Evaluation Corner
LEGO Evaluations
62 blog articles in this category
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Today, we are going back in time to almost three years ago (time flies!) and taking a look at one set that had the forums and the entire LEGO community talking almost non-stop: the LEGO Technic 4x4 Crawler Exclusive Edition. Unlike the majority of LEGO sets released throughout the years, the Limited Edition Crawler was designed through a fan base contest, with one of the conditions being that the creators utilized the chassis of the 9398 Crawler. The winner model was to be selected and prod
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More often than not, the main question LEGO investors are trying to answer is “When is this set retiring?”. As we all know, once a set is retired is when it really has the potential to start growing in value, so it is not surprising that the EOL question is as common as it is in the forums. However, focusing entirely on currently available sets may be causing investors to miss on a potentially lucrative market: sets that have already been retired for quite some time. It is not the first ti
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A long time ago in an investing world far, far away from 2016, a Lego Friends kit set the world afire. This is the story, as told by me, with mostly conjecture and wild assumptions. I've linked the data I perused. CamelCamelCamel Buy me now: Amazon The Boom The forums were surprisingly quiet in the official 41015 thread, but I do recall most of the chatter in the Daily D
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Where Are They Now? is an ongoing blog series dedicated to analyzing specific high-profile Lego sets that have been targeted for investment and sold out / retired a year or more in the past. The idea is to review and summarize a wide range of investment factors surrounding the set a few months before, during, and after it stopped becoming available at retail prices... then look at the financial performance of the set thus far, and perhaps discover a clue about future growth and/or similar
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* As I was preparing to publish this article, Ed Mack announced the Brickpicker sponsored fundraiser in benefit of the St. Paul School of Burlington, NJ. I truly encourage you all to visit the following link and make a donation; besides supporting a great cause you will be entered for a chance to win some really cool, retired sets worth thousands of dollars (and appreciating as we speak!). I truly wish the St. Paul School the best, FCBarc
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Welcome to the first entry of what I would like to think of as a revamped Evaluation Corner article. The idea behind this new format is to offer a little more historical and analytical data when evaluating sets for potential investment, in a more visual way. Hopefully you will like it; be sure to add your feedback or comments! Historical & Theme Analysis The topic of this first article will be the recently released The Brick Bounty – 70413. The “Pirates
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I thought it would be a great idea to check in on some sets that don't get a lot of press around here to see exactly how they are doing now. I love 'where are they now' editions of TV shows so if nothing else posting this will please me, and perhaps others like me. Also, I think learning from history is better than not learning history, so for new(er) members, these type of posts might be instructive at best or eye-rolling at worst. I was casu
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The Sandcrawler is without a doubt one of the most iconic vehicles in the entire Star Wars universe. Ever since C-3PO first spotted this gargantuan transport, Star Wars fans have been very attracted to the idea of owning their own version, along with its extremely popular operators, the Jawas. Back in 2004 released its own version of the Sandcrawler. That set remains a pretty accurate version of what we originally saw in the movies
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It is pretty amazing that we are less than 3 months from the release of the first film of the new Star Wars trilogy: The Force Awakens. After George Lucas completed the much criticized, nonetheless enjoyable, prequels, I had come to the sad realization that we might never have another original Star Wars film. Sure, we would have the occasional mini series and other smaller productions, but nothing that would really catch my attention in the same way the feature
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LEGO Seasonal sets have proven over the years to be solid performers in the LEGO secondary market. From the "Winter Village" series to the Holiday polybags to the small promotional sets that LEGO gives away with purchases, Christmas themed sets perform very well. Let's take a closer look at a few of the Christmas themed LEGO sets. On a personal note...My favorite time of the year is almost here...and I'm 200% ready for it! The Christmas cards are sent. The house is decorated. The lights are
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Seemingly out of nowhere, Mixels have taken hold. These small polybags have become popular enough, that a smart investor needs to consider whether adding Mixels to their portfolio makes sense. What are Mixels? LEGO says, "Mixels features a world of colorful creatures who can mix and combine with each other, with hilarious and surprising results." Mixels are a collaboration between LEGO and Cartoon Network. This includes the LEGO toys, but also includes a variety of multimedia approaches, in
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Whether you are a major fan of the Star Wars saga or if you only know of the films through what you hear from others one cannot deny the powerhouse that is the Star Wars theme. But with over 70% of star wars lego sets being remakes you need to know how you can make informed decisions to protect your investments. Even with the gradual decline in popularity (save for UCS models and some of the other large sets) among AFOLs one can be fairly safe when investing in most Star Wars sets based on any o
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There has been a rather lively debate about the suitability of the new Microfighter line as an investment vehicle. Few new lines have been as polarizing as Microfighters (I'm taking about you Chima), it seems that you either love them or hate them with few taking the middle ground. For those that haven't seen them, the Microfighters line consists of a small build of some of the more recognizable Star Wars ships with a "seat" for a mini figure. The effect of having the minifigure seated in such s
