A while ago, Ed showed us what CAGR is, and how to calculate it in this blog article (http://www.brickpicker.com/forum/index.php/blog/4/entry-15-cagr-compound-annual-growth-rate-and-lego/), but for all of you who don't want to open a five hundredth tab, CAGR, or Compounded Annual Growth Rate, is basically the rate at which a set grows compared to its original value per year. A high CAGR = a good investment, a CAGR below 10% (or even a negative number) is usually a sign that a set isn't doing so good, unless the set can maintain a low CAGR for a very long time.

Often people are aware of what the CAGR of an item is, or at least what its predicted CAGR will be for a period of years, but don't know how to apply that information to see what the value will be when the item is 1, 2, or even 10 years after retirement. With a simple equation, you can find out.

Without further ado, here is the equation:

(Orignal Value/MSRP)(CAGR - a 35% CAGR would be entered as 1.35 here)^{(Number of Years)}

The reason that a 1 has to be added in front of the 0.35 is because without it, you would be saying the set is basically dividing its value in 3 each year, which would be a negative CAGR (I'll get to that later). Now, let's work on some examples:

Assume that Set A has a MSRP of $39.99. Its predicted CAGR is 40%, and you want to know what its value will be in three years. First, substitute the values into the equation:

($39.99)(1.4)⁽³⁾

Then, calculate, remembering to always get rid of the exponent first. To work out the exponent on a calculator, punch in 1.4 and then hit the x/y key (you will need a calculator with an x/y key) and press 3. You should get an answer of 2.744:

($39.99)(2.744)

Lastly just follow through and multiply:

($39.99)(2.744)= $109.73

You're done! The answer means that if Set A continues on a 40% CAGR for the next 3 years, it will be worth $109.73 at the end of that three year period. Now I'll do one more just to make sure you all get it. Follow along with a calculator if you want and make sure you get the same answer:

Set B is worth $24.99 when it comes out. It is predicted to have a CAGR of 15%, and you want to know what it will be worth in 10 years.

($24.99)(1.15)⁽¹⁰⁾ = ($24.99)(4.045) = $101.09

Now, what happens if you are trying to calculate for a set that has a negative CAGR?

I'm not as entirely sure with this calculation as I am with the positive one, and hopefully you never have to use this one. It's hard to explains so I'll just demonstrate it:

Set C has a MSRP of $44.99, and you want to know what it will be worth in 5 years. It's predicted CAGR for those 5 years is -3.67%.

First, let's transfer that negative number into something usable. Take 100 and minus 3.67 from it. You get 96.33. Next, divide 96.33 by 100 and you end up with 0.9633 (there are other ways of doing this, but I think this is the easiest to understand). Now, you can use 0.9633 as the growth (or in this case shrink) rate. Set up the equation:

($44.99)(0.9633)⁽⁵⁾ = ($44.99)(0.829) = $37.32

I hope you all weren't to bored by all the math, but the calculation is easy and I hope it becomes of use for all of you. Now to finish off, I'm going to have a little challenge, and see who will be the first to answer:

Look up the current (May 13 Data) CAGR and MSRP of 9476 Orc Forge. If it continues at that rate for the next 2 years, what will it be worth at the end of that two year period? Happy calculating!

The plight is certainly common to any longtime LEGO owner, and until relatively recently was a problem unsolved. Enter Retr0bright (follow the link for the full rundown), the brain child of trial and error and some great minds. Though not specifically minded for LEGOs, the findings still apply as we're all dealing with the same ABS plastic in the end.

The basic TL;DR is this: most ABS plastic (LEGO included) has added chemicals to make it flame retardant. This retardant, primarily the chemical Bromine (Br), was found to be the cause of the awful yellowing/browning of formerly white ABS plastic. The Retr0Bright mixture uses a chemical reaction between Hydrogen Peroxide, An "Oxy" based cleaner (Sodium Precarbonate as an active ingredient), and UV light (Sun or lamps) to reverse this process.

Some of you may have heard or even used this process before, but for those who haven't, here's my explanation/tutorial on how to give those whites new life (or allow you to save some money on those Used Bricklink pieces!)

Things you will need:
-1x 88 cent bottle of 3% Hydrogen Peroxide (The ideal strength for a speedy process is 10-15% for best results, but I was testing here! 3% will work just fine if it's all you can find. You will just have to wait longer.)
-1x 2 dollar tub of my grocery store's OxyClean equivalent (The only thing that matters is the active ingredient, Sodium Precarbonate.)
-1x Re-purposed Vessel (I use a butchered Simply Limeade bottle here for ultimate thriftiness. You can use any vessel really, but make sure it's clear so sunlight can pass through. Also, be sure it is NOT sealed. This process releases Oxygen from your bricks, and this can build up pressure in a sealed vessel)

How to start it up:
1-Pour an amount of Hydrogen Peroxide into your vessel that will give the amount of pieces you're cleaning enough space to float and spin around. I used roughly 1/3rd of my bottle for this test.

2-Drop in half a teaspoon to a teaspoon of the Oxy ingredient into some hot water just to mostly dissolve it, then drop it into your Hydrogen Peroxide. Less is more here. If you add too much, you can damage the surface of your bricks, so really just add a little bit. You can always add more if the reaction isn't occurring.

3-Drop in your LEGOs and shake/stir them around.

4-Leave them soaking in the sun (ideally) or under a UV lamp makes this process take a few hours versus an entire day (or two depending on the yellow-ness of your LEGOs). If using a lamp, be sure the lamp isn't so close as to heat the mixture, as the heat will be problematic to the process.

5-Come back to check on the vessel every hour/two hours and shake it around so as to make sure each face of your LEGOs gets roughly equal time in the sun.

You will know the process is working if small bubbles are forming around your LEGO bricks and floating upward. Check for this at the first hour. If the mixture is dormant, add a TINY bit more Oxy to the mixture and repeat until you are sure the reaction is taking place.

Depending on the yellowing of your bricks, you may need to soak these for as little as 3 or 4 hours (in the sun) or as long as a full day or two. The main rule is patience. Your bricks have taken years to yellow. You can burn a day or two reversing it. KEEP IN MIND, this liquid mixture will only be "active" for about 2-3 days. Up until then feel free to re-use the same mixture on your parts!

fSo onto the interesting part, my own test results!

Here's my test set of pieces. The slopes in the upper left corner are NEW white pieces to show the color difference. These are all from my 15+ year old collection save the 4x8 plate which was part of my recent Bricklink order. I tried to get a variance of shapes but in general tried to pick out some of my worst offenders:

After about a 6-hour soak in the darkness (started this process at about midnight) and about 2 1/2 hours in the sunlight, this is the same set of pieces after being soaked in the Retr0Bright mixture, again the slopes in the upper left corner are NEW white pieces:

Some of the yellowing is still visible on some of the pieces, but in general this process is amazing. I can easily soak these again for another run and I think they'll be indistinguishable from new bricks. If some of your are concerned about printed pieces, multiple tests by others have shown that printed LEGOs survive just fine, and if anything only fade a small amount in cases where the piece was severely yellowed and had to be soaked for a longer time period. Stickers will likely come off of pieces using this method.

There are also people who recommend cleaning your LEGOs beforehand, which I did not (as this was a quick proof-of-concept test). I have heard people running their LEGOs through cool cycles on their dishwashers or individually scrubbing them with toothbrushes or sonic toothbrushes. This really just removes any dirt or material from the LEGO and doesn't affect the chemical reaction.

For some references on others experiences and some other information for those unsure of submitting their LEGOs to chemicals, here are some links I used for background research:

Removing Yellowing from Plastics
LEGO Whitening: A LEGO creation by Eggy Pop: MOCpages.com
LEGO Whitening- Retr0Bright - home - Discussion
The Brothers Brick

This is a mostly copy-paste of a post I did awhile back for my Mobile Frame Hangar buddies, but it's definitely still relevant. I've since used this process to de-yellow a large amount of my old bricks, and the results were a lot better on my second run using a high concentration of Hydrogen Peroxide that you can source from beauty shops.

Before we do that though, I feel necessary to give a little background on the theme overall, even if it has been discussed some in previous articles. The CITY theme was first released in 2005 to replace World City as the next theme to feature most of the “town” sets LEGO has been released over more than a decade. At the time this article was written, the theme overall presented a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 13.03%, a figure above the average LEGO theme of 11.36 %. This could be attributed to the popularity of the theme with some of the most important LEGO customers, those being kids and AFOLs, due to some of the characteristics of the sets themselves that are out of the scope of this article. Let’s now focus specifically on the performance of Police and Fire themed sets.

Over the course of the years, Police and Fire sets have been one of the staples LEGO keeps producing almost continuously. Having your own fire or police station forms part of almost every single kid’s dream while growing up, and LEGO understands and capitalizes on that really well by always expanding both of those sub-themes and keeping them on the shelves year after year. Even more, AFOLs have proven to be another group that is very interested in the sets, not so much for traditional play but for recreating large and realistic looking cities.

Among both sub-themes, there has been a long list of really nice and varied sets; small, large, stations, boats, planes are just some examples. Furthermore, LEGO has been releasing some very interesting sets that deviate some of the more traditional ones we named before, like the more recent Police Dog Van or Bank and Money transfer, that add some more depth and realism to any city.
From an investor’s standpoint, there seems to be some sort of animosity towards some of the CITY sets that fall into the fire or police category, mostly due to something stated above: there are a lot of remakes and re-releases. This is an issue that a lot of investors worry a lot about while making their investment decision, because it would appear that if a set that retired just two years ago is re-released after such a short period of time, collectors and fans would opt for the newer and cheaper version rather than going for the old version that usually goes for above MSRP.

While some investors are right in their perception concerning remakes and their negative impact on growth, this does not necessarily mean that sets are investment losers. From some of the information you will see a little bit later in the article, you will be able to verify that several of the sets that have been re-released in some form or the other most of the time are very strong performers. In the case of CITY police and fire sets, the real issue with remakes is not really that hampers long term growth, but rather that the sets do not usually provide the possibility of making a decent return shortly after retirement (within a year of EOL). Some of these sets do take some time to appreciate substantially, but in the end they DO perform, so I would really recommend them only to those who really have a long term investment horizon rather than a short one.

Let’s now go into detail a little bit more. The following tables present all the sets that have been retired so far on both the police and fire sub-themes, leaving out the promotional sets and those that have less than 50 pieces.

Police

Fire

OVERALL WINNER: Police

*Note that the Police sub-theme has more recently retired sets than Fire does, a factor that could skew the CAGR higher.

It appears from the tables above that CITY police sets easily beat fire themed ones (I’m sure some of the law enforcement related members in the forums will be happy with those results). The average CAGR for police sets is around 15 %, while the fire themed sets “only” grow at about 10.6 % per year. Interesting to note is the fact that if we divided this themes out from the larger CITY and place each on Brickpicker’s overall them CAGR, police sets would place well above the LEGO average CAGR, while fire sets would place slightly below.

Going deeper into the numbers there are several things that I think are important to examine in this article. Note that each sub-theme could be divided even further in some categories like Stations, Boats, Helicopters and so on, that in my opinion give us a little more information about which specifics sets tend to do better than the rest overall.

First of all, you will be able to note that the station type sets, the ones that are re-released most of the time, do end up appreciating pretty well in the long term. In some cases they even turn out to be extremely good performers (7945 and 7744), while some of the newer ones, as you can see, have appreciated very slowly since they were retired. This trend fits well with what I talked about in a previous section.
A second thing I wanted to highlight was which sets have usually been the best performers among both themes. If you take a look at the table above, a very specific type of set immediately jumps out on both sub-themes: Boats. As it was examined on a previous EC article, boats and ships have usually been really solid choices when it comes to LEGO investing, and it would appear that also applies when considering smaller CITY sets. The 7906 and 7207 Fire Boats, along with the less traditional 7944 Hovercraft, have all more than doubled in value, while the 7287 and 7899 Police Boats have performed in a very similar fashion.

Finally, as with every theme, there have been some sets that have really not performed as good as we would like. Having said that, we really can’t expect every single set to be an investment home run, and it really all comes down to being able to pick the right sets at the right price.

Overall, I think you should be pretty satisfied by the overall performance of most Police and Fire themed sets. Even though you don’t really hear that many good things about them, mostly because they are there ALL THE TIME, their historical performance has proven to be a solid one, so you can definitely be sure that by putting a little work and research into these sets they can become a very important part of your diversified brickfolio.

To conclude, let’s go ahead and examine some of the CITY fire and police sets currently available:

7498 Police Station VS. 60004 Fire Station

Comments: These are the two most recent stations on both sub-themes, and they are extremely similar in almost every significant aspect. Both stations have pretty much the same amount of pieces, same MSRP and therefore same Price Per Piece ratio, also at first sight, you will note that even the building structures share some of the same design elements.

The Fire Station was just released a few months ago, while the Police Station is rumored to be closing in to retirement. It is somewhat hard at this point to determine which one will perform better in the secondary market, but just basing of historical data I would have to go with the Police Station.

WINNER: Police

60008 Museum Break-In VS. 4209 Fire Plane

Comments: The Museum Break-In set is one of those more unique sets that LEGO has been releasing more and more trying to expand the variety of Fire and Police sets beyond the more traditional sets. The set is really very cool looking and has some very nice details that enhance the looks of the recreated scene, like some paintings and other artifacts that the thieves are looking to remove, the museum itself, and the police helicopter. On the other hand we have the Fire Plane that is one of the best looking fire sets currently available, in my opinion. The plane comes with several 1x1 blue translucent bricks that are used to simulate the water dropping from the compartment to extinguish the fire, as well as some other nice features like a fire truck (that connects to the plane as well), a couple of “burning” trees and some other minor accessories. As much as I also like the Museum Break-In, LEGO planes overall have proven to be really great performers, so if I had to pick, I would definitely invest on the Fire Plane.

