Today's post is provided by Lynn from the eBay Facebook Group.
Lego is a great item to sell on eBay. It’s one of the most popular toys and it’s been around for a long time so there are a lot of Lego bricks out there. Lego is expensive to buy new and there are many enthusiastic Lego collectors.
Always buy Lego when you see it at garage sales, rummage sales and thrift stores. Buy complete sets, opened boxes, mixed lots and Bionicles. Especially buy Lego Technics (the robotics components) because these are very expensive and sought after by enthusiasts. If you’re at garage sales and you spot teenage children around, ask them if they have any Lego they want to sell. A few times this has resulted in a teenage boy going into their house and returning with a large tote of legos. Also, check on Craiglist regularly to see if any Lego is posted for sale.
If you buy a Lego set and want to check if it’s complete, a great site is www.peeron.com. If you enter the item number, it will give the year of manufacture, a complete inventory of all the pieces in the set and sometimes assembly instructions which can be downloaded. If there are just a couple of pieces missing, you might want to think about replacing them. Used Lego sets generally sell for 70% - 90% of the original retail price (although some vintage sets can sell for 200% and up). The electrified train sets, pirates, castle, and Star Wars are especially sought after. If it’s a large set and you don’t want to spend the time doing an inventory, you can just stockpile the pieces to sell later.
Which brings me on to selling mixed bulk lots of Lego. Generally, I like to sell items that don’t require a lot of effort to list and re-sell, but large Lego lots are an exception. If you take the time and effort to pre-sort the lot, your return on investment is going to be many times more than it would have been otherwise. Here are the steps for listing a large lot of Lego:
1) Remove anything that isn’t Lego from the box.This can be easy if we’re talking about a few stray Lincoln logs and Playmobil people. It’s a lot trickier if the previous owner mixed their Mega Blocks in with the Lego. Just remember that almost all Lego pieces are marked “Lego” on them somewhere. If you do this, you can put “100% Lego” in your title. Other good key words are “bulk “ or “large lot”
2) Separate all the minifigure people, assemble them and photograph them separately. Identify the number and kind of minifig (Stars, Knight, Harry Potter etc.) in your eBay title as this helps buyers identify the kinds of blocks which are likely to be in the lot. A good eBay title might be “30+ lbs 100% LEGO Bulk Vintage Lot Star Wars 50 minifigs”. Note that not all of the minifigs would have to be Star Wars in this lot, just some of them.
3) For bulk lots, start the bidding at $9.99. This will guarantee that you get plenty of bidders. You can expect to get around $6 per pound plus $1 for each minifigure, although some minifigures are worth more ($2-$3 for Western, Space and Pirate, and $4 and up for Star Wars). A 30 lbs lot of Lego with 50 minifigures will sell for at least $230. I’ve sold bulk Lego lots for over $450.
Good luck, and keep looking for that hollow gold!
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