Speculation in the LEGO Market: Will there be a Bubble?

andystar

I concur, I picked up CMF series 3, 4, and 5 but they release them too fast. Maybe cut down to 8 figures/release or two releases of 16 a year. I won't be collecting all of series 5, probably just pick up a few Roman Soldiers and other ones that peak my interest.

Pacific493

Totally agree. I bought all of S2 and S3 (missed out on a bunch of S1 because of how quickly it disappeared in the US). However, with the rising price tag and the constant flood of newer minifigs, I've given up on collecting. Better to buy actual sets and maybe the occasional fig that catches your eye than every fig put out. Although, to argue the other side, there may be a market of people who don't like sets but really enjoy the figs. In that case, this product catches that market.

My ultimate rule of thumb is that anything that is marketed as being "collectible" usually isn't.

LegoFanTexas

@Pacific493 - wise thinking, that is so true!!!

Odindusk

Whoa whoa whoa... wait. You mean that my foil-embossed cover comics from the early 1990s that are all marked as "collector's edition" that had print runs of 15 billion each... aren't collectible? This is crap. They are funding my retirement one day. You'll see!

/weeps

rocao

Add me to the list of those who think LEGO need to slow down on the CMF releases; despite the quality increasing, my enthusiasm is waning due to over-saturation....

nice to finally have you on the list :)
http://www.bricksetforum.com/discussion/comment/466#Comment_466

Rainstorm26

What would you do if the value of you Lego collection would drop precipitously? Would you sell immediately, or wait it out in hopes of values increasing. I am asking because I have seen many things in the past that have been labelled as collectible, have ended up over time being worth very little compared to what they were valued at.

pcirone

Luckily Lego is exempt.

omgitsrenzo

well in my opinion, lego is first and foremost a construction toy... so even when the value of lego would drops, what wouldnt would be the oodles of joy I would still have collecting and playing with it. I mean reselling it would be cool too and maybe would help to make a bit of profit but the joy of building and letting my imagination go is priceless :)

atkinsar

Like many others, I don't own my Lego collection with a view to selling it so the value has no bearing on whether I would sell. As a collector, I do have an interest in knowing the value of my collection, but that is inherint in the collector's mindset I think.

In fact, if the value of secondary market Lego dropped significantly, then perhaps I'd have a better shot at completing my SW collection.

scratchdesk

/look at the boxes and boxes of unopened Star Wars figs from the 90s/00s, Comic books from the late 90s and baseball cards from the 80s...

I can't see Lego being effected by the same sort of pricing drop as seen in the above sets. But one never knows. In the end if you get enjoyment out of the hobby, thats what's important. The monetary value is secondary.

Si_UKNZ

I only ever resell stuff which I like building, for precisely this reason, e.g. I wont resell themes such as space, even when I know I could make money doing it. This is so that, should the whole thing crash, at least I'm left with things I enjoy.

drdavewatford

I didn't buy my LEGO collection with the intention of selling it, so a drop in value would be utterly irrelevant.

Yellowcastle

^ Unless of course it brings the Brickmaster set prices down. :o)

richo

If the value of lego collapses, I will buy the few sets I really want that are currently at a price I wouldn't remotely consider paying given there are so many alternatives.

Why anybody would consider paying £1000 for a UCS Falcon, when they could just buy the UCS Shuttle, UCS Imperial Star Destroyer and then keep £500 in change, is quite beyond me. I wouldn't mind, but nobody seemed to want it at the time. Surely a lesson in human psyche.

Anyway, as a fan, it's clearly the safest bet if you just love the product and are not overly bothered about your chosen passion as some sort of investment vehicle. I appreciate it's different if you have a business, but those people are in the minority, despite what seems to be a significant rise in people talking about values, appreciation and the timing of set deletions.

I have just spent a few days building a scene from the John Borman film Excalibur of Perceval looking for the Grail. I never once thought about the value of the bricks. In fact, I actually cracked open an old MISB Knights Kingdom set to help with some of the pieces I needed.