WINNER: Fire

4439 Heavy Lift HelicopterVS.60010 Fire Helicopter

Comments: The 4439 Heavy Lift Helicopter is a really cool design based on a helicopter design that is not seen that often in LEGO sets, if ever. The body of the helicopter is really big and comes with two rotors, one in the front and one in the back. On the fire side of things, we have the 60010 Fire Helicopter that has a very high price per piece in comparison, mostly due to the inclusion of the motorized winch piece. Leaving that aside, the helicopter is more traditional looking, but the set does come with an extra section where “fuel” canisters appear to have caught fire, so there is extra playability with that too. Both models have things I consider very unique, and that does not allow me to pick a winner in this match up.

Draw

7288 Mobile Police Unit VS. 4430 Fire Transporter

Comments: The Mobile Police Unit shares some similarities with the retired Police Command Centre, as they are both mobile police units. The performance of the Command Centre has not been that good at this point, and it has been retired already for a little more than two years. There are really not any redeeming features that would make me assume that this newer version will perform any better.

The 4430 Fire Transporter is a Toys R Us exclusive, something that could be considered a positive aspect since its availability will be fairly limited, but that not always translates into great future returns. Other than that, the set is very interesting and a mobile command center kind of set seemed to be missing from the fire sub-theme.

Winner: Fire

60007 High Speed Chase VS. 60005 Fire Boat

Comments: The High Speed Chase set is pretty cool on its own, as it includes a Chase McCain minifig, along with some features that are necessary in every high speed chase: a patrol car/truck, motorcycle and a very fast looking sports car. There are also some minor features like the spike strip, barriers and cones.

Having said that, I really think there is no way for the police set to be able to beat the Fire Boat. As we have talked about before, boats in both themes have proven to be one of the most successful investment choices along the years, and I really see no reason for this last version to be the exception.

Winner: Fire

Final Tally for Current Sets: Police 1 VS. Fire 3 (1 Draw)

So, despite Police sets being historically better performers than Fire ones, I really think that the current selection tilts the balance more in favor of the latter.

These sets examined above are not the only ones that are currently available, just the ones I really wanted to cover and that I felt could match up. The most important set I left out of this analysis was the 4440 Forest Police Station, that at this point is really one of a kind and could turn out to be a great investment as well.

Now that we finished that, I hope at least some of you who were not thinking that much about CITY fire and police sets as an investment may change your minds and at least take a closer look at some of them, there is really the possibility to earn great returns on some of these, especially boat and plane sets!

Thanks for reading

http://brickultra.com/new-lego-tmnt-polybag-30270/

My take: I think this is another in a long line of questionable decisions made by TLG regarding the TMNT theme. The first polybag should be an enticement to buy more of the theme, and I really question whether the best approach was to include a "Krang in the Robot" minifig. It's already included in the Shellraiser Street Chase set, and while Krang is an important enemy to the turtles, Shredder should be their primary concern.

In a broader sense, I think the stars of this entire theme are the turtle minifigs, so why not include one of them in the first polybag?

Also, while I understand flick missiles are popular add-ins to polybags since they give a small set some instant playability, it's still a flick missile. Further marginalizing the flick missile is the ridiculous "set-up" that Krang is shooting at. They appear to be painted boxes intended to mimic the turtles, but why would anyone ever fire a missile at a group of painted boxes? This is what a 7 year old does with a beebee gun, not a technologically advanced missile-firing artillery cannon.

If you can't tell, I've been very disappointed with the TMNT theme. The figs are phenomenal, but everything else has been a hot mess. From the anchor set not being the largest of the theme to the numerous complaints about the fragility of the Shellraiser set, it appears TLG (and whoever licenses TMNT to Lego) has really mucked this theme up.

That said, I think the lair has a chance to provide decent returns in the secondary market. It's got Splinter and two Ninja Turtles: Leonardo and Raphael. The turtle lair is neat looking, and a base, so it has nice realism, detail and playability.

I will not be going anywhere near the rest of the theme.

If you are even remotely aware of the Star Wars franchise, then you more than likely know The Phantom Menace is considered by a large majority of the fans as the worst movie produced under the whole series. What makes it even... better? is the fact that the ship itself is related to the most annoying creatures in the Star Wars universe: the Gungans. All of these factors certainly don't help this set's popularity with the SW community, but as the target demographic for this set is probably young kids and teens that grew up under the new trilogy, I can't really say that LEGO made a mistake releasing this set. We just have to live with it.

This version of the Gungan Sub is not the first released by LEGO, however, as they did one way back when the movie was first released in 1999. Below you will find a table comparing the most important statistics of both versions:

You can see above that both sets were are very similar in various aspects. Before I forget, the older version retailed for $50 while the new one does for $70.

Let's now evaluate the numbers that will help us determine the impact the 2012 version had on its predecessor from 1999

I think it is pretty clear from the graph above that the impact of the announcement and released of set 9499 had a huge negative effect on the original version. Set 7161 dropped significantly over the past year (around 38%) and I think most of that drop is as a result of the new version. For a set of this kind that I believe it's not iconic at all, the impact of a having a new and greatly improved version is something that will almost always result in depreciation of the older model. When parents and other customers can go ahead and pay even retail price for the better version ($70) instead of paying the secondary market prices of the old version, they will almost always go with the re-make. This has as a consequence a drop in demand for the older set and a drop in price as well.

In this particular case, the older set took such a big hit that was even selling below the market value of the newer version for a couple of months, coincidentally those months with the highest demand for LEGO. So far, this has been actually one of the most extreme examples I have come accross so far when evaluating set remakes, and I think it goes back to the fact that the main buyer of this set are parents getting it for their kids and not hard core collectors. Once the cheaper alternative was released those parents simply shifted their money towards it and forgot about the older version.

7161 has had a small recovery over the past couple of months, but the damage is already done. I don't see this set coming back up to its pre-9499 levels, and the data should serve as a lesson of why holding sets for a really long time can become a very costly strategy.

Thanks for reading!

Is it, really? I believe that almost every Lego fan that opens a new bought MISB set, digs through the plastic bags and then takes the instruction to start building step by step. The number of people that open a sealed Green Grocer box then shout “look at all those nice coloured stones!” and build a big fairytale castle before they use the original instructions, should be very small. I think most of us build a Lego model the first time(s) in the way our Lego designers expected us to do.

So, the building instructions are a main part of our sets. Surprise!

Lego instructions come to us in different shapes and colours. Some are just small flyers or leaflets, some are multi-volume instructions in DIN A4 or US letter format, some are impressive copies with ring bindings and there are high quality paper back books like the architecture or cuusoo instructions. But they all have one thing in common: they need to be handled with care! In most cases the paper is thin; the staples rip easily through the pages and especially the small sized instructions have the power to hide form us like chameleons in the jungle.

When I was a small boy I thought is was a good idea to protect my instructions from getting lost by glueing them in an exercise book. Now, they are on the spot – but glued in an exercise book.

If I wanted to sell a set with the instructions, I would have to tear them out of the book, destroying at least one page. But you could say: “I would rather buy a Lego model including the original instruction (although it has one damaged page), than a set with a missing instruction”. And I would totally agree. But, if you would have to decide between a damaged and good conditioned instruction… (Answer for yourself)

When you browse through the offers on bricklink you can buy almost every building instruction that has ever been published. But the value of a single copy sometimes almost exceeds the retail price of the hole set. (e.g. 10182 Café Corner instructions (new) starting at $198, 3450 Statue of Liberty instructions (new) starting at €95(~$124))

One the one hand you have those investors that only have MISB sets in darkened, air-conditioned, vibration free shelves: congratulations - they have done everything right to protect the value of their sets, especially for the condition of the building instructions!

On the other hand there are investors that have already opened sets and some of them actually built a model that they own. And none of them wants to decrease the value of their investment. But, with every building you have the chance to rip a cover or the center page out of its binding, to make a dog-ear in a page, or simply to loose the whole instruction.

So, how can you conserve the mint condition of your instruction? Answer: don’t use it! Keep it in the box and don’t even think of opening it. Use a digital copy from TLG or borrow a copy from your friend who owns the set as well.

If you are so bold to use your own copy to build the model, you have to be very careful! Don’t let your children help you to turn the pages, don’t eat chips or other greasy food while building (Lego instructions, particularly the ones with a black background, attract and enhance every fingerprint) and when you have disassembled the model try not to shake the box with the instructions inside when you store them away, because when you reopen the box the instruction can be in really bad shape from being bent and flexed under the stones. Newer Lego sets come with the instruction being separately packed in a plastic bag with a heavy cardboard to prevent folding on the transport. Keep this plastic bag to store the instructions in the box. But be careful to reinsert them without letting the sticky tape being glued to the cover.

When I bought the 10214 Tower Bridge I wanted to protect the instructions. I thought that this set could be build several times and that the instructions should be in good condition even after several uses. The three parts of the instruction don’t have a thicker paper for cover, so I decided to use a self-adhesive lamination like they use in libraries to cover the books. I considered myself as manually and technically skilled, so I bought the sticky foil, cut it to the right size and was surprised by the capability of the paper to be electrostatic charged. Every time I tried to aproach the foil to the pages they jumped to the sticky side, latched onto it and left me desperate with crumbled pages and a lot of entrapped air.

Of course, you cannot remove the foil without destroying the whole page. Fortunately I could buy an extra copy of the instructions before EOL so it was not a big loss, but with my unprofessional work I turned a near mint instruction into a damaged and used one.

A few weeks ago I tried another form of protection. I consulted a bookbinder and asked him to make hard cover books from several instructions. This included the repair of damages like ripped pages and the strengthening of the thin paper along the bindings. The original metal staples have been replaced by a thread-stitching. In my opinion the outcome is very pleasing. The black cover contrasts nicely with the silver colored stamping of the set numbers.

Because of the different orientation of the bindings, I had to split some of the multi-volume instructions (e.g. 10212 Imperial Shuttle, 10181 Eiffel Tower) in 2 books – one portrait and one landscape format. This still offers the possibility for two persons to build different parts of the model simultaneously. But it doubles the costs for this set. The instructions are now comparable to a book in a library: after several readings you see small traces of wear, but its lifetime is significantly extended. And the cost for a replacement instruction of a much asked EOL-Set exceeds the cost for the hard cover book by far. You can additionally put these hard cover books in matching paper boxes to minimize wearing when you move the boxes very often. On the secondary market I never saw any hard cover books made from original instructions, so I cannot say if these modifications will please a buyer of a used set or will decrease the value because of the loss of the original state.

Conclusion:
If you don’t want your copy of the instruction to loose value – don’t use it.
If you have (or just want) to use it – handle with care.
Use the original plastic bag with the card board (or something similar) to store it away.
Unless you work in a library or are really skilled – don’t use adhesive foil on thin paper instructions, or fix them very well.
Making hard cover books from the instructions is a possible way to protect them – but it is expensive. If you bundle several volumes in one book you cannot build them simultaneously and at this point, due to the lack of experience, it is open if you increase or decrease the value.

Source: Protect your instructions – an instruction to destroy their value?

Relative performance is a very important aspect to keep in mind when investing, as you see from the example above. Now, there is one other thing that we should take into account that takes what I explained above one step further. Let's now assume your portfolio returned 32%, while the market had a return of that same 30%, in this case you can accurately say that your investments outperformed that of the overall market. Having said that, let's also assume that the standard deviation of your portfolio was 50%, while the market's was only 25%. What really happened in the end is that you took double the risk to capture just a 2% of extra return, and to me that is a mediocre extra return for such a high extra risk.

How can we then adjust for risk and make our performance evaluations more accurate? one way is to use what is known as Sharpe Ratio, or reward to variability ratio. What this very simple to calculate ratio can tell us is how many units of return we receive for each unit of risk we took with our portfolio. This measure is a great way to compare investment portfolios relative to the risk taken, and I believe we can also apply it when investing in LEGO.

If you read my previous Blog Article, you know that we can calculate standard deviation for LEGO themes or set types and come up with the respective volatility. The Sharpe Ratio measure uses this same calculation to account for risk, while at the same time including the expected, or actual, return and the risk free rate. On the next examples I will assume we have already calculated standard deviations for each theme and, for simplicity, that the risk free rate is only 1%.

So, in 2013 Ninjago and CITY's return was 25% and 10%, respectively. The risk of each measured as standard deviation was of 12% and 4%. What follows is the formula to calculate the Sharpe Ratio (Image from Investopedia)

As you can see, the calculation of the measure itself is pretty simple, and only what comes before is what can get tricky at times. Applying the formula to the numbers presented above we get the following results:

So what these numbers tell us is that, even if at first sight a Brickfolio focused on Ninjago in fact produced higher percentage returns, it is the CITY Brickfolio the one that presented the higher returns on a risk adjusted basis. Basically, the Ninjago investor was able to secure 2 units of return for each unit of risk, while the CITY investor produced 2.25 units of return for each unit of risk. Another read that you can make is that the Ninjago investor was not compensated as well as the CITY investor based on the risk taken by each.

A very basic rule of thumb when using this measure is that a higher ratio is preferable to a lower ratio. Also, as mentioned earlier, there is no need for you to wait until you have the actual returns of your Brickfolio, as you can also use your expected returns in place of the actual return as a way to compare possible future outcomes.

The Sharpe Ratio is not, of course, the end all of performance evaluation measures, but I think that it is simple and accurate enough as to be used even by the casual LEGO investor without getting into way more complicated methods. I believe that with any serious investment it is very important to evaluate as many factors as possible, and risk is certainly present even when taking about LEGO bricks. A long term investment strategy is strongly suggested, and by using Sharpe Ratio, Standard Deviation and by determining your goals early in the game (Check out Adewar's blog on viable investments and how to determine your own objectives) I think you will be a step ahead most people.

Note 1: Attached you will find an Excel spreadsheet showing the calculations used for the example in this article.

Note 2: Returns calculated by Sharpe are excess returns.

Thanks for reading!

