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But, I do think that it's inevitable that there will be a downward trend in its value, most collectibles go through up and down cycles, I think currently Lego (Minifigures especially) are on a record crest, but it can't carry on forever.
Expensive minifigs will have a bit of a bubble when quality minifig printing at home becomes more commonplace. Especially for figs made with basic parts.
I do generally agree, though, having $100k+ in inventory would certainly not be a suitable risk for me. Then again, the stock market (with the exception of a modest retirement account or two) is not really a suitable risk for me either, so perhaps I'm not the best person to gauge suitable risk. Personally, I'd much rather use extra money to invest in rental property (which I've done). After all, people are always going to need a place to live, particularly in certain areas such as Southern California. At the end of the day, though, everyone has different risk tolerances, and given the fairly stable Lego market over the past decade+, who's to say it's much worse of a risk than the stock market? It's certainly not a risk I'd take on a large scale, but some people seem to do quite well at it.
I think the Beanie Baby family made a fatal error, and that is putting all of their eggs in one basket. Not that I'm any investment wiz, but most people will agree that putting everything you have into a single investment is generally not a wise idea.
Ive got a bad feeling when that place opens its doors
Most of all, children cannot collect cars ;)
Numbers and figures are just estimated values.
Now, translate that immediately over to LEGO. Is there a bubble? Was there a bubble? WILL there be a bubble? I think this is speculative at best but I think if you look at it in terms of overpriced and overvalued sets and minifigures then yes, of course there is a bubble.
I think at this time whatever "bubble" exists will soon deflate, whether soon is a year or two who knows but I think a lot of people have come out of the dark ages and bought up LEGO and got back into it and I think the market will stabilize. Remember LEGO was immensely popular in the 90's and had ebbed and flowed since then. I think we will see a correction followed by some stability.
I guarantee you that $100k+ in Lego sets is very common for a lot of people. Tough to make much of a go of it with less than that -- at least from a business perspective.
Its just that back then there was no internet No MOC sites, no forums no blogs no websites no nothing so there really wasnt much of a way for fans to communicate with each other back then.
You also can't market things to mass consumers solely on the fact that they are collectible which is what beanie babies did. Beanie Babies only got popular because around 1990 when their early ones would retire they would become very valuable and thus more people started stocking up. More people getting into them caused TY to start selling them everywhere rather than the original Mom&Pop shops that they started in. TY saw the craze for what it was and decided to milk their consumers for their money. They still sell beanies even though they released beanies called "The End" when they saw the craze dying off and tried to separate themselves from the bottoming out of the market.
I guess TLG could be milking the collectible craze with Mr. Gold and the series minifigs and they might even try to keep modulars out longer so resellers can stock up, but this is far different than what TY did. If the value of the aftermarket went to 50% MSRP that would mean the pieces aren't worth as much either and thus LEGO itself has taken a dive in value. They want people to value their product as much as resellers do.
Basically, collectible items need to be useful or have some sort of value other than their "collectibility" (made up word) or they will run the risk of losing any kind of value at all.
The US Census Bureau reports that the median household net worth for the richest region (northeast) was just over $90k as of 2011. While I do agree that $100k means more to some than others, people (individuals) with $100k of Lego inventory are probably quite rare.
Source: http://www.census.gov/people/wealth/files/Wealth Highlights 2011.pdf
LEGO is different, in that most people (more than 90% according to TLG) buy LEGO as a toy for playing with. People have kept their old sets in storage, not for resale, but for toys to their own children. By some strange coincidences, some LEGO sets have been highly sought by collectors, and therefore has tremendous value - other sets are just toys for playing with.
However, any LEGO set is always a collection of bricks, and therefore never completely worthless - but the number of people who thinks of LEGO as a possible investment, compared to e.g. Action figures, are very, very few.
So it won't be the fate for LEGO to completely lose its value, but if you go and spend $100.000 you probably won't make a profit, but you won't lose everything either ... LEGO bricks are always, and will always be, worth "something".
how you are going to compete with that to stop your inventory from depreciating?
retired retired license sets might do slightly better.
one possibility though is that the current trend is driven by adults with money remembering their childhood. Im from an age where my indoor play was dominated by Lego. there wasnt much else and what there was (early video games for example) hasnt aged well. I have little interest in replaying elite on my bbc master or frog bog on the intelivision (ive tried, it wasnt good) By contrast lego sets are much the same today as before, better perhaps but fundamentally the same. will todays kids feel the same or is lego to them just one of many pasttimes? Equally there were many sets i craved as a child but were always outside my grasp. space monorail for example. if my kids wanted a similar priced set now they'd have it. I do wonder if that element of being able to have now what we couldnt have as kids is a big, even main, driver for many afols. i just dont think its going to be there to anything like the same extent for the current kids. I can see a decline in afoldom over a period of time for these reasons but not a bursting bubble.
There are regional differences too, for example, outside of the US it seems comic books are going through a fairly temporal popularity. Marvel/DC havent been forever popular over here, at least from what ive seen, and its entirely possible they could fall out of favour again and their value fall. it may be that theyre value in the us is more robust though.
There are many many many many AFOLs who have collected for 20+ yrs. The numbers would probably surprise you. There is the Brickset effect, as well, however. It's something new forum joiners should be warned about.
They go into "pokemon mode" with GOTTA CATCH EM ALL!!! Gen pop have that much $$ tied up in Lego? No. "A lot" of people with over $100K in the hobby, whether for business or pure collecting? It's really not a stretch.
If you only collect what you like and enjoy, the potential bubble burst is actually good for you. That's the category I fall into; it doesn't mean I'm rooting for a bubble to burst, though.