Official Trailer – IGN

Now on CUUSOO is a submitted collaborative project between CrashSanders and GlenBecker with the approval of Faster Than Light’s original creators, Justin Ma and Matthew Davis, featuring a number of creative mini builds based on various star cruisers from said indie game.

Kestrel

Federation Cruiser “Osprey”

Engi Cruiser “Torus”

Stealth Cruiser “Nesasio”

Slug Cruiser “Man ‘O’ War”

Zoltan Cruiser “Noether”

Mantis Cruiser “Basilisk”

Rock Cruiser “Bulwark”

Coinciding with what was stated on the designers’ project page and personal blog; these are very much like the same designs found in the Star Wars: Planets sets which could be considered a niche area. Although they may not possess intricately high amounts of features, I have respect for anyone who can make something come across more detailed than it actually is in the same way pixel artists do within their artwork.

In closing, I believe this idea has some hidden potential. True, perhaps the mini builds will not impress a number of people but the decision to build at such a small scale could have been more to do with Lego’s seemingly strict stipulations against large detailed builds especially for relatively unknown properties. (You can read a more in depth article about the project designers’ decision to go micro-scale here on GlenBricker’s blog review titled “FTL: Why not make them bigger?”) Considering the Minecraft project based on an indie game itself passed review to be turned into an actual licensed Lego product and has become so popular they will be releasing two more sets based on the property, somehow I find this idea also based on an indie game having little resistance in being passed.

Since the Faster Than Light project was approved past the Summer Review deadline (June 3rd), this shall be up for assessment by Lego in September. Until then, let us keep a couple of fingers crossed for something good to come from this. Who knows? Maybe Lego will design a minifigure scale version of the Kestrel.

Thank you for reading.

Sungnyemun 21016 is based on a National Treasure of South Korea located in Seoul. Even though the site can be considered historic and a world landmark, it really does not hold the same international appeal that some of the other ones reproduced in the theme like the Empire State or the White House. The representation is actually quite good, and in my opinion a must have for any Architecture collector. Having said that, I believe that the less known nature of the landmark can really shed some light in just how popular the overall theme can be. In my opinion, if this particular set does well in the secondary market, it should follow that the most famous buildings represented on the theme will do at least as well (Always keeping in mind differences in size, detail, price, etc.)

The following are the graphs based on Brickpicker data about quantity of sets sold and value information:

The first graph shows eBay sales activity over the past 12 months. As you can see, the set has a pretty decent activity level that is even greater than some of the smaller and, one would think, most popular designs. It will be interesting to see if the sales trend continues in the coming months.

Second, and most relevant to us, is the values graph. This graph shows a clear upward trend starting around the month of February that seems to have stabilized a bit between April and May. This type of movement is typical for a recently retired set, but at the same time it helps confirm the investment potential of the Architecture theme as a whole. The set is currently at 80% over retail, still shy of the 180% showcased by the JHC. There are, however, some differences between these two sets that we should keep in mind while doing this analysis. First and foremost, the JHC was a smaller and cheaper set, something that usually translates in larger percentage changes by default if the set ends up being successful. Also, Sungnyemun was on the shelves for a shorter time than the JHC, about a year, something that could help explain is recent rapid growth in value.

My personal take on this set is that it has already gone through most of its rapid growth phase, leaving some room for long term growth. I would imagine that given a shorter production run the set might experience larger returns than most of the other Architecture sets, but then again it has is relatively low popularity to sort of cancel that out, in my opinion. Still, it is pretty early to determine if the set will end up being an investment powerhouse, but for now I would not invest further in the set at its current market value. I would, however, consider selling some as a relatively quick flip, or just hold for a few months to see where it goes.

Recommendation: Hold/Sell

That's the estimated number of Lego sets produced in a year. Let this sink in for a minute.

Almost 82 million Lego sets are produced in a year.

How did I calculate this? It's actually fairly straightforward. Using 2012 data:

1. I found an estimate online for the number of bricks produced by TLC in a year: 19 billion
2. I divided this by the average number of bricks included per set according to Brickset's 2012 set list: 221

This yielded a "gross" number of sets produced in 2012 assuming all the bricks produced went directly into sets: 86,011,923 sets.

3. I threw in a reduction factor to account for bricks produced that didn't make it into retail sets: 5%

This yielded the current estimate for the number of Lego sets produced in 2012 of almost 82 million.

That's an incredible number of sets produced by TLC - it's not surprising they're the largest toy manufacturer in the world! Once I had this number, I divided it by the number of models with at least one brick produced in 2012: 508. This yielded an average of 160,849 sets made per model number in 2012.

Armed with this information, I thought it would be intersting to come up with a mathematical model that predicts the number of sets produced based upon the model's piece count. As you may imagine, this was a little more difficult than figuring out how many Lego sets are sold in a year. Here's the mathematical model I came up with for the line of best fit (where x = is the piece count and y = the number of sets produced by model number).

y = -295x + 226,014

So, we can use this model to estimate the number of sets produced for a given model number. For example, 79003 An Unexpected Gathering has a piece count of 652. Plugging this into the equation will give you a estimated production total for An Unexpected Gathering of

=(-295)(652)+226,014
= 33,674 units produced

While this was an interesting exercise, the model has some obvious and severe restrictions. The most notable flaw is the basic premise that Lego bases production runs based on piece count. This simply isn't accurate. Another limitation is that it breaks down for sets with high piece counts. Plugging in any set greater than 766 piece count gives you a negative production number, which is impossible. We can probably assume that the mathematical model is likely a curve with limits at the y-axis, and some minimum production run quantity above the x-axis (I would guess it's 10,000 for sake of argument).

For those that would like to play with the Excel spreadsheet I used to determine the line of best fit, I have attached it.

WithIn the context of the controversial discussion regarding the Limited Edition 4x4 Crawler, you can see that a 20,000 unit production run is actually larger than the production run predicted by the model (which, I know, is negative - see model limitations above) based upon plausible data points. According to the model, 41999 would fall into the "negative production run" area, which means it would be in a group that would likely receive a minimum production run with a quantity based upon some breakeven production cost.

The model works for what it is: an estimate of production quantities by model number based upon a production run. Hopefully, this has provided at least some scale and possible limits of an average lego production run. My biggest takeaway was the average production run per model of 160,000. After checking out the spreadsheet, let me know if you find any other insights or issues!

This the sixth entry in a series of blogs that analyses some of the data we have available here on Brickpicker to provide some simple averages to use as benchmarks. I have done the Star Wars, Ninjago LOTR/Hobbit, City, and Super Heroes themes and this time it’s the turn of Technic!

My aim is to provide some basic stats for the theme mainly around averages for a few simple measures relating to set sizes and value for money metrics. I’m going to leave out investment return measures such as CAGR and the various ROI time periods we have available as I think they should be a different discussion and the fact that current retail sets often muddy the results when looking at theme wide averages. I’m only going to look at US based information in regards to retail price etc.

This information should prove useful in writing other blog articles or set reviews. It also should serve as a benchmark to be able to compare a set against the averages for its theme, which may or may not be useful but the option is there. Over time as I hope to complete more of these blog posts we might also be able to compare themes against each other.

Technic has proved a bit tricky to look at. There are a wide variety of set types and a lot of weird and wonderful pieces that come as a set by themselves like the Power Functions parts released in 2008. These kind of “sets” throw averages off wildly as they are expensive and have very low piece counts. So I decided to include only sets with a piece count over 10. These better represent true building sets to me. There were also plenty of sets that had a $0 or unavailable retail price, mainly the very old ones as Technic is an ‘evergreen’ theme and has been around for decades. I decided to simply exclude all these $0 retail sets as well.

Basic Information

Even after the exclusions listed above I have gathered data on 246 Technic sets from Brickpicker set pages.

For the Technic theme there isn’t an already well established consistent list of subthemes that I could find. So what I decided to do was to put the sets into natural groupings as much as I could, pulling out trucks, bikes, cranes, etc and leaving the rest in a catch all miscellaneous ‘Other’ group. I hope that proves to be useful in helping us see if there are any differences between the types of Technic sets and could be so if you want to compare a one particular vehicle type to the averages of its peers. Totals will give us the overall results for the whole theme.

A note on the groupings with set counts in brackets. “Bikes” (20) contains any kind of motorbike. “Cars” (50) contain cars of course along with any type of buggy or kart. “Cranes” (13) also include things with long telescopic arms. “Digger/Loaders” (26) contain any excavators and tractors and bulldozers. “Planes/Choppers” (17) is anything that flies. “Truck” (30) is fairly obvious. The “Other” (90) category is anything that doesn’t really fit anywhere else.

Pieces

The average piece count per set is 373 pieces. The splits for all the groupings can be seen in the graph below.

Retail Price

The 246 sets have an overall average of $43.34 for retail price. Again the splits are presented below.

You do have to take a little care in interpreting these averages as they are from such a long time span. Things like inflation not to mention wide changes in production costs (offset by efficiencies somewhat I’m sure) make prices from many years ago hard to compare to today’s environment. I can tell you though that out of the 246 sets just over half were released after the year 2000 so that’s a healthy number that keeps the averages fairly relevant still.

Price Per Piece (PPP)

Whether you like using PPP as a measure of value for money or not I have included it here as it has become quite a common metric for people to use. Personally I don’t put much stock in it and find it quite a blunt tool.

The overall average for the 246 sets is $0.150 per piece. That seems a little high compared to the conventional benchmark of $0.10 per piece. There are no license fees for this evergreen in house theme to push the budget up a bit for this Lego line. Technic sets often contain specialty pieces though so you would expect that to drive prices up a little

Price Per Gram (PPG)

PPG is in my opinion a better indicator of retail value for money. It takes into account the amount of raw ABS plastic material you get in the box and should be a closer approximation to the cost of production of the set.

Weights were not available for 37 of the sets. For the 209 sets that I did get weights for the overall average PPG is $0.070.

Minifigure Count

Well this is a section I usually put in for most themes, but it isn’t really relevant here. There are only 25 Technic sets that have a minifigure and the last of those was released back in 2001. Technic is a theme geared towards building these days and not minifigs.

Thanks for reading and I hope you find a use for some of these numbers either in your own writing or your own investment decision making.

My aim is to provide some basic stats for the theme mainly around averages for a few simple measures relating to set sizes and value for money metrics. I’m going to leave out investment return measures such as CAGR and the various ROI time periods we have available as I think they should be a different discussion and the fact that current retail sets often muddy the results when looking at theme wide averages.

This information should prove useful in writing other blog articles or set reviews. It also should serve as a benchmark to be able to compare a set against the averages for its theme, which may or may not be useful but the option is there. Over time as I hope to complete more of these blog posts we might also be able to compare themes against each other.

Basic Information

For the Super Heroes theme I gathered data on 36 sets from Brickpicker set pages. I’m only going to look at US based information in regards to retail price etc.

For the Super Heroes theme I’m going to split the analysis into DC and Marvel subthemes. There are 18 sets in each. This may help us see if there are any differences between the two and could be useful if you want to compare a one particular set to the averages within each specific subtheme. Totals will give us the overall results for the whole theme.

I can also tell you that of the 36 sets 4 of them had no listed retail price. So no need to exclude any from some of the later measures that require a retail price to be present.

Pieces

The average piece count per set is 244 pieces. When split by DC and Marvel sets there is a bit of a difference with 296 and 191 average piece counts respectively.

The large Batman related sets help to pull that DC average up.

Retail Price

The 32 sets have an overall average of $30.65 for retail price. This is split to $34.40 for DC sets compared to $26.39 for Marvel sets.

Again the larger Batman sets help pull the DC average higher.

Price Per Piece (PPP)

Whether you like using PPP as a measure of value for money or not I have included it here as it has become quite a common metric for people to use. Personally I don’t put much stock in it and find it quite a blunt tool.

The overall average for the 32 sets is $0.159 per piece. That seems a little high compared to the conventional benchmark of $0.10 per piece. However, license fees for the theme probably push the budget up a bit for this Lego line.

