Retiring Soon - open speculation

[Forsaker]

What are summer retirements? 

Sets Lego retires in the summer...isn't there a window for retiring sets in summer and another near Xmas?

[biking_tiger]

Not much for the last couple of years. The big drop off happens after the first of the year... usually "sold out" for a while before the official retirement tag hits a month (or more) later.

And then we have stuff like last week's TRU sale that just linger and linger even though they are officially "retired."  

[Val-E]

The summer retirements were announced on EU Shop in February and include; Angry Birds, 2016 1st wave Ninjago and second wave Nexo. Expect a few more random SW and Super Heroes sets, such as DSSS plus some City.

The list should change in the next few week and so may the discounts - currently only 10%.

Edited May 15, 2017 by Val-E

[Sfcommando14]

11 minutes ago, Val-E said:

The summer retirements were announced on EU Shop in February and include; Angry Birds, 2016 1st wave Ninjago and second wave Nexo. Expect a few more random SW and Super Heroes sets, such as DSSS plus some City.

The list should change in the next few week and so may the discounts - currently only 10%.

Also last year's Star Wars store exclusives in the US...Homing Spider Droid, Kanans Speeder, and the Frigate.

[Pseudoty]

28 minutes ago, Sfcommando14 said:

Also last year's Star Wars store exclusives in the US...Homing Spider Droid, Kanans Speeder, and the Frigate.

All lost their "Retiring Soon" tags as well as many other sets.  Retired should be next.

[Shneebs]

Any thoughts on Caterham retiring? Seeing heavy discounts in more than one Cdn store, and ditto (but to a lesser extent) for Yellow Submarine...

[Guest TabbyBoy]

5 hours ago, Shneebs said:

Any thoughts on Caterham retiring? Seeing heavy discounts in more than one Cdn store, and ditto (but to a lesser extent) for Yellow Submarine...

In the UK, Caterham and Beatle stuff has a strong following and could bring a lot of new AFOLs to the marketplace. We're bot seeing much being discounted in the UK apart from when Tesco have their 3-for-2 deals on. I'm keeping an eye on the "game" during 2017 and I'll see how it goes after that. As far as I know, they are not retiring as I've seen very recent seal codes.

[HandyHand]

8 hours ago, Shneebs said:

Any thoughts on Caterham retiring? Seeing heavy discounts in more than one Cdn store, and ditto (but to a lesser extent) for Yellow Submarine...

Both WALL-E and Doctor Who were introduced in Autumn 2015, and retired end of 2016 / early 2017. 

Both Caterham Seven and the Beatles Submarine were introduced in Autumn 2016. It's not unlikely that they will both retire by end of this year or early 2018. 

[Sfcommando14]

19 minutes ago, Haay said:

Both WALL-E and Doctor Who were introduced in Autumn 2015, and retired end of 2016 / early 2017. 

Both Caterham Seven and the Beatles Submarine were introduced in Autumn 2016. It's not unlikely that they will both retire by end of this year or early 2018. 

Someone did an Ideas lifespan chart late last year and it seemed as though most licensed Ideas sets lasted in the 18+ month range, while the non-licensed were about a year IIRC.  Anyone have time to dig that up, update it, and drop it here?

[HandyHand]

27 minutes ago, Sfcommando14 said:

Someone did an Ideas lifespan chart late last year and it seemed as though most licensed Ideas sets lasted in the 18+ month range, while the non-licensed were about a year IIRC.  Anyone have time to dig that up, update it, and drop it here?

I made a quick overview in Excel just now using data taken from Brickset:

I ignored the previous CUUSOO sets and only took the official Ideas sets.

As you can see 21301 (Birds), which retired at the year-end of 2015, set a trend of Ideas sets retiring by end of the year. With a massive retirement of 5 Ideas sets all retiring by end of 2016!

So I stick to my hunch that both Caterham Seven and Beatles Submarine could get retired by end of 2017 / early 2018.  

[Shneebs]

Ferris Wheel is now on Backorder with limit of 1 on Lego SAH (Canada & USA), also out of stock @ Amazon.ca... False scarcity to go along with Carousel release, or is it on the way out? Thoughts?....

[redghostx]

7 minutes ago, Shneebs said:

Ferris Wheel is now on Backorder with limit of 1 on Lego SAH (Canada & USA), also out of stock @ Amazon.ca... False scarcity to go along with Carousel release, or is it on the way out? Thoughts?....

I will be very surprised if it retires this year, but come back to me next year with the same question and you might get a very different answer.

[jimmajenga]

On 5/25/2017 at 1:22 PM, Shneebs said:

Ferris Wheel is now on Backorder with limit of 1 on Lego SAH (Canada & USA), also out of stock @ Amazon.ca... False scarcity to go along with Carousel release, or is it on the way out? Thoughts?....

It's been constantly dipping down in price to about $200-210 CAD... Said there was over 30 still in stock then bam, suddenly it's out of stock?? I noticed that suddenly happened to a number of sets I've been keeping an eye on, on amazon over the past few days. Not sure what to think...
I never pulled the trigger on it though... was hoping for atleast 20% :/

[Shneebs]

8 hours ago, jimmajenga said:

It's been constantly dipping down in price to about $200-210 CAD... Said there was over 30 still in stock then bam, suddenly it's out of stock?? I noticed that suddenly happened to a number of sets I've been keeping an eye on, on amazon over the past few days. Not sure what to think...
I never pulled the trigger on it though... was hoping for atleast 20% :/

Agreed - it was at just a shade over $200 on amazon and I almost pulled the trigger.... now gone.... the back order and limit of just 1 on the Lego shop is odd too - have never seen anything with a limit of 1....

