[Pre-orders Closed] Final day for BrickLink Designer Program Series 3

@kinggregus said:
"I don’t understand the pricing of Lost City compared to Forest Stronghold. It seems like Forest Stronghold offers much more value for just $10 more."

I agree, based upon the apparent size of the two sets, but looking at the piece count, somehow the Lost City has more pieces (3,506 in Lost City vs 3,395 in Forest Stronghold). I am guessing that the Lost City just has a lot more small detail pieces than Forest Stronghold.

@followsclosely said:
"The lack of paper instructions is a big deal for me."

If you have access to a good printer the instructions do print off quite nicely. And if you can get your hands on a small A4 sized binder, you can make a very nice manual yourself.
I have done this with some of the BLDP sets in years past. It worked well, definitely worth considering ;-)
Although depending on the set it can be a chunky manual :-)

Chocolate and Harbormaster are NEARLY sold out.

I feel like Lost City would make a nice display piece but it was overpriced significantly. I could totally see that being the one set on display in someone's house.

I got a Forest Stronghold because I love my Forestmen and Black Falcons. I think it'll fit well with the vintage sets I have, along with some PAB'd minifigs for Dark Forest Fortress.

@StyleCounselor said:
" @LegoMike said:
" @followsclosely said:
"The lack of paper instructions is a big deal for me."

If you have access to a good printer the instructions do print off quite nicely. And if you can get your hands on a small A4 sized binder, you can make a very nice manual yourself.
I have done this with some of the BLDP sets in years past. It worked well, definitely worth considering ;-)
Although depending on the set it can be a chunky manual :-)"

That's an excellent suggestion. However, I'm currently feeling like a collector-hoarder of the official Lego instructions I already own.

The weight and bulk really adds up after awhile. "

Absolutely :-)
I have quite a few plastic boxes full in the attic. Even once they are in order they are hard to keep organised as new manuals come along. Omg it’s like a whole new thing.
And yes they weigh a ton. I wonder sometimes whether I’ll wake up wearing one……….or not as the case may be :-)

@CCC said:
"I think (high) interest in these is waning since the production numbers went up. These larger runs haven't been anywhere near as good investments as the much smaller runs they used to do which is probably affecting sales to resellers. LEGO seems to have got the thresholds about right now, so that those that want to get them have plenty of time to order them and at the same time made the maximum high enough so that it is difficult to make much on them if buying for an investment."

I definitely agree that anything related to classic LEGO castle sets probably goes faster because of the FOMO and possible investments, as these type of sets do tend to sell well on the aftermarket. Then again, some sets simply are just more popular than others. The two I bought happen to be the ones that sold out fast. Had these not been great looking sets, I wouldn't have pre-ordered them.

910039 The Art of Chocolate and 910040 Harbourmaster's Office are really cool as well, but they're definitely more specific in theme, and I feel there wasn't as much hype about them. Although, with them also close to selling out, we can agree these did really well too.

As for 910042 Lost City... Even after seeing a couple of reviews it simply didn't interest me. It just doesn't feel as complete for some reason and the color scheme isn't helping much either. For that price point a set really needs to have a wow factor, and this set fails to wow me -- as well as others.

@JDawg5 said:
" @followsclosely said:
"The lack of paper instructions is a big deal for me."

I thought that I would agree with you, but I actually just built the Mushroom House from Series 2 last night. Using the online instructions on my iPad was ... fine. Honestly, I didn't hate it nearly as much as I thought I would. And I thought the brick colors were actually better than paper. I often struggle to tell the difference between dark colors, like black, dark gray, dark tan and so forth. On paper, they're all just muddied together. But on the iPad, the colors were clear and sharp. So, I dunno. I'm not a convert to online instructions by any means, but it was a better user experience than I had expected.

As an aside, the Mushroom House is an amazing set, but it is quite fragile in places, and the instructions probably needed another round of edits. "

I have the same thoughts after building the mushroom house. I put the pdf instruction on my laptop in full screen and I must say this was not a worse experience than with paper instructions. I don't want lego to stop printing instructions, but the ability to zoom in is quite handy as my age progresses. And I concur, the mushroom house is an absolutely delightful construction!

@JDawg5 said:
"As an aside, the Mushroom House is an amazing set, but it is quite fragile in places, and the instructions probably needed another round of edits. "

I built the Snack Shack as my first BLDP set and was really pleasantly surprised by how solid and similar to official Lego the building experience was. I'll be curious to build the Mushroom House to see how it compares.

Definitely agree with others that these aren't FOMO investments any more, with the exception of the castle ones.

UK eBay has plenty of sets from previous rounds, sealed in box, for close to retail price or a little below. Maybe that will change over time, but it's not like the Castle in the Forest or the Venetian Houses or those other early sets that got scalped.

@followsclosely said:
"The lack of paper instructions is a big deal for me."

100% agree. I bought The Art of Chocolate for our holiday display but still wish there was paper.

The Lost City isn't bad, but as someone said, it looks incomplete and only has 2 minifigures. however, it would be great for a "Tomb Raider" themed set.

I loved the Lost City set - probably because it reminds me so much of places in all the adventure games I've played over many years. There's something about it which reeks of mystery and makes you want to explore. But that's just IMHO.