Price Per Gram (PPG)

PPG is in my opinion a better indicator of retail value for money. It takes into account the amount of raw ABS plastic material you get in the box and should be a closer approximation to the cost of production of the set.

For the 32 sets the overall average PPG is $0.077. For DC sets it is $0.076 and for Marvel sets the result is $0.080.

Minifigure Count

Of the 36 sets 27 of them have at least one minifigure. The average across all 27 sets is 3.33 minifigures per set. DC sets average 3.69 for and the Marvel sets average 3.00 minifigures per set.

Another interesting piece of information is that of you pay an average of $8.71 per minifigure at retail price.

That seems pretty good value to me. Thanks for reading and I hope you find a use for some of these numbers either in your own writing or your own investment decision making.

The real Taj Mahal was built under the authority of “Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal,”^ and is often referred to as a great example of Muslim architecture. In the same way, the LEGO model has excellently captured the size, and wonder of the real thing. Let’s look at two of the Taj Mahal in LEGO, and in life:

There are a few more prominent differences between the two structures, including some of the dimensions. There is a smaller gap between the 4 corner towers and the main building in the LEGO model, and the LEGO model is slightly taller in proportion to its base than it is in India. Of course, there are other differences, such as the more jagged structure of the dome that is near-impossible to re-create with LEGO bricks, but overall, we are looking at a very clever copy.

The Taj Mahal is probably one of the proudest LEGO models in existance, and was part of the pinnacle of LEGO products, in 2007-2008, along with the 10179 Millennium Falcon. It is both huge, iconic, and probably the king of the Advanced Models theme.

Let’s not judge a set by it’s box design, and look at the reviews of LEGO fans who have built the set. The LEGO Shop allows customers to rate sets out of 5 in the following criteria: Value for Money, and Play Experience, both fairly general, but specific at the same time. Out of the 88 reviews, there were 5 reviews giving the set 3 stars or less, a huge success on the LEGO Group’s part, with 94.3% of LEGO fans who built this set being fairly satisfied with it, giving the set 4 or more stars overall.

The Set…
The 10189 Taj Mahal retailed for $299.99, but was discounted, including LEGO S@H, to $249.99. Unlike many LEGO Store discounts, this sale was advertised so widely, that it made it into the Spring 2010 LEGO Catalog, a sign that it didn’t live up to LEGO’s expectations.

LEGO Shop Product Summary/Description:

Build the breathtaking Taj Mahal!
The famous Taj Mahal jewel of India is known all over the globe for its incredible beauty and elegance. Now you can recreate this modern wonder of the world for yourself! Designed for experienced builders, the LEGO Taj Mahal model features advanced building techniques, rare elements and colors, and realistic details of architecture. With over 5,900 pieces, the Taj Mahal makes an awesome addition to any LEGO collection!

• Amazingly detailed model features the base, minarets, domes, finials, arches and stairs in the front
• Assembles in 3 sections for easier transportation
• The most elements ever featured in one set!
• Measures over 20" (51cm) wide and over 16" (41cm) tall

http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Taj-Mahal-10189

As the product description reads, the Taj Mahal can be separated into 3 parts to make it easier to move around, that is, easier to move without breaking or mutating. The three sections are as follows: square base, building, and dome.

Investment
Though this might not be the most exciting aspect of the article, it is very important, nevertheless. When the Taj Mahal was purchasable at S@H, it had a stunningly low Price Per Brick ratio of only $0.05. This is largely due to the sheer quantity of the same brick that is needed to construct the whole model. In fact, there are 12 pieces that are found 100 times or more in this set!

The Taj Mahal is one of the elite LEGO sets to be worth over $1,500. Though it is very often overlooked by it’s rival for the most pieces, the 10179 Millennium Falcon, it is still a gem of gems. Let’s look at the sale prices of a new version of the Taj Mahal
*Seller had feedback rating of 0.

The average total sale price of a brand new Taj Mahal is ~$1627.34, and slightly higher than the BrickPicker value of $1,593.73 because the data is from May 2013. Just looking at the current trends of the 10189, a great time to pick up the Taj Mahal was in December 2012. Now that it looks like its value won’t go anywhere near $1,000, but a good price would be about $1,300-$1,400. Now let’s look at complete used sets:
(This chart is a little small. To enlarge, click on the actual chart.)

The average total sale price of a used 10189 Taj Mahal is ~$811.12, so a good price to pick one up would be about $800 if possible, though it is hard to come by sets at that price, including instructions. It is interesting that we see a decline in value of used sets, but then we have a very strong comeback, that is not yet on BrickPicker, to the mid-to-high $800’s.

Predictions
Of course, one of the most fun parts of being an investor is guessing and predicting the direction a set will take, and how far it will go. My educated guess is that a new set will see its value continue its strong journey of just about 50% per 6 months, based on the trends of the past 5 years, and used copies will hit $950 by the holidays, and increase at a rate of about 5-10% per 6 months.

Thanks for reading!!

^Quoted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taj_Mahal.

BrickIndex
“The BrickIndex is a chart that displays the top performing LEGO sets on eBay over the past six months. By utilizing the licensed eBay Terapeak data, we are able to show the LEGO investor and collector the current hot LEGO sets and popular trends in the LEGO secondary market. This data helps a LEGO investor and collector make intelligent investment choices when purchasing new and retired LEGO sets. We have separated the BrickIndex charts into the main LEGO themes and an "overall" Top 20 performing LEGO set page.”
~Quote from the BrickPicker BrickIndex page.

BrickIndex is one of the many handy tools of BrickPicker. As the quote above reads, the BrickIndex shows the elite: the best of the best. Almost every month, the BrickIndex creates a list of sets that have appreciated the most over the past 6 months. By going to the main BrickIndex page at http://www.brickpicker.com/bpms/brickindex.cfm, you see the top performers of all themes, or in other words, the Top 20 Performing sets over the past 6 months. These ranks are given based on percentage gains rather than dollar gains. You can also change the theme that you wish to see, by going to the dropdown menu, located right above the chart of sets. See below:

There are 56 themes and 57 options for the BrickIndex (since option is of all LEGO themes). Some themes do not have sets because there is not enough data on the sets, or no set in the theme has moved in the past 6 months. This is the case for very new sets, and very old sets.
The BrickIndex is not only used to find the fastest growing sets, but is also helpful to see what growing heroes might be gaining momentum, and whether or not it is too late to jump on the appreciation train.

Compare Sets
In this section, you can compare up to 6 sets against all of the criteria of a set, both basic and in-depth, that BrickPicker has to offer. This is an extremely useful tool because it allows for side-by-side comparison, without the normal mess or hassle.

The Compare LEGO Sets section helps not only with investment, but also with choosing sets to build or part out. You can compare Price Per Brick ratios, which is a great tool for resellers of individual parts, or random lots.

You can visit the Compare LEGO Sets page by going to http://www.brickpicker.com/bpms/compare.cfm.

CAGR by LEGO Theme
CAGR is an acronym for Compound Annual Growth Rate, and gives you a brief overview that a LEGO theme as a whole has taken over the past 6 months. This is often used as a foreshadow of the performance of sets of the future. Not only is this a cool tool, it is surprising, and might tickle your investing bone. For example Star Wars is often referred to as one of the strongest LEGO themes, but is behind over half of the LEGO themes listed, including LEGO City, LEGO SpongeBob, and LEGO Hero Factory.

In addition to having the calming color of green percentages, which signify the CAGR of a LEGO theme to be 11% or more, and red if it is below 11%.

Bulk LEGO Listings Report
Lastly comes the Bulk LEGO Listings Report. In this section is a brief overview of LEGO lots sold on eBay that are considered “bulk”. These listings are made out of loose bricks. To find the bulk price from a certain theme, you select the theme, possibly color, and weight, though you only have to choose one...or none.

Finally, all listings that have the key wC’s, or resale.ords that you have specified are put into your results. For example, if I put in the specification “Star Wars, 40 lbs”, a possible listing would be “Lego lot of 40 lbs Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Bionicle and 5 lbs of minifigures”. This is helpful for buying lots of LEGO bricks for MOC’s, or resale.

These 4 tools as a whole, make up the Tools & Data section of BrickPicker. They are useful for general buying and selling, and messing around!

I hope this was helpful to you in some way, and thanks for reading!!

My aim is to provide some basic stats for the theme mainly around averages for a few simple measures relating to set sizes and value for money metrics. I’m going to leave out investment return measures such as CAGR and the various ROI time periods we have available as I think they should be a different discussion and the fact that current retail sets often muddy the results when looking at theme wide averages.

This information should prove useful in writing other blog articles or set reviews. It also should serve as a benchmark to be able to compare a set against the averages for its theme, which may or may not be useful but the option is there. Over time as I hope to complete more of these blog posts we might also be able to compare themes against each other.

Basic Information

For the City theme I gathered data on 180 sets from Brickpicker set pages. I’m only going to look at US based information in regards to retail price etc.

For the City theme I have split the analysis into subthemes, pulling out the major ones and grouping the rest into an Other category. This may help us see if there are any differences between the subthemes and could be useful if you want to compare a one particular set to the averages within each specific subtheme. Totals will give us the overall results for the whole City theme.

I can also tell you that of the 180 sets 10 of them had no listed retail price. So they need to be excluded from some of the later measures that require a retail price to be present.

Pieces

The average piece count per set is 271 pieces. When split by subtheme there is a bit of a difference with the 13 trains sets having the highest average at 471 and the 18 accessory grouped sets the lowest average of 136 pieces.

Retail Price

The 170 sets have an overall average of $34.25 for retail price. As you would expect the larger sets in the trains subtheme push it well above the rest to have the highest retail price average.

Price Per Piece (PPP)

Whether you like using PPP as a measure of value for money or not I have included it here as it has become quite a common metric for people to use. Personally I don’t put much stock in it and find it quite a blunt tool.

As mentioned there were 10 sets without a retail price that need to be excluded here, but I’ve also excluded 5 other sets that I deemed as outliers. These were set like baseplates that have a high price for essentially 1 piece and they distort the averages too much.

The overall average for the 165 sets is $0.141 per piece. That seems a lot higher when compared to the conventional benchmark of $0.10 per piece. There are no license fees to be paid in this theme and it uses plenty of normal conventional pieces so you would expect the PPP average to be lower.

The train sets definitely push the averages up a little but I’m surprised to see the other sets all relatively high as well.

Price Per Gram (PPG)

PPG is in my opinion a better indicator of retail value for money. It takes into account the amount of raw ABS plastic material you get in the box and should be a closer approximation to the cost of production of the set.

Again removing the 10 sets without a retail price there is also 2 more sets removed as I couldn’t find a weight for them. So for the 168 sets the overall average PPG is $0.062.

Minifigure Count

Of the 180 sets 171 of them have at least one minifigure. The average across all 171 sets is 2.71 minifigures per set.

The 8 sets in the advent calendar subtheme stick out with a high of 7.88 minifigures per set.

Another interesting piece of information is that of you pay an average of $12.26 per minifigure at retail price.

Thanks for reading and I hope you find a use for some of these numbers either in your own writing or your own investment decision making.

The set has four minifigures. They are Jack McHammer, a Zombie Bride, a Zombie Groom, and a Zombie Driver. In this set, the Zombie Bride and Groom are exclusive to this set, making the set more valuable.

According to brickset.com, the set was released on July 23, 2012 and was retired on October 23, 2012. The set was on the primary market for only three months. That is a very short period of time for a Lego set on the primary market. This is one of the factors on why the set is valued so much and has such a high value.

Currently, the set has a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 188.40%. That is an astonishing CAGR for a set after one year. The CAGR for the Monster Fighters theme is 40.91%. This set has a CAGR that is 147.49% above its own themes CAGR. The average CAGR for all the themes is 11.36%. This set has a CAGR that is 177.04% above the average CAGR. The comparisons of all the CAGR are amazing. The set is way above many other CAGR too. Now, let's look at a chart showing the monthly sold listings for the set new.

