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Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

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Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#691

Post by zargon »

madaxe_again wrote: post #684
zargon wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some of the mormons haven't even stopped polygamy today. Using the term 'Mormon' to refer to the the entire family tree including splinter sects is just a recipe for confusion. Adherents to splinter sects, excluding RLDS, number in the tens of thousands compared to millions of CoJCoLDS. The problems with CoJCoLDS are damning on their own without needing to conflate facts with fringe groups.

Go on, without looking it up, name the three dominant schools of Islam.

And what? If someone said "some Muslims haven't even stopped slavery today," my statement would apply equally there.

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#692

Post by [deleted] »

Ovah wrote: post #663
getnormality wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clear enough that my questions can be answered in writing? Someone should do that.

You're saying that people shouldn't take a stance "without this basic evidence about the substance of the matter". The basic evidence is there. Take the time to watch Ben's videos, it's an hour of your time well spent.

[deleted]

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#693

Post by getnormality »

peebee67 wrote: post #681
zargon wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a livestream last night where the Bricks and Minifigs COO said that the franchise agreement has a clause saying that the operations manual overrules the franchise agreement and they can update the operations manual at any time. BAM's court filing instead says that the franchise agreement allows consignment services, but "limited expressly to those approved by BAM".

There's good evidence that it was expressly approved in the form of social media posts advertising the consignment on their social media pages. Difficult for them to argue either ignorance or that the arrangement wasn't authorised, both of which aren't really relevant to the demonstrated facts of the dispute.

The social media posts are from accounts for the franchise store. There is no reason to think those posts were approved by B&M corporate.

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#694

Post by ChrisRR »

KomoD wrote: post #686
ChrisRR wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they won in court, B&M just didn't respond so it went to a default judgement

> B&M just didn't respond so it went to a default judgement So they won.

They didn't win in court is what I said

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#695

Post by rithdmc »

Schmerika wrote: post #528
rithdmc wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is that your whole point? What are you proposing - that we ignore stories like this until we fix healthcare? IMO that's a pretty antagonistic read of my comment. GP said 'bigger story', you said 'visceral story'. In no way do I read myself or the GP dismissing the B&M story - quite the opposite, as GP says, noting "millions of dollars in PR damage" doesn't sound like ignoring something. The second half of my commen…

Apologies for reading your comment in an antagonistic way, but, I couldn't find a better way to read it. If you're saying that it was just about adding context, okay, but I think there's a way to do that with out painting this a "smaller story" that will be forgotten about "tomorrow or next week". A guy is dying from cancer and unable to get treated because a $400m company stole his unique $200k life-long Lego collec…

You're getting pretty put out arguing that the news cycle should focus on this guy in particular and his illness in an article that doesn't mention it.

I've already outlined how I was criticizing the news cycle.

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#696

Post by plorg »

hnlmorg wrote: post #687
munk-a wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even without the box I think you're underestimating how damaging water is. If you're experience a flood it's never distilled H20, sometimes it's sewage and that's just awful, but even if it's storm water or a broken water main the water isn't the difficult portion (though that alone can lead to all sorts of mold issues) it's the sediment. If that sediment is from brown water there are obvious biological hazards which…

Lego survives being eaten by babies and poop back out again (source: my younger brother). They also survive being left out at theme parks (ie the various Legolands) and primary schools under all weather conditions for months and years. So I don't think I'm underestimating the resilience of Lego bricks to flooding. There was an article a on HN a while back about the plastics chosen by Lego. They put an exceptional amo…

Only tangentially related, there was a "500-year" flood in my region a couple of years ago and a manager in my department who would shortly become the company president had his house flood. I volunteered to help with cleanup and ended up at his house tearing his basement, at one point 8' under water, down to the studs. His near-adult kids had small Lego collections that were basically in untouched condition except they had been under water. He told us to throw them out with everything else - it was not worth the complicated effort to do them and sort them out. But out of all the stuff it took us the most convincing to do so, the bricks weren't damaged at all.

That said, I'm surprised Lego survive outdoors. My understanding is that ABS is not UV-resistant.

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#698

Post by prepend »

sgerenser wrote: post #642
prepend wrote: post #490

How is this company, BAM Franchising Inc, valued at $400M? They aren’t publicly traded so it’s hard to find out. It seems like there’s almost no employees and they collect a franchising fee and 6% royalty on the 200+ franchises that BAM claims makes $570k average annual revenue [0]. .06 x 570k x 200 = 6,840,00 So not sure how a $400M valuation comes from $7M/year in revenue. And this is revenue, who knows what the pr…

I can't actually find anything that supports a $400M valuation. ChatGPT seems to agree, that there's no public documents supporting that valuation, and an estimate of $6-$10M year in revenue sounds in the ballpark, meaning a value nowhere near $400M. But something as high as $100M is probably appropriate if their profit margins are high, which would be expected for a franchisor.

I’m guessing the valuation is just youtube bs/hype.

10-15x earnings seems pretty massive. But perhaps there is more money in the used lego market than I thought.

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#699

Post by hdndjsbbs »

tetha wrote: post #597
hdndjsbbs wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run a niche retail store and there are two sides to this. Most of our business is selling low-price, entry-level products. There's a 80-20 distribution of people getting into the hobby versus people upgrading after a couple years. Consequently most of our floor space and inventory is devoted to high margin, quick turnover, entry-level products. In my experience the floor space is less of an issue for high end produ…

Also, from the customer side, people ask at the higher end, don't they? Beyond a certain level, it's more of a search and a quest than just browsing. So you mainly have to show that you have connections for certain things. Why does this sound like drugs now? I know this from a few friends who are deep into tabletop and boardgames, and they would regularly work with the one or two small stores around to get some speci…

Yeah, in my experience the people who want niche stuff are willing to work with you and have a "high touch" experience. Where the people who want entry-level stuff want turn-key, sane defaults.

The annoying thing is people with lots of money and no experience who want the special expensive thing but they want it now and they don't know what options they want. I'm sure other fields are good at separating fools and their money but niche hobby retail isn't the Audi dealership, we're not just trying to upsell you for fun.

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#700

Post by seanw444 »

helterskelter wrote: post #613
zhivota wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate to break it to you but the Mormon belt extends well up into Idaho (probably all the way to Montana on the East side) and down into Arizona, and diffuses out quite far from there. Probably need to go through Montana or skirt the Mexican border areas to avoid it, but border areas these days come with their own issues self created by our government... I lived in Idaho Falls (well within the majority Mormon area tha…

Utah Mormons are of a different mindset, they're on home turf in their promised land and they act like it. There's a Mormon that runs a local business in my area. One day he puts his business up for sale because he wants to move to Utah to get closer to his faith. Ends up moving back and reopening a couple of years later -- turns out he was Mormon, but not Mormon enough. They don't like outsiders, not even the Mormon…

Yeah the Mormons in Utah are of a much more vapid culture than those from out of state, I can say from experience. All of the out-of-stater Mormons I've met that were here for BYU and such, they all said they can't stand the people here. Don't blame them one bit.
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