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Comments
I'd say that we will at some point but it will be a set(s) that no one suspects. An early or quiet EOL, a way over priced MSRP, a jewel of a set in an unpopular theme, or something along these lines.
Anything that can be predicted as a high riser in the aftermarket gets bought up en masse by us resellers. We all get to double and sometime triple our money but the flood of them on the market does keep prices from going much higher than that.
My thoughts at least :)
--Gary
:)
So about 15-20 years should do it, for some of these sets..
I think the only silver lining is that while people will still complain about having to eventually pay something like 250-300 for an EN they should be happy LEGO put out enough stock to keep resellers out there stocked to keep them at that lower price for longer..
Eventually though the demand outweighs the supply if, of course, the item is in demand.
A few examples (there are at least a few more):
1. 6286 Black Seas Barracuda (re-released as 10040 in 2002)
2. 6278 Enchanted Island (re-released as 6292 in 2001)
3. 6074 Black Falcon's Fortress (re-released as 10039 in 2002)
My point is, don't assume anything is going to keep going up. That's how people lose a lot of money in any investment (housing comes to mind). Markets will always correct at some point. If we see another great recession, there won't be many people spending $1000+ on a LEGO set.
LEGO how every has a storied past and has been in a child toy chest for decades now and I really do not see that changing from generation to generation. If a kid sees a LEGO set from the 80's they could be just as entranced with it and play with it as if they had a new set now.
Not to mention baseball cards are boring.. I mean really (and yes I collected in the 90's), you trade them, but it is not like kids were putting these into spokes anymore.. they went from a pack to a trade pile or binder.. and even then it was really only fun when you could trade with other kids, which means if they stopped buying cards you more than likely stopped buying cards....
I have boxes of old cards in my place.. am I building houses, cars, and building with it?
Same with Magic the Gathering cards, or Pokemon cards... great but requires multiple people to really enjoy it or it is just a pile of cardboard.
Now.. With LEGO you can play with the same brick you had 20 years ago and not skip a beat.. YOu can play by yourself, you can constantly change it, it does not have to stay as one form.
Could this LEGO 'bubble' burst? Sure.. But would not compare it to Baseball cards or Beanies for that matter.. this is a functional toy that stands the test of time.. as long as LEGO does not return to bad junior-ization habits like the late 90's (or as I like to call it LEGOs' own 'dark age')
10179 is the benchmark to which all other sets will be compared to pricewise. As it continues to rise so will the other usual suspects. IMO 10179 has a long way to go.....$2500 will be very cheap in 10 years. Just MO.
I view Lego sets and themes in a similar manner as the Micky Mantle baseball card reference. What was an awesome, desirable set to children in the '70s may simply be another box of bricks to future generations.
Sure, the bricks can still be great & useful for building all sorts of MOCs, but let's face it: A 570 Fire House is very plain and "meh" compared to the 10197 Fire Brigade in the eyes of pretty much anyone who doesn't have some measure of nostalgia for it based on their childhood memories.
As a kid, I thought the early space sets (483, 487) were totally awesome. Yeah, I still have some nostalgia for them, but there's no way I'd even pay hundreds, let alone thousands, of dollars to obtain the same sets today. Yes, hardcore collectors that are "completists" may pay a premium, but I think that's only a subset of the AFOL community. When one simply loves to build & create cities, stand alone MOCs, SW dioramas, etc, but has a limited budget, they tend to choose sets with the most "bang for their buck".
Regarding the bulk of TLG's target market: Kids, my 8 year old son would much rather have the Town Hall or a Ninjago set than pretty much anything from 20+ years ago. His future children may have similar feelings toward most of the sets & themes from 2012.
If sets from the '60s & '70s were still what kids all over the world craved from Santa Clause, there would be no need to come out with newer & better (in most cases) designs year after year.
Cafe Corner was indeed a groundbreaking set, and it's still unique & very desirable because there's really nothing to directly compare it with and a new & improved version hasn't been designed yet. However, from a design standpoint, it's already been dated by the modular sets that followed it in many aspects. How's it gonna look in 20 years compared what might be available then? If the comparison was similar to 570 & 10197, how many Lego fans (of any age) will still be in the market for Cafe Corner at $1200?