Rainstorm26

^I guess after having seen many comments on the retirements of sets (MMV, DS, etc.) it would seem there are a fair number of people out there who at least appear to be trying to "time the market" and do care about the value after retirement, but I know some of the people commenting on those discussions are wondering from the standpoint of not having the current funds to purchase a set they really love and wondering if they should try to work harder to buy it before it is retired.

Yellowcastle

As a general rule, I imagine every set will rise in value after it discontinues. Thus, it's unlikely most of us will be better ready to buy after EOL if it costs too much now. My attitude, though, has always been "shame on me" if I waited too long. And I have this complex where I'll refuse to buy a set for more money if I can remember having opportunities to previously buy it cheaper. But I'm weird like that. :o)

LegoFanTexas

If the value drops in half, then we still have tons of Lego to play with that will be lots and lots of fun! :)

Of course, what would I do with 10 Death Stars? Sheesh, I have no idea, but I'd think of something. ;)

On the plus side, while the value might go up and down, it is unlikely to go to zero, and I've had more than one stock (AMR I'm looking at you) go to zero in my lifetime.

It is kinda like Real Estate in that way, it may go up and down, but so long as you're not using borrowed money to buy, then it doesn't matter because there is no zero in Real Estate, or Lego.

Now if you're borrowing money to buy Lego to resell, that is another matter, but I'm not doing that and wouldn't suggest anyone else do it either.

CapnRex101

If the value of Lego drops, I'll be buying it up!

momof2boys99

LFT- I agree with you. My kids collect Lego, so it would be o.k. if my store lost value. They would just add it to their collection. I just purchase what I can afford to lose and then I am o.k. no matter what.

evileddie1313

I think it's a given that people on these forums and other Lego forums love their Lego bricks and their collections. They like to say they are 'collectors' to their significant others because it sounds cool or it enables them to buy more sets without looking like some big spoiled kid. But we are really just in love with little plastic bricks and a drop in value would not be a big deal to most fans IMO.

That being said, discontinued Lego sets and their values have increased dramatically the last several years, even through one of the worst worldwide recessions in history. That's the neat thing about Lego bricks, you can enjoy them, collect them and resell them for a profit, all at the same time. It's also the main reasons why Lego fans/collectors wouldn't be phased by a drop in value. They could always open those NIB sets in their collection and build them...

pantenkind

Yep, I am with many others on here in the sense that I wish the aftermarket price would drop. I collect for love of game, not a future retirement fund (though given the current market its as viable a thing to invest in as anything else) There are many sets from my dark ages I would scoop up if the prices were more reasonable.

4brickmoney

To tell you the truth it has happened before think back to 2000-2002 or so we could get 5 sets for the MSRP of 1. I loved it I could buy multiples of sets just to get a certain piece. The sales then were off the charts compared to even the best sales now.

Odindusk

I would argue that there's at least a small part of all MISB collectors that wishes the Lego market goes to crap so we can all shrug and just open them up and get to what all we really wanted to do in the first place: build.

aplbomr79

I think that we are seeing the top end of the LEGO market - but that does not mean it won't continue for a few more years. This all depends on the market - both Micro and Macro.

If things keep steady in the Macro - or even climb out of the recession we have all been experiencing, then there should not be too much of a decline. On the Micro-side, TLG is doing it's part by releasing (relatively) small amounts of sets in each line. However, if some try to corner the market (nearly impossible for this sector), or LEGO become too expensive for the average consumer (not there yet), than all should hold steady.

However, the recent LEGO phenomenon should NOT be equated to the enthusiast/hobby/collector items of the past century (see Baseball Cards, GI Joe, etc). This new wave of LEGO collecting and trading came to maturation during the era of hyper-commerce via the internet. As the older 'collectibles' were deemed in great demand due to being bound by locality - the internet blew open the doors for someone in San Fran finding their last piece of the puzzle in Amsterdam. The new LEGO surge has come of age in the age of Amazon, ebay, and bricklink. So I do not see this surge subsiding for some time.