Imagine for a moment that we were actually able to time travel. As a Lego investor, the first set I would travel forward in time to learn about would be 10227 B-Wing Starfighter, the single most debated set on Brickpicker over the last six months. The B-Wing is a Lego Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series model of one of the lesser known Star Wars starships of the Original Trilogy. This model has created so much controversy because of its perceived unpopularity prior to an unprecedented 50% off sale that resulted in a dramatic run on this set. An unheard of discount, a short sales duration, and a relatively fragile build of an unknown starship has conspired to create a flumoxing mix of competing positive and negative secondary market characteristics. I want so badly to see how this set performs because it really has the potential to explain so much about the secondary market, and what characteristics are important to secondary buyers. If there is a Rosetta Stone of Lego investing, this very well may be it!

To make an educated guess where the B-Wing is going, we need to remember where the B-Wing has been. Let's hop into our ugly CUUSOO Delorean and set the clock to July 6, 2012, the day Lego officially announced the B-Wing's release. Apparently, TLG was particularly successful keeping the lid on the B-Wing's development, so there was little indication this starship was in development among the Lego community. It's announcement and subsequent unveiling the following day at Brick Fiesta in Houston, Texas caught many fans by surprise. Soon after it's announcement, information began to leak out about the B-Wing to Lego fan sites and the first comments began to surface about the B-Wing. Unfortunately, a chorus of disappoinment in the set's MSRP and the absence of an exclusive minifig was heard, so the B-Wing was off to a rocky start. For reference, here are the initial MSRPs by region according to TLG's official press release and their respective price per piece, one of the oft cited metrics from the B-Wing's initial complaints:

$200 USD, $0.13 per piece
$250 CAN, ($255 usd), $0.17 per piece, 27.5% over US price
€200 ($246 usd), $0.17 per piece, 22.9%
170£ ($263 usd), $0.18 per piece, 31.5%
1700 DKK ($281 usd), $0.19 per piece, 40.5%

Back into the Delorean, we fast forward to B-Wing's release October 1, 2012. The buzz around the set was largely muted: a few still complained about the price point, but the few reviews coming in were largely positive, especially from Star Wars fans. It didn't appear there was a lot of excitement about this new UCS set, and with Death Star, Super Star Destroyer, Imperial Shuttle and the R2-D2 models crowding it out, the B-Wing perhaps got lost in the shuffle of a strong group of Ultimate Collector Series "large scale" models.

Then came May 4, and the epic B-Wing promotion from Lego. On the evening of May 3, the night before the TLG's yearly Lego Star Wars promotion day, Brickpicker officially announced at 8:00 PM EST that Lego would be discounting 10227 B-Wing by 50% in the United States. This set off a deluge of anticipation within the Brickpicker community, and on midnight of May 4, 2013, TLG posted the B-Wing for $100, a full $100 less than MSRP. Within forty-five minutes, the B-Wing was sold out and a torrent of posts flooded Brickpicker's forum containing a spectrum of responses. From one member who bragged about purchasing 11 B-Wings to others who castigated the BP community for not allowing children the opportunity to have their very own, most of the responses were intense. It seemed no one had anything less than visceral reaction to TLG's discount.

The obligatory eBay postings arrived the morning of May 4, with the typical listing anywhere from $100 to $300, atlhough there were a few 'Buy it Now' prices that listed 10227 for four figures. During the entire month of May, eBay Lego listings were dominated by this previously quiet set, with a total of nearly 300 sets sold, a 1,000% increase in listings from the previous month. Yet, as the calendar flipped to June, the listings have slowed again, and Lego resellers have largely moved on to other sets. As of June 24, 68 NISB B-Wings had sold in June, a fraction of May's total, and only 39 more than were sold the month prior to TLG's B-Wing's discounting.

A few short days ago, Brickpicker members saw that 10227 B-Wing was listed as "Call for Availability". This tag is, at times, a precursor to full blown retirement. Later, Lego updated their listing to include some stock, yet the retirement speculation had begun. Was B-Wing gone? Today, a look at Brickset's B-Wing listing shows a June 17 retirement date for the US and Canada, with the set still available in the United Kingdom. The US Lego S@H listing shows the B-Wing completely sold out with no restocking date. Brickpickers take note: these are some strong signs that indicate B-Wing's official retirement is now on the horizon.

So what does this long, strange trip mean for secondary sales of the B-Wing? First, if the B-Wing is officially retired, we can confirm earlier speculation that Lego's discount was in fact a clearance sale intended to eliminate B-Wing stock. This is potentially valuable information that could establish a precedent for future large discounts by TLG. It's probably a pretty good indication that if a given set is discounted 50% in the future, it's likely the beginning of the end for this set.

That said, we still need to estimate how this set will perform from here on forward. For reference, let's once again show how well the UCS have performed:

This subtheme's performance has been rehashed time and again, yet the numbers don't lie. Apart from 10215 Obi-Wan's Jedi Starfighter, these sets have all performed really well after retirement. However, when you look at 10215, there is a concerning similarity between it and B-Wing: it's price per gram is VERY similar. Fortunately, the table also shows us another strong earner, 10026 Naboo Starfighter, that sports an even higher price per gram so I don't believe there is any correlation between price per gram and secondary performance for UCS secondary market performance.

Remember that secondary performance is typically the result of retail popularity and retail availability. While sales are the ultimate measure of set popularity, Lego doesn't release sales statistics to the public so it's difficult to get compare the B-Wing's popularity to other UCS sets. However, to gauge retail availability, we can take a look at the number of months these sets have been released. Per Brickset's release/retirement dates, here are the sales durations for UCS sets they have on file:

10221 Imperial Star Destroyer - 22 months (and counting)
10212 Imperial Shuttle - 27 months
10186 General Grievous - 12 months
10179 Millennium Falcon - 30 months
10174 Imperial AT-ST - 17 months
10175 Vader's Tie Advanced - 15 months
10143 Death Star II - 16 months

Assuming a quick retirement like Brickset anticipates:
10227 B-Wing - 8.5 months

That's a really short sales duration for any set, and almost half the duration of every set on the list above except 10188. As a comparison, the explosively popular 9465 The Zombies was out for just over 4 months. Even though B-Wing has been around twice as long, it's still within 4+ months of The Zombies sales cycle. If it's true B-Wing is retiring, it will have the shortest sales cycle of any UCS set.

The natural response to B-Wing's short sales cycle is that it wasn't popular, so it didn't sell at MSRP, and will therefore not garner very good secondary sales. While this may turn out to be true, most people that invested in B-Wings did so during the May the Fourth promotion when retail was $100. Everyone in this camp should be poised to make a nice return on their investment. Here is a table with the B-Wing's ROIs at specific secondary sales points assuming a $100 purchase price and a $200 purchase price:

If you review recently sold eBay listings, the typical sales price (without shipping) is anywhere from $135-150. So, the first sales price I included was $150. As you can see, for those that bought at $100, you are almost guaranteed to make money, and could be poised for big profits if B-Wing performs like the rest of the theme. Unfortunately, the other side of the coin is those buyers that bought B-Wing prior to The Sale. As the the table shows, a B-Wing purchased at anything close to MSRP is in danger of breaking even, or possibly losing money.

Where will B-Wing eventually end up? I think the 10212 Imperial Shuttle is an adequate comparable to assemble the B-Wing's return model: both sets sold at roughly the same rate on eBay while they were available at retail, fluctuating between 25-50 sales per month, both sets are similar in size and cost, and both are Ultimate Collector Series models. While B-Wing is probably less iconic that the Imperial Shuttle, neither ship was a true Original Trilogy icon. While IS is probably slightly more popular, B-Wing has a lower MSRP, so if these aspects balance they should provide similar ROI. Assuming IS's value climbs $10 per month for the foreseeable future, 10212's secondary market value is likely to reach $400 before the end of the year, pegging it's first year ROI at roughly 50%. A similar gain by B-Wing would peg its value at around $300 on or about July 1, 2014. Since this seems a little high to me, let's back off a 50% return over MSRP and forecast a 50% return over it's ideal sale price of $150-175. That would bring secondary market buyers at a $100 purchase price a return of 30-50% after transaction costs.

10227 B-Wing did not take the traditional path to EOL, and because of this it could become a very illustrative set for secondary market investors. The eventual plateau value of the B-Wing should provide some insight to the following:

• How do significant (50%) discounts by TLG affect post-retirement performance?
• Will the Ultimate Collector Series subtheme continue to show across-the-board success, or could future subtheme sets be invesment failures?
• Is there any correlation between strong set launches and future secondary performance, or more importantly, weak model launches and corresponding secondary failure? More broadly, what is the effect of momentum, or lack thereof, on the secondary market value of a Lego set?

Unfortunately, my sports almanac doesn't contain any Lego secondary market values, so I will have to get to work on my own Mr. Fusion flux capacitor. Or, perhaps I will just wait to see, along with everyone else, how the future unfolds.

And as always, invest accordingly.

Other questions may be, Can I flip this set today for a quick profit or should I hold on until EOL or hold until the community standard of EOL + 2 Yrs. What time frame should I expect to realize a return on my investment? What level of growth should I expect from a given set? If I have a limited budget and a high tolerance for risk, should go for that one home run? What are my goals? The answers to these questions and ultimately the question of what makes an investment worthwhile are going to be different for everyone. There a lot of factors involved. Many investors prefer to deal in large sets which can net $100+ in one sale while others are content to deal in volume and sell polybag after polybag for a net of $3 each. We all have to evaluate our budget, storage space, and the amount of time we want to devote to this hobby/job/casual pastime among other things. Many of these factors are difficult or impossible to quantify.

However, in an effect to quantify what can be quantified, I put together a calculation in the attached spreadsheet that encompasses the most relevant variables that I consider when deciding to purchase a given set. It is not meant to be all inclusive, for example it doesn't include a risk factor which I think would be a very nice addition. Here it is, perhaps it will be useful to some:

The fields which are intended for the user to populate are highlighted in yellow:
MSRP - Enter price paid
Hold Time (Yrs)
Time Value of Money Discount Rt - Enter the annual return you expect
Transaction Cost - Enter the % of the final sale price lost in transaction costs
Sales Effort - time involved in the investment (buying, listing, selling, shipping) entered as fraction of an hour
Hourly Rate - How much is your time worth to you or the amount of money per hour you would need to make if your transaction were to net '0' and have it still be worthwhile.

The resulting output gives:
Future Value:
Net Return
Worthwhile?

May 2013 Top Ten

1- No surprise in the first spot when you remember that this month's data includes the period before, during and after the May the 4th promotions. The 50% off the B-Wing guaranteed that a very high quantity of customers would end up purchasing the set in differing quantities with the intention to build, invest or flip in the short term. The low price for which this set is selling at the moment relative to its high MSRP may earn it a spot in the Top 10 for at least a couple of months.

Change from previous month: +165 Places

2- The popularity of this set even after the initial craze and subsequent increased production allows it to stay in the top ten for yet another month, and so far it has been there for at least December 2012. Price continues to drop, as do overall sales, but the fact that it still is in 2nd place prove just how popular this set has been.

Change from previous month: +3 Places

3- This is yet another set that comes as no surprise, as it constantly hovers over the top spots in the best sellers list. The Millenium Falcon 7956 is expected to retire relatively soon, and considering this is the best version released as of today, ignoring the UCS 10179, it is sure to be a great performer in the secondary market. The set moved up 9 places, a leap that can be attributed in part to the May the 4th sales and promotions.

Change from previous month: +9 Places

4- This is one unique set that usually does not get talked about much in the forums, however it continues to demonstrate month after the month that it is one of the most popular available. According to Brickset, the set has been Sold Out at S@H since the end of April.

Change from previous month: +12 Places

5- For those of you that still have doubts about the popularity of the Friends theme, this little set has managed to capture the #5 spot of this month. Released in February, it is one of the newest sets of the theme, so that may account for the high number of sales it has experienced.

Change from previous month: +45 Places

6- This relatively new battle pack is getting very popular, very fast. The quantity of sets sold has been increasing by A LOT since its introduction, with sales this month surpassing April by 77 copies.

Change from previous month: +95 Places

7- This Chima Speedorz is one of the only sets I really wish I did not see in this list. If you remember, LEGO included this set as a freebie in pretty much every single order that went through. Of course, people then turned around and listed them on eBay with the expectation of making a few bucks on them. As one would expect, price continues to drop. Even more, this is the largest jump relative to the previous month, something that goes a long way to show just how many of these little things are now floating around.

Change from previous month: +933 Places

8- The eternal Death Star jumped several dozen places even with it very expensive price tag. Most of this jump can probably be attributed to May the 4th as well. The advertising by LEGO probably spews out towards other selling outlets.

Change from previous month: +45 Places

9- After one month in the second spot product of the "early retirement" confusion, sales of the Palace dropped significantly from 937 to "only" 96 copies in May. Still, the set maintains a position in the Top 10 and it will be interesting to check where it will be next month.

Change from previous month: -7

10- To close our May list we have yet another 2013 Star Wars Battle pack that jumped more than a hundred places relative to the previous month. These things are very affordable and great army builders, but why this particular one jumped so much ,other than because May the 4th and its recent release, is beyond me.

Change from previous month: +123 Places

And with that, we close this month's Top 10 best sellers list. If you are interested to check out the complete list, click here and you'll see the Top 50 best sellers according to eBay data.

See you next month to evaluate June's Top 10!

There is usually a lot of talk in LEGO forums about the great appreciation usually shown by train sets, and that is something that can’t be ignored, but it sometimes makes me think that we are overlooking or at least under valuating the performance of ships, planes and cars, that as I will show a little later in this article are usually at least as good as the best LEGO trains. There is something about scale models of these transportations methods that has always attracted attention in large groups of people, and LEGO has obviously noticed.

In this article I will try to showcase the performance of each of these classes, but first let me draw you some sort of map so you know what to expect: First we will be taking the road while we talk about some of the best performers in the four wheel universe, we will then park our vehicle at the piers where we will be boarding onto the top performing ships of LEGO history. Once we disembark, we will be buying our train tickets (direction: airport) and have a little talk about the largest, and best performer, trains in the LEGO world. By that time, we should be in time to catch our plane and return to our starting point once again to complete the trip. As if all this were not enough, I’ll leave you with a comparison and ranking of all these transportation categories as well as an analysis of the current investment options available to you in this regard.

