Hi from Seattle! (and why I do and don't represent the Lego bubble)

[nolanfan34]

Hey everyone,

I'm both excited and slightly frightened to have discovered this site. I know what side my wife will weigh in on there. :-) Been interesting to read a bunch of the posts though and I love the analysis of the market.

About me: Mid 30's, child of the 80s, now a dad with two little ones. I was a huge Lego fan through age 10 or so...drifted after that as many do. Now, my son is 4 1/2 and a Lego fiend. I was both proud and sad when we came home the other day and he quickly put together the TMNT Krang's Escape set, following the instructions, without asking for any help. MOSTLY proud though.

Instinctively, when he started to show a hint of interest in Lego a couple of years back, I started to pack a couple of sets away - Star Wars of course, along with the Master Builder subscriptions and a couple of small City sets. As a long-time eBay'er, I noted quickly (and slammed my head against the desk many times) the rising prices of past sets. After reselling a Sandcrawler recently that I had picked up a couple of years ago, it was certainly pretty clear to me that Lego will continue to appreciate in value.

Why I do and don't represent the bubble

I've been giving this some thought and reading the discussions on the boards. On the one hand, I represent the bubble threat exactly - older collector, some disposable income, capable of sitting on sets for multiple years, familiar with eBay and the secondary market. I agree that a lot of people like me discovering this concept will inevitably lead to price pressures of some sort.

BUT at the same time, I think I also represent a greater segment of people out there, and something that will be in an endless supply - people with young kids who are rediscovering the magic of Lego with their children. Most of us will never even consider saving sets as an investment, we just remember the fun of building, sorting, and creating of our youths. I'm sure most of you have had a conversation about Legos many times where people probably think you're crazy to pack away these sets - so I don't know how much of the new growth in the market is really focused on investing.

In the end, there's another factor that gives me confidence in Lego. As one of the mods pointed out in another thread, a yellow 2x2 made today, fits perfectly with a yellow 2x2 from 20 years ago. And that really sets Lego apart from other toys. My mother, bless her heart, never let me sell my childhood Legos at any garage sale, no matter how much I pleaded. The fact I can now pull those out, and watch my son recreate scenes from his imagination using both Anakin Skywalker, and my old blue Space minifig, is really cool.

I also have some experience in collecting bubbles - I veered away from Lego in the mid-80s because I feverishly collected baseball cards instead, as I'm sure many of you did. I still have in fact a nice little collection of unopened vintage packs - although I am converting some of that inventory over to Lego now. (always happy to talk trade, haha :-))

Baseball cards crashed - and have never really recovered - due to a few factors IMO:

1. Oversupply in the early 90s. Pretty well documented.

2. The addition of insert cards/chase cards in the early-mid 90s.

3. Rising prices of even entry level packs.

Lego could certainly be subject to #1, but as many have stated, so far that doesn't look like an issue. 2 and 3 are interesting though. For those not familiar, chase cards and inserts shifted the focus of collectors from what had been working for 40+ years. Instead of chasing the rookie cards of top players, or trying to build a complete set, collectors focused more on this scratch ticket lottery system of trying to get lucky with a 1 in 10 autographed card, or game used patch, or whatever. This cratered the market for the base set. In many cases, the non-insert cards in a pack are somewhat worthless, depending on the set.

Think about how this could apply to Lego. If Lego started creating special minifigs - only inserted in certain unmarked sets - it could shift the market considerably. It could create a positive effect - an unopened set with a possible rare figure could be worth more. But I think just as likely you'd end up with more people buying the sets for that lottery ticket effect, and less for the set itself, which in the long term I believe would be damaging to the base of Lego fans who come back again and again for the sets and figures themselves. Not for the disappointment that they "lost" because they didn't get a rare figure out of the set they bought.

#3 is interesting as well. The baseball card industry basically priced out the bread and butter of their base. When I was a kid, a pack cost 35 cents. Now - for the packs you REALLY want for the hot inserts - they can be $5-$10 or more! Kids have limited disposable income of course. Probably only takes a few times where you spend $50 on cards and don't land a great insert before you're just thinking you should have bought that Xbox game instead.

