This is what I keep telling the wife!

The thing is if they keep on publishing articles like that, you'll all of a sudden get a load of rookie resellers thinking they can make a quick buck, only to find the market is flooded with hundreds of others trying to do the same, and the value of sets drops pretty quickly. Bad news for current resellers, great news for buyers.

Who is paying £2000 for a Lego set. Can you imagine how many NEW sets you could get for that. People are trying to sell for £2000 on ebay, but how many are selling. I clicked on ebay the other day and someone was selling a Lego Figure Light for £700 (like the ones that are £25 new and ive just bought for £18 from Tesco) Im sure I got the same one in Argos for £15 last year.

Let's face it--it's not "Lego" per se, it's specific out-of-circulation sets with rare pieces that can't be easily replicated through a Bricklink buy. The UCS Falcon is worth bank because it isn't made anymore.

Soooooo.... more hoarding and more scalping. Fantastic. The community can justify it how they like but I put more faith in a savings account.

The reason Lego inflates in price the way it does is adult sellers (manchildren) and the utterly artificial over inflation that occurs immediately after retirement. Because people want to make money.

Which creates a market for KO brand Lego, because not everybody can/is stupid enough to pay through the nose to get what they want.

Articles like this re-enforce a belief that Lego is a commodity to be bought and traded. Its a toy. Its value relies on the greed of collectors and/or the greed of the seller.

Funko's will be next and I pity the poor person that has to tell the world they are a great investment while trying to keep a straight face.

The title sums up what I've half-jokingly said to my parents. Unfortunately, I'm always buying and never actually selling anything. I've "invested" in sets like the Ultimate Collector's edition Millennium Falcon, and still own all three that I'd purchased on sale for $170 CAN each, however, I don't know when I'll get around to selling them. Even though I have the makings to be an excellent re-seller, it's just not in my blood to do so. It's a serious commitment; so for now, I'm just a hoarder.

I would agree with the above statements. LEGO is a toy. It has some collectibility, but overall should be played with. Most people don't play with gold.

Either way, articles like this help surge the reseller mentality. There is a reason why more and more resellers are coming out. Not all reselling is bad. Access to past sets/pieces is great. But access that becomes limited access due to the ridiculous price is troublesome.

The market is only there if people continue to spend that much on sets. I won't spend over $200 on a set and that's even at Christmas.

Gold bricks are still better though because you can't lose those in the couch.

Lego is a terrible investment no accredited financial advisor will say otherwise. This all started with an idiot article from the telegraph a month ago. Certain people are trying to create a speculation bubble and this is absolutely horrible for the hobby. Lego may be forced into further reissues in response to clear the problem. Christmas toy shop was just the beginning. Anyone investing is going to get burned, the bubble creators will sell up once theyve pushed prices up enough.

Glad I came out of my dark ages when UCS Falcon and Cafe Corner were still available at retail. I'd never get rid of them though, so their increasing value is moot.

lol. Only a select few exclusive sets can fetch that kind of appreciation over time. The prices of majority simply remain as they are or slightly more over many years.

Take for example Fire Brigade (2009), it is now worth slightly twice its original price after more than 6 years, while during this period, the Grand Carousel is now worth a few times more. All I can say is, only the exclusives can fetch a reasonable appreciation over the years. but it's almost guaranteed 100% more 5 years after OOP.

But i won't be interested in a set that's been around for more than 10 years. I mean, don't these bricks become slightly brittle after many years? and besides, the prices do plateau after so many years.

Holy moly... Selling all my 2006 sets, and buying new ones... XD

Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble Bubble

Don't repost stuff published by the Daily Mail...they really poorly research stuff and often use broken statistics.

I thought this article had already been done a few months ago???

That is what I say to everyone! (Need to defend my purchases,... I will never sell my LEGO. And they have no idea that the worth drops when you open and build the set...)

Fire Brigade worth only slightly more than 2x RRP? I sold mine for $380 USD last week and the box was damaged.

All I hear from these comments are sour grapes.

Bubble bubble bubble....Blah Blah Blah.

@xcrossx: Yeah, so did I...

Also, everybody who hated on the Jurassic World sets will be annoyed when they start to command the same aftermarket prices that the Dino sets do.

A lot of this information was taken from the article that was posted in the Daily Telegraph back in August.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/11817380/Lego-a-better-investment-than-shares-and-gold.html

Are these all run by the same company?