Let’s begin our journey.

Road Trip

Cars, trucks and other vehicles have always been of interest to a large amount of the population. Take the success of other toys like Hot Wheels, scale models and even real car collecting as evidence of the interest this transportation method generates in people.

When we talk specifically about LEGO vehicles, we have to focus a lot more in those from the Technic line, as they have usually been the largest and best performers over the course of the years. Let’s take a look at the Top 5 LEGO vehicles that have been retired so far.

8421 Mobile Crane

*No Description

Found* Comments: The second largest vehicle ever produced by LEGO, and part of the Technic line. This set is huge with close to 2,000 pieces and a very interesting model as well. Driving this thing will probably not get you very far at a fast rate, but it has definitely proven to be a fast grower over the years. There is little activity on this set (New) on eBay, with the last one being sold in April of this year for the amazing price of $ 725! As with all Technic builds, there is a lot of functionality in this set and it seems to have gone well under the radar.

8258 Crane Truck

instructions for rebuilding into a Duty Wrecker! DownloadWhen you need to move the biggest and heaviest loads, it’s time to call on the mighty crane truck! This massive, realistic vehicle includes a Power Functions control box that you can use to unfold, raise and lower its powerful, motorized crane arm, and to extend the outriggers to stabilize your cargo. With built-in Power Functions, this Crane Truck always gets the job done!

• An exciting and challenging building experience with this 2-in-1 real world model!
• Try the functionalities with the included Power Functions XL Motor, Power Functions Battery box, and Power Functions Control Switch!
• Power Functions powers the crane arm and extendable outriggers!
• Crane unfolds , raises and lowers and swivels 360°!
• Cab opens to reveal interior details and V8 engine with moveable pistons!
• Rebuilds into Duty Wrecker!
• Crane measures 20.9 inches (53cm) x 22 inches (56cm)!

Comments: Another Technic build, another crane type set. Came with Power Functions to make some of the nice features included work, and even had some pieces made completely out of rubber and metal instead of traditional plastic. You could even download a different set of instructions and completely change the looks and functionality of the model, so you were basically getting two different sets for the price of one. This set is more recent than the Mobile Crane, and as such has a lot more activity per month on eBay. The price seems to be moving up steadily every month as well.

8285 – Tow Truck

• Its rear telescopic towing mechanism lifts pneumatically to rescue stranded vehicles, while the ratchet-regulated winch secures the load.
• Open the hood to reveal the detailed V6 engine with moving pistons and spinning radiator fan!
• Side compartments conceal manual controls for raising the hook or extending and lowering the boom.
• Authentic model for skilled builders! Pump the pneumatic cylinder to lift the telescoping boom!
• Tow Truck measures over 26" (66cm) long! Turn the wheels to see the realistic V6 engine pistons move!
• Lower the stabilizers for towing heavy loads! Telescoping boom extends, retracts, lifts and lowers!
• Open the hood to see the detailed engine and spinning radiator fans!
• Includes building instructions to rebuild into a heavy load flat-bed truck! Also includes instructions for integrating #8287 Motor Set (sold separately) into the alternate model. The motor will lift and lower the arm and pull the string up and down.

This amazing, fully-functional Tow Truck is equipped with rack and pinion front wheel steering, and an operating crane, winch and lift -- just like the real thing!

Comments: And big trucks continue to dominate the list, just like they do in the real American car marketplace. Really good looking tow truck, and being a Technic set, it does come with its fair share of motorized and other functional features. As with the previously discussed model, this set also had a second set of instructions to transform into a flatbed truck. This Tow Truck was originally released in 2006, just one year after the Mobile Crane, and shows a similar level of low activity on eBay as a consequence. The last two new ones sold for over $ 700 as well, but with such a low amount of data is really hard to tell what their real market value is at this point. Another under the radar set at a time when LEGO investing was not really in full gear. Another great Technic investment.

5571 Giant Truck

*No Description Found*

Comments: Released in 1996, this is the oldest set of this Top 5, and the first one that is not a Technic build (it IS another truck though). A real vintage piece, this truck is one of the earliest examples of a real LEGO display piece the company has us accustomed to as of late. Not only was one of the largest models of the time, if not the largest, but it also has been proven to be one of the top performers of this list. With a surprising 9 % CAGR still after more than 16 years of its release and at least one new set sold for the last 6 months, this set has nothing to fear from any of the other larger trucks talked about above.
One thing to note, the set suffered from a significant drop in value in the last month, but considering for how long this set has been retired, I would assume that those are just typical price fluctuations that will average out in the end.

10187 Volkswagen Beetle

LEGO fans around the world named the famed Volkswagen Beetle as the classic car that they most wanted as a LEGO model'¦and now it's finally here! Based on the iconic 1960 'œCharlotte' model, the LEGO Volkswagen Beetle features realistic details and functions like opening doors, hood and trunk, a spare tire in the front and engine in the back, an accurate interior, and more. Includes display plate with detailed specifications of the original Volkswagen model! Measures 16" (41cm) long and 6'½" (16cm) high! Realistic details include a movable stick shift, opening glove compartment and seats that fold forward! Features an engine in the back trunk and spare tire under the hood! Beetle details also includes a Volkswagen logo decal, windshield wipers and rearview mirror! Tires measure 2'½" (6cm) wide! Build the classic Volkswagen Beetle!

Comments: And so it’s the last set of the list, and the only one in the Top 5 that is not a truck or a Technic build, just a “regular” passenger car. The VW Beetle is one of the most popular and easily recognizable cars in history, thanks to its particular design, and LEGO’s agreement with the automaker has made it possible for fans to build their own. Even more, this car model was chosen by real LEGO fans, so its popularity was to be expected.

Released in 2008, this mostly blue model has presented a very fast level of growth, with a CAGR of over 30.5% and also an increase of almost 3 % over the past month. The Beetle has been growing steadily every month, and at $ 455 already, it is 280% over its original retail price in just a couple of years.

Honorable Mentions

I think there is no need for me to add any more information, am I right? LEGO cars and trucks have proven to be extremely good performers in the secondary market, so don’t doubt about getting a few of them. These will always be popular, and that makes the price go higher and higher. Definitely a better investment than a real car, if you ask me.

Set Sail…

Lego Ships are one of the most talked about and successful investment choices you can make in the LEGO universe. Ships are one of the oldest methods of transportation in human history, and they go pretty far back in time when talking exclusively about LEGO as well.

Most of the time, the company has decided to go with the sail boat type of ship, instead of more modern designs, probably because they look so much better when transformed into bricks. As you will see, however, there have been several profit makers of both kinds.

Also, unlike in the cars/trucks category, LEGO ships performance is not so much linked to a specific line or theme. The variety of themes included in the Top 5 and Top 10 is rather interesting, from Pirates, to the licensed Pirates of the Caribbean, and even a couple of Maersk vessels.

Let’s now go ahead and dive into specific sets:

10210 Imperial Flagship

• Includes 9 minifigures: the ship’s captain, his daughter, a pirate captain prisoner with shackles, the ship’s cook, a lieutenant, and 4 soldiers!
• Amazingly detailed and realistic ship features 3 removable sections!
• Main hull contains 4 firing cannons, ammunition crates, muskets, torches, cannonballs, prison with a rat, saw shark figurehead, a moving rudder and a fully-equipped ship’s kitchen with fish, turkey legs and a carrot!
• Raise and lower the working anchor!
• Open the front deck’s working doors and play inside!
• Imperial Flagship is equipped with masts and rigging!
• Open the back house deck’s doors to reveal the captain’s chambers complete with a map, poison bottle, organ and even a treasure chest filled with jewels and gold!
• Features 6 opening windows, a telescope and sextant as well as 3 deck lanterns!
• Measures 29.5” (75 cm) long and 23.6” (60 cm) tall!

All hands on deck! This amazingly detailed and realistic historical ship has three removable sections. The main hull contains 4 firing cannons, ammunition crates, muskets, torches, cannonballs, a prison with a rat, a fully-equipped ship’s kitchen, working anchor, moving rudder and a saw shark figurehead. The front deck has an opening door to the inside of the ship and sails with masts and rigging. The back house deck has opening doors to the captain’s chambers containing a map, poison bottle, organ and a treasure chest full of jewels and gold. The Imperial Flagship has 6 opening windows, a telescope and sextant and 3 deck lanterns. Includes 9 minifigures: the ship’s captain, his daughter, a pirate captain prisoner with shackles, the ship’s cook, a lieutenant, and 4 soldiers. Measures 29.5” (75 cm) long and 23.6” (60 cm) tall. Ages 14+. 1,664 pieces Build an incredible classic sailing ship!

Comments: The largest and, in my opinion, most amazing ship LEGO has ever produced. The Imperial Flagship is part of the generic Pirates theme, but it does not look that most of the previous sail boats, as this one is extremely realistic looking (both inside and out). The ship was also a LEGO exclusive AND also including 9 cool minifigs, so it pretty much had everything going for it. At this point, it has been retired for a little over a year and is already getting close to doubling in value.

The Imperial Flagship is the Holy Grail of LEGO ship investment, and I think it will be a while before we see another model that can even compare with it, both in size and realism.

4997 Transport Ferry

Load your ferry up with vehicles using the working back ramp and transport your cargo safely across the sea. Then use the geared lever to open the front doors and unload at your distant destination! Includes instructions to rebuild into a transport hovercraft or a cargo plane! Includes a car with trailer attached to load onto the ferry! Turn the gear to lower the ramp to drive the car onto the ferry then raise the ramp to set sail! Unlatch the front doors, turn the gear to open the doors, and drive the car off of the ferry! Ferry is on wheels to move it in any direction! Ferry measures 16" (41cm) long and 5" (13cm) wide! Prepare to set sail!

Comments: I told you there would be a lot of variety in this Top 5. This Transport Ferry set was produced in 2008 under the Creator theme, so it actually allows you to build three different models: a hovercraft, a cargo plane and the ferry. As with most sets in the Creator line, the price per piece is a real bargain, and at a low MSRP of $ 70, this was a set that you would have been able to stock up without real trouble. But now is too late, this great looking Ferry is already over MSRP by more than double, but suffers from the same issue some of the cars and trucks we talked about before do on the secondary market: there is just not much activity with this set. In fact, there has not been a new one sold since November of last year, according to Brickpicker’s data, so there is really no way to know how much this set is changing in price on a per month basis. Still, it has already appreciated a lot, and from the current listings available on eBay, it could be going by $200 in some months.

4195 Queen Anne’s Revenge

• Includes 7 minifigures: Blackbeard, Jack Sparrow, Angelica, Quartermaster, Cook and 2 pirates
• Features large sails, lanterns, fire elements and bone detailing
• Detach the captain’s quarters!
• Move the cannons!
• Steer with the helm!
• An essential build for fans of the Pirates of the Caribbean™ film series
• Measures over 20" (50cm) tall and 25" (66cm) wide
• Includes free poster!

Captain Jack Sparrow and his motley band of pirates are taking control of the Queen Anne’s Revenge! It’s mayhem and mutiny as they seize the ship from Angelica and her zombie crew. If they only knew that Blackbeard, the pirate all pirates fear, is watching and waiting in the captain’s quarters. This time Jack has gone too far! Set sail for the Fountain of Youth on the most dreaded ship on the high seas!

Comments: And the first licensed theme makes its appearance. With Pirates of the Caribbean being such a successful franchise, one would expect that all of the LEGO sets released under it would shoot up in price after retirement, but this has not happened. The two exceptions are, of course, the two ships that LEGO released, one being the Black Pearl, and the second one this Queen Anne’s Revenge. The Black Pearl was not large enough to make it in this Top 5, but its performance is extremely similar to the QAR.

This ship is another great example about why are sail ships so popular with LEGO builders, as they look really great once completed. Besides that, the QAR also included 7 high quality minifigs related to the movie series, as well as an interesting number of cool play features. At this point, the ship is experiencing the high growth period usually seen after going EOL, and is bound to double in value in relation to MSRP before the end of this year.

10155 Maersk Line Container Ship

• Build the icon of worldwide shipping!
• Highly realistic details
• Add this representative of the world’s leading container shipping company to your LEGO® collection!
• Measures 27” (69 cm) long

More than 550 Maersk Sealand cargo liners sail the seas, carrying valuable goods to ports in 130 countries around the world. Established in 1904, this company is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark and is the leading container shipping company in the world. Build your own version of this accurately detailed freighter and embark on a voyage of trade and adventure! Build the iconic Maersk Container Ship!

Comments: (Re-release of 10152) Maersk licensed LEGO set is something you’ll be seeing plenty in the following lists, they are just some of the most popular sets on the market, probably because it gives a lot of realism to the set and your collection by having a world recognized brand like Maersk. Having said that, this is not a heavily detailed and nice sail boat, but rather a ship designed for the hard and dirty work of moving containers across continents, and to that extent it is a very good looking ship. The brick built containers are one of its nicest features.

Investment wise, this set has done a great job in the secondary market, though not as good as its older and less good looking sibling. Still, this one is a more recent model that lasted very little time on the shelves, so there is still plenty of room for more growth. It also was a lot more expensive than the previous version, so that is something you should consider as well. Another interesting fact that we can gather from the price guide information, is that despite the ship being somewhat active on eBay, it has been dropping as far as market value is concerned for already two consecutive months (New). While this may be a temporary trend, one has to wonder if the set has already reached its peak.

10152 Maersk Sealand Container Ship

Maersk Sealand cargo liners sail the seas, carrying valuable goods to ports around the world. Build your own version of this accurately detailed freighter and embark on a voyage of trade and adventure! Build the most famous cargo liner in the world!

Comments: If before we were talking about its newer, bigger and more impressive relative, now it’s time for the original Maersk Container ship to be in the spotlight. Unlike 10155, this version was released way back in 2004 at a much lower price (both MSRP and per piece) but with a very similar feel. The new one has some improvements, but overall you would be hard pressed to find really significant differences.