So while it's true Lego is still expensive, you have something to show for it. You also know what you're getting. Imagine if Lego said "hey, we're going to reproduce a new Cloud City set - but instead of one 1500 piece set, we're going to sell it in packs. $5 for a 50 piece pack...collect them all! Oh, and sorry if you get any duplicates, you'll just have to buy more packs!" In fact, if anyone from Lego reads this, please don't do this. :-)

So I think the future of Lego investing is bright. There may not be Eiffel Tower-sized returns for everyone in the future, but compared to other collectables and investments, it looks pretty darn good.

For me it still comes back to fun as well. I have a Death Star stashed, but not for investing. That baby is going to magically appear some rainy weekend day, randomly, when my son is 9 or 10. Can't wait.

(Does that win anything for longest first post ever?)

[halamalagarli]

Welcome, I'm so jealous you never sold your old lego, good on your Mum. It funny that you mention this "If Lego started creating special minifigs - only inserted in certain unmarked sets - it could shift the market considerably." because of this http://www.brickset.com/news/article/?ID=5557 Specifically the minifig section at the bottom of the page

[Ed Mack]

Nice post and I appreciate the effort. The LEGO "bubble" has not developed as of yet and with the new limits on purchases that LEGO and other LEGO retailers such as Amazon have implemented, I really doubt that LEGO will follow the same path as Baseball Cards. I can see that LEGO has no intention on overproducing sets. In fact, this new practice of limiting the amounts of sets sold to resellers/investors will only make LEGO sets more rare. Overall, it is what it is...People know about LEGO investing now and either you try it and make money with it or don't and complain about it. Welcome to the site.

[terrymc4677]

great first post! welcome aboard! your situation is almost exactly like mine. mid-30's, 2 young kids just getting into lego, and i as well started to put some sets away about 3-4 years ago, both for future use with the kids and as an investment. your comparison to the baseball card market is spot on. i was also a victim of the 90's crash, but it was football cards for me. overproduced garbage and tons of inserts that are now pretty much worthless. good job!

[jaisonline]

Hi. Yeah, we can thank Topps, Upper Deck, Fleer's Billy Ripken FU bat and being the first with true insets, non-baseball fan investors, and newspapers for the card bubble boast that started in 1988. Checkout the article and comments, http://www.brickpicker.com/index.php/blog/view/lego_investment_bubble_fact_or_fiction#comments

[stephen_rockefeller]

Ahh yes the Billy Ripken FU card, I have 2 stashed somewhere........forgot all about them.

[jaisonline]

Oops. I meant the "FF" card.

[stephen_rockefeller]

He was pretty much saying FU lol

[Veegs]

Nice first post - your kids are pretty darn lucky to have a death star stashed away somewhere! Makes me think I should grab one, as my wife is pregnant now and (if I have anything to say about it) will become a LEGO fiend.

[Doofy McGee]

Welcome, I'm so jealous you never sold your old lego, good on your Mum.

It funny that you mention this

"If Lego started creating special minifigs - only inserted in certain unmarked sets - it could shift the market considerably."

because of this

http://www.brickset.com/news/article/?ID=5557

Specifically the minifig section at the bottom of the page

Do you think the gold figure will damage the collectible mini figure line? I understand the parallels to the special insert sports cards, but I think it is different in some very important ways. When buying sports cards back in the day, you were buying from sets that had several hundred cards. You hoped to get the big rookie, but you also know you would probably just get a much of commons. Everybody buys the collectible mini figs because the set only consists of 16 characters, and you know that with a little perseverance, you will easily be able to complete the set. You were never going to complete a whole set by buying individual packs of cards. And all this is not even taking into account that you can use the "smooshing" method to predict with some certainty the identity of the figure inside. I love the collectible mini fig series as is, but I think a golden figure will just add the thrill of getting something cool. Just my opinion.

