75958 Beauxbatons' Carriage: Arrival at Hogwarts

he set in a Nutshell:

Name: 75958 Beauxbatons' Carriage: Arrival at Hogwarts

Pieces: 430

Minifigures: 4 minifigures

Original Price: $49.99 USD

Recommended Age: 8+

The journey is half the adventure:

I hunted for this retired set! The kicker of course being that I remember seeing it in stores at retail price in 2019 and 2020. I would think at one point it was even less than the original retail price of $49.99 USD, however, for whatever reason I did not purchase it. I think the reason may have been that originally, I wanted to focus on the Hogwarts sets and didn’t want to spend almost $50 USD on this set.

As with other sets that I didn’t purchase at retail – I regretted not buying this one. I made a list in 2021 of all the sets that I still wanted to purchase. As you may remember, I am not a completionist with the LEGO Harry Potter sets, but I do want to have a versatile LEGO Harry Potter world on my shelves. 2021 was a large wave, so I wanted to focus first on the sets that were still available at retail price and then focus on the sets that are retired and most likely cost more than originally at retail.

It wasn’t that I really wanted this set until I purchased 75946 Hungarian Horntail Triwizard Challenge. I loved that set and wanted to add more “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” sets to my collection. (I do own 75965 The Rise of Voldemort and 75948 Hogwarts Clock Tower – both are “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” themed sets from the 2019 wave). Also, the more I looked at pictures of 75958 Beaubatons’ Carriage: Arrival at Hogwarts the prettier I found the set and the madder I grew that I had not picked it up when I saw it in stores.

Fast-forward to 2022, the set is retired, and the value has increased. I watched many YouTube videos on LEGO investing just to better understand the retired LEGO set world and how to get the best pricing for this set. Previously, I had purchased retired sets on Ebay, BrickLink and Amazon, however, those sets typically had damaged boxes, but the bricks themselves were still in the original plastic bags, almost insuring 100% certainty that the set is complete.

From what I have gathered, damaged boxes do correlate to lower prices for retired sets and since I don’t typically keep many of the boxes, I typically try to find those deals. Unfortunately, with 75958 Beaubatons’ Carriage: Arrival at Hogwarts it didn’t look like I would be able to find any great deals. After checking Amazon, BrickLink and Ebay, I was quickly able to see that Ebay was most likely going to be my best choice, as BrickLink had hardly any sets available in the USA (I didn’t want to pay for international shipping) and Amazon sellers had very steep prices. I did research the Ebay recent sales for this set and had to conclude that if I wanted this in any shape other than “used” I would be looking at $80 USD including shipping. To me that was just simply too much, so I checked Ebay daily to see if any “used” sets had come up. I did make a bid on one listing and lost, and then I found a listing for a 99% complete set.

Via the listing the only missing thing was one of Hagrid’s paddles that he uses to wave in the carriage, and it was described as “gently used”. I figured I could get a replacement paddle via BrickLink to complete the set, so I didn’t view this as too big of a deal and via the pictures “gently used” looked pretty good to me! The set was also missing the box, but did include the instruction booklet. I was able to make the seller an offer for $35 USD and it was accepted. Shipping ended up being around $10 USD and plus taxes I was looking at roughly the original retail price for a retired set.

After I received the set, the prep work began. I first had to take the whole set apart – which did hurt my fingertips, and then I washed the bricks. I followed this YouTube video and it worked like a gem. While the bricks looked great to begin with, I just thought for good measure I should wash them. The one thing with used sets is the rebuilding can be a real pain, because the bricks aren’t grouped into their bags, so I just had a large pile of bricks and didn’t really know where to start. Also, I began to wonder what if more pieces were missing and how I would deal with that in the building process.

To gain a little bit more oversight of the construction, I separated the pieces by color to have some sort of system going. I was very fortunate, and the build went smooth. It is a little bit repetitive because the carriage is essentially four walls with a pair of walls being very similar. Regardless, I enjoyed it, but had that nagging feeling in the back of my mind – are more bricks missing?

To answer the question, yes more bricks were missing. I believe in total I was missing about four pieces: Hagrid’s paddle, two 1x2 white plates for the winged horses, a 1x2 black plate and the orange brick and axle separator. I was able to get all of these via BrickLink for about $6.50 USD. I wasn’t excited to be spending more money on this set, but I did want it to be as complete as possible. Also, I was very fortunate that none of the missing pieces were integral parts of the build, and it was very easy to add them after I received them without having to take apart the whole set.

The set comes with four minifigures: Hagrid, Madame Maxime, Fleur Delacour, Fleur’s sister Gabrielle Delacour and two winged horses (not considered minifigures). You can open the carriage to have access to the inside of it – I suppose to have a tea party and to transport the minifigures to Hogwarts. When the carriage is open one has access to the first floor, which is two "chairs" and a table, the second floor is made up of two beds with a "dresser."

The set looks very majestic. The baby blue hue is offset by the “golden” accents and the dark red roof looks beautiful with the baby blue and gold. Even the stickers add a touch of magnificence to it. It is very reminiscent of the rich opulence of Versailles.

It’s a lovely set to display and I am glad that I did add it to my collection, however, there just isn’t much to it. It looks very luxurious, but then that's it. The inside of the carriage is small and other than using the set for transportation purposes, there isn’t much to do. Again, I love that it is in my collection, and I hope there will be a remake of 4768 The Durmstrang Ship in the future (to have the arrival at Hogwarts complete), but I think there are other sets that offer more (ex. 75965 The Rise of Voldemort). 75957 The Knight Bus was also part of the 2019 wave, and I would say it is like this set. The Knight Bus is lovely looking too, but there isn’t much to it. From the playability point I think both sets are best used to literally have your minifigures get from point A to point B.

I do love the Madame Maxime minifigure though. There is something about the character that I love and having another version of her minifigure is always a plus!

As for purchasing used sets, I think that this was a big lesson to me. I will certainly be very cautious the next time I buy a used set and will review the pictures a bit more. I think it was easy for the seller to overlook these pieces and it was easy to obtain them, but it was extra work, and I also didn’t like the feeling while building the set of thinking “are all the pieces here.” That is something I enjoy about new sets – you know everything should be there! Overall, I do think I got a deal on the retired set and prefer this over purchasing a new in box set for $80 USD. This worked for me this time, but I will be cautious purchasing used sets in the future and it was more time consuming considering that I also cleaned the bricks.

VERDICT: It’s a beautiful set! I am very happy that I hunted for it and that it is part of my collection. The set exudes luxury, prestige, and royalty!

The Minifigures