This sounds more like it. The only thing gold is good for is buying more sets. :)

@johnnie_tee: Fire Brigade may have been released six years ago, but it's only been discontinued for just under two years.

This is how the comic book industry almost fell apart in the late 90's. I'd hate to see this happen to LEGO.

@Lego34s I'm sure those prices are based on actual sales. Looking at sold listings on eBay in the past month, the 10179 Millennium Falcon NIB has sold for anywhere from $3,165 USD to over $6,000. Although the range for the 10182 Cafe Corner is a bit larger, ranging from $950 to $2,500.

I don't think this is a bubble. LEGO sets have traditionally held their value well across the board compared with other toys that have been viewed as collectibles. Part of this is because there is inherently monetary value in the substance and quality that you get from LEGO bricks. Its modular nature also means that even in the future, consumers will look to older sets for parts that have since been discontinued. The only uncertainty is The LEGO Group's own success in the future, but the secondary market is strong, with the only major risk to investors being re-releases and vastly improved remakes.

@Ninjagaiden hopefully LEGO is smart enough to avoid selling "collectible foil covers" on their boxes (for 4x the price of the same set without the fancy cover)!

Gawd, that was a terrible era.

Wasn't this an old news article?

Well duh! :)

I love these articles preaching buying and selling LEGO sets and referring to sets that have been out of production for 7-8 years, or being horribly low stocks when they were out.
Articles like this are irresponsible and smack of those late night infomercials reporting that you too can make 100s of thousands in the real estate market.
The thing that concerns me is that this is exactly how the sports card bubble burst in the early 90's, same with comics with all the media attention. Sure LEGO is a toy that can be used as a toy and not a collectible so it is not like a comic or trading card necessarily, but still seeing parallel to those mediums. If you start seeing these on those stations that sell goods (like HSN) or you start seeing LEGO trying to cash in more on 'limited offers' then say goodbye to the market

@Ninjagaiden I thought I was the only one who was reminded of that. Back in the late 80s/early 90s you could get all sorts of "special edition" comic books, but they were selling a million copies per month or more of any particular issue. Then in the mid to late 90s when everyone found out that their issues weren't rare, a large portion of the demand market was gone.

As long as Lego maintains itself as a toy company, I think everything will be fine. I don't mind making a little money on the side, but I really like the opportunity to buy older sets too. This article only points out the top money makers and completely ignores how many sets don't gain any value at all.

Lego sets will sell well when it's their time. Like, I bet all of last year's Lego Movie sets will accelerate in value tremendously when TLM2 comes out in 2018 and people start watching the first one again out of nostalgia.

Then again, I see Ninjago as a long-term investment, when today's child Ninjago fans become adults in 20 years and long for it to make a comeback.

@zipper I don't see how this is analogous to the comic book situation at all. The core value of LEGO has always been play. The majority of consumers are still buying LEGO sets to build them and enjoy them for what they are, rather than buying them because they're rare or will appreciate in a sufficient amount in the future.

We also have to keep in mind that a LEGO set is a lot more difficult to produce than a comic book, and any resulting shortages will be a result of LEGO failing to satisfy demand, rather than a concerted effort to limit the number of sets on the market. In recent memory, there have only really been two sets that were intentionally produced in limited quantity (41999 4x4 Crawler and 5004590 Bat-Pod).

See, between stuff like this and the warnings about a Christmas shortage, people will go out and snap sets up with the view to resell them for the holiday rush when the shelves are empty... It'll be parents feeling the squeeze and/or the kids all missing out :(

And with this news the numbers of investors will rise and the worth of Lego sets that have gone Eol will think further.. Market Street cost 90 $ and is now worth 1200$ while some newer sets like f.e. the town square plan didn't make it past 250$ much. So the more people will invest in Lego now, the longer it will take until they really are worth something...

There are only two factors to consider when gauging the investment value of a collectible: scarcity and desirability. This is why the wealthy collect paintings. There is only one real "Guernica" or
"A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grand Jatee," and people still like to look at those.

Nothing that is mass produced has long-term investment value unless its production run was very limited or surviving examples in good condition are rare and public demand remains high. You will wait 100 years to see if the latter applies.

The boxes are likely worth more than the bricks.

