Hi everyone 

I've been collecting and re-selling Lego for quite a while (and this forum has been a brilliant source of info so thanks to all the contributors and mods). 

I wanted to ask for thoughts on the future of the Lego resale market. 

Specifically whether people think the advent of 3D printing and automation will make reselling defunct. Ie if we move to an economy where people can download the data file and 3D printing at a local store? 

In that situation I guess Lego would get a fee every time someone downloads the data and 3d prints a set. It would mean no storage costs for Lego, no retired sets and no resale market. 

Maybe it's a bit premature to think about ...

Tommy 

 

Using a 3D printer to print your own Lego look-alike bricks is quite similar to using a consumer colour printer at home to print your photos. The quality of your home printed photos won't be nearly as good as having them professionally printed at a print service. And on top of that it's more expensive as well. 

Besides, our customers are 19 out of 20 times parents who buy a MISB/NISB set as a (birthday) present for a/their child. Giving an unopened undamaged box is part of the whole gift-giving business. People don't want to give a ziplock sealed bag with 3D printed bricks and a copier-printed instruction manual as a birthday present! That looks cheap, like the gift-giver is not willing to fork out the money.

Don't underestimate how important a nice looking package is when giving a present!

Being an engineer and having used multiple different forms of rapid prototyping/3D printing in day-to-day prototyping, you are not going to be able to print Lego brick and have them work with the injection molded pieces consistently (or even at all). The tolerances on a lot of the printers that are in the $100K+ range are not good enough to interface with the tight tolerances of Lego bricks, and the home brew ones are no where near close enough. Not to mention print quality, layers/resolution, materials, surface finishes, and most printers do not produce isotropic parts. 

The system will adjust prices for needed materials/processing, etc - making it a wash (at best).