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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As I sift daily through the various LEGO forums and blogs to keep informed on the latest developments in the LEGO world, one particular phrase commonly appears in a majority of the topics...MINI FIGURES. LEGO fans love mini figures. LEGO mini figures are a driving force to the popularity and longevity of the brand. It got me thinking about what LEGO sets have the most mini figures in them. Think about it, most LEGO sets that have even a single mini figure are more valuable and/or more popula
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Big and bold, the 10214 Tower Bridge is one of the largest LEGO sets ever created. With 4287 pieces, the 10214 Tower Bridge is in fact the third largest LEGO set ever created. That is quite an impressive feat considering there are over 9000 LEGO sets in existence. A beautiful recreation of the grand Tower Bridge that spans the River Thames in London, this particular LEGO model would make a wonderful display piece in any home or office. But does this huge set have huge potential written all over
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I think there are many types of investors and many types of investing strategies that those investors use. We all look at different sets in different ways and I think that 80% of Lego sets or more have an investor somewhere that believes in them. If you have read any of my stuff, you know I am one of the more safe investors out there – I don't invest thousands and thousands of dollars so I try not to reach with any of my buys. Yes, I may not cash in on sets like the Zombies, but I am more intere
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I was recently lucky enough to pick up a Back to the Future Lego DeLorean on Ebay several days before it was released (for close to retail price!) and when I got it I couldn't help but open it. So I decided to write another review so those of you thinking about picking it up would know more about it and what to expect. First off, the box is great. I love the darkness with the Delorean coming out of the light. The clock in the back ground is really cool looking too. Weirdly enough, this box op
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There has been a flurry of activity with this set within the last couple days, and it seems to be causing a lot of LEGO investors to change their feelings toward it. Amazon had around 550 units for sale on January 9, and Toys R Us was offering it online on January 11. Even the official Minecraft site, www.JINX.com, got in on the fun and offered a small number of these for sale the same day. With all these recent offerings, the general feeling of this set seems to have shifted to an unusually ne
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Before we get into the nuts and bolts of the LEGO STAR WARS Ultimate Collector's Series(UCS), let me tell you how a UCS set helped create Brickpicker.com... Adult LEGO fans(AFOLs) often talk about their “dark ages” when referring to their LEGO collecting hobby. Basically, the term “dark ages” refer to the time a LEGO fan stops playing with LEGO bricks(usually around the age of 12-14) and when they rediscover LEGO bricks(usually when they have kids or are old enough, with enough discretionary in
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Jabba Desilijic Tiure...AKA...Jabba the Hutt. The biggest Alien slug this side of Tatooine. But are the LEGO sets designed around this "festering, mountainous pustule"worth anything on the LEGO secondary market? Are the older Jabba LEGO sets "sluggish" when financial growth and appreciation are concerned, or are they a worthwhile investment, "prized" by LEGO investors and collectors? Also, how does the recent Turkish Mosque incident affect the new Jabba the Hutt LEGO sets...if at all? Let's
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There are certain LEGO themes that just seem to explode in growth on the secondary LEGO market. Most of the time, popular investment LEGO themes do well after the theme is retired or goes EOL (End of Line). But on occasion, there are LEGO themes that appreciate higher than MSRP before the theme is discontinued. Popular themes like Ninjago, Friends and the CUUSOO line of LEGO sets have shown remarkable growth in values on the secondary LEGO market, even though most sets are still available at
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Hi! For those who don’t know me(which is probably almost all of you, possibly even myself) I’ve been dabbling in collectibles for about two years. I have had a fair amount of success in gig posters and licensed movie posters(think Mondo, etc.) and limited edition vinyl records. In the last six months I’ve been really trying to get a foot in the door of the LEGO world. First, I love LEGO bricks. Second, I’m familiar with my post office, eBay and PayPal, and have a ready account to sell with. Thir
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So I think it would be a little bit of an understatement to say that the Lego Lord of the Rings Orc Forge (9476) has caused a stir in the last couple of weeks. If you haven't been paying too much attention, here is the rundown of what happened: The Orc Forge goes to “retiring soon” status in the Lego Store in late June The Orc Forge Sells out in the Lego Store around the first week of June. About a week later, it sells out at Target.com (it is a target exclusive so now it is technically unav