Again, this is all relative. If the global or your local economy crashes - then yes, the recent LEGO boom for you is over. If TLG decides to start re-releasing older sets (not in their nature), then again, the boom is over. And last, if too many opportunists enter the market (it is happening now), then we could see a segment of the buying populace leave the market.

Of course, all of this is just my humble opinion.

Brickarmor

^Cute, but a red herring as far as I'm concerned. The issue as I see it is not (and has not ever been) access to Lego in production, but the potential bubble induced by the grand scale of massive stockpiles. The only caveat regarding availability of Lego in production is the circumvention of limits set by retailers.

Bandit

The issue as I see it is not (and has not ever been) access to Lego in production, but the potential bubble induced by the grand scale of massive stockpiles.

Regardless of whether this is an actual issue or not (I would argue it is not), why would this even be a problem? If it got to the point that SO many people were hoarding SO many sets, far outstripping demand, so what? They'd be worth less. Collectors would get better deals on old sets. This is an issue how? This is the risk we as resellers take.

graphite

^ The bubble and stockpiles resellers have doesn't seem to be the original problem here. I know i'm the "butt hurt" comment maker as well as the "life isn't fair" comment maker but from what I've read the complaints can be summed up by this example.

Store X has 100 of item Y for sale with a limit of 5 per person. Person Z is #101 in line but doesn't know it yet. The first 20 people in line all by 5 per person and everyone in line gets to watch them walk out with 5 each. Turns out person #3-10 were all family members of person #2 and were buying 5 each for him to resell. Now while this isn't very community friendly to the other people trying to buy, it isn't against the stores terms and they wouldn't do anything about it even if they didn't like it because they're still selling all 100 of the items. The items sell out and everyone is disappointed and the only place to point the finger were the first 20 people in line and more aggressively targeted is the guy that got help from family. Person Z feels that it is unfair while not realizing that by getting there 3 hours (could be any time amount) later than #1 he still wasn't going to get one because he was #101 of 100 possible slots.

Whether it was your "dark ages" or you just "had to work", as other people have stated, if you were waiting for a sale to get something and you feel entitled to get it at that price just because it was available at that price, then you are just wrong.

An example where something similar to the above was done in a positive note. There is a band (forgot the name) that was fighting Ticketmaster over their gouging fees. For some of their shows where the venue could sell tickets without the Ticketmaster fees if tickets were bought in person, the band showed up with cash after putting out a notice to fans and stood at the box office giving cash to the people in line to buy the max allowed tickets so that the band could then sell the tickets for face value from their website, thus denying Ticketmaster the money in fees. The band themselves acted as a reseller although not increasing prices. What if guy #101 in this case was there to get himself a ticket and took the day off to be there in person to make sure he got a ticket just to find out everyone in front of him bought all the tickets? He didn't completely lose out since he'll still be able to get a ticket through the band (and probably still there in person by asking the band), but maybe he didn't know that is what happened and leaves and never gets a ticket.

Doesn't seem fair there either but was done for an unselfish reason by the band. Both cases can have winners and losers, and the losers always want to find somewhere to point the finger. I've been on both sides and I can't see a problem anywhere with any of it.

Yellowcastle

^Cute, but a red herring as far as I'm concerned. The issue as I see it is not (and has not ever been) access to Lego in production, but the potential bubble induced by the grand scale of massive stockpiles. The only caveat regarding availability of Lego in production is the circumvention of limits set by retailers.

Interesting, but you're going wayyyy off track. For that avenue, please see the following discussion...

http://www.bricksetforum.com/discussion/2371/speculation-in-the-lego-market-will-there-be-a-bubble#latest

Brickarmor

Regardless of whether this is an actual issue or not (I would argue it is not), why would this even be a problem? If it got to the point that SO many people were hoarding SO many sets, far outstripping demand, so what?