And now everyone is going to be buying exclusives with this idea in mind! The bubble will hopefully burst before there's even a chance for this to get out of hand.

Of course, if it does get out of hand, hopefully that will make LEGO bring back even more older exclusives, a la The Winter Toy Shop.

@myscrnnm - It wasn't so much that comics being printed in limited quantities was the force behind the comic industry crash, but rather the opposite - overproduction of comics to meet the boost in demand, which came from "investors" taking over the market. When it became apparent that the supply/demand wasn't there for people to make money off comics, the bottom fell out, many local shops went out of business, the bubble popped and the industry suffered greatly.

I would agree that most people who buy LEGOs today are not buying them for their collectible and resale value, but I would also say comic readers started the same way. Consumers bought comics for entertainment and enjoyment, but eventually "investors" took over when they saw there was money in it. So hopefully articles like this one aren't a sign that the LEGO market is moving in that direction. That's the analogy that I see.

Really? Then it's time to turn my Jack Stone collection into gold!

So what would happen if a set was made out of Lego bricks that were actually gold?? :)

I used to sell exclusively used sets and I was consistently impressed with the value of non-licensed themes from the mid-90's on. As others have stated Legos are modular, and bricks (assuming they are clean and undamaged) from 20 years ago fit with ones produced today.

@RevN3 Agreed.

Why is this "news", again? We had this same discussion at the end of August. Some people felt one way and some disagreed. Posting this again is simply trolling.

Cool, now I can call any set I buy an "investment," LOL!

All joking aside though, are these sets really selling for what the sellers are asking? I could ask $2,000 for an old Star Wars set, but that doesn't mean people are going to pay that.
Also you have to consider; does the Daily Mail know what they're talking about when it comes to LEGO? I think the statement; LEGO is a better investment than gold cant really be proven either way.

I for one welcome our new normie scalper colleagues! The more sets they buy the less value they have and the fewer money I actually have to pay for it.
It already happened with the 21109 Exo-Suit for example. The Brick Show lot and the mindless drones stealing their meme said the set would only have a 10.000 set wave and be done with it. In the end it was produced for six months and now I can get it for 30€ (shipping included) instead of 35€ in any auction when other sets like the Modular Fire Brigade had doubled their price in that time frame.
Coupled with Lego trending with children again as well I can see all sets of 2014 and after barely changing in price if not even going down.
Maybe it´s a local thing (live in Germany) but I just compared the Exo Suits price on US ebay and it goes for 20$ used. This basically extends the sales period to until the bricks start cracking. And it will even ruin the economy a bit more by having normal people dump their savings into useless toys they can only sell with losses which brings us step by step closer to the third world war! It´s a wonderful time to be alive!

@ FlagsNZ: I heard of this happening once with the 2002 Republic Gunship. Though depending on the person doing this you can compare the weight with the stat on Bricklink, I doubt scammers would look there. And even if they learn to do it, people are using Paypal more often all the time so you can easily get your money back that way.

It may be true but, for the same value, gold takes much less space (if bought on the stock market no space at all). So, the bigger the investment in lego, the bigger space is required.

Lego's policy to only allow purchase of 1-5 sets is a main cause. They should extend capacity and fulfill all demand, like any other company,

@ Navy Trooper Fenson: In defence of "The Brick Show lot and the mindless drones stealing their meme" - I know for a fact that even people inside LEGO were told it would have only one run of 10,000 sets. Everything points towards that being the original plan, and that they changed it later on when they realised the massive interest surrounding the Exo-Suit.

Well, duh.

Wasn't this article posted MONTHS ago?

I sincerely hope lego will not be reduced to some bargaining chip for profit when investors were to infiltrate lego production. That would be nightmarish! Stay away from our hobby! Lego survived alienation and underpopularity. I would hate to see popularity criple or colapse lego. I would much rather have lego like in the 2000s than no lego at al :(

LEGO can also cure baldness, and bad breath, but causes shingles and dropsy. It's true, I read it in The Daily Mail. They have such newsworthy articles, not at all sensationalist or scaremongering.
LEGO can even increase house prices and is known to ward off benefit scroungers.
:)

You get a huge potential profit for LEGO, but it seems harder to sell LEGO for thousands of dollars than to sell gold for the same price; it doesn't seem like there is actually hard profit that can be made.