• June 2012: 1
• July 2012: 3
• August 2012: 29
• September 2012: 26
• October 2012: 31
• November 2012: 56
• December 2012: 126
• January 2013: 72
• February 2013: 43
• March 2013: 56
• April 2013: 41
• May 2013: 49

According to the chart, there were 533 new sets sold in the past year on eBay, which is about forty-four (44) per month. Even though the set was only available on the primary market for about three months, there still were a lot of sets selling on eBay for a higher price, which makes the value of the set go up. Here is another chart showing the monthly sales trend for the set.

• June 2012: $70.00 USD
• July 2012: $53.33 USD
• August 2012: $55.90 USD
• September 2012: $55.04 USD
• October 2012: $57.23 USD
• November 2012: $57.95 USD
• December 2012: $66.65 USD
• January 2013: $93.08 USD
• February 2013: $103.74 USD
• March 2013: $114.59 USD
• April 2013: $112.17 USD
• May 2013: $115.33 USD

According to the chart, the set has stayed above the retail price for the whole year. Usually a set has a value above the retail price before the set is released. For this set, it was June 2012 when the set has a value of $70.00 USD. Then the set lost $16.67 USD in value. The set stayed in the fifty dollar price range until December 2012. In December 2012, the set jumped in price to $66.65 USD. After that, another significant jump happened. The set went to $93.08 USD in value. It only took about three months for this set to double its retail price. Now, the set continues to grow, but at a slower pace. Soon, the set will have a value three times its retail price.

Currently, the set has a value of $115.33 USD. Since the set has a retail price of $39.99 USD, the Return On Investment (ROI) would be 188%. The set has increased $75.34 USD from its retail price.

I would recommend to buy this set. The set has a CAGR of 188.40% and an ROI of 188%. Also the set is on an upward trend in value. Overall, I think that this set has many great investing factors.

Thanks for reading!

These are the articles and blogs that have been submitted for the Content Contest ending August 1, 2013. The color designations are as follows:

• green(Evaluation Corner article)
• orange(Brickvesting Blog article)
• blue(Personal/Community Blog)
• red(articles ready to be published)
• purple(ideas for potential articles)

Veegs: EC article on Creator Houses(500 BrickPoints)

Quacs: EC article on Legends of Chima(500 BrickPoints)

Strylr: BB article on Parting Out sets(500 BrickPoints)

Mikeur86: Avengers EC article(500 BrickPoints)

Quacs: LEGO Truths and Myths Blog BB article(500 BrickPoints)

Fcbarcelona101: Personal Blog on December price swings(200 BrickPoints)

Quacs: Personal Blog on Sydney Opera House(150 BrickPoints)

MartinP: Personal Blog on 10240 X-wing(50 BrickPoints)

Alcarin: Personal Blog on Europe LEGO price difference(150 BrickPoints)

Quacs: Beginner’s Guide to Investing…LEGO Style BB article(500 BrickPoints)

Quacs: Personal Blog addition to above BB article(50 BrickPoints)

Darth Lego: CUUSOO Personal Blog(200 BrickPoints)

Grolim: Discounts Personal Blog(200 BrickPoints)

Darth Raichu: Personal Blog(25 BrickPoints)

Fcbarcelona101: Sopwith Camel short EC Article(150 BrickPoints)

Lowestformofwit: Personal Blog(PB) on box condition(100 Brickpoints)

Quacs: Personal Blog on new LEGO factory(100 BrickPoints)

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Updated July 31, 2013. Please check for accuracy. To members who have submitted articles, feel free to resubmit them to Jeff and I using the new Blog Editor in the new Community Blog feature We will review and edit them, then post them in the appropriate section of the site. This will save us some time and get your articles up faster...Thanks.

This information should prove useful in writing other blog articles or set reviews. It also should serve as a benchmark to be able to compare a set against the averages for its theme, which may or may not be useful but the option is there. Over time as I hope to complete more of these blog posts we might also be able to compare themes against each other.

Basic Information

For the Ninjago theme I gathered data on 79 sets from Brickpicker set pages. I think I got most of them included but I can’t guarantee I didn’t miss 1 or 2 here and there. I excluded the bundles of sets that show up in the listings (they have no real data anyway) and just got proper single set only information. I’m also only going to look at US based information in regards to retail price etc.

Of the 79 sets only one set, the 850632 Samurai Accessory Set didn’t have at least one minifigure. Minifigures obviously rule here! For the Star Wars theme I split the analysis into sets with and without minifigures, but obviously I can’t do this with Ninjago. What I will do though is split the sets into two groups: Spinner sets and Other sets. Spinner sets are quite different to “ordinary” Lego sets and seeing the differences could prove useful, especially if you want to compare a one particular set to the averages within each spinner/other grouping. Totals will still give us the overall results for the whole Ninjago theme.

I can also tell you that of the 79 sets there were 5 with a retail price of $0 or being not available. These sets are some of the exclusive giveaways and promotional sets that are not sold at retail. As such these 5 sets are excluded from some of the later measures that require a retail price to be present.

It may also be of interest that of the 79 sets there were 71 sets that have had a Brickpicker review written for them, including all the 38 Spinner sets. Of these 71 the average overall review score was 8.29. The 38 Spinner sets average review score was 8.51 and the 33 Other sets averaged 8.04.

Pieces

The average piece count per set is 182 pieces. When split by Spinners and Other sets there is a marked difference with 31 and 352 average piece counts respectively. That is something you’d expect as the Spinner sets are not focused on a traditional Lego build and have few parts.

Retail Price

Of the 74 sets with an available retail price the overall average is $24.21. This is split to $10.12 for Spinner sets and $39.96 for Other sets.

The majority of the Spinner range retail for $9.99 with a few larger arena type environment sets at $19.99 and some $4.99 “Booster Packs” cancelling each other out. The non-Spinner set range from $4.99 up to the $119.99 mark for Fire temple and Epic Dragon Battle.

Another interesting piece of information is that of you pay an average of $12.34 per minifigure at retail price.

Price Per Piece (PPP)

Whether you like using PPP as a measure of value for money or not I have included it here as it has become quite a common metric for people to use. Personally I don’t put much stock in it and find it quite a blunt tool. The overall average for the 74 sets is $0.264 per piece. That seems very high compared to the conventional benchmark of $0.10 per piece. However the main reason for that is the PPP on the Spinner sets is $0.401, the Other sets have a more respectable $0.111 average.

Price Per Gram (PPG)

PPG is in my opinion a better indicator of retail value for money. It takes into account the amount of raw ABS plastic material you get in the box and should be a closer approximation to the cost of production of the set. For the 74 sets the overall average PPG is $0.089. For Spinner sets it is $0.112 and for Other sets the result is $0.063.

Minifigure Count

In terms of minifigures the average across all 79 sets is 1.94 minifigures per set. Spinners generally only come with 1 minifigure although the larger starter sets have 2, bringing the average up to 1.08 for the spinner range. Other sets average 2.73 minifigures per set.

It’s fairly obvious that the Spinner sets do not fit with the conventional comparisons to normal Lego sets. They aren’t really Lego sets in my opinion and sit within more of a play toy area alongside the Chima Speedorz. The usefulness of the metrics presented for them is really limited to benchmarking one of the Spinner sets to its peers rather than putting it up against other Lego sets.

Thanks for reading and I hope you find a use for some of these numbers either in your own writing or your own investment decision making.

This information should prove useful in writing other blog articles or set reviews. It also should serve as a benchmark to be able to compare a set against the averages for its theme, which may or may not be useful but the option is there. Over time as I hope to complete more of these blog posts we might also be able to compare themes against each other.

First up lets have a look at the Star Wars theme.

For this analysis I gathered data on 264 sets from Brickpicker set pages. I think I got most of them included but I can’t guarantee I didn’t miss 1 or 2 here and there. I excluded all the bundles of sets that show up in the listing and just got proper single set only information. I’m also only going to look at US based information in regards to retail price etc.

Basic Information

Of the 264 sets there were 196 sets that included at least one minifigure, leaving 68 sets that had no minifigures included. This split is useful as I’m going to use it to differentiate sets with or without minifigures in some of the later measures. Of the 196 sets with a minifigure present the average amount per set was 3.9 minifigures, with the highest being the 22 included in the 10188 Death Star. We can view this split easily in the diagram below:

I can also tell you that of the 264 sets there were 14 with a retail price of $0 or being not available. These sets are some of the exclusive giveaways and promotional sets that are not sold at retail. As such these 14 sets are excluded from some of the later measures that require a retail price to be present.

It may also be of interest that of the 264 sets there were 121 sets that have had a Brickpicker review written for them. Of these 121 the average overall review score was 7.06.

Pieces

The average piece count per set is 463 pieces. When split by minifigure and non-minifigure sets there isn’t much difference with 466 and 462 average piece counts respectively.

Retail Price

Of the 250 sets with an available retail price the overall average is $51.91. This is split to $49.90 for non-minifigure sets compared to $52.50 for sets with minifigures.

I was expecting the differences between minifigure and non-minifigure sets to perhaps be a little wider thinking that small polybag mini builds would drag the non-minifigure average lower. But upon reflection there are a lot of smaller cheap sets with minifigures like the battle packs and quite a few of the other polybags have a $0 retail so are excluded. There are also plenty of large UCS sets with no minifigures to pull the average up.

Another nugget of information is that of the sets with minifigures you pay an average of $13.58 per minifigure at retail price.

Price Per Piece (PPP)

Whether you like using PPP as a measure of value for money or not I have included it here as it has become quite a common metric for people to use. Personally I don’t put much stock in it and find it quite a blunt tool. Quacs has written an excellent blog post on the merits of PPP that can be found HERE

The overall average for the 250 sets is $0.117 per piece. For non-minifigure sets the average is $0.099 and for sets with minifigures it is $0.122.

Price Per Gram (PPG)

PPG is in my opinion a better indicator of retail value for money. It takes into account the amount of raw ABS plastic material you get in the box and should be a closer approximation to the cost of production of the set.

For the 250 sets the overall average PPG is $0.068. For non-minifigure sets it is $0.070 and for sets with a minifigure the result is $0.067.

That’s a closer spread of results than I anticipated. I did expect the sets with minifigures to be higher. The difference is almost negligible though and I would suspect a proper statistical analysis of the results may not find a statistically significant variance, but I’ll leave the hypothesis testing for another day or another author to have a crack at.

Thanks for reading and I hope you find a use for some of these numbers either in your own writing or your own thoughts when comparing some basic set information to factor into your investment decision making.

My aim is to provide some basic stats for the theme mainly around averages for a few simple measures relating to set sizes and value for money metrics. I’m going to leave out investment return measures such as CAGR and the various ROI time periods we have available as I think they should be a different discussion and the fact that current retail sets often muddy the results when looking at theme wide averages.

This information should prove useful in writing other blog articles or set reviews. It also should serve as a benchmark to be able to compare a set against the averages for its theme, which may or may not be useful but the option is there. Over time as I hope to complete more of these blog posts we might also be able to compare themes against each other.

Basic Information

For the LOTR/Hobbit theme I gathered data on 22 sets from Brickpicker set pages. I’m only going to look at US based information in regards to retail price etc.

Of the 22 sets all of them have at least one minifigure. Minifigures obviously rule here! For the Star Wars theme I split the analysis into sets with and without minifigures and for Ninjago I split the sets into two groups: Spinner sets and Other sets. For LOTR/Hobbit I’m going to continue the same methods and split the overall group into the respective LOTR and Hobbit Subthemes. This may help us see if there are any differences between the two and could be useful if you want to compare a one particular set to the averages within each specific subtheme. Totals will give us the overall results for the whole LOTR/Hobbit theme.

I can also tell you that of the 22 sets all of them had a listed retail price. So no need to exclude any from some of the later measures that require a retail price to be present.

It may also be of interest that of the 22 sets there were 21 sets that have had a Brickpicker review written for them (only 10237 Tower of Orthanc is missing one). Of these 21 the average overall review score was 7.50. Surprisingly, the Hobbit sets have a review score average of 7.86 compared to LOTR averaging 7.27, personally I have felt that LOTR sets have been slightly superior to date so that was unexpected.