It is (or will be) a problem because the person--the prototypal hobbyist long known to Lego enthusiasts--who buys one to build and one to sell--to offset the original price or to "reinvest" in another set to build--will have been muscled out by bigger hoarders selling for much cheaper to move greater quantities of sets.

To be clear: this and only this has been my dilemma regarding reselling. I use the verb rather than the noun intentionally, for it is the action and its consequences that are of greater merit than the person and their intentions. For example:

BLACK = resellers are evil (nobody holds this view but it has been a convenient straw man because its fabulous effigy bathes indignant resellers in a righteous light)
WHITE = resellers are always good, no doubts or questions allowed (the dogma here)
GREY = good people make good resellers, bad people make bad ones (a psychologism largely irrelevant when considering socioeconomic phenomena)
Finally, BLEY = reselling can help the hobbyist fund their own hobby as well as help another hobbyist expand theirs; however (this is where the color changes) not every action involved in reselling is necessarily and ipso facto perfecto, and it is the responsibility of hobbyists (buyers and sellers) to be on the lookout for disconcerting trends, of which I believe the mega-hoarding on the rise in recent years to be the most ominous.

LegoFanTexas

^ Could there also be:

Light Gray
Dark Gray
Light Bley
Dark Bley

And of course there is Duck Tape, which is really like the force, because it is light on one side, dark on the other, and binds the Universe together? ;-)

*sorry, had a cheeky moment there*

Yellowcastle

This discussion was created from comments split from: The Role of Resellers in Collecting LEGO.

Brickarmor

I admit that I cannot conceptually disentangle discontinuing sets, the role of resellers, and the likelihood of a bubble. In fact, as I tried to emphasize in some way in every one of my previous posts, the role of resellers seemed to me to be one precisely of taking action to avert a bubble. I knew of this thread's existence but found the question also germane to the recent (and much more active)...um, debate? Shadow boxing? Martyr competition? Putting the EGO in LEGO?

Yellowcastle

You won't get any argument from me to leave all of the speculation talk in the uber thread. But the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. Cough, Cough...

madforLEGO

I think people forget that LEGO did try to remake sets from earlier periods with the Legends line, and it did not perform well which also helps with LEGOs decision to not redo old sets, but make new sets that are along the same theme as some old sets but with the twist of new building techniques are part usage. This is better IMO as it allows for collectors to have their way and casual fans of LEGO to get a set theme they wanted. Like the new bank for example if they do not want to buy the old one from late 80's that is expensive. Or the soon to be new Hospital due out.

Pitfall69

I used to collect coins and I used to collect/buy/sell sports cards. Lego has much more "value" than just a Lego set. Many people buy Lego just to build MOC's and not to collect. What can you do with a baseball card once you have bought it? Legos can be recycled to a point and I assume because petroleum prices continue to rise, the cost of producing and distributing Lego product will also increase. The things you can do with Lego and your imagination is endless.

prevere

^Amen, brother. Why the rush to pump out 2 or 3 series a year? They are completely burning this out.

prof1515

I used to collect coins and I used to collect/buy/sell sports cards. Lego has much more "value" than just a Lego set. Many people buy Lego just to build MOC's and not to collect. What can you do with a baseball card once you have bought it? Legos can be recycled to a point and I assume because petroleum prices continue to rise, the cost of producing and distributing Lego product will also increase. The things you can do with Lego and your imagination is endless.

There's a difference between collectors and consumers which many Lego enthusiasts fail to realize. Collecting is not about utilizing. You don't collect Greek pottery and then plant flowers in them. You don't collect coins and then go to the arcade. The value in collecting is in the condition of the collection, not in the functionality of it.

Most people here are not really collectors so much as consumers who happen to have a collection of purchases rather than a collection of greater value.