What’s more important is, that despite having a lower activity level than the newer version, this set has already matured and has even grown some more in the past few months, staying very consistently above $ 190 without much variation. With an original investment of $ 75, you are probably very happy with how this one turned out if you were already into LEGO investing by that time.

Honorable Mentions

So, there have been fewer ships than cars/trucks over LEGO history, but as you can see all of the ones in this list have had a performance that rivals that of any set we talked about on that previous section.

Along the Rails…

Trains are investment winners. How many times have you read that phrase in the forums? Probably a lot, and for good reasons. If you are just entering the LEGO investing world for the first time and are a little wary of the whole thing, one of the safest investments out there would be to put your money towards a LEGO train purchase. These things, besides being appealing for the average LEGO fan, are also incredibly popular with the more broad train collecting population. Train enthusiasts, even if they are not really fans of LEGO, provide the secondary market with an influx of buyers that some of the other themes out there can’t compete with. Trains are just THAT popular. Even more, LEGO has been able to produce brick built trains that actually run over rails, allowing for so many more displaying and playing options to be available.

Over the years, LEGO has produce a large amount of very high quality models, going from vintage and traditional, passing through cargo trains, to the current high speed Horizon Express. Let’s go ahead and take a detailed look over some of the most important ones.

10219 Maersk Train

• Containers can be loaded side-by-side or stacked!
• Includes 3 workman minifigures!
• Train measures 36"" (92cm) long!
• Building instructions include a historical description of the LEGO Group/A.P. Moller Maersk Group cooperation and a timeline of the products launched!
• Motorize your Maersk train by adding LEGO Power Functions #8878 Rechargeable Battery Box, #8887 Transformer 10V DC, #8884 IR Receiver, #8879 IR Speed Remote Control and #88002 Train Motor!

A replica of the real engine that operated on the railroads of America, this Maersk train features exceptional detailing and functions, such as opening driver's cab, removable side panel revealing a detailed, 16-cylinder engine, and authentic Maersk branding. The model also includes 2 wagons and 3 containers with opening doors (1 with refrigeration detailing). The set also includes a shunter truck and detachable trailer for loading and offloading the containers. Add LEGO® Power Functions to motorize! The highly-realistic Maersk diesel-electric freight train has arrived!

Comments: Another Maersk themed set gets to be in a Top 5. This recently retired model has been appreciating very fast over the past few months, even though it seems to have hit some resistance these past weeks, nothing major considering how fast this one went up. The Maersk train is the largest train, piece wise, ever produced by LEGO after the recently released Horizon Express. Really compatible with both previously discussed container ships, this great looking model is aiming high, and will probably be worth double MSRP in less than a year.

10194 Emerald Night

With piston-powered wheels, this train is an all-new LEGO® classic! Here comes the Emerald Night! Build this incredible classic-styled train with loads of amazing details, from the steam locomotive with furnace to the opening tender and dining car with removable roof, opening doors and detailed interior. Measures 27.2" (68cm) long! Includes three minifigures, elements in rare colors and all-new large train wheels with piston motion! Add LEGO® Power Functions to motorize. This classically-styled train features a steam locomotive with furnace, opening tender, dining car with removable roof, opening doors and detailed interior! Train measures 27.2" (68cm) long Lots of authentic touches including elements in rare colors and all-new large train wheels with piston motion! Includes 3 minifigures! All new LEGO classic!

Comments: An old-school looking train, the Emerald Night has been a real star on the secondary market. A LEGO exclusive, this model was reasonably priced at only $ 99.99, a great deal relative to the high quality set you got from your money, considering it also was open to motorizing. This great looking model has already more than doubled in value and despite a drop in value in the month of April, from the last eBay sales it looks that this set will continue to show continued growth over the rest of the year.

10183 Hobby Trains

*No Description Found*

Comments: Why limit yourself to only one train design, when you can just build several of them with the same pieces? That was the idea behind the 10183 Hobby Trains set. You purchased a set with over 1,000 pieces that would allow you to create several different train designs at your leisure, without having to be “married” to one specific design. In a way, this set represented the original purpose of LEGO bricks, bringing creativity out and allowing you to build several different things with pretty much the same standard bricks. Anyway, as well as being one of the most interesting sets LEGO has ever released, in my opinion, the Hobby Trains has proven to be another investment winner, going over MSRP by almost 136 % and showing a steady growing trend.

10173 Holiday Train

• Complete train measures over 45" (105cm) long!
• Includes a holiday-themed locomotive, tender, passenger car with removable roof, Christmas tree carrier, caboose, and best of all, a long open freight car overflowing with gifts for all of your whole LEGO® City!
• Set features 7 minifigures, including 2 engineers, 1 railroad worker and 4 passengers, plus loads of special elements!
• Does not include train tracks.

Ride the rails to holiday fun with this exclusive train set! This cheerful train is all decked out for the season in red, white and green, with festive lights, holly, and good tidings galore. All aboard for holiday adventure!

Comments: Of all the trains in this list, this is the definite Star. The 10173 Holiday Train was a Special Edition released by LEGO for a really short period of time back in 2006; it probably lasted less than 4 months on the shelves. On top of that, the train is themed to the holidays and that usually means a higher price in the secondary market, kind of what happens now with the Winter Village sets. A lot of people like to set up their holiday towns, and how could they complete theirs without an appropriate train set? This is the set that filled that need during the 06 holiday season, and that continues to be in really high demand by many LEGO collectors all over the world. MISB listings for this set are very rare, even on eBay, and it seems that every single December the set jumps in value to a new record high, where it will stay pretty consistently until the next holiday season arrives. This is the very definition of a train investment winner.

4565 Freight and Crane Railway

*No Description Found*

Comments: Another LEGO vintage set that has managed to do very well over the years. The first thing that may come into your mind when you first see this set is just how much LEGO has been improving the set design over the past decade, but by 1990s standards, this set was the top of the line. Running on a 9V track, this train not only has a lot of charm, but also a pretty decent performance in the secondary market.

Honorable Mentions

You see, it does not matter if they are new or old, or vintage if you prefer that term, most large LEGO sets have been really good performers over the years, and I am leaving a lot of them out of these lists just in the interest of not over extending the article, think some of the World City or newer City trains, and some of the Santa Fe cars as well.

Finally, prepare for takeoff…

And just like that we get to the last category I will be analyzing in this article, planes. Pretty much as it is with all of the other transportations types, planes have a market that usually goes beyond LEGO fans, with a large group of people being collectors of all types of plane models.

LEGO planes are not as large of some of the other sets in the others categories, with some exceptions, and there also seems to be a fewer number of pure plane sets when compared to cars, trains and ships. Let’s see some of the highlights.

10177 Boeing 787 Dreamliner

The newest and most revolutionary aircraft in the legendary Boeing fleet, the 787 Dreamliner is designed for ultimate in air travel, and now it can be yours in this exclusive collector's model! With authentic colors, scale and details, the LEGO Boeing 787 Dreamliner is just like the real thing! The Dreamliner features a display stand and display card listing the real aircraft's specifications and details. Overall length is 26" (66cm) and wingspan is 27" (69 cm)! Includes collector's display stand and display card with detailed specifications for the real aircraft! A LEGO exclusive, based on exact specifications from Boeing Commercial Airplanes for the ultimate in scale, details and authenticity!

Comments: The Boeing 787 is the largest plane LEGO set ever produced, and as such it also has some of the largest gains in this list, already over retail price by 287 %, and slowly growing even more. Unlike some of the sets I will be talking about after this one, the Boeing is a complete collector’s and display piece, even coming with a display fact sheet on the style of SW UCS sets.

10124 Wright Flyer

*No Description Found*

Comments: Such an iconic moment in history needed to have its own LEGO recreation. Released in 2003, the Wright Flyer is a set any serious plane collector will probably want to add to their collection, and they will have to pay a pretty high price at this point. The set is really rare to see on eBay, with only 3 new ones currently listed for sale at prices way above the Brickpicker Price Guide, something to be expected with sets that do not “trade” that much.

10024 Red Baron

*No Description Found*

Comments: A cool looking red propeller plane released back in 2002. This is another case of not enough activity to really determine the current market value of the set, but even if we base blindly on the price guide, the set presents a pretty good CAGR for the amount of years it has been retired so far. Just as a reference, the last 2 sealed sets sold by $ 300 and $ 350.

 7628 Peril In Peru

• Includes Indiana Jones with hat, whip and bag, Mutt Williams™ and Irina Spalko™, Colonel Dovchenko™, pilot and guard minifigures!
• Includes plane, runway tractor and trolley, stairs to access the plane, plus Russian truck and a case that holds the crystal skull!
• Plane features working landing gear, propellers that spin and side compartments that open!

Indiana Jones™ and Mutt have been captured by Irina Spalko™ and her henchmen! Taken to a secret South American airport, they must use their wits to escape. Can they work together to recover the crystal skull and battle their way to freedom? Airport action!

Comments: An Indiana Jones plane that includes some other minor features, this pretty cool looking plane has doubled in value in a little over two years with a pretty good CAGR of 15%. It did have a drop in price last month, but if you see the trend, it is clearly a positive one. It may not be one of the greatest winners, but it has done pretty well.

3451 Sopwith Camel

*No Description Found*

Comments: The predecessor of the current 10226 Sopwith Camel, 3451 shares a pretty similar structure (after all, it is the same plane) with a different color scheme. This older version was a little less detailed than the current Sopwith, and that allowed it to have a lower price. The 3451 moves a couple of new sets a month on eBay, but has been on a slump for a while now, that inherently enough started a couple months after the newer version was released. From that point it went from a peak of almost $ 170 to its current value. Not a huge drop, but it is somewhat significant.

Honorable Mentions

There you have it. Planes are much more modest in terms of size, quantity and even growth, with the most recent CITY sets presenting the best numbers of the last few years. Still, as you see from the lists above, most sets have appreciated very well in the secondary market.

Before going into the few sets currently available for investment in these categories, I wanted to give you some numbers to compare all the larger transportation LEGO types, and see how they rank historically based on the sets on this article. Please note that these numbers should be used only as a guide, since we are comparing differently sized sets, released over a long period of time that have also been retired at very different times.

Pretty interesting results, right? It would appear that from the sets we showcased above, the best transportation LEGO sets are those that are in the Ships category and by a very decent margin too. They are followed by Cars and Trucks, then Planes, and finally Trains. It follows that, if Trains are investment winners, then pretty much all other transportation type sets are as well. Of course, there is one caveat in this analysis. We have only analyzed the largest sets of each category, so there are probably a lot of other factors at play here.
It follows this analysis that, if you have investment money, transportation sets are usually a safe bet, with Ships being the top choice.
Before we conclude, let’s now examine my top currently available choices that fit into any of these four categories.

10233 Horizon Express

My Analysis: The Horizon Express is the largest LEGO train ever produced, and that fact alone should be enough to make it an investment winner. Of course, there are several more factors that make this nice train a very appealing option, like it’s unique colors and elements, advanced building techniques and nice interior as well as exterior detailing. The Horizon has just been released a short while back, so there is plenty of time for you to get it at a nice price, you will for sure want to add some to your investment Brickfolio

Value Prediction: The fact that it is the largest train LEGO has ever designed will make it one of the most sought after trains once it goes into retirement. In my opinion, the Horizon will easily outperform the LEGO train average CAGR we calculated above, expect a number closer to 20% over its first two years after retirement, putting it around $ 270 (Assuming it goes EOL by the end of next year)

10226 Sopwith Camel

My Analysis: No need for me to tell you how good this set will perform, you have already seen what its smaller and less fancy predecessor has been doing over the past few years: going up steadily in value. Even more, we are talking about a vastly superior model, with a lot of pieces in a nice and rare green tone, several functional features, and a just outstanding display value. Truly, a collector’s piece.

Value Prediction: Planes came third in our little experiment above, with an average CAGR above 15 %. Even more, the older Sopwith presents a CAGR of almost 10 % after being retired for more than a decade. If we project the same trend with this current version, by the time it has been retired for as long as 3451 its price should be somewhere around $ 285. It is my opinion, however, that this set will be doing a lot better than that, so plan accordingly.

10220 Volkswagen T1 Camper Van

My Analysis: Another VW licensed vehicle that probably will turn out to be a great investment choice, just like the VW Beetle before it. Set reviews for this set, both here on Brickpicker and in some other LEGO sites, have been extremely positive, mostly highlighting is “historical” significance and high accuracy compared to the original vehicle.

Value Prediction: If this set even remotely follows the path set up by the Beetle, then we are up for a big payday in the future. It is important to note though, that the Beetle retired at a point where LEGO investing was not as widespread as it is today, so expect the Van to perform great, but not as much as 10187. A 25 % CAGR by the time it has been retired for as long as the Beetle would put it around $ 360. We will all be happy campers with this set!

79008 Pirate Ship Ambush

My Analysis: My pick in the ship category has not been released as of this date, but I might as well let you know it is the Lord of the Rings 79008. This great looking vessel will come with 9 high quality minifigs, including the more than likely exclusive Ghost King, and some other interesting characters.

Value Prediction: Not really much information to really give you an accurate prediction, but I will go on a limb and guarantee this ship will perform at least as good as the POTC ones, especially QAR.

We have come a long way, travelling by so many different ways and through so many years of LEGO history. I have said more than I really had planned to do, but I really hope I have given you at least a superficial look at some of the positive aspects of LEGO transportation set investment. All of these different categories have their own strengths and weaknesses, but as far as choosing them as investment choices for your Brickfolio, the historical information seems to guarantee that any of them will take you where you want to go, and allow you to bring some money back with you at the same time!

Thanks for reading.

*Title by Ed Mack*

I know many of these sets have been discussed before, but for some people, it's just a little reminder that it might be time to pull the proverbial trigger on these sets. Many are long in the tooth and will be getting retired shortly. While a 8110 Unimog U400 isn't a flashy set, it will perform very well in the afterlife...all large Technic sets do it seems. A set like the 42000 Grand Prix Racer reminds me of the older, 8461 Williams F1 Team Racer, which appreciated nicely. I thinks what I enjoy most about the Transportation sets is their playability and display qualities. Not only do they look cool sitting on your office desk, they are also fun rolling around on that same desk. Good luck...

