Lego is a better investment than gold

Do your children want a Lego set from Santa? Same thing happens for their birthdays or Easter ? Since my kids were 4-5 years, we are keeping it so. We now have boxes with Lego pieces and we got to walk on parts at night or to find some small or bigger pieces in all corners of our house. Yet, we still have intact sets, beautiful assembled and placed on shelves.

They’re playing almost daily with them or with parts from Lego boxes or sets that are still complete. Until now I considered that it is a quality ‘investment’. Lego toys are developing 3D view, teach kids to build after some specifications or it develops their architectural creativity because it allows them to build freely with all the parts they have (and they acquired enough). It seems that the anger to see Lego pieces around the house, or the pain to see that the set they want it cost several hundred, it might pay off.

I recently found out something fascinating! An article from “The Telegraph” shows that investment in Lego can be more efficient than the one in gold. According to this article, the value of gold has increased by 9.6% per year, while the value of Lego sets has increased by 12%. But let’s not celebrate too quickly! Don’t rush to the attic or your children’s playroom to do a Lego inventory! It’s not as simple as it seems. To make a profit from children’s toys, you need to have full sets (all parts), construction manuals, and the original box of the set. If you don’t have everything complete, the profit isn’t as significant. There are collectors who keep their sets for years in perfect condition and then sell them for a profit.

The article gives us some examples, and we extracted below the Star Wars collection which is very known by our children.

“Millennium Falcon” nave, from the Star Wars collection, from 2007, which was purchased with £342, it was sold now with £2712.
Again from Star Wars collection: “Death Star II” from 2005, purchased with £249 and sold now with £1524.

It seems that the set dimension it is not important at all because even the smallest sets had price increases. Same, it seems that the title of the collection, or the fact that Star Wars was relaunched this year it is not important because other collections and sets had also price increases:

Lego set from the Harry Potter collection, “Rescue from the Merpeople”, from 2005, increased from £14 to £168.
Lego set from the Batman collection “The Batboat: Hunt for Killer Croc” in 2016, increased from £14 to £167.

This article brought a smile to my face, especially because in recent years, my little boy hasn’t wanted to throw away any Lego boxes. As a result, we now have about 10 boxes of Lego sets. If we keep them for around 10 years, maybe we will make a few hundred pounds from them. However, it will be quite difficult for us to gather all the necessary parts to complete a set from all the boxes we have, as we use them a lot to unleash creativity.

This week, they presented me with something they had worked on: a scene where the band AC/DC was performing. The entrance to the concert was through doors from the “police station” set (Lego City). The audience at the concert sat on improvised chairs and was made up of characters from Star Wars: Darth Maul, Darth Vader, and Kylo Ren, along with figurines from Lego Chima, such as Laval the Lion and others.

On stage, the band was formed of a guitarist, a drummer playing improvised drums, and a vocalist holding a lever instead of a microphone. The scene also had spotlights, possibly from the “police station” set or another one—who knows? They even included fireworks on stage and a place for the audience to serve coffee.

If you find yourself in a situation like ours, where the Lego goldmine is spread across several boxes, there are other solutions for recovery—you just need to be creative. If you are truly an artist, you can create works of art that fetch prices over $60,000.

And the best part is that Lego is not just for our children. I recently attended a workshop where, in addition to the usual discussions and presentations, we also expressed ourselves by building with Lego.

In 1996, the company patented “Lego Serious Play,” a very exciting and innovative method of facilitation. I was so thrilled to go home and tell my kids that I worked with Lego at the office today.

I don’t know what the future holds for us, but one thing is certain: we still love collecting castles, Chima vehicles, Star Wars ships, Minecraft Ender Dragons, and anything new that comes out.