Pieces

The average piece count per set is 472 pieces. When split by Hobbit and LOTR sets there is a bit of a difference with 336 and 549 average piece counts respectively.

The large piece counts of Helm’s Deep and Tower of Orthanc have really pulled the LOTR average up.

Retail Price

The 22 sets have an overall average of $49.72 for retail price. This is split to $38.74 for Hobbit sets compared to $55.99 for LOTR sets.

Again the larger LOTR sets help pull that average up.

Another interesting piece of information is that of you pay an average of $11.39 per minifigure at retail price.

Price Per Piece (PPP)

Whether you like using PPP as a measure of value for money or not I have included it here as it has become quite a common metric for people to use. Personally I don’t put much stock in it and find it quite a blunt tool.

The overall average for the 22 sets is $0.122 per piece. That seems a little high compared to the conventional benchmark of $0.10 per piece. However, license fees for the theme and the high minifigure count probably push the budget up a bit for this Lego line.

Price Per Gram (PPG)

PPG is in my opinion a better indicator of retail value for money. It takes into account the amount of raw ABS plastic material you get in the box and should be a closer approximation to the cost of production of the set.

For the 22 sets the overall average PPG is $0.093. For Hobbit sets it is $0.104 and for LOTR sets the result is $0.087.

Minifigure Count

In terms of minifigures the average across all 2 sets is a whopping 4.36 minifigures per set. Hobbit sets average 4.00 for and the LOTR sets average 4.57 minifigures per set.

Obviously the LOTR/Hobbit theme relies heavily on minifigures and it will be interesting down the road to see if it tops the theme lists for average minifigures.

Thanks for reading and I hope you find a use for some of these numbers either in your own writing or your own investment decision making.

Two of her favorite movie themes of all time are Star Trek and the Transformers series and so she immediately asked me if Lego had any of these themes. She was very disappointing to find out that Lego did not have anything from those themes.

However, a while later, we were in Walmart and she walked by an isle near the Legos that had an off-brand called "Kre-o's", and behold, there was Transformers and Star Trek. I told her they were NOTHING compared to Lego. My wife wanted to try them out anyway. So we found several sets in the coming weeks that she liked for really cheap (I didn't want to take a chance since I knew they weren't the real thing) and she built them all. I helped her to a certain extent and then took some pictures of the different sets. I thought I would do short reviews of them and then talk about Kre-o as a brand and how it compares to Lego and why Lego is so much better.

Be advised, this is just for purchase. I would not for any reason invest in these. A lot of them didn't sell particularly well, which is a bit surprising, but they were all incredibly discounted and still are. I don't think there is any reason to think they will be a good investment - so this is particularly for the builders, the bulk lovers, and the players out there. Plus, if you like Transformers or the Star Trek series, this is a way to get your kicks! Obviously, if Lego ever comes out with either of these themes, don't waste your time on these.

The reviews are just of the sets we own since I have first hand knowledge of them:

Tranformers Series - BumbleBee

This set retails for $24.99 and comes with 335 pieces. On the outside, that is a really good PPP value at $.07. This set was recently discounted by most retailers like Target and Walmart and can be found for $15 or less. At that price (which is where we got it), it is a pretty cool set. See the pictures below:

These are a lot like the creator sets in that they have two different ways to be set up: in the vehicle and the actual transformer character. My wife likes leaving them in the transformer so we have not built the actually vehicles though they look pretty cool. I can't help but think that Lego would have been able to make them actually transform though.

This set comes with 3 small Kreons, which are the supposed to be the equivalent of Lego minifigures, but are not near as cool. The set itself is pretty detailed. Most of the pieces were pretty easy to put together and look pretty good. The yellow color is not too bad, but it is not quite as bright and vibrant as Lego yellows.

I do really like the back of the bumblebee with the actual wheels still on. Makes it at least look like it transformed. Overall, for 335 pieces (which is less for this since we didn't use them all), you get quite a bit. A lot of the pieces are larger pieces wheres I think Lego sometimes splits pieces up smaller. Because of this, it really feels like a 500 piece Lego set.

Anyway, it is a pretty good rendition of Bumblebee and I think is worth it if you can get it at a discount. Luckily you can find these off Ebay for as low as $15, so I would suggest picking it up if you like transformers.

StarScream

This set is $29.99 retail and has 316 pieces. The PPP ratio is $.09 which is still pretty good. I was able to pick this set up for my wife for $15, and at that price it is tremendous:

This one is really my favorite of all the transformers sets. The large missiles on top and all the missiles on his hands are really cool. This one has quite a bit of play-ability because of that. Unfortunately, they don't really shoot like flick missiles (Lego still wins by a lot).

The grey and red is a little duller than Lego's greys and reds. This is a recurring theme with the brand as I will talk about below. All in all, the set was very easy to build and came with a lot of cool pieces, including all the missiles.

Again, for the piece count, there is quite a lot here. The wings, missiles and feet are all single pieces, so they are rather large and make up the bulk of the weight of the set.

This set can be picked up on Ebay for less than $20 and is a steal at that price (again, don't invest in it though )

Megatron

This set is 310 pieces and is $29.99 retail for another $.09 PPP ratio. It is definitely worth it. This set has some of the best detail of all the sets, and has 4 Kreon figures. Most of them are no-name figures, but this is true for every set. Here it is below:

We got our set for $15 at a discount/damages store, but unfortunately it only had 3 of the Kreons. We don't really care for the Kreons anyway, so it was still a good deal. This set is probably the closest to an actual Lego set. It has quite a bit of intricate little details like Megatron's fingers and the grill from the trunk that is on his chest. I really like the tanker barrels at the top as well. It also has the steering wheel from the truck right behind his head. Man, if this transformed, it would be really sweet (Do it Lego!). You can find it on Ebay for under $20 which is not bad.

OptimusPrime

This set is one of the bigger ones in Kreo's collection, which makes sense because it is a truck rig. It retails for $59.99 and has 542 pieces for a PPP ratio of $.11 which is not near as good as the others. I think it is a little over-priced, but we got it at $30 from Walmart on clearance and for that price, I think it's not too bad.

This set does come with some extras. Optimus Prime actually comes with a little stand and an attached command center. It also has 3 Kreons and two small motor bikes for them to ride that are shown in the bottom of the picture. This is the most flashy of all the sets with the different colors. It is also slightly larger obviously.

Again, I really like the detail, especially on the back of the piece with all the wheels and the exhaust pipes from the Truck. I have seen this one on Clearance a lot and on Ebay for $30. At that price, it is really a steal. It's funny though, even the most detailed sets don't come close to Lego sets.

Star Trek - The Enterpris

This is the only one of the Star trek series we have so far, but it is really impressive. It is HUGE for only 432 pieces and it comes with 5 Kreons, these being the actual Enterprise workers. They look a lot better than the Kreons in the Transformer series. It has 432 pieces and retails for $49.99 for a PPP ratio of $.11. Unfortunately, we did not check before and saw it in TRU for $60. I had a 20% off coupon, so we paid $48, but that really wasn't that great a deal. However, because of the sheer size of the set, it is worth it:

If you look at the top of the round part of the ship, you can tell most of those are large single pieces, which is why the piece count is so low. This set is bigger than the Jabba's Palace I have which is over 800 pieces. Really the detail on the ship is pretty good, although I don't feel like it comes close to the type of time and detail Lego would put into it. For $48, this was a great set. Having the big pieces does have a downside - bigger sets aren't as fun to build without smaller pieces. Almost more like a model.

The inside of it is pretty nice too with the command center and places for all the Kre-o's. As you can see on the right, it even has a little fold up screen for driving the ship. My wife likes this one the best out of all of them.

Since Lego doesn't have these two themes and we have to live with Kre-o for now, what are the big differences and what makes Lego so much better?

Differences and Pros/Cons

• First off, you would only want to buy Kre-o if Lego doesn't have the theme. They don't come close to Lego sets. After building some of them, they are cool but not anything like Lego. Smaller Lego sets we have look way better and more impressive then the biggest Kre-o sets.
• Kre-o colors aren't near as vibrant. However, they do have some shades of colors that Lego doesn't have like some shades of green and the larger white pieces in the Enterprise set. All in all though, don't display them next to Lego sets because Lego destroys them color-wise.
• Kre-o doesn't have numbered bags. This seems simple, but it is a huge downside. You don't know how much easier it is to find Lego pieces. Lego gets a huge win in ease of build.
• The Kre-o pieces are considerably lighter. All of these sets were way lighter than the smaller 250 piece Star Wars Lego sets I have. May lend to the fact that the pieces are cheaper and may not hold up over time the same way if played with. If you feel the pieces, you can tell the difference between Kre-o and Lego in a second.
• The Kre-o's don't stay together as well and some parts don't fit. They may be able to warp, although the ones we have gotten together have been fine.
• Kre-o does detail really well. It is not to the level Lego does, but it is better than pretty much every other Lego impersonator.
• Kreons are not near as good as minifigures. For one, they are usually all one piece. They are way lighter and don't move as freely as well. I think this is the biggest difference between the two. The legs on Kreons move alright, but they don't stand up as well on display.
• If you love bulk, buy a bunch of these on clearance. They come with tons of extra pieces - I think our Bumblebee has close to 400 pieces in it. You can get tons of Lego compatible and different pieces by picking up one of these sets and dumping it in your bin for way less than any Lego set that is comparable.
• Since we don't play with our sets, I don't really know about how they would hold up being played with. Lego's almost can't be destroyed, but I have a feeling these are better just left alone after building.

Anyone else have any of these? Do you like any other sets? I thought these two themes were the only ones we would consider buying from Kre-o since Lego doesn't have them. If Lego ever makes them, I would imagine these would not be anywhere near relevant anymore.

StarFox 64 – Arwing and Landmaster

Alright, someone here tell me they didn't play this game. Honestly you could probably have a whole theme from Starfox because there were so many memorable ships. The game had some of the most ultimate replay value of all time with the 30 different ways you could get to the end of the game, the different secret levels, and the two difficulty levels. I would say I pored at least 500 hours or more into this game, and every year or so I get it back out to play some more. It was just that good.

So what would we do? Well I think there are two important vehicles everyone would want. First, the Arwing:

This would come with the retracting wings like the plane in the game had. It could also come with flick missiles for the blasters. A stand would be included so that you could set it upright where no part of it was touching the ground. It would be holding is so that you could easily flip the ship. There would be a speaker in the stand with a sensor and you could flip the Arwing and the speaker would say “do a barrel roll”. This would be a split set, so you would also have a Landmaster - like the old Tie-fighter and Y-wing sets:

Who doesn't want a tank. It could also do a manual barrel roll – just roll it over.

Minifigures would include:

• Fox
• Slippy
• Falco – mean look on his face like “I guess I should be thankful”
• Peppy

Goldeneye – The Cradle

Its fairly safe to say that Goldeneye 64 is a near consensus “One of the greatest games of all time”. Had there been online play, I have to assume people would still be playing this game today. This really was the beginning of the first person shooter. Pretty much every game made since then has been modeled after the success this game had.

This level is pretty well known and iconic to the game and to the movie. Bond is chasing Trevelyan across the Cradle trying to catch him. In the game, this level was a race against time and it was near the end of the game itself. I remember having to play this level over and over because the Cradle kept blowing up before I made it to my getaway plane.

With the way Lego has done with Bridges and structures of that nature like the in the City theme and the Tower Bridge 10214, I think Lego would absolutely dominate this set. They could make it really large and impressive. Though it would be hard to recreate the whole thing, they could have one main bridge and several branches off of it as well as the lower place Bond jumps to safety from.

This set would come with the following minifigures:

• James Bond
• Trevelyan – he would have to be looking like his is running because that is all he does in this level
• 3 Bad guys to go after Bond.