• 10226 Sopwith Camel
• 8110 Unimog U400
• 9398 4x4 Crawler
• 10223 Horizon Express
• 10220 Volkwagon T1 Camper
• 42000 Grand Prix Racer

"ED"itor's Note: I just want to say that Fcbarcelona101 did an excellent job on this Evaluation Corner article. He hit the nail on the head with a lot of his analysis. The large scale vehicle LEGO sets in any theme seem to excel in the secondary LEGO market. I guess it's because they are some of the best designed and coolest of all LEGO sets. If you haven't already bought the following sets, maybe it's time that you do...

For now, let's just take a look at the numbers presented by the "old" UCS 7191 X-Wing so far this year:

There are a couple of short comments I want to make about these graphs above:

• There was only 1 New 7191 set sold in the month of May, so the increase in the market value of the set does not tell us much about the possible impact of the new 10240 X-Wing on sealed sets.
• Most of the interesting data comes up when taking a look at sales of used 7191. In the past month of May and according to BP data the older version of the X-Wing sold 17 copies with a mean price of around $ 283. This number pulled the overall market value of used 7191 up by more than 17% relative to the past month of April.

From these two points above, we can gather that at this point there is not enough data to determine the first month's impact of 10240 over 7191 when it comes to new sets, but that there seems to be enough to make some inferences about used copies. It appears from the graphs above that at this point investors, collectors or casual LEGO fans have seen no reason to stop purchasing the old version of the X-Wing or to even to pay prices that are substantially higher than what a new 10240 currently goes for. In fact, relative to previous months, the prices for used copies increased by a substantial amount!

At first sight then, it seems that the remake has not negatively affected the interest for the old ship, and for the sake of investors let's expect things to stay the same.

I am sure several of you already know about standard deviation, since it is often used as a measure of risk in more traditional investments like stocks, mutual funds, etc. For those of you that don't know much about it, we use standard deviation to determine the volatility of a particular investment or portfolio by evaluating how much is the data spread from the mean investment return. As a quick example, let's evaluate this simplified scenario: (The numbers below are not actual figures and are used for illustrative purposes only)

Also, it is good to have the normal distribution graph as well to make it the following analysis easier to understand:

So, what the numbers in the table above tell us can be summarized as follows: If the average return of the sets that constitute the Ninjago theme is 22%, a standard deviation of 10% indicates that, per the normal distribution, for a particular set among the theme the probability for its return to be between 12% and 32% is around 68%. Another read that could be made is that there is a 95% chance that a particular set returns between 2% and 42%.

Further examining the example we can take a look at the CITY figures. In this case, there is a 68% probability that a CITY set will return between 8% and 12%, a substantially smaller range than that of Ninjago sets. What this basically means is that you are more certain about what kind of return you will be getting when the standard deviation measure is lower than when it is higher.

Now that we got that out of the way, let's examine how we can use the measure to our advantage in LEGO investing. I will just give you an example using two different type of sets and what we can gather from the numbers they present, so that later you can probably do the same with themes or sets that interest you more. I will only be using returns of already retired sets, since that is the kind of information that is the most valuable. Also, I selected only four sets of each theme for simplicity purposes, but the more you include the more accurate the result.

What the figures above mean is that you can expect a CAGR between 13% and 25% about 68% of the time when it comes to LEGO Sculpture sets, while the range for Advanced Models is a little wider (23.6% - 36.14%). By analyzing these results you will be able to determine that even though both investments have pretty much an identical standard deviation measure (risk), the Advanced Models theme will generate, in general, better performances that the Sculpture sets, so in theory you would be better off investing in the former rather than the latter. Same risk but higher return.

One last thing before we continue, the 68% confidence interval is not the only one you can analyze when performing risk analysis, especially if you are someone with a low risk tolerance, since there is still a 32% chance that the returns will fall outside of the range explained above. A better measure for those that are more risk averse would be to consider the 95% confidence interval, that would give you a range of returns from 7% to 31% with only a 5% probality of it going outside the range (in the case of Sculptures, for example)

There are several variables at play that we need to consider when doing this type of analysis, so I want to say that this short article is just intended to give you an overview of what is possible to accomplish by using this measure. Standard deviation can be used also to determine the spread of other investment figures like change over retail and some of the others, as well as used both for complete theme vs. theme analysis or some more specific comparisons.

If you are interested in checking out some different sets or themes, I attached a small Excel spreadsheet that shows the way I calculated the numbers in the table above.

There is no question that the Friends theme has been exceptionally popular at retail and is unlikely to go away any time soon. Does this make it a good investment though? Duplo sets sell very well at retail, does that mean people should start investing in Duplo? Eh, doubtful (I am about to get flamed by the sole Duplo investor out there). ‘Friends’ are hot at retail, but will they be hot in the secondary market? Are AFOLs going to pay a premium for Heartlake Vet or Olivia’s House or a Summer Riding Camp when they are no longer available in stores? One has to imagine that some comparable iteration of these sets will always be available. Surely there will always be a Vet, (Insert name)’s house, and as far as horses – there will always be horses. There will never be a time when a LEGO customer cannot go into a store and find a Friends “Horse” set. Just like there will never be a time when someone cannot go into a store and buy an X-Wing. There aren’t many LEGO certainties, but this is a rare exception.

Almost any retired Friends set is going to have an equivalent set available at retail. Now, the same might be said for the CITY theme as well and certainly there are a number of hits among that theme. What is going to compel someone to pay $200 for a retired Summer Riding Camp when there is a $100 - 2015 Equestrian School on the shelf that is just as good as the Summer Rising Camp, if not better? Do little girls really care that one set is more “rare” than another and therefore more desirable? Are there middle aged women that collect Friends sets and are willing to pay extra for rare retired sets (a la Barbie)? Or, perhaps more disturbingly are there grown men (think Bronies) collecting EOL Friends sets? That sort of condition could certainly lead to highly elevated prices.

Ok, so I have thrown out an abundance of opinion, so let’s look at some actual data. The CAGR is over 35% as previously mentioned – that’s impressive. However, how consistent is that return across the theme? There are currently 54 Friends sets in existence, 10 of which are retired. If we look at just the retired sets we have the following:

This chart illustrates why I think the high CAGR may be misleading. There are a lot of low priced sets on this list. Low priced sets seem to be more susceptible to inflated BP percentages. While the increases look impressive on a percentage basis, the net return is less so. The net return above is based on the “lowest acquisition price” which I thought might be a more reliable way to look at these low priced sets. With that said, there are at least two clearly worthwhile hits that made for viable investments, 3187 and 3942. This list also shows that we don’t have much data to go on yet in determining how well ‘Friends’ will do on the secondary market. These are all newly retired sets after all. The other aspect I wonder about it is how many people had the foresight to invest in 3187 and 3942? It is likely that the supply of these retired sets is low. Now that investors have been turned on to this theme, will future retired sets be in such short supply?

Now going back to the high CAGR and the abundance of low priced sets, let’s look at the breakdown of the current list of 54 sets currently in this theme. Of these, 23 either have not been released or have a MSRP of $0.00. In either case, they are not included in the aggregate CAGR calculation. That leaves 31 sets, (including the 10 retired sets listed above). The MSRP breakdown is detailed in the histogram below.
 

The chart shows that 18 of these 31 sets have an MSRP ranging from 3.97 to 14.99. Therefore, the CAGR for the theme is going to be heavily influenced by these low priced sets. I would be cautious about basing theme wide optimism on data from so many low priced sets.

Now, I don’t hate the Friends theme. I think the Summer Riding Camp is a great set and the upcoming Dolphin Cruiser has great appeal for its uniqueness among the line. I just think we need to look behind the numbers to see what is driving that very exciting CAGR and set investment expectations accordingly. Odd as it may sound I actually have a lot of the $9.99 retired sets above. Now, that is only because I happened upon a huge supply of them at half price and I decided to take on the tedium of reselling them. I don’t expect much from them and will be unloading all of them this year. My purpose in exploring this topic was to see if my gut bearish sentiment was justified and the opinions expressed at the outset reflect those initial gut feelings. I will say that having looked into the Friends line further I do see some potential in very select sets, but count me still in the bear camp. Ok, I'm ready for my pink and purple hate mail now.

I was just perusing the other community blogs and really enjoyed reading articles that are a mix of personal as well as Lego. I also have the ability to type, so I figured I could emulate my fellow Legoists and provide a little (more) content to a site that I use so frequently. I do have three (count'em!) *pat self on back* published articles done prior to the changeover to this fancier version of the site, which make excellent light reading. They would have been better, but I blame my editors - they took out all the Lego conspiracy ramblings I threw in and just left investment-based information. Now, no more. I love that this blog feature lets me bare my investing soul with little to no oversight. To celebrate, I'll start with a run-of-the-mill, how I got into this hobby type post. I know there have been a few threads here and there with the same general idea, but I am on a power trip and feel like describing my unexpected journey in more words than most people would want in a general forum reply.

It started slowly, the way things tend to start in the beginning, with a single cell that begins to divide. Wait - that is how my wife got pregnant...I think my Lego investing started at Pearl Jam Twenty. For those who don't know me, I am a little crazy 'bout Pearl Jam. I grew up on 'grunge' and now, in my mid-30's, still love the band but have more discretionary income to travel to see shows and stock up on merch. Two years ago, celebrating the band's 20th anniversary, I traveled from Ontario to Alpine Valley via Cleveland to see a weekend of PJ. Once there, I saw tons of people buying concert posters and cradling them like newborn infants. I wondered why, and after spending hours chatting with other music nuts, realized that collectors grab silk-screened prints to commemorate shows they have been to (or just prints that look awesome). I realized I a) had a house with a room just for me, and (gah! I can't get a the letter b and a bracket to NOT make that little emoticon) I suddenly needed posters and tokens from every show I've been to. Things quickly spiralled out of control and after getting back from the show I spent hours researching gig prints and their value, the artists, etc. I learned just enough to start spending money. I actively purchased below expressobeans (a must have site for print collectors) averages on any prints I could get my hands on. My wife grew weary of the castle of cardboard I built with my poster tubes. Then something magical happened - I started to list these posters on ebay and during November and December people bought a heck of a lot of them - presumably in an offering to Santa/God. My paypal account began to grow flush with cash and I got better at picking with prints were solid investment choices and which would languish in my portfolio, waiting years to be sold for minimal gain (The Lego Atlantis version of prints). Then Pearl Jam decided to do a short Euro 2012 tour and 3 US dates. Interest in the band wanes when they aren't touring or making new music, and I had read everything I could about their prints. I was hungry for more information and wondering what other collectibles I could invest in (keeping one for myself, obviously).

Then it hit me like something heavy hitting you in the head, but metaphorically - other collectibles! I stayed with the PJ community and read a lot of threads about how expensive vinyl records were. Apparently musicians make very small amounts of vinyl available when a record is released, and, unlike CDs, *rarely* reprint (it seems okay to reprint if it has been out of print long enough - like remaking Jabba's Sail Barge or X-Wing Red Five) which means that hot items (listed as limited or on colored vinyl) command big secondary market prices. I started reading/researching and watching ebay sold listings, salivating. My work life began to suffer, my home life as well. My wife wanted to know why I was now adding 12 inch cardboard mailers to my giant castle of round cardboard poster tubes. Some nights, I slept in that castle, not by choice. Record Store Day and Black Friday Record Store Day brought some opportunities to make a little cash with a little hard work, and I spent a lot of time pre-ordering the best vinyl (the best vinyl being perhaps the first 1000 pre-orders worldwide, which will get a different edition of the album instead of plain black vinyl) and got better and better at making investment picks. Unfortunately, much like LEGO, the popularity of Record Store Day and vinyl in general meant picking very carefully. Picking very carefully also meant purchasing sparingly, only for records I was close to 100% certain I could later flip for at least a 30% profit after fees. I left a lot of smaller fish out there, and soon realized I only really wanted to invest in vinyl I also loved. I couldn't bear following bands/record labels of music I didn't really care for (invest in something you love, can read about for hours and never grow weary of discussing ad naseum on various forums or you'll eventually ditch your new 'hobby') so I now only have a small, manageable amount of bands/record labels I need to check. This gave me more time to get into another market - LEGO! (yes, I will finally talk about Lego. If you have read this far the tip in parentheses above about reading literally anything even remotely related to your passion and never growing weary likely describes you - we can be friends)

I always checked out the Lego aisles when I went shopping with my wife, and have always loved Lego, but I spent most of my twenties travelling the world and living in various locales abroad. No base to set up a serious Lego habit, but I had always loved Lego and occassionally checked out the Shop & Home website just to drool over cool Lego. I joined the mailing list of TLG and even while living abroad in Dubai got their emails and thought about how cool it would be to build that Taj Mahal. Anyway, one day at 'work' I took a gander at some of the sets I had loved years before and was a little surprised at their secondary prices on ebay. Within minutes I was on brickipedia and minutes after that, brickpicker. An investing legend was born. I had a fair amount of money from selling vinyl and prints, a total much bigger than my wife assumed, and basically started making it rain hundreds at toy retailers in the fall of 2012. Now I'm sitting on over 10K of mixed collectibles and I've got enough good sets that I'm gearing up to sell (I'm aiming to be a powerseller by Septmeber) and start to split the profits - half to a retirement fund and the other half to plow back into Lego.

I am going to see Pearl Jam next month in London, Ontario and with a fall tour there will be plenty of merch/print opportunities this Oct. and Nov. I've got dollar signs in my eyes and a 'music & Lego' room downstairs that still has some space. Time to placate the wife and make some more investments.

Was your journey as long and convoluted as mine? Do you have a pregnant wife who hates your investment hobbies (until you sell for a profit, of course, then it is all smiles and weekend getaways funded by your 'hobby') are you a pregnant woman/wife yourself? Do you like Lego? If you've read all this gibberish, and fit some/all of the above criteria, let's be Lego friends. I promise to read and post on your blogs even it is tangentially related to Lego investing.

