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The pfm Lego Investment Challenge

I’ve not sold anything yet! I’ve two sealed Wall-Es, one sealed Yellow Sub, one built. I haven’t checked prices for anything for a long while now. To be honest I’d quite like to shift some of it as it is taking up a lot of space boxed up in my bedroom that could be used for records, audio kit and other stuff! It will have to wait until after covid though as I’m not visiting post offices. I’d like to lose some of the Star Wars stuff, I think I went in a bit heavy there.

Didn't some old Star Wars Lego fetch some big numbers recently? Might be worth getting rid of the other bits first.
 
I’ve not sold anything yet! I’ve two sealed Wall-Es, one sealed Yellow Sub, one built. I haven’t checked prices for anything for a long while now. To be honest I’d quite like to shift some of it as it is taking up a lot of space boxed up in my bedroom that could be used for records, audio kit and other stuff! It will have to wait until after covid though as I’m not visiting post offices. I’d like to lose some of the Star Wars stuff, I think I went in a bit heavy there.
I'd keep the Wall-E for a bit longer. The box is not particularly big. I have eight of the modular buildings and both Simpsons House and Superette, which takes up about half of the (now full) closet space, but those sets are just now starting to double in price. I might need to buy a storage rack soon.
 
To be honest I’d quite like to shift some of it as it is taking up a lot of space boxed up in my bedroom that could be used for records, audio kit and other stuff! It will have to wait until after covid though as I’m not visiting post offices.

In case you weren’t aware, you now can organise pickup by your postman. It costs a princely 72p (unless *cough* you have a postman who has always done that for you for free and isn’t about to stop now.)
 
I'm in the process of offloading the boy's Lego, now he's past playing with it. We kept the boxes for the big sets, which helps the price. At the weekend, I sold his Minecraft 21118 set for £95 (eBay). As a matter of interest, I looked up the price when new, and it was between £80 and £90. Not bad to say it was not bought as an investment!
 
Very quick check show Yellow Sub on eBay quoting £150+
I paid around £50

I may decide to become a Capitalist Paper Tiger Running Dog.. Pig. :)
 
I'm in the process of offloading the boy's Lego, now he's past playing with it. We kept the boxes for the big sets, which helps the price. At the weekend, I sold his Minecraft 21118 set for £95 (eBay). As a matter of interest, I looked up the price when new, and it was between £80 and £90. Not bad to say it was not bought as an investment!
I think it's fair to say that used Lego sets that are complete (with boxes and manuals) and in good condition will always be worth at least their original purchase price. For investment returns, you'd have to choose more carefully and resist the urge to open and build.
 
I'm in the process of offloading the boy's Lego, now he's past playing with it. We kept the boxes for the big sets, which helps the price. At the weekend, I sold his Minecraft 21118 set for £95 (eBay). As a matter of interest, I looked up the price when new, and it was between £80 and £90. Not bad to say it was not bought as an investment!

In thirty years time when he remembers what he had and what it would then be worth he`ll be really pissed with you.
 
In thirty years time when he remembers what he had and what it would then be worth he`ll be really pissed with you.
Maybe, but he can't see that far ahead, and would rather cash in now. His choice.

In 30 years, I will probably be gone, so he can console himself with the house!
 
Lego Grahnd Piahno 20% off at Amazon making it £255. Currently OOS, but only a weeks’ wait.
 
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Decided to build the Falcon instead of just keeping such a huge box.
Had to give up at stage 783 due to so many missing parts, which are now on order, but who knows when I will get them (some 13 bits in total) yet I have dozens of odd bits over!
So decided to build the Liebherr instead.
That is currently going OK.
Was not expecting that level of missing bits tbh, and rather annoying.
While robbing bits from later packs helped initially, now at the stage of needing them.
 
This strikes me as being like Bitcoin. Fine until someone realises the Emperor has got no clothes and there's an almighty crash.

What is the possible real value in something that you can't even unwrap, let alone use?

At least with Bitcoin there's some sort of rationale behind it, even if it's complete bollocks once you start thinking about it.
 