Zelda 64 – Hyrule's Castle

I don't think there are many people who play fantasy RPGs that haven't played the Legend of Zelda. There were plenty of story games before this and there were several Zelda games as well, but nothing like this. The character development and the story of this game (Legend of Zelda – Ocarina of Time) were really unmatched when this came out.

If you were into the game, you know you spent quite an amount of time around Hyrule Castle – having to sneak in and deal with the townspeople inside and outside as well as the guards.

The minifigures would include:

• Link – the main character
• 2 Castle Guards
• Princess Zelda

There could also be a lot of little extras. Maybe hearts for Link to pick up after battle and diamonds to pick up for money. Also, I think the set needs a chicken. Doesn't everyone remember hurting the chickens and bringing out the swarm of chicken death?

Super Smash Brothers – Saffron City

This was another great game in the lineup and one that has really carried on since. This game was the ultimate party game – nothing was more fun than getting together with a bunch of friends and putting the lives on “99” and playing for hours.

I picked Saffron City for two reasons: it was my favorite level from the game and... if we pick that we can have minifigure Pokemon! I think they could make it look just like in the game with the main building and the two smaller buildings to the right and left. It could come with a barrel and a large box for power ups. There could also be an extra home-run bat, a bomb-omb and a poke-ball or two.

Minifigures would include:

• Mario as a battler(it's his game right?)
• Pikachu as a battler
• Hitmonlee
• Chancey - would come with eggs
• Charizard – with flames coming out from him
• Blastoise

Mario Tennis

This was the only game I ever played that I felt like I couldn't be beat at. I played tennis growing up and I loved this game because of it with all the power ups and and the animation. This would go over extremely well as a Lego set too; anyone ever looked at the CAGR on some of those sports sets?

This set would come with a full tennis court along with a linesman chair. It could also have the stands that are around the court itself. It could then come with these minifigures:

• Mario (again, it's his game)
• Bowser
• Yoshi
• Wario
• Luigi – he could be a sub-in or a linesman
• Donkey Kong – as an alternate because I couldn't cut it down enough.

Obviously it could also come with some minifigure sized tennis balls as well as the rackets for the different players.

That's all for today. What other games do you think would be good for Lego sets? Would you all buy these sets?

Note: All of the information here are my own opinions and are pulled from my experiences. You may or may not have success with these methods. Thanks for reading!

16. 8129-1: AT-AT WALKER

17. 8036-1: SEPARATIST SHUTTLE

18. 10129-1: REBEL SNOWSPEEDER

19. 10030-1: IMPERIAL STAR DESTROYER

20. 4500-1: REBEL SNOWSPEEDER

The BrickIndex is a handy BrickPicker tool that allows the user to view the overall Top 20 Performing sets from all themes, or a single theme. It helps to decide what sets might be skyrocketing in value, and what you may want to pick up for the future. Below is a overview of the sets we will be looking at:

16. 8129-1: AT-AT WALKER
This is the third version of the LEGO AT-AT Walker in the top 20, and the second full-sized one. This is the newest version of AT-AT, and has had massive gains over the past year, appreciating 78% over the past year (~$120). All signs of this set’s appreciation point to more appreciation of years to come. There was a predictable spike in sales quantity in December, but the value didn’t increase more than it’s projected growth.

Though used sets are often scoffed at as investments, I think now is a great time to pick one up. The set has been on a very steep decline, but will undoubtedly make a come-back. I will soon be writing an article on this, so stay tuned!

17. 8036-1: SEPARATIST SHUTTLE
This set is a surprise to the BrickIndex list, especially because of its short appearance in the Clone Wars TV show. This set is one of the few that includes the Trade Federation leader, Newt Gunray, which makes this set relatively desirable. I can’t really see this set being a big gainer, especially since it hasn’t really gotten very much more than retail. Though a nice build with decent minifigures, I think that this time, you have to move along.

18. 10129-1: REBEL SNOWSPEEDER
The Rebel Snowspeeder is one of my favorite builds, and is a set that you should watch fairly closely investment-wise. There was an odd dip in value during the holidays, down to $720, but it almost instantly made its rebound to $880, making it a great set to invest in, even 10 years after it was released. As a build, it was designed spectacularly, with way more detail than the minifigure-scale ones do, and it is one of the most iconic ships/vehicles in Star Wars. This set is often overlooked by collectors and investors, as it isn’t one of the front-runners of the UCS line, and is overshadowed by other more current sets, like the 10179 Millennium Falcon, or 10143 Death Star II.

I would pick up this set for investment as soon as it hits about $750, as it will be an easy way to pocket some significant cash!

19. 10030-1: IMPERIAL STAR DESTROYER
One of the largest LEGO sets in existance, the Imperial Star Destroyer is one of the biggest, baddest LEGO sets around. It comes in an attractive black, slick box, with a simple, but eye-catching box design. The 10030 Imperial Star Destroyer is basically stabilized, and has only seen gains over the past six months because of a dip in value December. The Imperial Star Destroyer has been remade a few times, with a variety of different models, including the recent 10221 Super Star Destroyer. Each one has a slightly different design, which helps past models maintain value and desirability. This particular model of the Star Destroyer is wider than most, and includes a mini-model of the Tantive IV, where the Rebel ship is drawn into the Destroyer via a tractor beam, and then boarded by Darth Vader.

There is a dwindling amount of sold listings of this set, as well as a low amount of listings. This set quite possibly could make a large jump in value with the lower quantity of listings. The used version of the 10030 Imperial Star Destroyer has seen fairly good gains over the past 6 months, gaining 27%. It is expected that this set will stay at it’s current value, within about $30 of $600.

20. 4500-1: REBEL SNOWSPEEDER
Last but not least is the 4500 Rebel Snowspeeder. This is somewhat of a minimalist model of the Snowspeeder, with only about 200 pieces. The build does manage to include many of the major parts of the set, including the twin laser guns on each wing, as well as the larger-than-normal windshield/cockpit. This set has seen a very steady gain over the past several months, but the gains are so small dollar-wise that it isn’t worth the effort to grab it. There are about 10 listings for new 4500 Rebel Snowspeeders, but the demand for this set probably won’t go up, because of the frequency of remakes for this particular set.

Well, I assume it will very soon. With Disney taking over Star Wars, they and Lego are going to have a bigger relationship than ever. I can not imagine this is not one of the things on TLG's radar. Disney World is the place that every child wants to go and I can't imagine that these wouldn't fly off the shelves, or be huge investment winners.

So, before TLG and Disney finally decide to do the obvious, I am going to give them a couple of great ideas before hand:

Disney Minifigure Series

I think there are a lot of people that love the minifigures Lego has in their minifigure series as they are highly collectable and depict all sorts of different people and characters. If Disney has one thing, it is a lot of different characters.

Disney has something similar in toys called Vinylmations, depicted in the picture above. These are all sorts of different Disney and non Disney characters depicted in a Disney light; for instance, with mouse ears. Think of how well this would go over as minifigures!

Since Disney already has their own line of figures, this could be actually Disney characters that were in all of the different movies. There are tons of these, so they could continue series after series. People would collect these like crazy – Vinylmations are something that do really well in the secondary market just like Lego figures. Completing the different sets and different full casts from the movies would keep this series going for years and years.

It's a Small World

This is definitely one of the most iconic and popular rides at Disney for several reasons. One, it is one of the most tame rides there so pretty much everyone can ride it without problem. On top of that, the song is extremely catchy and easy for any child to sing.

The ride itself is a large boat ride which slowly floats around different scenes depicting children from around the world. It is very colorful and vindictive of all the different cultures from different parts of almost every country.

This would have to be a smaller scale of the ride. It would come with a small boat and the water itself would be lower blue bricks that would go around the outside of a middle piece that would have all the scenes on it. The scenes in the middle would be a few from different parts of the world with all the little characters.

They could also add in something that could play the song when turned on. Although we need an off button because it can get pretty old.

Minifigures include:

• The children from around the world for the different scenes.
• 2 passengers in Disney gear

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

Pretty much every Lego theme needs a train, right? Trains do about better than any other Lego vehicle and this one would be a huge seller as well. It is a cross between a train ride and a roller coaster. It is one of the oldest and most popular rides at Disney's Magic Kingdom as well. I think it would really be big for Lego because of the status of the ride, as well as the Train/roller coaster angle. It would be like a new take on an old favorite.

It would have the giant rock structure in the middle with the train ride looping in and out of it just like the actual ride. It is a big ride, so they may have to make it a little smaller for this set, with just a few hills and only the one big rock in the middle. It would also have the giant Thunder Mountain Railroad sign on top.

Minifigures would include:

• Disney ride operator
• 6 passengers in Disney gear.

The Tower of Terror

This is my favorite ride by far at the park – which honestly is not too hard since the park is really more designed for children anyway. This ride is at the Hollywood studios. It is based on the fictional story of 5 people who were in a large hotel. As they were crossing the 13^th floor during an extremely bad storm, lightening struck the tower causing the elevator to drop and crash onto the bottom floor killing the 5 people. If you ride the ride, you can now enter the twilight zone and relive the terror those people suffered.

The tower itself is awesome and could really be an awesome modular building. It somewhat could resemble the structure of the Haunted House and we know how well that has done. It would have the Hollywood Studios logo on the front as well as the Tower of Terror logo. The elevator inside would have seats for minifigure passengers and an opening to load in at the bottom. It would be able to be raised up and then fall down just like the actual ride.

Minifigures would include:

• 5 passengers for the ride
• A Disney ride operator

The Epcot Ball

To me, this the second most recognizable Disney landmark past Cinderella's Castle. The Epcot ball is not anything amazing on the outside: a giant golf-ball looking building with no real outside markers. However, on the inside, it is a giant ride that shows the world of today and the world as we will possible see it in the future.

It is also amazingly huge – pictures don’t do it justice. If you ever fly over Florida, you will be able to tell how crazy large it is. It would have to be that big if it had a ride inside.

In my eyes, this would be a very large set. The ball itself would be whole, but the top would pop off and inside there would be a small slow moving ride, just like at the real Epcot. It also will have some Disney dioramas inside that would be somewhat indicative of the actual ride itself.

It would come with the following minifigures:

• Disney ride Operator dressed as Disney Character possibly.
• 4 Passengers to ride the rids, all in different Disney gear.

Cinderellas Castle

I know I already mentioned this as being the most recognizable thing from Disney World, but in all seriousness, it really is the one thing that people think of when making a visit there. It is in the theme park called “Magic Kingdom” which is the one with the most rides and is the busiest of the parks. This is also the park that is most geared towards children.

This would be a pretty large set and would have all of the features of the real castle. As well, it would have the walkway that goes under it and all the decoration in front of it. If you have ever been to Disney World, you know at night they light the castle up; So how about a bunch of light bricks on the bottom! They would all shine up and light up the castle at night time if you wanted them to. And we all know how well Castles do. I would venture to say that this could be the best selling and best gaining castle of all time. It would come with these minifigures:

• Cinderella
• Mickey Mouse
• Minny Mouse
• 4 Park Visitors in Disny Gear
• Goofy – because who doesn't love goofy?

Those are my suggestions so far TLG. I expect to see these by next year!

What do you all think?Would this go over well? Did I pick the right rides and attractions?

Note: All of the information here are my own opinions and are pulled from my experiences. You may or may not have success with these methods.

Thanks for reading!

Perhaps such items are now well know to you, but maybe not. Nearly every month now, the LEGO Store will have an exclusive giveaway, typically free with a purchase of either $50+ or $75, though on occasion there will be a free item with all purchases. These freebies typically come in polybags. Below are a list of more recent polybags, as well as information on them:

*The 3300014 Christmas Set came in a box, rather than a polybag.

To me, these are very interesting results, and enforces the fact that bigger isn’t always better. One reason why minifigure polybags sell for more than builds is that every year, on May the Fourth, is a giveaway of an exclusive minifigure, usually with orders $75. These minifigures only are sold on May 4^th-5^th, so are then way more exclusive than others that are available for a month.