And before someone starts bitching about it, there's nothing wrong with either approach. They are distinctly different though.

dougts

^ exactly. Which is why I always find comparisons to coins, cards and even other collectible toys somewhat pointless. They aren't really the same thing at all. An old LEGO set in a beat up box still has inherent value, since the contents of the box can be "consumed" and still fetch a price that likely won't be much less than the original paid price. Not so much with cards or coins or even beanie babies or hotwheel cars - if the item is damaged, there really is a huge drop in the inherent value, to the point of near zero in some cases. The other distinction on the last two (and other collectible "toys" is that those companies purposely used the rare item/scarcity factor to drive the collectible aspect of their products. Outside of promos, LEGO doesn't do this - all their mainline sets are widely available to anyone and you don't have to scour stores trying to find that one deliberately special item from the 100-case.

Si_UKNZ

^^ Great points prof, and I do agree that we need to make this distinction (as @dougts also points out), but you got me thinking - I wonder if there are different types of collectors, those who utilise and those who don't, and really it depends on the objects you collect.

For example, my mother collects teapots, and she uses them. Many of them are very fancy and go way beyond what they need to be for their useful purpose, but I'd still call it a collection. Some are MISB but most are on display, and some get used. I'd say that's the way many of us collect Lego too.

Although lots of the sets get opened, most of them spend their lives on display, like a vase or a teapot.

CCC

I also collect cigarette cards (tobacco cards to people in the US). I collect them, store them in folders at home and I look at them. Not every day, but I do enjoy looking at them. I know one guy that collects them that uses a bank vault to store the higher value ones (and some of his are £200+ per card). Apparently he has some that he has not even looked at since the 1970s. He has a list, he has them ticked off, he enjoys knowing he has them even if he never sees them. To me, that is crazy. But I reckon there are Lego people that do the same. Buy a set, store it and never look at it, let alone open it.

Redbullgivesuwind

The only way, in my opinion, there will be a bursting in the bubble will be if this recession continues or get worse. People will have less money to spend and thus resellers will have to bring their prices down to keep up there sales or people who are squeezed for money wont buy as they cant afford it.

However if we do come out of the recession any time soon you wont see prices change. But what will happen is people will be able to afford to spend the cash and thus feel like prices are reasonable or that they have in their mind come down.

princedraven

The truth is that nothing lasts forever.
If you use prof's view, there are collectors and consumers.
The collectors see value in their collection, that value is only driven by market desire, but desires change very quickly as many collectors of other items have stated.
Then there is the statement that even if the market for collectable Lego folds they are still left with the plastic bricks which have a value. Which pretty much means that the collector becomes the same as the consumer, all they have is bricks, and I agree that those plastic bricks currently have a high value, but I do not believe that will stay that way, manufacturing is always changing and what will be possible in 5 years time in anyones guess, so it would not surprise me if the 'value' of those bricks drops drastically in the future.
For all we know one of the 'rival' brands may well have developed a superior product that costs less to produce and will launch next year with the most amazing licences that destroy TLG's market dominance.
The value of our collection is a lot more fragile in my opinion than we like to believe. Hell it wasn't that long ago that TLG nearly had to shut up shop for good...

Pacific493

The only way, in my opinion, there will be a bursting in the bubble will be if this recession continues or get worse. People will have less money to spend and thus resellers will have to bring their prices down to keep up there sales or people who are squeezed for money wont buy as they cant afford it.

However if we do come out of the recession any time soon you wont see prices change. But what will happen is people will be able to afford to spend the cash and thus feel like prices are reasonable or that they have in their mind come down.