This strikes me as being like Bitcoin. Fine until someone realises the Emperor has got no clothes and there's an almighty crash.

What is the possible real value in something that you can't even unwrap, let alone use?

I don’t understand what you mean? It’s just basic supply and demand. Items that are around for a limited time yet demand exists long after that point within a certain niche market. It is exactly the same model as record dealing, vintage audio etc, and a NOS sealed copy of anything, be it a White Album, a pair of Quad IIs, a 1975 Rolex, or a Lego Wall-E will always be worth far more than a used one in VG+ condition.

So far it seems to be holding up, my problem is being bothered to sell anything as I haven’t got suitable packaging, can’t go to the post office etc. I do rather want to off-load some of it as the thing I hadn’t factored-in when investing is just how much space it takes up! It is far easier to stash a couple of £k worth of records, guitars, hi-fi etc than Lego. I’ve actually lost about 1/5th of my bedroom floorspace to the stuff piled up in boxes, maybe more as I can’t get to some shelves behind it! I guess watches are the best thing if you really know what you are doing (which I certainly don’t) as they take up no space and seem to do very well as investments.
 
Thinking about it a bit more, I guess my problem is that I don't understand why these Lego kits are valued as they are. They have no inherent use as they seem to be bought by adults who aren't going to learn more manual dexterity from building them like a child would.

They aren't beautiful as they're way too crude IMHO. They are ingenious but that's about it.

German company CMC makes 1:18 models of some of the most beautiful and characterful road and race cars in great detail. The wire wheels are made from individual metal spokes for example. As I'm not as rich as Nick Mason, this is as good a way of enjoying a stableful of classics as I'm going to get.

But the value of my small collection is about 1/3rd of what I paid for them. I'd expect the same to be true of the Lego kits. I simply can't get my head around why this isn't so. That's why I think this is another South Sea Bubble.

But hey, it matters not one jot what I think so long as enough other people think differently. The massively inflated prices (IMHO) of classic cars and works of art are testament to that.

An early 3.8 E-type Jag in good useable condition should be worth about £30K, which they were for a long time until a couple of decades ago. Now they're worth 5 - 7 times that.

Only a very few watches actually appreciate, the rest fall sharply. Classic cars are a much better investment - at the moment
 
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I'm finally getting round to building the various Lego sets I bought over the last few months but which I left boxed-up because of home improvements and the resulting chaos. I built this police car (60239) last night and this off-road safari set (60267) this morning. The police car is okay - doubt it'll catch my Bugatti Chiron! - but the safari set is pretty decent as it comes with lots of setup options and accesories. The actual vehicle is pretty cool as well.

I've still to build this Batmobile (76119), this Porche 911 (75895) and this Jaguar racing set (76898). I've still got a sealed Lego Submarine but I doubt I'll ever open that one as I like it the way it is: I can see a picture of the Yellow Submarine and that's good enough for me as no dusting required and it's become a collector's set now that it's OOP. In saying that, the Batmobile set linked above seems to be going the same way.

Fwiw, in addition to this Bugatti Chiron (75879), my other cars are this Ferrari F8 Tributo (76895) - with its amazing phat ass - and this Nissan GT-R Nismo (76896).
 
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They aren't beautiful as they're way too crude IMHO. They are ingenious but that's about it.

I suspect to appreciate it you may have to have loved it as a kid. I did for sure, though I was a kid back when Lego was just building blocks (I had the motor and gear set thing too), you just built whatever you could think of. Initially I thought the move to kits of a specific thing to be a bit odd, and I don’t think it is anything like as good a tool for developing logic, spacial awareness etc as building from scratch, but they have their own charm. For me the kits are very hit and miss, some are truly superb, others really clunky and fail to catch what was cool about the real thing.

A few I think are superb are the Saturn V, Yellow Submarine and the Warhol (which I’ve not bought yet). They end up combining both a slightly impressionistic blocky pixelated Lego aesthetic plus the iconic qualities of the original and at that point become far better/more interesting than a conventional replica to my mind. I’d far prefer to hang the Lego Warhol on my wall than a bog standard print, though obviously I’d take an original in preference!
 


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