Is lego an investment?

[Anonymous]

I know a family that spends thousands dollar on expensive sets of legos. It is their husband hobby, and he makes it become his son's hobbies. After they are done playing with those individual lego set, they resell for higher price to others on ebay when time is right. Is it true? They tell me some lego sets are limited edition and that's why people are willing to pay more than their purchase price to get it from their hands. I am surprised and shocked hearing this, is that for real?

I spend a lot of money on plastic junk/electronic toys, girly toys & pokemon cards for my kids, and I find them depreciate in values or become junk. It seems like it is smarter to just get lego sets as an investment for kids to play and then re-sell. Is that the reasons why many families buy lego sets for?

[Anonymous]

Do they take them apart? That's a lot of work

[Anonymous]

I spent most of the summer of 2023 organizing my family’s Lego sets! They now take up three underbed areas plus multiple cabinets/closet shelves. I hope my kids have children that will enjoy them someday. But if not I guess they will be sold. I like legos at least as much as the kids do ( all currently in college)

[Anonymous]

We just build for fun!

[Anonymous]

No, OP. I don’t think it is common to resell them. Frankly I don’t get how second hand LEGO sets can work well given the first sets come in the little packages and it’s hard to sort through everything without that level of breakdown.

Kids just like legos.

[Anonymous]

I have sold sets on eBay, and the ones that always sell quickly and for money that makes it worthwhile are the Star Wars/Clone Wars sets.

I don’t pretend to understand this market, but even some of the most innocuous “battle packs” with several mini figures and bricks to build one little vehicle will sell for way beyond what they cost new.

Sorting out all the bricks was a kind of therapy for me in 2017 (!), and the proceeds have padded my son’s bank account handsomely.

[Anonymous]

PS I don’t think it’s kids buying these secondhand sets; I assume it’s “adult” collectors.

[Anonymous]

I just sold ~60lbs of my son’s bricks for $250. Way way too many to sort through. There were no sets, just all jumbled together. I just wanted them out of the house.

[Anonymous]

There are worse things to waste money on, like the rapid depreciation in a luxury car.

[Anonymous]

If you make this some kind of a side-hustle, you can make some money. Is this what you want to spend your time doing? Just buying legos instead of other toys and expecting to make money off it is not going to work.

[Anonymous]

Sounds horrible to me. Hopefully they are doing it because they enjoy it

[Anonymous]

It’s definitely a niche kind of market but you can recoup “some” of your expenditures (definitely wouldn’t call it an “investment”) if you can resell. That’s often easier said than done. The sets that sell quickly are usually “NIB” (new-in-box, with little or no “box” damage). As a prior poster mentioned, the originals come in carefully crafted packages that correlate to the building instructions and getting them just right on a repack (after you’ve built it yourself) is almost impossible. For the past several years, I’ve spent as much time breaking down a Santa’s Village build (that DC and I spend glorious hours together building from Thanksgiving to Christmas). There’s no way I’d bother to try to make any money that way.

What I have learned to do is pay attention to offerings through the free Lego-dot-com VIP membership and, if something peaks our family’s interest, we’ll sometimes buy two (two DCs!). Build one and decide if it’s a keeper….or sell if it’s just so-so (which has been rare). Eventually, there’ll be a “mass” open-lot sell-off as the kids move out but we’re ok with that.

[Anonymous]

I consider it an investment in time my kid spends doing something not on a screen but...I have never thought about the resale value of legos.

[Anonymous]

Yes, there is a secondary market for retired lego sets. Some sets can go for hundreds of dollars, some over $1000. Not all sets appreciate in value like this though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just sold ~60lbs of my son’s bricks for $250. Way way too many to sort through. There were no sets, just all jumbled together. I just wanted them out of the house.

On Ebay? This gives me hope because we have a ton of sets, but never had an organization pattern.