If you can get your hands on a Minifigure and Build polybag during a promotion, then you could easily make up for 25% of the cost. The question is when to sell your polybags for the most profit. This time is usually when the polybag has been first released. To get it right when demand is the highest, means that you need to have a LEGO Store on the day the polybag is released.

Why Buy Exclusives?
A prime question on exclusive polybags is whether or not it actually saves you money. The average sale price of a S@H exclusive polybag is $16.87, or 22% savings on orders $75 and 16.87% savings on orders of $100. On many sets, including S@H exclusives, this is a bargain, as exclusive sets very rarely are discounted. Though exclusives may end up forcing you to buy more, they can give you savings that you can’t get anywhere else!!

If you are interested, here are some more recent shop.LEGO.com freebie giveaways:

Ice Cream Stand
Mini Mech
Hoth Han Solo
Iron Man vs. Fighting Drone
Jor-El
Hot Dog Cart
Hero Factory Accessory Pack

The set has two minifigures which are Mr. Freeze and Batman. The set also includes Batman's buggy and Mr Freeze's speedster.

According to brickset.com, the set was released on May 26, 2008 and was retired on October 10, 2008. This means the set was only available on the primary market for about five months. That is a very short period of time for a set to be sold, which means there would be less set available to be sold on the secondary market making it a great investing set.

Currently the set has a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 69.18%. That is an amazing CAGR. The CAGR for the Batman theme is 32.33%. The overall CAGR for all the Lego themes is 11.36%. This set is 36.85% above the Batman theme CAGR and 57.82% above the overall CAGR. I cannot stress how great this CAGR is. This is a definite plus when investing in this set. Now, let's look at a chart showing the monthly sold listings for the set new.

• June 2012: 3
• July 2012: 1
• August 2012: 18
• September 2012: 3
• October 2012: 1
• November 2012: 2
• December 2012: 4
• January 2013: 0
• February 2013: 0
• March 2013: 4
• April 2013: 0
• May 2013: 0

According to the chart, there were thirty-six (36) sold in the past year, which is three (3) sets per month. There were four months were no new sets were sold at all. These may be due to the fact that the set was not on the primary market for very long, thus limiting the amount of sets sold on the secondary market. Here is another chart showing the monthly sales trend for the set new.

• June 2012: $146.33 USD
• July 2012: $143.00 USD
• August 2012: $119.72 USD
• September 2012: $127.21 USD
• October 2012: $125.00 USD
• November 2012: $124.83 USD
• December 2012: $129.31 USD
• January 2013: $129.31 USD
• February 2013: $129.31 USD
• March 2013: $138.47 USD
• April 2013: $138.47 USD
• May 2013: $138.47 USD

According to the chart, the set is on an upward trend for the past ten (10) months. The set has decreased $7.86 USD in value over the past year, which is about sixty-six cents ($0.66 USD) per month. Although the set has decreased in value, the set is recovering after the value of the set decreased to $119.72 USD in August 2012, which is the lowest value of the set in the past year. When the set hit its lowest price, the set had decreased $26.21 USD from its highest value this year in June 2012 of $146.33 USD. During the year, the set went through some periods of no growth. This happened because there were no new sets sold that month due to the limited availability of the set. Hopefully, the set continues with its growth and continues to have an amazing CAGR.

Currently, the set has a value of $138.47, which was the same value for the past two months of March and April. Since the set was released, the set has gained $128.48 from its retail value. This means the Return On Investment (ROI) for this set is 1,286%. That is amazing. The set has a ROI of 1,286% after five years. Another great investing factor about this set.

I would recommend to buy this set. The set has increased in value tremendously from its retail price. The set has an amazing CAGR of 69.18% and ROI of 1,286%. Overall, I think that this set has many great potential investing factors. Thanks for reading!

The set has eight minifigures. They are two Crown Knights, a maid, a blacksmith, a female peasant, an old male peasant, a young male peasant, and a peasant child.

The set was released in late 2008/early 2009 and the set was retired in early 2013. This means the set was on the primary market for about four years. There may still be sets on store shelves waiting to be sold due to higher prices.

Currently, the set has a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8.54%, which is decent. The castle theme has a CAGR of 9.92%. This means the set is 1.38% under the average CAGR for its theme. Also, the average CAGR for all the themes is 11.36%. That means the set is 2.82% under the average CAGR for all the themes. This is not bad at all, but I prefer a set that has a CAGR higher than its theme and the overall CAGR, but it still may be a great investment. Now, let's look at a chart showing the monthly sold listings for the set new.

• June 2012: 13
• July 2012: 7
• August 2012: 6
• September 2012: 39
• October 2012: 13
• November 2012: 27
• December 2012: 76
• January 2013: 109
• February 2013: 38
• March 2013: 48
• April 2013: 28
• May 2013: 21

According to the chart, there were 425 sets sold in the past year, which is about thirty-five (35) sets a month. Almost half the sets sold this past year were sold during the holiday season during the months of December and January. But, there might have been a lot of sets sold in January because it retired in January 2013. Now, here is another chart showing the monthly sales trend for the set.

• June 2012: $111.56 USD
• July 2012: $112.94 USD
• August 2012: $111.25 USD
• September 2012: $101.82 USD
• October 2012: $94.77 USD
• November 2012: $96.15 USD
• December 2012: $93.89 USD
• January 2013: $104.39 USD
• February 2013: $118.82 USD
• March 2013: $129.40 USD
• April 2013: $132.71 USD
• May 2013: $138.76 USD

This chart has two parts to it, which are before and after the set was retired. According to brickset.com the set was retired on January 13, 2013. I will analyze both sections of the chart, beginning with before the set was retired. Before the set was retired the set was on a downward trend. The set had kept on going down in value over seven months. The set lost a total value of $17.67 USD over seven months, which is about $2.52 USD per month. The set hit its all time low for the year in December 2012 when the set had a value of $93.89 USD. After the set was retired, the set jumped from $93.89 USD in December 2012 to $104.39 in January 2013. That is an increase of $10.50 USD in one month. Then the set jumped in value again, the set has a value of $118.82 in February 2013. That is an increase of $14.43 USD from the previous month and an increase of $24.93 since the set was retired. Now, the set continues to grow. The recent retirement of the set has made it a great investing choice.

Now, the set has a current value of $138.76 USD, which is up 4.56% from the past month. The set has a Return On Investment (ROI) of 39%, which is good because of the recent EOL.

I would recommend to buy this set. The set has a great investing potential and it has a positive growth trend dues to its recent EOL. Also, the set has a decent CAGR of 8.54% that may increase in the near future and a decent ROI of 39% that may also get better. Overall, I think the set has many great potential investing factors.

Thanks for reading!

Looking at the booklets, building this set is really fun because you get minifigures in several of the bags, not just a the beginning, and we all know that putting together the minfigures is the most fun part of building a set. First up in bag 1 is Leia in the Boushh Disguise. I really like this one because it adds a lot of playability to the set if someone wants to re-enact the scene from the movie (not that I did it). The outfit and helmet are great:

I believe this disguise is exclusive to this set so this minifigure will be sought after by anyone collecting.

The Chewbacca is next and he is just the normal Chewbacca that has been in tons of sets. I would have enjoyed to have a different one here, but he did normally wear the same thing so I guess there isn't much they could do different:

Next up is Jabba himself. Honestly I have never opened any of the sets that had Jabba in it before. It is a pretty great minifig, but after opening the Rancor, he is just not near as impressive. Next to normal minifigures he looks pretty good still. I guess it is all about perspective. I think they maybe could have made him look a little more scaly and little more nasty. I would have really liked some fat flabs.:

Next up is B'Omarr Monk. Hes a cool guy just because he is completely different than other normal figures. Even though he is the same as the original set, he adds a ton of playability to this set – I mean his legs are made of swords! I went ahead and included him in with the picture of the first bag which includes the bottom part of the tower.

The tower is fairly easy to build, but at most points is a bit unstable. I had to redo it a few times because it kept coming apart. I think it could have been just a little more sturdy if they used less 1x1 pieces and less of the slanted pieces here. I have unsteady hands though so this may not bother everyone. It definitely still looks good – I just worry about playability with it unless a kid just leaves it there and doesn't touch it – buildings coming apart while you are playing is no fun.

Next up with bag 2 is the Gamorrean Guard. The same figure as in the Rancor Pit. I like the figure a lot so I am totally cool with having two of them. On top of that, when have you ever seen a guard alone? They travel in pairs. You can't guard something by yourself properly. That's just science:

The rest of bag 2 is the top part of the tower. The top is fairly vanilla, but I do like the playability with the added lookout spot where minifigures can chill out and guard stuff. The opening door is really pretty cool as well. I really like the detail here that Lego added at the top of the tower. I will say that I wish the door had some easier method to open and close for playability sake, other than you having to open it and then set a piece in to keep it up. It works either way though, I may just be lazy:

The back of the tower really shows this awesome Lego detail. The box with the Laser in it. The guns hung up on the wall of the top tower. Unfortunately that's really only an added playability bonus as the way this tower faces, you don't really see that part when displayed.:

Bag 3 brings us Oola next. This is an exclusive minifig to this set and a really good one at that. Though Oola doesn't really have a big part in the movie (I think she gets eaten by the Rancor right?) I love the figure. Lego's shades of green are so bright and vibrant. She really stands out and really contrasts the other minfigures well. This will really add to the set value:

Now we have Han Solo (which is a slight redesign) and his carbon chamber. The chamber itself is a slight redesign as well. While I think its pretty well detailed and looks good, I wish it stood out just a little bit more. The dark color doesn't help it as much – not sure how they could have done it better, but I think far away from it, it seems a bit dull :

Bib Fortuna is next – this is not an exclusive minifigure but its only the second set its been in so I think it does add some value to the set. Hes really well done with the cape and all. The best part though is the facial expression. Its very mean and devilish looking:

Bag 4 is the base if the palace. It's a pretty bland building though it doesn't take very long to build. I will say it was a little bit flimsy while putting together. This is one of the parts I think would be hard for a small child to put together without some help because there are only small pieces holding the large flat pieces together until it is finished. Several times I would push too hard and pop something else apart:

Bag 5 seems like its just separated so they didn't have to really pack in bag 4. It isn't that many pieces at all because they are fairly large. These include the pieces to finish the floor and add on the trap door. The trap door was obviously expected, but its great for playability. A child can keep dropping Luke down over and over – or I guess anyone else they want to feed to the Rancor (although I would venture that a Rancor doesn't want to be fed – He wants to hunt!):

Bag 6 includes the sides of the of the palace. This is much sturdier that the tower piece that I put together earlier. It stays together a lot better while building. Lego does something a little bit out of the ordinary for them: They actually have a few steps where they seem to be rushing the build a bit. A few of the steps you are adding 10 or 12 pieces. I can't complain because I normally am irritated with putting together two pieces and then turning the page, but this was tricky not to miss a piece here or there. Again the detail is amazing on the front of the palace. There is also a little spinning stand for the Carbonite Han which is pretty cool:

Salacious B. Crumb finally! I love this little guy in the movie – he reminds me of Alf! Honestly I was a little disappointed with the minfigure unfortunately. It is very small (which makes sense) and is made of soft, bendable plastic. I was hoping he would be more of a Lego piece like the other minifigures, but the detail on the figure makes up for it pretty well. Again, an exclusive minifigure and one that I think will be very good for the set's growth.

Bag 7 includes the back part of the palace. Most of it is is just normal brick laying. As you can see it is coming together nicely:

Bag 8 is very quick and easy as it includes the roof for the palace and as I mentioned before it is mostly big pieces. I like that they did this with bigger pieces as I really like the smooth top to the palace. More Lego pieces equals rougher roof.:

So now it's done and it's time to take it to the Rancor Pit and put this masterpiece together. The palace has small places on the bottom of it for the slanted pieces on top of the Rancor Pit to fit inside. It doesn't actually attach; the Palace just rests on top of the pit. This makes it pretty easy to put together, but may be harder to keep together for a child playing with it. I got it together and I have to say it is pretty impressive together. No one is walking by this in my house without commenting on it:

Honestly, my only downside display wise is the tower section that's separate from the palace. It looked really cool on the box next to the palace as a lookout, but now it's much lower because of the Rancor pit. I guess it would have been tough, but I need a way to get it to the right height so it will look more natural again. The set's themselves look awesome together with the mass amount of minifigures and the flow of the set, for anyone who has seen the movie, is really spot on. I will say that looking at the sets together makes the Rancor even more impressive, but I wont harp on that now because I did for a whole article. So after all the pictures, what do we see in the future for this set? I am going to go out on a limb and say it did intrigue investors for a short while sometime around Marchish? But what about interest now that all that is over?