@CCC said:
"I think (high) interest in these is waning since the production numbers went up. These larger runs haven't been anywhere near as good investments as the much smaller runs they used to do which is probably affecting sales to resellers. LEGO seems to have got the thresholds about right now, so that those that want to get them have plenty of time to order them and at the same time made the maximum high enough so that it is difficult to make much on them if buying for an investment. For the general LEGO buyer, there are plenty of large sets direct from LEGO that are probably more interesting and better value than buying a BDP set at an inflated price, which cuts down on speculating on these. I imagine more of these are going into the consumers hands rather than resellers. And it shows with the Lost City, there isn't likely to be much demand for that one in future given how few people want it now. And there isn't even anything financially worthwhile in these to part out, as the PPP is also quite high if you were just going to part out to sell or use for MOCs.

It is good that they go to the people that want them even if this means numbers selling will be down. I imagine the other two will sell out - to speculators - as there is likely to be some demand for them in future, but I doubt profits will be very good for anyone doing that. There are better investments when the buy-in price is discounted below RRP."

I agree. The increase to 30,000 seems to have been the right call and most of these sets have had a reasonable amount of availability. I would love if the investors lost "some" interest in these as that would give us more opportunity for the more popular ones. I was busy on Day 1 and unfortunately missed out on the Forest Stronghold, one I almost assuredly would have bought. Additionally, investors would likely find more profitability more often on regular sets.

Recommendation for All: If you are on the fence for any of these BLDP Series 3 sets, go ahead and purchase it now. You can always cancel your order over the next 6 months but you can't order after today. I wish I had given myself more time with the Pirate Island in Series 2.

...and it's all over now.

@CCC said:
". . . the Lost City, there isn't likely to be much demand for that one in future given how few people want it now. "

Devils advocate perhaps, but it could end up being the opposite. With much fewer of them being made, there's likely to be a significantly fewer available on the aftermarket down the road.

Obviously, it won't increase in price quickly, its not going to be listed on ebay for 2x RRP three months before its even in the seller's hands the way the Forest Stronghold will be [if its not already :/ ], but there might be value in it 5 to 10 years down the road based on scarcity alone. There only figures to be about 1/4 as many Lost City sets produced as Forest Strongholds.

While the Forest Stronghold was my favourite of the series. the one I was closest to getting was actually the Lost City. The deciding factor against it for me was that it was largely grey, I'm pretty well stocked with grey bricks, and all the parts will be on PaB for the next year or so, so I can likely grab anything I don't have down the road when the parts list is finally available.

Also, there's one or two coming in the next waves that are must haves for me.

@CapnRex101 said:
"Does anybody know whether those two sold out in the final few minutes? I checked with about half an hour to go and quite a few were left, but perhaps there was a late rush."

For what it's worth, all 3 were available up to 4 minutes shy of the deadline.

@279 said:
" @CCC said:
". . . the Lost City, there isn't likely to be much demand for that one in future given how few people want it now. "

Devils advocate perhaps, but it could end up being the opposite. With much fewer of them being made, there's likely to be a significantly fewer available on the aftermarket down the road.

Obviously, it won't increase in price quickly, its not going to be listed on ebay for 2x RRP three months before its even in the seller's hands the way the Forest Stronghold will be [if its not already :/ ], but there might be value in it 5 to 10 years down the road based on scarcity alone. There only figures to be about 1/4 as many Lost City sets produced as Forest Strongholds.

While the Forest Stronghold was my favourite of the series. the one I was closest to getting was actually the Lost City. The deciding factor against it for me was that it was largely grey, I'm pretty well stocked with grey bricks, and all the parts will be on PaB for the next year or so, so I can likely grab anything I don't have down the road when the parts list is finally available.

Also, there's one or two coming in the next waves that are must haves for me."

I'm not sure there are going to be loads of collectors of the entire BDP theme. Secondary market prices for the early sets will kill that. Without people feeling the need for them all, there is no collectability demand for it, just demand from people that want it as a set. And if demand as a single set at RRP is low now then demand in future will be low.

The castle set appeals to me because most of the pieces there are ones I want to build my own MOC. I have made 2 3000-4000 pieces castle and the pieces in this set is closely in line with what a normal castle set would need. The price is actually decent given to get similar pieces from the secondary market would cost more. It helps that the set is well thought out and good looking too with mini figures that also would cost quite a bit on the secondary market.

It will be interesting to see what gets chosen from round 6, and whether the choices feature more mid-range priced models. I suspect the high piece counts & high prices put a few people off, even if the model is visually pleasing.
I like the Lost City & look forward to receiving my copy.

Previous rounds sold out far quicker as large expensive set were a novelty for either personal satisfaction or large potential for resale, but now that there are so many official large sets and 3 more rounds of BL coming up buyers can just wait for what they really want, or just build there own super moc castles now that there is ample supply.

Of the 8,000 copies of Lost City, about 7,000 of them sold in the first two days. It's interesting how purchasing dropped off so quickly.

@legojohn69 said:
"Unfortunately The Lost City has not performed very well with only 25% of max production ordered. It would be interesting to know how many votes these sets received during the earlier round of the scheme, are the sets with the most votes picked or is the voting just a way to gauge interest?"

The fact that this nice looking Castle didn't sell should show LEGO that we want CASTLE sets ... not Castles. We want the minifigs, we want the theme, we want the feel and the story ... not jsut a random hunk of gray plastic with 2 explorer minifgs. No shade on the designer, the castle itself was well made (I loved it - however I didn't buy it exactly because it had no place in what I want from lego - a fantasy world that is connected to both the current sets and to the great sets from the 80s and 90s ... I did consider to get it ... and was thinking how much I have to modify it to make something out of it, then realized I can do that with the other options that have at least the theme and story I am looking for in a lego set).