[Mos_Eisley]

Think about how this could apply to Lego. If Lego started creating special minifigs - only inserted in certain unmarked sets - it could shift the market considerably. It could create a positive effect - an unopened set with a possible rare figure could be worth more. But I think just as likely you'd end up with more people buying the sets for that lottery ticket effect, and less for the set itself, which in the long term I believe would be damaging to the base of Lego fans who come back again and again for the sets and figures themselves. Not for the disappointment that they "lost" because they didn't get a rare figure out of the set they bought.

This has already been done. In 2007 TLG inserted 10,000 Chrome Gold C-3POs into random Star Wars sets, excluding battle packs. In 2009 they inserted 10,000 Chrome Darth Vaders into random Star Wars sets, including battle packs. I don't believe it caused any real problems, except for a few employees who were weighing battle packs to find Vaders and some others who don't think that there should ever be any LEGO products that are harder to get.

[nolanfan34]

Do you think the gold figure will damage the collectible mini figure line? I understand the parallels to the special insert sports cards, but I think it is different in some very important ways. When buying sports cards back in the day, you were buying from sets that had several hundred cards. You hoped to get the big rookie, but you also know you would probably just get a much of commons. Everybody buys the collectible mini figs because the set only consists of 16 characters, and you know that with a little perseverance, you will easily be able to complete the set. You were never going to complete a whole set by buying individual packs of cards. And all this is not even taking into account that you can use the "smooshing" method to predict with some certainty the identity of the figure inside. I love the collectible mini fig series as is, but I think a golden figure will just add the thrill of getting something cool. Just my opinion.

I agree with this. I would be more concerned if they were doing it with actual sets vs the minifig packs. For the minifig packs, I'm surprised they aren't doing this already. Hopefully there is no easy way to figure out how to identify the gold fig from the outside of the pack...

[Wizkid23]

Hi and welcome to the site. I am in the late 30's range with daughters, and am also an 80's child...grew up watching gi Joe and transformers and collecting them also. I also went through that baseball card "craze" of the late 80's and early 90's, as well as the comic book fiasco of the early 90's... I just wish I would have been collecting Legos instead...I had a few but not that many until I started collecting with Star Wars in 1999, and yes, I too had the Billy Ripken card......

[pickleboy]

The difference in my mind with Baseball cards and LEGO sets. (I don't think we are anywhere near a bubble. As a matter of fact I think we are in on the ground floor....people like Ed got in at the basement level...) 1. The market for LEGO sets is 100 times the market that baseball cards could ever dream to be and it's growing as the world becomes richer and more and more people can afford LEGO sets. Have you seen the prices people pay internationally?!?!? 2. LEGO sets will always have some sort of value b/c kids will always play with LEGO sets. WTF can you do with a baseball card? 3. There is only one LEGO. 4. Licensing - As long as LEGO introduces new themes that people love before LEGO, there will always be a new fresh supply of LEGO buyers being introduced to LEGO.

[pickleboy]

And if what ebay is attempting to do with their international shipping works...this whole party is just getting started.

[stephen_rockefeller]

That would be sweet....I wonder how long till its available to all sellers? It has beena pilot program since Nov I think.

[Teeird]

Hello, and welcome!

[lego the hutt]

That is quite the introduction post. Welcome Pacific Northwesterner, I'm in Oregon. Nice avatar picture. I have a Double Bastard sweatshirt I got from the brewery :)

[Darth Lego]

That is quite the introduction post. Welcome Pacific Northwesterner, I'm in Oregon. Nice avatar picture. I have a Double Bastard sweatshirt I got from the brewery

It is quite the introduction post. Welcome!

[Grolim]

Nice first post! I'm pretty much in the same situation as you. Have 3 daughters though and are just getting them into Lego via Friends range and a bit of the Hobbit stuff.

[nolanfan34]

That is quite the introduction post. Welcome Pacific Northwesterner, I'm in Oregon. Nice avatar picture. I have a Double Bastard sweatshirt I got from the brewery

Haha, that is my OTHER hobby, although while it tastes great, it's not that collectable and I try to not think of it as money I could have spent on Lego instead. :-)

I do have one of the big Double Bastard bottles pictures, which I am cellaring for my 40th birthday.

[pickleboy]

I am not 100% sure but I think you just got the most posts for an intro and the longest intro...good start!!