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The pfm Lego Investment Challenge

I've looked a bit more closely at the modular building series and they seem to have a nice sense of humour to them. The Brick Bank (I have one) has a laundrette next door for money laundering (you can apparently push money through one of the washers into a safety deposit box) and the Parisian Restaurant comes with a rat for the kitchen!
 
Tony L said:
I've looked a bit more closely at the modular building series and they seem to have a nice sense of humour to them. The Brick Bank (I have one) has a laundrette next door for money laundering (you can apparently push money through one of the washers into a safety deposit box) and the Parisian Restaurant comes with a rat for the kitchen!
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I just love the amount of detail and playability they squeeze into such impossibly small spaces. I used to build houses with a small mountain of Lego my father bought me over my schooling years, but I've never had small enough pieces to build more than dividing walls and maybe a dining table and a couple of chairs. When I designed my current house, I was sorely tempted to buy as much Lego as I needed to build a scale model before I committed to the real thing. The Architect Studio (or several boxes of it) would have been ideal.

Next time ...
 
I've just been looking at how the modular buildings do as investments and they seem superb, e.g. I don't know what the Green Grocer cost new but you'll need £400-900 for a sealed one now, and well over £1k for Cafe Corner! I now plan to buy at least the Parisian Restaurant before it gets retired, which I suspect will be soon. I initially set out to invest just £1k in this stuff as an experiment, but I have a feeling I may get hooked on it and keep buying-in. I've always had a dominant collector gene as this looks like another outlet for it!

PS My big yellow loader should hopefully land tomorrow... Yay! \o/
 
I have the same feeling about the modular buildings. They will be a long lived series. The investment value of retired sets will just keep going up and up. I missed out on the Detective's Office mainly because it closed at almost full retail price. The good thing is it's not quite on the retiring list just yet.

There is a local auction for five (new) building sets comprising 10197 Fire Brigade, 20211 Grand Emporium, 10218 Pet Shop, 10224 Town Hall and 10232 Palace Cinema for about £2k. That is just nuts, when the Palace Cinema is still available for about £100.
 
My fingers were itching at the sight of a pile of sealed boxes, so yesterday I answered an ad from a local guy selling a few used sets...

 
Tony,

Stop making these suggestions LOL. Just bought Parisian Restaurant.

Thinking about the Volkswagen Beetle next. That would be it for the year.
 
Current portfolio:

Death Star
Death Star Final Dual
Slave 1 Ultimate Collectors Series
TIE Fighter Ultimate Collectors Series
The Disney Palace
Parisian Restaurant
Dr Who
Caterham 7 x2
Yellow Submarine x3

I've built one Yellow Submarine and may build one Caterham 7 over Christmas
 
Spike said:
Current portfolio:

Death Star
Death Star Final Dual
Slave 1 Ultimate Collectors Series
TIE Fighter Ultimate Collectors Series
The Disney Palace
Parisian Restaurant
Dr Who
Caterham 7 x2
Yellow Submarine x3

I've built one Yellow Submarine and may build one Caterham 7 over Christmas
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Spike, are you going to participate in The Challenge?
 
Not really, but if you go to the original post and follow the instructions at the bottom it might lend the whole thing a spurious veneer of organization!
 
Will do.

Looking forward to The Large Hadron Collider, Golf MK1 GTi and E-Type from the ideas range.
 
Damn II. Missed this as I was upstairs building my big yellow Volvo (which is excellent!).

PS Not that bothered as I've a tenner in VIP points, a fiver on a brochure voucher and I need a Speed Remote (the Manc store didn't have any).

PPS Still not got my Batcave & Snowglobe, Yodel look to have lost that one pretty conclusively.
 
This is reminding me of Franklin Mint "collectables".
By all means buy Lego for fun, but as am investment?
 
davidsrsb said:
This is reminding me of Franklin Mint "collectables".
By all means buy Lego for fun, but as am investment?
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Limited edition toys do tend to become 'collectable', especially of kept boxed/mint. For example, my cousin had a Dinky Toys Weetabix van, which my brother inherited, and which over the years got knocked about a bit. Had it been kept 'as new', it would now be worth thousands:

https://www.collectors-club-of-grea...abix-guy-van-nets-3250-at-bonhams-auctioneers

'One of the best items was a Dinky Toys No. 514 Weetabix Guy Van with grooved hubs, a first type cab and a pale blue Dinky Toys box. In excellent condition with a few minor chips to wheels arches and edges, the bidders had clearly had their Weetabix, as the van sold for £3,250 (including premium). A variant of the same van but with ridged hubs sold for £3,125.'

A very tatty one is on eBay for £175, so as with all collectables, condition is everything.
 
davidsrsb said:
This is reminding me of Franklin Mint "collectables".
By all means buy Lego for fun, but as am investment?
Click to expand...

I know nothing of Franklin Mint, the sort of kitsch they make couldn't be further from my taste, and I have a feeling they hold little if any money. Limited run Lego sets on the other hand often appear to dramatically outperform the stock market and seldom appear to lose money if kept mint and sealed. Even built and un-boxed examples of certain sets can increase substantially. My only fear is I'm very far from the only one to have figured this out and whether that will mean Lego is being over-bought by speculators at present is a substantial risk, but on past performance it looks good. These days the conventional savings market is such a mess a lot of us are looking for alternates. Keeping money in the building society looks like pure insanity given you are lucky to get 1% a year at present (i.e. in real terms it is depreciating pretty fast).
 
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