The Early Bird Gets the Worm

On January 1st, Lego released over 150 new sets for sale.  There are two sets that stand out to me personally:

I am actually quite excited about many others but I was willing to be a day 1 buyer for those sets.  I say “willing” because my attempts at buying them have not been successful thus far.

11370 The Creel House

I am a big fan of the Stranger Things series on Netflix and am also very impressed with the creativity within set 11370.  I am usually not a day 1 buyer but I really wanted to secure the GWP.   On New Year's Day, I logged into Lego.com and searched for The Creel House.  I didn't log on until midday and found 11370 was already on backorder.  Luckily I was still able to order it and the GWP was loaded into my cart…YES!!!  

One of the benefits of also being a Lego investor and reseller of other arbitrage items is the Lego insider points and credit card rewards that I have accumulated over the past year.  I was able to cover the entire purchase with Insider points and cash back I had earned from shopping portals such as Rakuten and RetailMeNot….DOUBLE YES!!!

Even though The Creel House is on backorder and not sure when I will receive it, I was able to secure the GWP before it sold out.

77256 Speed Champion Time Machine from Back to the Future 

When I was checking out on Lego.com for the Creel House I was so invested in getting the GWP that I forgot to add 77256 to my cart.  However, I knew I would be going to the Lego Store in a couple days so I figured I would pick it up then.

Well I figured wrong…

When I walked into the Lego Store on January 3rd, the shelves looked like the toilet paper aisle during the pandemic….empty….NOOOOO!!!  The Time Machine is also out of stock online.

I am not exaggerating when I say ⅔ of the shelves were bare.  I had never seen anything like it.

Luckily I ordered The Creel House online as it was also sold out in store and I would not have been able to secure the GWP had I waited.

Lesson learned

Next time I plan on being a day 1 buyer I will log on at midnight ET when they first go on sale.

Was anyone else a day 1 buyer of one or more of the 150 new sets for 2026?  Did you have better luck than I did?

I would like to wish everyone a prosperous 2026 and hope your year is filled with happiness, health, and lotsa Lego.

Until next time AFOL’s….

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A Look Back at My 2025