The Price of Lego 2

After reading Andrew Seilen's blog post comparing the price of Lego over the last 20 years or so, I decided to take a look at pricing myself.  Not in the mood to do a ton of work even though there was a blizzard outside I figured using two new lines released in 2013 would be easiest.  The Galaxy Squad and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lines have a similar number of sets and would also allow me to compare licensed versus regular sets.

Theme:	TMNT	Brickset	Bricklink			Brickset	Bricklink
Number	Title	Pieces	Pieces	Minifigs	MSRP	PpP	PpP
79100	Kraang Lab Escape	90	83	2	$12.99	$0.14	$0.16
79102	Stealth Shell in Pursuit	162	150	3	$19.99	$0.12	$0.13
79101	Shredder's Dragon Bike	198	185	3	$24.99	$0.13	$0.14
79105	Baxter Robot Rampage	397	371	5	$39.99	$0.10	$0.11
79103	Turtle Lair Attack	488	469	5	$49.99	$0.10	$0.11
79104	The Shellraiser Street Chase	620	599	5	$59.99	$0.10	$0.10
	Totals:	1955	1857	23	$207.94	$0.69	$0.75
	Average:	326	310	3.8	$34.66	$0.12	$0.13
Theme:	Galaxy Squad	Brickset	Bricklink			Brickset	Bricklink
Number	Title	Pieces	Pieces	Minifigs	MSRP	PpP	PpP
70700	Space Swarmer	86	75	2	$11.99	$0.14	$0.16
70701	Swarm Interceptor	218	206	2	$19.99	$0.09	$0.10
70702	Warp Stinger	310	290	3	$29.99	$0.10	$0.10
70703	Star Slicer	311	300	3	$39.99	$0.13	$0.13
70704	Vermin Vaporizer	506	494	3	$59.99	$0.12	$0.12
70705	Bug Obliterator	711	688	4	$79.99	$0.11	$0.12
	Totals:	2142	2053	17	$241.94	$0.69	$0.73
	Average:	357	342	2.8	$40.32	$0.12	$0.12

Hopefully you can read the columns as they're set up.  And before you complain, I only run "Price per Piece" out two digits because you can't pay less than a penny for something.  Anyway.

That's some interesting information right there.  Admittedly this is a small sample size. Depending on which set of statistics you use the Price per Piece comparison is either the same or fairly close.  Of course this falls prey to the same thing that the original blog post did -- the Law of Averages.  Given a wide enough range and enough data points, any set of information can be made to look reasonable.  It's only when you start to look at individual data points when things stand out and you go, "Hey, wait."  I think what I find the most interesting is the difference in how Brickset and Bricklink treat piece counts.  Brickset includes minifigs in that total -- just like Lego -- and Bricklink doesn't.  I prefer the Bricklink version more.  Because, unless you are the type to disassemble minifigs and use the parts in Microscale building, minifigs are going to sit on the side unused.  Another interesting point is how many pieces you lose to minifigs depending on the set.