To compare to other sets, I decided to take the following criteria:

• Iconic Star Wars movie scene or vehicle
• Must have been redone in a similar manner several years later
• Set must be retired

Here is what I came up with:

• Bobba Fett's Slave I – 6209 in 2006 and 8097 in 2010
• The AT-AT Walker – 4483 in 2003 and 8129 in 2010
• The Clone Turbo Tank – 7261 in 2005 and 8098 in 2010
• Jabba's Palce – 4480 in 2003 and 9516 in 2012

I decided to take the old and new and the percent difference between the old set and new set between CAGR so we could use the old Jabba set to predict what the new one might do. What was actually very intesting is that two of the remakes did better than the original by a considerable amount! This is most likely because of the improvement in detail of the sets and the increased popularity in Star Wars and in Lego. Below are the results:

Wow is all I can say. The Slave and the AT-AT CAGR increased significantly which is a good sign for investors interested in this set. The old Jabba's Palace is sitting there at 16.94% CAGR which is pretty good on it's own with the mean being around 8.5% for Star Wars sets. I would have been satisfied for this set to have shown 15% CAGR but this suggests it will be better.

Averaging the three together, and comparing how this set would look after 2014 from the data we have here (each of the newer sets we are comparing are 3 years old) the average suggests that the new Jabba's Palace could see an increase in CAGR of 76% which is astounding! This would mean Jabba would see an increase to ~30% CAGR which would put it at a value of almost $200 after two years EOL. Now most of this is predicated off how well the second AT-AT did, but this is somewhat fair because of several things I will discuss below. What I decided to do was weigh a few negatives and positives before deciding where this set might sit:

Pros

• The new Jabba's Palace in considerably better than the old set. Way better compared to the increase in the other sets we compared it to. The original Jabba only had a few minfigures – this one has 8. And the original didn't have the Rancor pit. It also 600 more pieces.
• The controversy – This set should EOL at the end of this year from what Lego has indicated giving it a shorter run. Also we saw that people were willing to pay $175 for this set which is always a good sign.
• Discounting. This set's retail has been a little bit high but retailers have really shown a commitment to discounting it. I think you could score a lot of these for $80 before it's gone.
• Playability – this set has so many figures and trap doors and everything that it will appeal to kids quite a bit.
• The new Star Wars Movies – Introducing a new generation to Star Wars can only help.
• 2 Exclusive minifigures and several that are only in a few sets.

Cons

• Will Most likely be targeted by investors.
• With the controversy a lot were purchased and stored – we may not ever know how many.
• Discounting will keep a lot of consumer's buying it as well.
• Jabba wont be in the new Star Wars movies.
• Clone Turbo tank going down is a little troubling (although it's less iconic)

So where does it put us? I think a safe bet on this set would be 23-25% CAGR in the first two years. Honestly it could go way up and way down. The set is really nice and I love it with the Rancor Pit. However, even though nothing is a sure thing,

I hesitate more on this set just because of everything that has gone on with it. I don't necessarily guarantee it will do better than the Rancor Pit. I think the Rancor Pit is the safer bet, but this set has more potential because its worth more in general. I honestly think either way we will see a bunch of these sell again right as this set goes EOL and it will drive the price up. If we see it go up to 25 CAGR in the first two years, most of us should be satisfied to get out then with the price right around $185.

My advice: Don't target this set as a top investment, but if you see a good deal on it under $90 or so, I would pick it up. While I don't know that you should put tons of money into them, I think they will definitely gain money and if anything could be a really good quick flip if the flames start back up when the set EOLs.

Either way, if you are a Star Wars fan, this set is definitely a must have even if you have the first one already. The colors and detail have improved immensely over the old set and as I talked about, the Rancor Pit and this set together are amazing.

What do you all think? Do you think this set will do better than the Rancor? What's your prediction on the CAGR?

Note: All of the information here are my own opinions and are pulled from my experiences. You may or may not have success with these methods.

For the rest I will re-quote it for easier re-evaluation....

Posted 08 March 2013 - 07:43 AM

NOTE: The predictions price range is US-EU price range since our initials started higher and import taxes etc.
NOTE: All my predictions are for 1-1,5 years AFTER the set officially goes EOL.

9469-1: Gandalf Arrives RETIRED

I believe it will stop at double retail within 1 year after EOL, but will probably not climb much more, It is an iconic set of introducing Gandalf in the movies but that is about it.

Predictions: Stopping at about 20-25$

9470-1: Shelob Attacks

I think this is worth getting, it is 99.9% the only Shelob we will ever see, it is currently exclusive Sam, which we are likely to see if 3rd line of sets come out. If you can get it below retail (25% off) then I think this might do very well in MISB condition.

Predictions: Stopping at about 45-55$

9471-1: Uruk-Hai Army

I read that due to restrains from the contract LEGO/TLG cannot make battle packs (like SW) for LOTR, which makes this just a great, and probably the ONLY chance for Uruk-hai battle pack, If Eomer is not re-released (Pelennor etc) then this Battle Pack might just increase nicely.

Predictions: stopping at about 65-80$$

9472-1: Attack On Weathertop RETIRED

Questions are: Only time we see Nazgul? I doubt it, Merry? possible (but there is still pelennor) I think this set might actually do rather bad. It might just be cheapest set to get 7 Nazgul but that will be it. i expect it to not increase much over the next year (after EOL) so unless you got heavy discount (30%+) I think this will do poor, I skipped it)

Predictions: stopping around 70-90$

9473-1: The Mines of Moria

I think this is the sleeper of the line. With unique figures (Boromir and Cave troll likely to NOT be repeated) currently also Legolas, Pipping and Moria Orcs, this set just have it all, except that it is purely a play set (looks worse on display than lets say helm's Deep) I think this will easily double, i expect it to go 2,5x retail aswell within 2 years.

Predictions: Stopping at about 140-180$

9474-1: The Battle Of Helm's Deep

Every says this is a winner, and i cannot object with much theory, but I am just afraid everyone got it and it will take year(s) for price to grow(unlike Mines) I guess this has the potential on 3x retail IF LOTR is re-released in 3D if Hobbit makes great children appeal and IF Theoden will not be re-released much more.

Predictions: 240-300$

EXCLUSIVE SET:

9476-1: The Orc Forge RETIRED

I think it will do well, especially considering we get Orthanc released. With unique white hand armor printing and Lurtz (If it does not come in Orthanc then it will likely never come, doubt about Amon hen) this set is a potential winner, People who buy Orhanc would want this set (or even 2-3) for their display.

Predictions: 80-120$

Now let us look on the current standings:

RETIRED 9469-1: Gandalf Arrives -17.78%
9470-1: Shelob Attacks -30.87%
9471-1: Uruk-Hai Army -22.94%
RETIRED 9472-1: Attack On Weathertop -14.75%
9473-1: The Mines of Moria -36.14%
9474-1: The Battle Of Helm's Deep -19.02%
RETIRED 9476-1: The Orc Forge +52.46%

........................................................................................................................................................................................................

RETIRED 9469-1: Gandalf Arrives -17.78%

Retail Price: US: $ 12.99

Comment:
So far the item (as expected) did not pick up at all. I guess my double retail was way over the board.

re-evaluated:
The value has been dropping for 3 consecutive months.Am not expecting this to begin green color trends for 4-6 months
Estimation of value approximately 1-1.5 years after EOL: 20$ max

Alcarin's suggestion: Worth picking up, but only if you can find it below 9$

.......................................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................................

RETIRED 9472-1: Attack On Weathertop -14.75%
Retail Price: US: $ 59.99

Comment:
The item is showing positive trends and might be wise to pick it afterall (Guess I was wrong in my predictions).

re-evaluated:
Estimation of value approximately 1-1.5 years after EOL: 100$

Alcarin's suggestion: Worth picking up for anything below 50$, maybe even below 60$, if you plan to hold for 1-2 years
this one might burn high and light with high ROI as some Nazguls did in the movie!

........................................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................................
RETIRED 9476-1: The Orc Forge +52.46%
Retail Price: US: $ 39.99

Comment:
Item showing expected growth, if you can pick it up for retail or even less, you should not hesitate. In May Orc Forge skyrocketed for 9$ worth of growth which is like 25% of its initial retail value.

re-evaluated:
Estimation of value approximately 1-1.5 years after EOL: 120-140$

Alcarin's suggestion: Worth picking up for anything below 50$ Lurtz is getting armed and ready to fight the prices even higher!

........................................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................................
This is regarding re-evaluation of now retired sets based on a few months data I checked out. Must say that Weathertop ''success'' did slightly surprise me, yet the sets growth above retail is still something that will take time. As expected the biggest growth (and the only) above retail shows the exclusive Orc Forge set, which lingered slightly above retail value for majority of its shelf time as an exclusive.

Stay tuned for next blog in the following days when I will re-evaluate still available sets of line 2 and ''detailed'' predictions of wave 2.

These sets are made by Brickmania.com and they are LEGO customs. They can be discontinued and re-released at anytime so I wouldn't invest in these kits.

They are high quality and well-built in my opinion, but not great investments at all.

M1A1 75MM Howitzer On M8 Carriage

Product Description from Brickmania.com

Designed shortly after World War I to replace existing light artillery pieces, the M1 75mm "pack" howitzer was a small artillery piece that could be broken down and transported by pack horses or mules. Not mass produced until the outbreak of World War II, several design improvements were added in 1940, with the new gun designated the M1A1 on M8 Carriage (replacing the original wooden-wheeled gun carriage). The lightweight field gun was mainly used to equip US Army airborne artillery battalions, but was also adopted for use by the US Marine Corps for its campaigns in the Pacific. While not as powerful as the more widely used 105mm howitzers, its small size made it more versatile and easier to transport over rough terrain.Brickmania is please to introduce this M1A1 75mm Howitzer kit as part of its Campaign in the Pacific series of model kits.

Additional information about this Brickmania custom Lego® kit:

• Gun is poseable with a full range of elevation
• Carriage and gun can be "broken down" for transport
• Can be towed behind any vehicle with a hook type hitch
• 1/35 scale matches other Brickmania models
• The overall color scheme of this model is dark gray
• Includes 41 LEGO elements.

This Brickmania model kit is made from genuine unused LEGO bricks and is shipped disassembled. Also included are full-color printed building instructions and is packaged in a sealed polybag. All Brickmania building kits are limited production and may be discontinued at any time.

• Name: M1A1 75MM Howitzer on M8 Carriage
• Number of Pieces: 41 LEGO elements
• Number of Minifigures: 0
• Cost: $13.00
• Price per Piece: $0.31
• Price per ounce.: $11.60
• Click here to view this kit on Brickmania.com

Front of the polybag.

Picture of the real M1A1 75MM Howitzer.

The Build

The build was very easy and it took me about 20 minutes to build. The instructions were easy to following and the pictures were crisp. I believe beginner LEGO builders can build this set with ease. However, the model is pretty fragile so try to handle it with care. The troublesome area for me would be the 2X3 grey piece right under the barrel. Most of the pieces are the newer dark grey pieces with the exception of the tires and the pole piece.

The Completed Set

Picture of the completed set.

Picture of the set being towed by my Brickmania Jeep. (The Jeep or minifigure is not included.)

As noted in the product description, it is fully poseable and can be "broken down" similar to what would have happened during WW2. (This was done to transport the gun easier through rough terrain.)