TLG could go a long way to bursting any potential bubble (I don't think there is one yet) by re-releasing the UCS Falcon. It is the most often quoted sets when peope talk about Lego investments and putting it back into production would shut down a lot of the speculators in one easy move.

My faith in humanity mostly restored from the comments chastising this article and the suggestion behind it.

Thanks for appreciating our hobby as a toy first, buds!

Also, whoever wrote this article is not an investor. Precious metals like gold are a sideways trading market. No one HOLDS gold, you buy low, sell high knowing it will never go too far in either direction. It's a reliable investment.

u can't read this article and conclude that the value of any Lego set will appreciate with time. It's only the limited quantity exclusives that ran for less than 12 months, the hard-to-find items at comic conventions, etc, that command the highest asking prices. That said, it doesn't mean they will keep going up every year. Their values will reach a plateau because, let's face it, who wants to pay US$10k for a UCS MF in 2018? U can put it up but it will takes ages to sell. Besides that, why would anyone pay so much for something from, say 10 years ago, as I know for a fact, plastics do deteriorate with time? They do become quite brittle or slightly discoloured (but still usable). Why pay for that? Having said that, there are still people who want an elusive set for special reasons and we can't stop them from buying at sky-high prices. It's a free market. I will look forward, instead of backward. I am very sure we will see an updated UCS MF in a few years time.

Nice to know, as eventually I will be at the point where I either move or sell some Lego :) (But only the ones I can bear to relinquish)

Every bubble bursts sooner or later. Hope I can last long enough in this hobby to see it.

I recently bought a MISB set from 1994 and opened it. The bricks aren't "brittle" nor "discolored". Actually, besides box, it looks like a 2015 set in terms of sheer quality. And many of the parts are discontinued for a long time. Well, this stick has two ends.

Just imagine how much return you could get on a bunch of stashed Galidor or Spybotics, there are quite a few duds in the LEGO world that years later are not even worth the retail price!!

Also happened to be someone who used to buy up large collections over here and resell them in our store and online. People heavily underestimate what it will take to dispose of a large LEGO collection. It can takes months if not years to get decent value from the sets. Given LEGOs re-release habits we started only offering people 50% of market value since we are taking the risk and time and they get quick cash. But now I won't even buy collections that are bought at retail stores because over here in CAnada and USA too many people are opening/resealing boxes after removing the very precious figs. SO you could end up sending someone across the other side of the world, an incomplete set and then you profits become a big loss usually. Even TLG will not replace minifigs from licensed sets, they require you to return the set to the place it was bought. All the hoopla/hype has turned stashing sets into a bit of a riskier business for sure. At our store we do not allow returns period - to ensure the quality of the stock is AS IT CAME in LEGO cases from LEGO themselves.

Lego should re-issue very popular old sets. Take for example Lego-trains. The grey period aka golden-age-of-lego-trains stuff is double-triple the new price today just in TOTAL CRAP condition, in sealed box it costs an insane amount of money.

Problem is, for kids there is nothing new to buy in the train spectrum. The current high speed train sucks big time, and the cargo set is way inferior to the previous one. Combined with the fact that the rails are different again (plastic) and there are pretty much no extra's (crossings, ramps, controllable track switches).

And Lego should keep new colours to a minimum. The last few years Lego introduced many new colours in the Technic sets (41999 midnight blue, 42039 green, 42036 blue, 42048 purple) which makes it very hard to build models with bricks from other sets.

I totally have no problem that a weird Star Wars set gets crazy expensive on Ebay. I do have problems with the decrease in access to good stuff to play because of all the weird colours and bricks, and the lack of continuity in some lines (trains!).

@CCC "I don't. In fact, I see some of TLM sets just like the comic books scenario. A few of the sets will be winners, genuine decent sets that had screentime in the movie. However, many of them were barely in the movie. These are akin to the mass produced comic books that no-one really wants but are part of the series.

When TLM2 comes out, if they do the same then there will also be 20-30 available sets, many of which probably won't feature much in the movie. Why would people want past TLM1 sets that barely get any screentime? Some will be winners, but many of them will be worth little more than they are worth today, if that."

Yeah, ok. I'm thinking mainly of sets like Benny's Spaceship and possibly Metalbeard if he's not given an identical rerelease in TLM2.

I remember thinking I made pretty good money when I sold my Cafe Corner for $400.00 back in 2010.

and it's a lot easier to carry around...