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In 2000, the news of Hollywood’s newest power couple, noted playboy Brad Pitt and America’s sweetheart Jennifer Aniston broke. Tabloids proclaimed them “king and queen of Hollywood” and the paparazzi chronicled every step of their relationship. Inevitably, rumors of a split surfaced, and in 2005 Pitt was found palling around with a new bombshell, Angelina Jolie. Every red-blooded US News fan asked themselves, “How could this guy ruin such a good thing? They were perfect together!” As the world t
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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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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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One of the first things that I did when I got my hands on Lego bricks as a child was to build a house. Generally I liked to renovate quite a bit and keep my minifigures in quality digs. Also, I had quite a few minifigures and they all needed a place to go in my city. Where do the ubiquitous police officers and fire fighters go after a long shift? Back in the late 80’s, there was no easy solution to this problem. In the last few years, I think The Lego Group has done an exceptional job of p
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The LEGO Modular Buildings series came out in 2007, and has quickly turned into every investor's dream. The first three sets that have been retired have all skyrocketed in value in a relatively short time. This Evaluation Corner installment will take a look at the Grand Emporium, set 10211. There is a lot of other great data about the Modular series that can be found in a previous Evaluation Corner article that was done on the Fire Brigade. It does a good job of illustrating the rapid rise t
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Very impressive name for a LEGO set! But does the set itself live up to its 'grandiose' name? Also, will the set, after it is retired, appreciate like a Mercedes-Benz or will a YUGO come to mind when you think of this set's investment potential? Let's take a look... The LEGO Technic theme was launched back in 1977. It was one of the first 'themes' of LEGO. Along with the Space and Castle themes of the mid-1970s, the Technic line helped introduce LEGO bricks to AFOLs such as myself. One set in p
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As an avid LEGO collector and investor, I like to read as much as I can about the various LEGO sets in existence, both new and old. I try to keep informed by reading the multitude of quality LEGO sites, forums and blogs out there. One such quality site is the Brickset site. Brickset has a nice review section for a lot of the sets and I was sifting through some of the reviews for the LEGO 10188 Death Star and found a review by a Brickset member(Chills) that mentioned that the reviewer's wife t
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Back in the year of 1999, Lego introduced the world to their latest and incredibly epic license acquisition to date of Star Wars. In the first year alone, they released a mix of thirteen sets based around the original trilogy and beginning of the prequel trilogy. To further the themes’ collectability by the following year, they issued four of the short lived Minifigure Collection (or Minifig Pack) sets each containing three characters plus special stands and introduced the most highly detailed d
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The Millennium Falcon is one of the most iconic ships in the Star Wars movies and it is personally one of my favorite ships. Unfortunately, I cannot afford to buy the 10179 (yet...) so I was ecstatic when they produced a large play-set model to sustain my Star Wars fantasies until I can get the big one. I have been storing this set for a while, so I was really excited to get one out and build away. And what better way to display that than to take pictures of the set and do some investment analy
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When I write an investment piece for the Evaluation Corner or Investor's Spotlight, I usually try to keep my "investment" LEGO set suggestions to new or recently retired sets. My thought process on this is to give the LEGO investor/collector the ability to invest in a LEGO set that is still currently being sold on the primary market, basically at MSRP, or in some cases, slightly less than MSRP. Even recently retired sets are usually very close to MSRP. I mean, I could recommend an $1800.00 10
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Lego Chima is a very interesting theme to say the absolute least. When the them first came out, I think my collective thoughts on each set were "What the hell is that?". To a certain extent I still ask myself that, so I had always had a pretty negative view of Chima along with many other posters on the forum. I see some people prop up a few individual sets, but they are certainly not called out as targets for big time investing. In fact, I think that even the lowly Lone Ranger theme (I say lowly
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I decided to start a new kind of feature or at least semi-regular type of article that will focus in the impact of re-released models on their predecessors. I intend to at least do one of these per month as a minimum, but may increase the regularity based on how much time I have available from time to time. Also, I can only do this with sets that have been released over the past 12 months, as that is the only data I have available from Brickpicker, but I consider that is more than enough time to