Veegs

This is a topic I don't think gets covered enough. The people in the background. The behind the scenes workers who don't get the spotlight, or even the credit sometimes, but are nonetheless pillars of all the business we do here.

My woman is amazing. She is the reason I am able to do so much in the field of LEGO, both as a hobby and an on-the-side business.

She let me repurpose a small room in our townhouse to a workroom. My command center and refuge for all things of the brick. I build here, shoot my photos, store my loose pieces, weigh, measure, pack, ship, drill, cut, file, etc. Without my space I'd drive her nuts invading the rest of the house.

Secondly, my woman is stylish. Very hip. She has a great sense of style, fashion, is strikingly beautiful, and is generally mega rad. I'd like to say she rubs off on me, although she'd describe it as "stealing her cool". I suppose it's a little of both. She is the first person I go to with a new MOC design. She signs off on most things I do, because I value her imput and trust her judgment when mine is biased or comprimised.

The biggest support she gives, though, is probably taking care of our daughter when I'm 'on the prowl'. My little one can't quite understand that not every Friends set I bring home is strictly for her to tear open and scatter all over her room.

My woman wants to be more involved, and as my ebay venture grows she'd like to add personal touches to my auctions, like sewn bags or whatnot, which I am all for.

I'll turn this over to you now by asking, "How does your woman, man, significant other, or whatever, support you?"

Ask yourself if you do enough to involve them, or ask yourself what you do that is only possible because they've got your back. They're your employee of the month, your backbone, your cheerleader, your inspiration, and sometimes even your boss.

Let's make sure they get proper credit. I'd be nothing like the man I am without her, and that's another debt in a long line of debts I'll never repay.

But, that won't stop me from trying.

When I explained to him how the Wish List worked and what "priority" meant, he said, "Dad, I want to rank my own Lego sets".
 

I started listing the ones he owned, but after a few he interrupted me, saying,

"No, Dad, I mean the ones I don't have. I want to make MY OWN wish list."

Being slightly intrigued about what my big shot Lego connoisseur was cooking up in his brain, I logged onto Lego S@H with him, and we proceeded to go through all of his favorite themes and rank his favorite Lego sets. At first, it was a little abstract for him and we ran into logic problems, i.e. set #1, ranked above set #2, was ranked below set #3 even though #2 was ranked higher than #3. After working out the kinks, he got the hang of it and the original list evenentually grew to include 60 sets!

Before diving into the list, there are a couple of qualifications:

1. We didn't include any sets either he or I already owned. These include four of the non-exclusive Chima sets (Cragger's Command Ship, Laval's Royal Fighter, Wakz' Pack Tracker and Razcal's Glider), 9493 X-Wing, Lone Ranger Commanche Camp, and a boatload of Ninjago sets. The only sets I owned at the time were the Tower Bridge, VW Camper and An Unexpected Gathering. These were all excluded from the list.

2. I think he got a little hung up on set size, although that's probably indicative of how a five year old's mind works - bigger is almost always better.

3. He told me he wants this list to double as his Christmas list. I quickly made him aware that he would NOT get everything on his list.

Without further ado, here are his rankings from his favorite on down:

1. 10236 Ewok’s Village
2. 10237 Tower of Orthanc
3. 70404 King’s Castle
4. 7965 Millennium Falcon
5. 10188 Death Star
6. 10221 Super Star Destroyer
7. 9450 Epic Dragon Battle
8. 10227 B-Wing Starfighter
9. 10225 R2 D2
10. 10232 Palace Cinema
11. 10223 Kingdoms Joust
12. 10937 Batman Arkham Asylum Breakout
13. 79008 Pirate Ship Ambush
14. 10233 Horizon Express
15. 6860 The Batcave
16. 9474 Battle of Helm’s Deep
17. 7879 Hoth Echo Base
18. 10228 Haunted House
19. 10226 Sopwith Camel
20. 60014 Coast Guard Patrol
21. 60004 Fire Station
22. 7939 Cargo Train
23. 7398 Passenger Train
24. 9516 Jabba’s Palace
25. 7498 Police Station
26. 4204 The Mine
27. 9468 Vampyre Castle
28. 60008 Museum Break In
29. 79111 Constitution Train Chase
30. 79010 Goblin King Battle
31. 70505 Temple of Light
32. 10240 Red Five X-Wing Starfighter
33. 4440 Forest Police Station
34. 9500 Sith Fury Class Interceptor
35. 9515 The Malevolence
36. 70705 Bug Obliterator
37. 9467 Ghost Train
38. 79004 Barrel Escape
39. 6857 Dynamic Duo Funhouse Escape
40. 9449 Ultra Sonic Raider
41. 9526 Palpatine’s Arrest
42. 79003 Superman: Battle of Smallville
43. 70403 Dragon Mountain
44. 79103 Turtle Lair Attack
45. 70012 Razar’s Chi Raider
46. 70708 Hive Crawler
47. 79104 The Shell Raiser Streetchase
48. 50006 Legends of Chima game
49. 70402 Gatehouse Raid
50. 79110 Silver Mine Shoot Out
51. 79109 Colby City Showdown
52. 79019 Stagecoach Escape
53. 60010 Fire Helicopter
54. 70401 Gold Getaway
55. 21102 Minecraft
56. 70400 Forest Ambush
57. 70002 Lenox’s Lion Attack
58. 70003 Eris’ Eagle Interceptor
59. 70011 Eagle Castle
60. 79106 Cavalry Builder Set

Congrats for making it this far! I posted this to show one five year old's preference in Lego sets. While I feel he has fairly representative tastes, take it for what it's worth. At the very least, the list can show where Lego may be succeeding with his age group, and where they may be falling short. Here are some of my observations on his list:

1. Ewok Village at 1! After all these years, kids still love Star Wars OT. Also, six of the top ten are SW OT sets.
2. Am I raising the ultimate consumer? Look at the MSRPs of the first 15-20 sets!
3. I can't believe the new X-Wing wasn't higher than 32. As mentioned before, he does own 9493 X-Wing Starfighter, but he's even seen 10240 at the Lego Store, so he knows how big (and cool) that set is.
4. Six City sets settle in just outside the top twenty, and although they are big sets, they're behind most of the other big sets. They seem to occupy the "best of the rest" spot that is after his favorite big sets, but before his favorite smaller sets.
5. He appears to be a burgeoning Castle fan. The new King's Castle comes in at #3, an incredibly high ranking. For those badmouthing the new Castle releases, pre-teen boys is TLG's target audience for this line, and early returns (from my son) are great.
6. My son has never seen either the LOTR or The Hobbit movies, yet Tower of Orthanc clocks in at #2, Pirate Ship Ambush at #13 and Helm's Deep at #16. Apparently, size matters as they say...

Early on, I discovered that a tackle box is the wau to go. My first was a little thing with no separators, and I used this for a year or two. I moved up in the world of tackle boxes until I got the one you see here about a week ago. Minifigures are very valuable, and I believe that they must be protected carefully. I lay many of the more valuable ones on plushy cloth, and put others and small Zip-Lock bags. This greatly reduces the chances of scratching, and keeps them in great condition. This is the best way I have found to store minifigures so far, but I will keep searching for better ways!

I am not sure about how many of you out there make use of this interesting feature, but the way it works is using eBay's sold listings data in order to see which sets have been selling the most and for the most money in the past half year. It is very useful, as it can help you make decisions about purchasing sets that have already been retired but that have yet to reach their highest point, meaning that even if for some reason you missed on a particular set while it was still on the shelves you can go ahead and try to ride the wave while it climbs in value and make significant profits.

To start this section, I decided to go with a set that has been talked about in the forums as of late: the Winter Village Bakery.

At this point, the Bakery currently holds 2nd place in the BrickIndex with a 99.84% growth over the past six months. Keep in mind that it was only a little over a month ago that this set was listed as Retired in LEGO S@H, something that caught a lot of people by surprise, since for a few weeks it had only been listed as Sold Out while the Post Office was the one listed as Retired.

In the month of April this set grew almost 20% in value relative to March and had a price (New) of around $124. Considering that the period of high growth or at least the price spike for this type of set has traditionally been in December, I am very excited about how good this has been doing so far this year. Come this Christmas, we will probably see it hit close to $150 if not more, in my opinion. Remember, that in April the news of its retirement were still not official.

Now, how can the investor benefit from this type of information? Well, in the past few weeks we have seen several threads asking questions about a good price to get this set even well above retail pricing (around $100 or so if I remember correctly). The answer to that questions will of course vary according to the expectation of each investor, but by taking a look at the data above I believe that even at that price you will still be able to make some nice profits as early as this year and even more if you decide to hold until the 2014 holiday season.

The Winter Village sets are really limited in terms of availability relative to most of the other LEGO sets, and that is part of their appeal and one of the reasons they perform so well in the secondary market. In my opinion, getting this set in the low 100s will still allow you to make a decent ROI, but it is up to you to decide if it is good enough based on your own investment strategies and expectations.

As many of you already know the process for production is a long one taking several months to a few years depending on how fast you gain supporters. First you post an idea on the LEGO CUUSOO website. Once you get 10,000 supporters, LEGO reviews the set/idea and determines if it can be mass produced as an official LEGO set/theme. Licensing, cost of new molds, MRSP of the set, popularity of the theme the set portrays, and many other factors have an impact on a set's approval. If the set is approved then you get 1% of the net sales of the set. A video with more details on the process is below.

The Mars Rover was approved for production. The price and final production model is still pending along with a release date. (Late this year or early next year is my guess.) I think it’s a sweet model and has a good level of detail. The working suspension is a plus. I assume the lower price point of the model and the overall appeal of science/education/space sets helped this set get approval for production. NASA also had a factor in its approval since the real-life rover is designed by them and LEGO had to get a yes from them in order to produce the set. Pictures for this model are below.

The UCS Sandcrawler if produced would easily be the biggest LEGO set of all time. It is motorized and has lighting throughout the model. I wasn't surprised to hear it got turned down considering the size of the set. I did have a small ray of hope that it would get approved, but it just didn't work out. Here are some facts about the model:

Minifigure scale: 96 cm long, 100.5 cm long (lowered main ramp) (About 3.15 ft. long without the ramp lowered and 3.3 ft. long with the main ramp lowered.)
Weight: Approximately 20 kg. (44 lb.)
Part count: over 10,000 pieces.
Power functions: 4 xl motors, 5 m motors, 4 receivers, 4 battery packs, 22 Lego LED-lights.

Powered radio-controlled Functions:
- Driving: Forward and reverse.
- Steering. - Main ramp: Up and down.
- Crane: Up and down, in and out.
- Conveyer band: Forward and reverse.

Other features:
Fully interior on three floors in the front half of the model with a detailed cockpit. (Removable roof.) There is a second crane in the back of the workshop and a lighted smelter.

As you can see from the details above this set is very complex and it was ultimately turned down by Lucasfilm.

Below is a picture of the impressive model along with a video of it in action.

The Portal project is still pending while they await test results. I really don't know much about The Portal, but I found it was a popular video game that was released about 6 years ago and a sequel called Portal 2 was released 2 years ago. If anyone has more information to share about The Portal please comment below. I have to say the designs look interesting enough with the orange and light blue portals, but I wonder if there really is a good demand/market for these sets? Would younger kids like these sets or will they be more popular among teens and adults? Let me know what you think in the comments section.

Some Portal pictures are below.

What do you think about LEGO’s selection of the Mars Rover, the rejection of the UCS Sandcrawler, and the pending approval of The Portal? Please let me know below and thanks for reading my article.

Just because you can't see what's inside, doesn't mean you can't feel for it. There are often distinct features of a minifigure that make them easy to feel for. The second method is by bump codes. These codes are imprinted onto the bottom seam of the backside of the package, and each minifigure supposedly has an individual bump code. I personally rely on the feel method.

Now onto investing...

Each LEGO CMS minifigure retails for a price of $2.99. Often investors and resellers either feel the bag for the minifigure or they open the minifigure directly, to confirm the contents. Both methods are fine, but I would feel much more confident if I knew for sure what was inside.

There are a series of ways how to make money with CMS minifigures. One of them is via the traditional way of LEGO investing: waiting a few years and then selling for (hopefully) more than you paid. Often, investors who go this route buy sealed cases of CMS minifigures instead of individual bags, which reduces hastle on the seller.

Another one of those ways is by only buying minifigures that are on demand and then selling them immediately for maybe $4-$5 a piece. Though the margin of profit is much less, many resellers go this route to cover the cost of other minifigures they might have bought for their personal colleciton.

Before you say that both methods are hopeless and take too much work, let's look at a few examples of minifigures that have done well in the secondary market. Notice that many of these minifigures are from older series such as Series 1-5. Thanks to Brickset.com for some of the numbers below.

Minifigure: Zombie
Series Number: Series 1
Year: 2010
Average Price* : $21.05

Minifigure: Spartan Warrior
Series Number: Series 2
Year: 2010
Average Price*: $14.3

1 Minifigure: Elf
Series Number: Series 3
Year: 2011
Average Price*: $7.74

Minifigure: Roman Soldier
Series Number: Series 6
Year: 2012
Average Price*: $8.24

*Prices are in USD and are as of 6/19/13 on Bricklink.com for items in NEW condition.

Looking at these numbers, you can see that a few of the minifigures in the CMS series have struck gold. Though rare, they are still about. To pick good investments, try looking for minifigures that you can have more than one of, and your LEGO scene will still make sense, like "army-builders"! Good luck!

My username here on BrickPicker and on many other sites is Comicblast. I've been a member here on BrickPicker ever since around late December of 2012. You can read more about how I discovered BrickPicker and about me in one of my other articles by clicking at the following link: http://www.brickpicker.com/forum/index.php/blog/4/entry-30-brick-brats-the-teenage-lego-investors-blog/?st=20#commentsStart. My article is the last on the page thus far, and is titled "Out of the Mouth of Babes: Teen LEGO Investing".