-Mike
-Mike
Even if they are still going for $1,500, that is a terrible 20 year investment. They would have to be going for $5K or more to make it worth it. Do you REALLY see them going for $2.50 a part in 20 years?
Ok, maybe, but the number sold at that price would be very small indeed.
I was a huge Lego fan when I was a kid, which was over 20 years ago, but I haven't a clue as to what I "missed out on", I don't know any of the sets I had, other than "Lego sets that were cool".
I'm sure not trying to collect 80's sets, they are not up to current standards anyway...
And if there are very few sealed box sets AND someone really wants one, then Id say someone would pay.. but that is just my opinion
Like @doriansdad said, a large portion of the consumer base for a lot of big sets seems to be intelligent adults with a nice bank account and a background in either computer science or engineering. For many, the love of Lego is truly real and not just a phase. These people, combined with the growing popularity of Lego, will sustain the market for some time. Prices will drop over time, but only when sets reach past their peak popularity in the aftermarket.
I suppose my point is that there are better long term investments than Lego. Lego might make a decent short term investment, but for 20 years? There are no Lego sets, that I am aware of, that have ever provided a good return on investment over 10 years. None, zero, nadda.
If you can think of one, I'm all ears...
But even investing in 10030 for $279 10 years ago... Today that set is worth $1,200, or about 4.3 times the original purchase price.
Ok, I'll grant you, that is a good return over 10 years, if you could have guessed that it was THAT set to buy. Will it go to $5,161 in 2022? That is what would be required to duplicate it.
The truth is, I doubt it, I think it has found the peak, it will go level for awhile, then down from here. I know this set because I've been active with it, but I was buying this set for $750 just before Christmas, so that is a return of 2.7 over 10 years, much less interesting, but still not horrible.
Now rewind to 2002, you don't know what 2012 will look like... What do you buy and invest in? UCS Sets? Maybe, but they were brand new then, no track record.
In 2012, what do you buy? 10221? UCS SSD? 10188? 10197?
Those all seem "obvious", and rarely is that successful.
So the trick is that you need to pick out the sets that no one else is watching. Who saw 10195 going to $350 that fast? That is nearly triple what it was on Black Friday, wish I'd bought a hundred of them. :) but then no one was watching it.
People are now just starting to watch IS (10212) I think, which might kill it.
If you take the safe path and spread your money across many sets, the duds will kill the returns on the stars. The same thing happens in the stock market. If you had purchased $10,000 worth of Apple stock in 2002, that would have bought you 820.34 shares of Apple.
Today, that is now worth $434,881.05
Who would have called THAT! :)
For a theme like SW, everything had been done before at least once - when the new version is out it generally hammers the resale of the old version as the new version is generally a lot better than the last one - look at the latest Tie and Slave I. Will Lego promise not to release updates to UCS models that have already been out? MF could be done so much better, with a usable interior. There always seems to be scope for improvement. For me 3 years seems to be the max out for resale - almost no risk of a redo by Lego in that timescale on a retired set.
But for those of us in it, it can be highly enjoyable and lucrative. And completely baffling to everyone else who doesn't 'get it'. ;-)
The stories I could tell of the the sets that I assembled via BL, piece-by-piece, and then sold as complete sets on feeBay are worth it alone. The tidy profit doesn't hurt either...
If not, no problem, it can be a hobby if you like, but it is something to be considered...
It is probably at the top of the price curve right, so while it will keep going "up", you have to consider that against inflation and the rise in the cost of everything else.
The time to sell it is now, the waiting period is over for that set. :)
That being said, it is starting to recover, and sells well, so the only real problem with it is that Lego produced way too many of them in a short period of time.
It will probably settle around $30-35 a copy come Christmas.
CTT was the deal to have, and the first to sell out.
6390 was released in 1980 and retailed for $40 US. It had 591 pieces and it's price per piece was 6.768 cents.
10041 was released in 2003 and retailed for $65 US. It had more pieces (622) and it's ppp was 8.037 cents.
Based on this information, it's easy to say that indeed Lego sets cost more than they did 20 years ago, but I do not think it's that simple. The purchasing power of $40 in 1980's dollars could purchase $89.30 in 2003. This is calculated by the percentage of the Consumer Price Index from 1980 to 2003. Based on this information, paying $65 for basically the same set that came out in 1980 seems like a bargain.