[Forsaker]

Agreed - it was at just a shade over $200 on amazon and I almost pulled the trigger.... now gone.... the back order and limit of just 1 on the Lego shop is odd too - have never seen anything with a limit of 1....

They're limiting availability until the new run of production comes in...

[Shneebs]

14 minutes ago, Forsaker said:

They're limiting availability until the new run of production comes in...

Could very well be. I'm more in the camp that it seems too early for retirement, but it is odd... your idea makes sense...

[fossilrock]

Due to Walmarts clearance the signs are now apparent to what's about to get the whacking..  This is taken from my years of watching the walmart clearance go on, and for the sets that were discounted actually retiring the following late fall.  The cycle goes on.. plus many of these follow the pattern of retirements.

I think these star wars sets are gone by Black Friday (that lego.com sale that usually signals the death knell to retirees).. Out of all of these, I think there are only a few that are good investments.

75099 - Rey's Speeder
75101 - FO Special Forces Tie Fighter
75104 - Kylo Ren's Command Shuttle  (Kylo Ren's Tie Interceptor is on the way -easy replacement)
75131 - Resistance Trooper Battle Pack
75132 - First Order Battle Pack
75137 - Carbon-freezing Chamber
75139 - Battle on Takodana
75145 - Eclipse Fighter
75148 - Encounter on Jakku
75151 - Clone Turbo Tank (Guarantee this one is gone)
75157 - Captain Rex's AT-TE

I think two of last years Rogue One sets will get the axe, and I think it's these two, due to the clearance i'm seeing:

75154 - Tie Striker 
75152 - Imperial Assault Hovertank

UCS retirement
75095 - Tie Fighter (This set is gone.. it's been backordered on lego.com and out of stock at other sites.  It may get one more wave, and then be retired..  I think it easily goes before the Slave 1)

[Val-E]

I agree, the X wings and MF live another year and all the other TFA is done.

[fossilrock]

7 minutes ago, Val-E said:

I agree, the X wings and MF live another year and all the other TFA is done.

Yeah, none of those are being discounted around here.  I'm thinking that Millennium Falcon might stick around past the Han Solo film.  With the UCS Millennium on the way maybe it will go, but I somehow don't think it will.   I do wonder if the UCS version might cross all 3 films and possibly be the first set for the upcoming Han Solo film.  But, I somehow doubt that the TFA Falcon is going away just yet and being replaced by a new one for the Han Solo film.  Maybe they will pull an X-wing and have two versions that are practically the same, with just a different dish and different minis..  Tough to say on that one. 

I also haven't seen the two x-wings have any discounts yet.  Which leaves me to think they might stick around.

[jimmajenga]

12 hours ago, Shneebs said:

Agreed - it was at just a shade over $200 on amazon and I almost pulled the trigger.... now gone.... the back order and limit of just 1 on the Lego shop is odd too - have never seen anything with a limit of 1....

There are a few other hard to find sets on SAH that are a limit of 1. Helicarrier was one of them same with the simpson sets and a couple others I think. They all have been for atleast a few months, which has always made me think the Ferris wheel is going soon... but everyone else seems pretty convinced it will stick around for a year with the Carousel. Maybe this noob was right ah ha... but hopefully not since I still need one for my own collection!

[Gnueck]

20 hours ago, fossilrock said:

Yeah, none of those are being discounted around here. 

I wish the MF wasnt discounted here. There are always at least 33% off in Germany

 

[c_rpg]

It would make sense to keep the X-Wings and MF as TLJ is coming out I guess.

I'm curious to see what they'll do with the SW Rebels sets. Pretty sure we'll see another Ghost at some point to accompany The Phantom, so they should retire some of the current sets. Rebel Combat Frigate has had the retiring soon tag for months now, so that should be gone once stock runs out. I hope the AT-TE retires too, but most likely it'll get a tag for a couple of months first as well.

[Gnueck]

1 hour ago, c_rpg said:

It would make sense to keep the X-Wings and MF as TLJ is coming out I guess.

 

It would also would have made sense to keep the 75054 AT-AT around when releasing an UCS Hoth set.

 

 

[eliminator]

1 hour ago, c_rpg said:

I'm curious to see what they'll do with the SW Rebels sets. Pretty sure we'll see another Ghost at some point to accompany The Phantom, so they should retire some of the current sets.

I doubt we will see another system-scale Ghost for a long time, if ever again. Once season 4 concludes next year, that will be the end of the series and likely a tapering off of Lego sets to probably just 1 per year.

It's too bad the Ghost was released back in 2014. Many people have missed out on that great set as the Rebels series didn't get much attention until after the Ghost was retired. It's one of my favorite sets when paired with the Phantom 1.

[c_rpg]

16 minutes ago, eliminator said:

I doubt we will see another system-scale Ghost for a long time, if ever again. Once season 4 concludes next year, that will be the end of the series and likely a tapering off of Lego sets to probably just 1 per year.

It's too bad the Ghost was released back in 2014. Many people have missed out on that great set as the Rebels series didn't get much attention until after the Ghost was retired. It's one of my favorite sets when paired with the Phantom 1.

I don't know, The Ghost is starting to become a real fan favorite and if they can make an AT-TE which was only in 1 or 2 episodes, I don't see why they wouldn't release another Ghost. They even release obscure sets like Anakin's Custom Jedi Starfighter which afaik was only featured in a cartoon from 13 years ago.