Your post presumes that there is a bubble, but there is no evidence to suggest that a pricing bubble has formed in the secondary market for Lego. Asset bubbles form when there is a fundamental disconnect between the intrinsic value of the good and its perceived value. Although prices have risen considerably on some EOL sets (MF, CC), I have not seen anything to suggest that a disconnect has crept into the secondary market to the point where a bubble has formed or is forming. The majority of people who are buying EOL sets for high dollar are doing so because they want the set either to collect or build. The simple fact that a good rises in value does not indicate the formation of a pricing bubble...there has to be some force driving that rise in value that is disconnected from the intrinsic value of the good.

mrseatle

I believe there are bubbles for some individual sets but that they aren't going to pop. Someone will always pay a lot for a mint ucs Millenium Falcon. Maybe if Lego brand goes bankrupt might be a temporary bubble as people race to buy up sets. But even then a new company might just buy the name and carry on. Prices might fluctuate a little over the years as different generations come and go. My only concern is that time might cause the plastic to break down into useless oily blobs. What is the life of a lego brick 20 years? Fifty years? 100 years?

masterX244

^At least 50 because some people have pieces from that time in use. I have some which are approx 30 years old. These are the proof for the minimum durability

Brickarmor

The intrinsic value of the pieces has been discussed and the difference between Lego and other collectibles is, I think, well understood. According to @pacific493 above, perhaps "bubble" in the sense of paying "too much" for an item--based on mass hysteria rather than he actual accretion of value in the object--is not the correct term for what I've been trying to elucidate as my fear about changes in the secondary market itself: namely that the escalating scale of hoarding--spurred recently by MF and CC and facilitated by Internet availability--is actually going to depress prices to the point where the modest hobbyist will be squeezed out and, lo and behold, resellers themselves will be the victims of their own grand schemes. Supply will have eclipsed demand, which, I believe you are correct, is not a bubble per se.

This, to me, is a thoroughly rational prediction I currently believe true but that I hope (fingers crossed, eyes closed) is ultimately wrong. With this in mind, I think it would behoove resellers to scale it back a bit. And @princedraven offers the most sobering reminder above. But, one more turn of the screw, if TLG does make poor decisions in the future and nearly (or completely!) ruins itself, the incredible sets of recent years will be dearly sought.

mrseatle

I wonder if well played with lego will last fifty years? Or will finger oil break them down quicker? Or maybe finger oil would keep them lubricated to last longer? But I doubt that as my experience is that it is sorta corrosive.
Maybe they could announce that lego causes cancer. And nobody would want it. Or the government could pass anti-plastic toy laws worse than Italy. Anyone know how bullet resistant lego bricks can be?

mkolandian

^ "anti-plastic toy laws worse than Italy" Care to explain? I'm from Italy and I never heard anything like that. Thanks.

Istokg

He may be referring to the 1970 law that the Italian Parliament passed that forbade the importation of plastic building toys (a very narrowly defined law).

This caused TLG to open a subsidiary in Italy called Minitalia, that sold parts very similar to LEGO, but with hollow studs on the bricks (they were not made of ABS), and using one of TLGs old patents that didn't use the tubes on the bottom of the bricks.

These LEGO "clones" sold under the Minitalia name were produced from 1970-74. By 1973 the Italian Parliament changed the laws once again, and TLG was free to sell LEGO in Italy.

However, there were still a lot of Minitalia sets on store shelves, and the Italian subsidiary still had a lot of Minitalia boxes and some parts. So TLG mixed regular LEGO parts into the Minitalia sets (mixed together were solid stud LEGO bricks made of ABS plastic, as well as non-ABS Minitalia bricks. Also in 1973 TLG LEGO sales were selling in Italy alongside Minitalia parts (remember TLG never threw anything away). So from 1973-75 both LEGO and Minitalia were sold in the Italian market before Minitalia finally disappeared from store shelves and company inventory.

My LEGO DVD Chapter 34 - Minitalia Sets & Parts (1970-78) goes into all the details of these special Minitalia parts and the history of this messy period in LEGO history. Below are 2 images from this chapter...

Gary Istok

BoiseState

I think it's very possible older sets will drop in value. As Lego improves it building techniques, older sets won't be as fun to play with.