Top 20 LEGO Movers and Shakers: July 2013

This blog follows on from my first blog back in June that used data to the end of May-13. This is the next update in what I would like to be a regular series of articles that presents the top 20 sets in terms of secondary market price growth according to the data we have available here on Brickpicker.

Again, here are some notes on the scope before I begin:

• I have not restricted the qualifying sets by size or age or any other dimension
• Information is based on US prices only
• Not all sets across all themes are included as I have zero interest in Bionicle/Hero Factory for example so have only gathered data on a few of those sets. (I just didn’t have the willpower to gather all the data for them really). Most of the rest are covered though.
• I tried to look at as many sets as possible, but there is a chance a few may have been missed, if you spot some that should/could be included please let me know
• The Last Rank column indicates changes in ranking from the last Top 20 Blog (May data)

One Month Growth (change in Market Price from last month)

We have a Hero Factory set topping the charts! It’s on the back of a solid 70 units sold in July as well. As expected there are quite a few new entrants on the list as that reflects volatility in prices when only looking at a change from 1 month to the next.

It will be interesting to see if any of these sets can maintain some of this growth longer term. Which leads us nicely onto our next time period:

Six Month Growth (change in Market Price from Jan 2013 )

Another Hero Factory set tops the list! Maybe I should start to look into these sets a little more… or at least gather data on more of them. Lots of new entrants again, some with pretty low volumes but others that really deserve their position. 8083, 21016, 5887, 3936, etc have all been great performers and you be well pleased to have had a few of those in your investment portfolio over recent months.

One Year Growth (change in Market Price from July 2012)

Now we start to see some solid performers over a more reliable length of time. 6808 Galaxy Trekkor at the top can be discounted due to extremely low volumes, but there are plenty of others that command respect.

9574 Loyd ZX and 9465 Zombies enter the 1 year chart now that they have been released more than a year ago. Plenty of other great sets on this list that you’d have done well to buy at market price one year ago.

Two Year Growth (change in Market Price from May 2011)

Now into the two year time frame we begin to remove some of the short term fluctuations that can occur with some of the narrower time periods. Level Crossing hold on to top spot on the list with a phenomenal 272.7% increase over 2 years. 5 of the top 10 have actually gone up in ranks from our chart two months ago, proving that they continue to be excellent investment options.

Retail Growth (change in Market Price from last month)

Now for the full measure of growth from the retail value of the set. Obviously a set with a $0 listed retail price like all the promo giveaways etc are excluded as we can’t divide by zero, so that has weeded out a few of the small polybags or very very old sets for which we have no retail data. But the list is still dominated by cheap sets that have increased by large multiples.

The 1626 Angel takes top spot with a crazy 20,477% growth over retail thanks to 1 recent sale of $250 and another 2 years ago of $280 all from a set that cost $1.30 when relesed back in 1989.

Perhaps the first “real” contender is 10190 Market Street, such an impressive result for a set in just 6 years. Much better than another set from the same year that people often point to as the pinnacle of Lego investing.

Conclusions

Completing this exercise again it is still clear that cheap older polybag sets with super low volumes dominate the lists a little, hopefully that’s something I may address in the future with a volume limit or something similar.

One thing that does explain it a little is the fact that the filter algorithms Jeff has developed for the Ebay listings are constantly being improved and this means that the data you see for one month’s update may get altered next time around as the filters get enhanced.

The other major discussion point is that these top 20 lists all the absolute best investment decisions you could have made if you had perfect future knowledge. The amount of under the radar sets and “sleeper” hits have been a big wake up call for me. We sometimes become a little circular in discussing the popular sets for investing (Modulars, UCS, etc) and lose sight of the fact that many of the best investments to be had right now are probably some of the least discussed sets. It does mean there are plenty more topics ripe for discussion on the forums and in blogs.

I’ve only given a cursory analysis of the lists themselves and would like to leave it to you on how best to interpret the results. The numbers should speak for themselves and I’d like to hear your take on them in the comments below.