In my blog, you will find tips and tricks that will hopefully lead you to striking gold in your conquests of LEGO Investing. As you probably have figured out, I am a teen, but do not discount me to that fact! As Ed Mack once said, "The younger crowd might be able to teach some of us old dogs, some new tricks..."

1. I was very impressed by how well organized the show was. The check-in line took less than five minutes, and we arrived at a peak time of the day, roughly 11 AM. There were hundreds of people (dare I say thousands?) all trying to get into the show, but because of the organization and troops of volunteers, everyone was calm and orderly.

2. I had never been to a Lego expo before so I had some really lofty expectations, yet every expectation I had was exceeded. The MOCs were phenomenal, and Lego even had a Legends of Chima Speedorz tournament booth that was very well attended!

3. I was surprised at the number of vendors. I believe there was a cap of 20 or so imposed by the organizers, and every spot appeared filled. A large percentage had retired sets at secondary market prices.

4. There were 3 groups of interviewers with microphones/cameras in the two hours I was there, and none were mainstream media reps who likely turned up later that day for the 5 PM local news. I looked for the BrickShow guy but didn't see him.

5. I couldn't believe the number of LUGs from remote locales that were there. Off the top of my head, I remember seeing LUGs from Toronto, Philadelphia, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Michigan that joined local area LUGs from Chicago, Northern Illinois, and Kenosha.

6. My favorite displays turned out to be ones that I wouldn't typically expect. Among them was a 3-D Clue game made exclusively of Lego bricks (couldn't find a picture of this), a viking display that had a viking ship that "sailed" around an island of monks (the ship was mounted to a railroad track) where a number of the monks moved independently through the use of magnets, and some of the sculptures that were just really done well (yes, that's the Purdue Pete CUUSOO that reached 10,000 votes in the background). The ball machine was incredible, too. The cherry on top of the sundae, though, was a model of the entire story of the Wizard of Oz. That one had everything: size, detail, a great storyline, moving parts and sheer beauty. It really blew me away.

Viking ship and the Monk Island

Amazing sculptures (yes, that's Purdue Pete behind him)

This is less than 1/4 of the entire ball machine. Crazy huge!

The Wizard of Oz movie in Lego. Unbelievable! This pic doesn't do it justice...

7. Anyone that had a BNSF engine had me at hello. I have a soft place in my Lego heart for this engine because I live 2 blocks from the Burlington Northern Line that runs through Chicago's Western Suburbs. One display in particular had the BNSF train running on a track, and another had a large scale BNSF engine displayed with incredible detail. Great job.

The BNSF is behind the cargo car. Unfortunately this was the best pic I could find.

Congrats to the folks who put on Brickworld Chicago 2013 - you have made a lifelong fan of me and my kids. Also, thanks to the folks that posted the pics above on Brickworld's Flickr page.

The countdown is on to Brickworld Chicago 2014. I can't wait!

As you know, there are now two X-Wing Fighters in the UCS(Ultimate Collector's Series) line. One was released in 2000, has 1,300 pieces, and has a retail price of $149.99 USD. The other one was released in 2013, has 1,558 pieces, and retails for $199.99. There are various affects of having another X-Wing fighter out in the market. There could be less interest in the older X-Wing because of its avalability and its current price. The newer one is more available and it has a cheaper cost. This may mean that the value for 7191 may go down, and the 10240 value mat go up. In the up coming months the data for both these sets will provide a clearer look at this.

Even though there is not a perfect definition about what a sleeper set really is, I do have two factors under which I am willing to categorize any specific set as one, and those are the following:

• Category 1: A set that is not talked about much on the LEGO investing community that, once EOL, produces outstanding returns in a short period of time. Example: The Burrow or The Zombies
• Category 2: A set that, even though is talked about in the community as a solid choice, surpasses most of the investor’s expectations, especially in the short term. Example: Imperial Shuttle

The factors named above are not universal, just my personal criteria for determining what a sleeper is. Either one of them will prove to me if a set was indeed a sleeper. Category 1 are the most difficult sets to pinpoint, but also the ones with the highest reward, while Category 2 are sets that probably many investors have in their Brickfolios as probable good performers that will end up being outstanding performers.

Category 1 sleepers are extremely hard to select while the sets are still available, just like it happens when stock pickers think back to the time when Apple was under $ 100 years ago. It is very easy to determine sleeper sets once they have been retired, but there is really not much value in it, since the rewards have by then escaped the investor. Anyway, the most we examine them, the more information we will have and the better chance to select at least some of them in the future.

With the above information in mind, let’s examine some of the recent examples of sleepers in both categories.

4840 The Burrow

Attack at The Burrow! The Burrow is under attack! Race into the reeds to save Ginny and battle the Death Eaters before they destroy the Weasley’s home!

• Includes 6 minifigures: Harry Potter, Molly Weasley, Arthur Weasley, Ginny Weasley, Fenrir Greyback, and Bellatrix Lestrange
• Open the windows, doors and gates!
• Back is open for play inside!
• Three floors of fun!
• Realistic kitchen includes sink, dishes, long table, swiveling chairs, and storage
• The Burrow measures over 11” (27.9 cm) tall

Comments: The Burrow is a typical Category 1 sleeper. Retired only around a year after its original release, the set had already doubled in value in less than 6 months and has since continued its rapid increase in value. As you see from the price guide information, the change from the last month was almost 7%, and from what I have been able to see in the most recently sold listings, the set will be reaching $ 200 probably before the end of this year. In fact, several of the most recent sales have gone for around $ 160.

The Burrow included some exclusive characters and variations, but lived under the shadow of the bigger HP sets like Hogwarts Castle, Diagon Alley and Hogwart’s Express. Now that it has been retired for a while, most investors wish they had bought a lot more of this set than they actually did.

10212 Imperial Shuttle

Now you can build this iconic Star Wars™ vehicle in true minifigure scale for the first time! The elegant Lambda-class Imperial Shuttle™ transports the Empire's elite and the occasional secret strike team of Rebel commandos all across the galaxy. Now you can build this huge and iconic Star Wars™ vehicle in true minifigure scale for the first time ever! The Imperial Shuttle is authentically detailed with rotating double laser wing cannons and a four-seat cockpit. This Ultimate Collector's model features an opening canopy, detachable landing gear, a stand for display in flight or landing modes, a labeled display plaque, and gear-driven folding wings with removable activation keys. Completed model measures 28" (71 cm) tall on stand and 22" (57 cm) wide with wings deployed. Includes 5 minifigures: Darth Vader™, Shuttle Pilot, Imperial Officer, Stormtrooper and Luke Skywalker™.

• Includes 5 minifigures: Darth Vader™, Shuttle Pilot, Imperial Officer, Stormtrooper™ and Luke Skywalker™.
• Features rotating double laser wing cannons!
• Open the cockpit roof to access the interior and seat the minifigures inside!
• Wings fold up and down by turning 2 keys on rear of model!
• Model can be displayed on landing gear or landing gear can be removed to display in flying mode!
• Includes display stand, name plate and label sheet!
• Measures 28" (71 cm) tall on stand and 22" (57 cm) wide with wings deployed!

Comments: The UCS Imperial Shuttle is a perfect example of a Category 2 sleeper. The set is part of perhaps the most popular line of sets with both collectors and investors, yet didn’t received the same love as some of the other sets in the line. Having said that, most investors did consider this set as an investment winner before it retired, and invested accordingly, but I am sure no one really expected the set to jump so much in value in the short term like it ended up doing. Bear in mind, the Shuttle was retired only a few months back, and it has already increased close to $ 100, with the trend probably continuing and hitting around $ 400 by the end of the year.

The Shuttle was definitely a nice surprise. Based on my own categories, this set might warrant the sleeper nomination that is so often thrown out in the forums, but not in the most traditional sense of the term (Category 1).

9465 The Zombies

Help Jack McHammer get out of grave danger and seize the zombie moonstone! Through the mist, Jack McHammer catches sight of the zombie graveyard. He's on a mission to recover the zombie moonstone, but as he reaches for it, the zombies rise from their coffins and attack! Can he make it back to his car and battle the zombies with the giant hammer? You decide! Includes 4 minifigures: Jack McHammer and 3 zombies.

• Includes 4 minifigures: Jack McHammer and 3 zombies
• Features zombie graveyard and Jack McHammer's car
• Zombie graveyard features crypt, 2 coffins and zombie attack function
• Accessories include zombie moonstone and a weapon
• Bash the zombies with the giant hammer!
• Run from the zombie attack!
• Seize the moonstone!
• Zombie graveyard measures over 4” (11cm) high, 7” (18cm) wide and 5” (12cm) deep
• Jack McHammer's car measures over 3” (8cm) high, 5” (12cm) wide and 6” (16cm) long

Comments: Another perfect Cat.1 sleeper example. The Zombies set is part of the more than likely short lived Monster Fighters theme, was a Target exclusive and only lasted around 4 full months on the shelves before being retired. Even more, zombies are extremely popular at this time, so add that to the mix as well. It’s been only close to 7 months since the set retired, and it is already selling for close to three times retail! Talk about some nice short term returns. When people ask about what a sleeper set is, this is most of the time used as a reference, and for a very good reason.

2260 Ice Dragon Attack

Fly to the underworld on the Ice Dragon and reclaim the shurikens of ice! Zane flies into the perilous realm of the underworld to recapture the stolen shurikens of ice from the skeleton army. Suddenly, Krazi appears out of the darkness and he has a different plan! Blast him with the Ice Dragon’s frozen breath before he gets away with the treasure! Set includes Ice Dragon, 2 minifigures and 2 weapons.

• Includes 2 minifigures: Zane and Krazi
• Features Ice Dragon, shurikens of ice and black sword
• Spit ice balls from the Ice Dragon’s mouth!
• Battle for the shurikens of ice!
• Fold and bend the Ice Dragon’s wings!
• Bend and rotate the Ice Dragon’s head, legs and tail!
• Ice Dragon is over 11” (28cm) long and 14” (35cm) wide

Comments: I wanted to include this set for a couple of reasons. First, the set experienced some great short term growth, with a CAGR of close to 100%. It did have a relatively short run of only one year, but the explosion in value has been far more than most people were expecting. Another set that went under the radar for a big chunk of the investment community.

Now, the second reason I wanted to talk about this set is because the Ninjago theme as a whole can be described as an overall sleeper theme, though not anymore of course. The theme came a couple years ago and really not many people expected it to do very well, or at least not as well as it has so far. Perhaps it was the perception that it was targeted to kids to much and that it would be just a short term fad, but whatever the reasons the theme proved a lot of people wrong and it currently sits at the top of Brickpicker’s table of average theme CAGR with a figure of almost 45%.

As you can see, not only specific sets can be sleepers, but also a whole theme can prove to be one as well. If you want to read more about a theme that at this point has some similarities with Ninjago when it first was released, then you may want to read Quacs’ EC article on Chima.

The sets above are just a few of the most recent examples of sleeper sets in both of my categories. As you can see, I selected a lot more from Category 1 than I did 2 because they are often the most talked about once they confirm their potential in the secondary market, and are the ones that investors really don’t take into account as much while they are available.

So, what are some of the characteristics that we can use to determine if a set will end up being a sleeper well before they go into retirement? That is a really hard question, especially considering LEGO is not fond of giving away too much information about sale number or upcoming retirements. Of course, if we did have a way to help determine the sleepers before they retire, they would end up not being a sleeper after all!

I do think that there are some characteristics that help some to identify potential sets of this type:

• Exclusive sets. Not so much LEGO exclusives, but rather retailer exclusives like Target or Walmart.
• Sets with shorter than average runs, but this is very hard to guess.
• Sets not talked about much in LEGO related forums.
• Sets from unconventional or unproven themes. Chima, Creator, Architecture.

Very broad and general aspects, but that is probably the best we can do.

I did not want to conclude the article without giving a couple of my choices for potential sleeper sets that are currently available. Most are what I consider to be Category 2, since they are talked about some in the forums, but I expect their performance to be superior to what most people are expecting.

• 10227 B-Wing: Another UCS set even less talked about than the Imperial Shuttle (leaving aside the May the 4^th talks). A lot of people see this set not performing as good as some other UCS sets given the lack of popularity of the ship, structural issues, and the current round of deep discounts. I am of the complete opposite camp, expecting that the set will be a top performer especially because a lot of people keep dismissing it as a good choice, along with the fact that it is a great model and part of the always popular UCS.
• 8110 Unimog: Technic sets overall are really not one of the most talked about in the forums, but as a previous article by Ed Mack suggested, they are really great performers in the secondary market. Plus, this is the largest Technic set ever released.
• Architecture: In my opinion, there is not enough discussion about the Architecture sets but, in my opinion, these sets will prove to be great performers once they start retiring. In fact, the only set that has retired so far has presented some very nice returns in a very short time (John Hancock Center)
• Chima: This theme can go either way, but if it does end up performing it may very well follow on the footsteps of Ninjago and become one of the most popular themes in the shelves. As with any investment, higher the risk, higher reward.

And there you have it, my view on sleeper sets, analysis on some previous sleepers and some of my picks for the future. I really hope you found this article interesting, and that maybe it will incentivize you to take some risks on sets that not many people talk about, you may be very grateful you did so in the not so distant future.

Thanks for reading.

"ED"itor's Notes: Nice article. The one thing about under the radar sets is that when they do show up on the LEGO investor's "radar," it is too late. Such was the case with The Zombies and The Burrow with me. I did have a couple of copies, but not as many as I would have if I was really paying attention. I must be slipping with my old age. I was prepared with the Imperial Shuttle though and I was always a huge Ninjago fan. The Legends of Chima is the next theme that many are blowing off, yet I believe will do well in the future. With the larger Chima sets on their way, I think the theme is ready to take off. The Architecture theme is a favorite of mine and I believe will have a solid future as well, when they are retired. I am also big fan of the B-Wing and Unimog. These are all sets that will appreciate very well when retired, but people have generally ignored for Modulars and other large sets. The new Grand Prix Racer(42000) is a set that I like and consider a sleeper. Also, the new Coast Guard Patrol(60014) is another potential winner in my opinion. Good luck...