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Much has been said of all the shiny new Star Wars and Super Heroes sets for 2014, but in my opinion Cuusoo has the most interesting and potentially most profitable sets this year. For now I want to take a look at 21104, Curiosity Rover. It is some what of an enigma. An S&H limit of only 1 and a "Limited" designation in the catalog has given the Rover a wild ride and it hasn't even been out for two months yet. It seems that upon its initial release it sold out in mere 7 hours and each subs
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What makes a great LEGO investment? Why do certain sets do better than others? These are questions that LEGO investors should ask themselves before diving too deep into the world of LEGO investing. I realize that rare and limited edition sets (e.g. 41999 Crawler, 21100 Shinkai Submarine,) are some of the best investments, but I will not be covering these types of sets. With rare or limited edition sets, the most challenging part is finding them. It is not hard to decide if you should buy the
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By now, chances are you have seen several of our members posting in the Forum that they have seen random Technic sets at a few Walmarts. On Walmart's website, all of last years line of Lego Technic are listed as "Out of Stock", but "Coming Soon" (you can see this here). Target's website actually allows to purchase any of last year's Technic sets (assuming they ship). Furthermore, if the fall of Toys R Us as a retailer does come to pass in the next several years, one would assume that this line w
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Welcome to part 2 of the Disney sets! While going through these sets for this set of blogs, I think I have gotten even higher on them. Obviously I am going to go over why on each of the last 3 sets, but I think overall there are some big reasons to think that these sets will be huge down the road. So let's take a look at the last three (All CAGR values based on a two year run and two years of retirement): 41053 Cinderella's Dream Carriage Lego.com Description: Lead Cinderella on an enchan
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As we all know, The Lego Group is currently experiencing the prime of their existence of a company. They made over a Billion dollars for the first time ever, have even more products than ever, and is by far the most popular toy in America. They have teamed up with the likes of Marvel and DC, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter to get there and improve what is already a mighty brand. So what could they add next that will be able to take them a step higher? What other license could they
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LEGO Technic sets are an overlooked commodity in the LEGO investing world. Many Technic sets appreciate very, very well after retirement, yet many investors will ignore these sets. I just built my first Technic set a couple of weeks ago and I have to say, I am hooked. Loving Star Wars, I have always been a big fan of vehicles, but Technic sets take it to the next level. All the parts move, lots of sets can run with motors in them, and most are extremely challenging to build. I can not wait to
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In the first part of the series I started about Chima and my belief that this line will be a winner, I talked about the fact that there were a few sets with short lifespans that were worth taking a look at before they were gone forever. Lets go back over a few of my main points of why the first Chima sets to retire may be the best ones to have: Chima seems to be popular among Children Chima has a TV Show driving its popularity This a Lego theme - they will not let it fail Short production r
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Next up in my list of sets I am looking to horde this year, I am going to go through the Ninjago line and pick out the best sets. In reality, this shouldn't be extremely hard since the theme itself has over 40% lifetime CAGR. Almost every set from the first line of these has been a winner - really almost every set that has retired has been a winner. However, I am going to try to narrow down the obvious winners and, for myself, see if I can hone in on the obvious winners. I will mention this a c
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Six months after the release of the original Galaxy Squad sets (see my article on that wave here), Lego released another four sets. My previous article was a bit (read: massively) over-optimistic looking back, as the sets haven't done well, so this article will explore if wave 2 will be plagued by the same investing mediocrity. I'll also evaluate the two promotion polybags of the theme, 30230 and 30231. Is the line doomed for alien subordination and minimal investment returns? Read on, astronaut
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Looking back at the individual series that Lego has done that now make up the Lego Super Heroes Collection (Batman, Spiderman, etc.) we see some of the most successful Lego sets of all time. Though not too many of the current ones have retired, the ones that did have not disappointed in the least so far. Captain America's Avenging Cycle has been one of the shortest investments to doubling or tripling your money that many of us have ever seen. The Hulk Helicarrier - really a weak set besides the
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The end of the year usually brings the retirement (or at least the stock exhaustion beforehand) of 100s of Lego sets. If you are lucky, you stocked up on these exact sets throughout the year at really low prices and are not struggling to grab them at retail in the final minutes before they are gone for good and before the price skyrockets on them (assuming they were winners). With this, brings a brand new year, brand new Lego sets, and most importantly, brand new retirement targets: Sets that s
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I'm not stranger to polybags - if you've read two of my other blog posts about my personal attempts to reach ebay powerseller status, you'll know that a significant part of my strategy was accruing more total sales via small sets, i.e., polybags. I've spent a fair bit of time looking both online and in brick and mortar stores for some of these little guys. Like Pokemon, sometimes I just want to catch them all, although TLG makes this difficult by releasing an almost literal ton of them per yea