Overall Opinion

I think the model itself is quite awesome despite the higher price tag and the fragile areas. Speaking of price, some of you maybe did a double take when you first looked at it. It isn't an official LEGO set so it costs more money to assemble all of the parts. Here is a quote from Andrew of The Brothers Brick about the higher cost of the Brickmania kits. (He reviewed some of the sets on his website and the link will take you to the review I got the following quote from. For those who don't know who Dan Siskind is, he is the owner/founder of Brickmania.)

The model itself includes 253 LEGO pieces. So, let’s just get this out of the way in our first review: $80 for 253 parts? These sets aren’t for someone building their collection of LEGO parts. I asked Dan about the prices of his custom LEGO kits, and he reminded me that he has to source his individual LEGO parts on the secondary market just like everyone else. Dan sells his custom kits in limited runs of fifty to a hundred (rather than the tens or hundreds of thousands of units that the LEGO Group moves), and his price has to account for the time he spends designing and redesigning the sets in a way that enables him to find enough parts in quantity to create a batch of custom kits. As someone who built a substantial portion of his World War II LEGO models from Bricklink orders, I can attest to the challenge of trying to assemble all the parts I need for a particular model from various BrickLink stores, much less attempting to source enough for dozens of the same model. No, custom Brickmania kits are not cheap, but I really do think you’re getting value for the money. Let’s move on…

Now that is out of the way, I think this is great set for WW2 era MOCs and especially for Airborne and U.S. Marine MOCs. (This gun was mainly used by those two type of units.) The ratings below will be out of 10.

• Parts: 7 Nothing rare or special.
• Playability: 8 Fully posable and easy to display.
• Building Experience: 7.5 It was very easy, but some parts of the set tend to fall off.
• Value for Money: 8 Although high in comparison to official LEGO sets, it is on par with price in comparison to other Brickmania kits.
• Overall: 30.5 out of 40. Overall it is a nice kit and I recommend any WW2 era LEGO fan to get one.

Heavy Mortar with Brickarms Shell

Product Description from Brickmania.com

The mortar has been an essential piece of artillery equipment since humans have built machines to lob projectiles at buildings, fortifications and—of course—other humans. As warfare has become more fluid and mobile, the need for squad-portable mobile artillery increased dramatically. In the early 20th century this technology evolved into what we commonly know as the modern mortar. This generally consists of a small rocket-propelled explosive projectile, a launch tube, support base, and aiming bipod. Ammunition generally range in size from 2 inches in diameter upwards to 5 inches. The mortar weapon is set up with the tube resting at an angle between 45 and 80 degrees and the projectile is launched with a high arcing trajectory and can be fired at targets outside direct line of sight.

Brickmania is pleased to offer this Mortar kit made from LEGO bricks and a rare BrickArms hand-injected "proto" mortar shell projectile. t line of sight.With the basic mortar components being of similar design around the world, the Brickmania Heavy Mortar can stand in for just about any larger mortar systems of all nationalities used in World War II and later. The initial batch of mortars are being offered with your choice of a black or OD green projectile. Since these shells are currently only being hand made in small batches, we are only able to offer the Heavy Mortar in limited quantities.

• Name: Heavy Mortar with Brickarms Shell
• Number of Pieces: 9 including the Brickarms shell
• Number of Minifigures: 0
• Cost: $6.00
• Price per Piece: $0.66
• Price per ounce.: $18.75
• Click here to view this kit on Brickmania.com

Front of the polybag

Picture of a U.S. WW2 era heavy mortar.

The Build

​The build was extremely easy as it is very small. (It took me one minute to build.) Most of the pieces are the newer dark grey which is the same color as the M1A1 75MM Howitzer. The best piece of this set is the prototype Brickarms mortar shell which is hand made and only available in this kit.

The Completed Set

The completed set with a minifigure holding the Brickarms shell. (The minifigure is not included.)

Another view of the set. (The minifigure is not included.)

It looks nice set up and it stands very easily. You can also adjust the angle of the mortar by moving the black antennas.

Overall Opinion

It is not that big at all. What really brings the price up on this is the proto handmade mortar shell. By just looking at the pictures almost any LEGO fan can get the pieces and build it for cheaper than $6. Basically if you want the shell then get this. Otherwise just build one using your own parts. This is meant to be used by any nationality WW2 and after so it could fit into a lot of Military MOCs. The rating will be out of ten again.

• Parts: 6.5 Nothing special at all except the handmade/prototype mortar shell.
• Playability: 7 You can fit the shell partway down the barrel to act out loading it.
• Building Experience: 9.5 Very quick and easy. Pretty solid kit.
• Value for Money: 7 Not very great, but the prototype shell makes up for the higher price in my opinion.
• Overall: 30 out of 40. If you want the mortar shell then get this. Otherwise just use the picture provided and build your own.

Here is another version of the mortar. It is the exact same as the one above, but this one includes a custom printed Brickarms crate. It costs $13.

Click here to view the M1 81MM Mortar Pack.

I hope you guys/ gals enjoyed these reviews. I will be doing more Brickmania reviews of the following kits below so stay tuned. (Clicking on the link takes you to the Brickmania.com website.) I will also be starting my LEGO Customs article.

WWB Version of the Jeep

Click here to view the standard Jeep without the canopy.

M18 Hellcat Tank Destroyer

Click here to view the M18 Hellcat Tank Destroyer.

M4 Sherman

Click here to view the M4 Sherman.

Thanks for reading!

Disclosure: The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the blog owner’s. If I claim or appear to be an expert on a certain topic or product or service area, I will only endorse products or services that I believe, based on my expertise, are worthy of such endorsement. Products reviewed are bought by me unless otherwise noted.

A few years back, some relatives came over and saw the LEGO’s piled on the floor, on the former dining room table, and on the chairs. Of course their nieces and nephews loved it, but one of my uncles took me aside and said, “Uhh, sometimes Jordan gets his room all messed up with LEGO’s all over the place. You know what we do? We sort it by color. It makes it a lot easier to find pieces, and we clean everything up too!”. To my 9 year old mind, this was a groundbreaking discovery! I had never thought about organizing my bricks in another fashion besides my set!

So over the next few weeks, primarily during the boring parts of the State of the Union Address, which encompassed majority of the speech, we sorted through a recently acquired lot of LEGO’s. Though it was backbreaking work to sort through about 40 lbs of LEGO’s, we managed to sort it into small bins that held the following colors:

• 2 Bins of gray/black
• 1 Bin of red/blue
• 1 Bin of green/yellow
• 1 bin of white/tan/brown

We never really got around to sorting our other LEGO’s not in the lot, it helped a lot when building. Afterwards, not so much. Like most young kids, taking apart is the painful part of building, and yet the inevitable. I started keeping complete structures in the bins along with the loose pieces, which led to the mixing of the colors and bricks. Of course I didn’t mind, and it wasn’t until recently that I decided to organize my bricks a different way: by size and function.

Here are a few of the steps that I took to sort them into their new categories, as well as throw the MegaBloks and clever fakes that had been mixed in, into a “trash” pile.

Step 1: Throw ‘Em Together
Supplies Needed:
- 1 Large Bin or container, preferably larger than 2 feet in diameter.
This is probably the most fun part of this laborious task, which is just mixing up all the pieces together. It felt really good to see the mixed together, and to hear the clamoring of plastic on plastic. For this task, I chose a small kiddy pool that my family never good around to throwing away. It is 3 feet in diameter, but only 8 inches deep, perfect for spreading around the bricks to see a lot of them.

Step 2: Common Ground
Supplies Needed:

• Your brain.

In this step, you will be looking at your pieces, and try to find major “families” amongst them. A few common ones are flat plates, wings/large plates, regular bricks, and slant pieces. You can even go so far as to sort them into categories like car pieces, Creator pieces, roofing, curved pieces, etc. After determining your main 3-5 categories, you should find bins that you will be able to store your bricks in, large enough to hold all of the bricks in, and a little room if more pieces might find their way there. For this, I used a plastic container 13” x 7” x 4.5”, which were previously used to store the bricks when they were sorted by color.

Step 3: Sorting
Supplies Needed:

• Paper
• Pencil/Marker/Writing Utensil
• Sharp eyes

It all comes down to this: the actual sorting of your bricks. Tear a full piece of printer paper into quarters, then fold each quarter in half, “hotdog style”, which is the second grader way of saying “the long way”. On one half of the paper, write the category in large bold letters, and place it inside the container, so that one half of the piece of paper is on the bottom of the box, and one is touching the side. If you choose to use a different method of labeling, that is totally fine. This is just a way that I found to be time and economically efficient. Now, take no more than two of the categories and take as many pieces out of your master collection and into your box assuming it meets the criteria. A great way to get to all the pieces if you have a large container is using a “Lazy Susan”, which I use, or if you have a circular container, you can press it against your chest/body, and turn.

Step 4: Sub-Categories

Once you have finished sorting into your main categories, you are left with several types of pieces that probably aren’t so related to each other. These pieces obviously don’t need large containers to store in, so you can use a small plastic shelf/cabinet like the one below, or use a tackle box, which serves a very similar purpose. If you are going the shelf/cabinet route, make sure to label each drawer to save time.

By this time, you should have all your pieces organized, and ready to go! I recommend this type of organization to a more serious builder, because many times, it’s more important to get the piece than the color correct. However, for many, it is just important to get things organized and ready to go instead of heaps and piles everywhere.

I hope you enjoyed this article, and I look forward to seeing pictures of some very organized LEGO collections!!

Below are a few pictures of my collection of loose bricks [during sorting] for your entertainment.

​​

CAGR takes the current price and shows you the annual percentage growth rate that starting from purchase price that gets you to there. Typically we use the retail release year as the start point, all the Brickpicker set pages do so. This is fine if you purchased it in that same year but if you bought it the year after or even 2 or 3 years after release looking at the CAGR from release date will be far lower than your real investment return. You can solve that by doing the CAGR calculation yourself and using the year you purchased as the starting point.

But even if you et the starting year right this doesn’t factor in whether the set was purchased in January of the year or in December, and likewise for the end point. A set purchased in Dec-2011 and measured in Jan-2013 has only just over 1 year of time to be measured but CAGR assigns 2 years.

Many of us track our purchases closely and record purchase dates for our inventory. If you know the month and price you purchased a set then you can use those to create a much more accurate measure of investment performance for your individual circumstance.

For this analysis I decided to use CMGR – Compound Monthly Growth Rate. The formula and method is exactly the same as CAGR except you take the start and end points and measure in months and it returns the monthly compounding growth rate. The formula is ((End price / Purchase Price) ^ (1 / months)) – 1.

e.g. you bought a set in December for $100 and it has a market price in June of $150, so ((150/100)^(1/6)-1 = 6.99% CMGR.

You can check your result by taking the start point of $100 and multiply it by 1+CMGR 6 times. So $100 x 1.0699 x 1.0699 x 1.0699 x 1.0699 x 1.0699 x 1.0699 = $150

CMGR is especially useful for investors/resellers who hold stock for a short period of time.

It also lets you evaluate the book value of the sets you currently hold right up to the latest month. Just take your starting point and measure it against the current market price. You can even account for fees and transaction costs by removing them off the current market price first. That way you have an up to the month accurate representation of the performance of your investment portfolio.

I can be difficult to transition to CMGR as most people’s minds work in annual percentage terms, and so many of the comparable stats and information we use is based on annual figures. Fear not, you can easily convert your CMGR to a CAGR with this formula:

CAGR = (CMGR + 1) ^ 12 -1 then divide by 100 to get a percentage

So in our example our $100 set to $150 in 6 months would actually read as having a CAGR of 50% if you used the normal CAGR calculation because it would assign 1 year of growth even though December to June is only 6 months. To find a more accurate CAGR we can use the CMGR of 6.99% that we found to calculate the following;

CAGR = (6.99% + 1) ^ 12 – 1
= 1.0699 ^12 – 1
= 2.25 – 1
= 125%

I hope some of you find a use for CMGR and use it to provide a more accurate picture of performance on both sets you’ve sold and those you are currently keeping in your portfolio.