enough but this was my first experience with this and I really have no idea what people charge for commissioned projects so I would also be interested to know.

[Fugazi]

There was a recent discussion on selling MOCs here, you can also have a look.

[Xyver]

I've never sold a MOC, and I doubt I ever will, but from a purely business side, you would want to charge for the bricks, plus a percentage to make bricks profitable.

Then you would have to work out the time you spent designing/making the MOC, assign a $value to your time, and charge that as well. So, if you are selling a one-off MOC, the sale price would be: bricks+margin+time.

If you are selling instructions only, this would be just time. If you were going to sell multiple copies of the instructions, then obviously this would be reduced by how many you think you will sell. So if you were going to sell 10 instructions, then the price might be time/8 (to build a profit margin into it)

[Paul B Technic]

Thanks for the feedback. I have just listed one of my MOD sets on eBay to see what sort of response it gets.

[Herky]

As a collector, there are many MOC's that folks have built and shown on this site I would love to purchase, but...I would consider these close to just any other Lego purchase plus a bit more...for ex, if it is a modular building, I can see adding some cost to it due to the exclusivity of it, but I wouldn't want to go crazy...for a modular somewhat similar to say Pet Shop which cost $150, I would expect the pieces plus instructions and not expect it to be shipped all put together since a lot of the fun is building it. So similar to a retail experience.

Due to the one of a kind building though, I can see asking for an additional $50-$100 for it based on complexity and piece availability. I would also be happy if it was just a copy of the original, i.e. 2nd edition, as I know the original would be sentimental.

I am not sure of the average cost to purchase bricks and put these together though, I would hope that they were similar to the price we pay for the current sets out there, but I am not one to build MOC's so I really don't know. I do know there are some amazing creations out there that I would love to own a copy of though.

[rubberninja]

It costs between $300-$600 on average to buy the amount of pieces needed to recreate most modular building mocs. In some cases it can be much more. The way LEGO is able to price and distribute bricks isnt the same as how a secondary market will behave and you would never be able to build the mocs you speak of for around $150. Not to mention all the time it will take you to find and catalog the bricks.

[TheLegoDr]

Looking at that earlier post, I commented on that too. It does make one wonder what it would cost.

I've been adding sets/pieces to my bricklink store to see real-time value of pieces and figures that I own and most sets cost about double in the aftermarket than buying them brand new, that is if you source every piece from the after market without adding in shipping. Some of that value is the minifigure of course, but straight bricks do add up quicker than expected.

[Herky]

That's what I wondered, I really didn't know how much it cost to build a MOC, while great looking items, that cost is prohibitive to really selling IMO unless it was so cool that one couldn't pass it up, and that would likely be rare. Spending $500-600 on a MOC, I would rather go back and get the cafe corner, green grocer or market street that sell in that price range.