The Price of Lego 5

Let's compare two newly released homegrown Lego lines.

Elves line.
Number	Title	Theme	Year	Pieces	Minidolls	MSRP	PpP
41071	Aira's Workshop	Elves	2015	98	2	$9.99	$0.10
41076	Farran ... Hollow	Elves	2015	175	2	$14.99	$0.09
41072	Nadia's ... Secret	Elves	2015	249	2	$19.99	$0.08
41074	Azari ... Bakery	Elves	2015	324	3	$29.99	$0.09
41073	Naida's ... Ship	Elves	2015	312	2	$29.99	$0.10
41075	Elves' ... Hideaway	Elves	2015	505	4	$49.99	$0.10
			Total:	1663	15	$154.94	$0.56
			Average:	277	2.5	$25.82	$0.09
City: Swamp line
Number	Title	Theme	Year	Pieces	Minifigs	MSRP	PpP
60065	ATV Patrol	City	2015	59	2	$6.99	$0.12
60070	Water Plane Chase	City	2015	263	2	$29.99	$0.11
60067	Helicopter Pursuit	City	2015	253	3	$39.99	$0.16
60071	Hovercraft Arrest	City	2015	331	3	$44.99	$0.14
60068	Crooks Hideout	City	2015	473	5	$69.99	$0.15
60069	Swamp Police Station	City	2015	707	6	$89.99	$0.13
			Totals:	2086	21	$281.94	$0.80
			Average:	348	3.5	$46.99	$0.13

Wow, that's interesting.  Elves has less overall and average pieces but lower overall and average price, also the better Price per Piece and less figures -- I'm counting the animals in the Elves set as figures because that's essentially what they are.  Elves also has the better Price Per Piece.  Which is odd because it's a new line, with new pieces and colors, and City is the established one.

The Price of Lego 4

The first time I did this I was comparing the prices of several sets in two different lines from Lego.  This time around I'm just going to be looking at one, the Lego Movie line.

All of these sets feature some wacky combination of genres, like the way we used to build when we were kids.  This leads to a wide selection of parts in each set.  And, to top it all off, more than half of the sets feature a Price-Per-Peice lower than the Golden Ratio.  All the information has been pulled from Brickset this time around as Bricklink still has not completed inventories on some of the sets in the line.

Number	Title	Theme	Year	Pieces	Minifigs	MSRP	PpP
70800	Getaway Glider	Lego Movie	2014	104	3	$12.99	$0.13
70801	Melting Room	Lego Movie	2014	122	3	$12.99	$0.11
70802	Bad Cop's Pursuit	Lego Movie	2014	314	2	$29.99	$0.10
70803	Cloud Cuckoo Palace	Lego Movie	2014	197	3	$19.99	$0.10
70804	Ice Cream Machine	Lego Movie	2014	344	3	$29.99	$0.08
70805	Trash Chomper	Lego Movie	2014	389	3	$29.99	$0.08
70806	Castle Cavalry	Lego Movie	2014	424	3	$29.99	$0.07
70807	Metalbeard's Duel	Lego Movie	2014	412	3	$34.99	$0.09
70808	Super Cycle Chase	Lego Movie	2014	514	4	$49.99	$0.10
70809	Lord Business' Evil Lair	Lego Movie	2014	738	6	$69.99	$0.10
70811	Flying Flusher	Lego Movie	2014	351	3	$29.99	$0.09
70812	Creative Ambush	Lego Movie	2014	473	4	$39.99	$0.09
70813	Rescue Reinforcements	Lego Movie	2014	859	5	$69.99	$0.08
			Totals:	3771	45	$460.87	$1.22
			Average:	403	3.5	$35.45	$0.09

So, if the average price-per-piece of the line is $0.09, why can't Lego do this with more of their sets?  I can understand Star Wars and the superhero sets being expensive as you have to pay off licensing fees.  The City line, on the other hand, has been ruinously expensive lately and that makes no sense at all.  Anyway.  If you see these sets on sale, buy them.  Eleven of thirteen are at or below the Golden Ratio.  How can you go wrong with that?

In case you haven't figured it out, this post is a sneaky way of saying all of these are Good Sets for Parts.  Except for maybe the two smallest sets.  :-)

The Price of Lego 3

I wasn't planning on doing a blog post today.  But I read a really interesting article on Brickset that I just had to share.

Michael Bradford has done some stunning work researching the PpP of Lego Pick-A-Brick cups.  Here's his 10 page paper showing his results.

I'm going to have to look into this "K2 box" he mentions.

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.

The Price of Lego

This blog post was pointed out to me on January 18th by +Nick May.

Brickset posted an article about it on January 21st.  There is some good discussion going on there.

Andrew Sielen has written a post on his blog looking at the  current price of Lego and comparing that to the Lego prices of the past.  He comes to a few interesting conclusions.


There's something about this article that bothers me.  I can't figure out what it is though.  I'm sure that he's correct in general that Lego prices on average haven't gone up and that it's age/reporting bias that makes us think so.  But I think his conclusion that licensed sets are no more expensive than regular sets is wrong.  I suspect it may come from the inclusion of the Ultimate Collector sets in with the regular sets.  Even though they're licensed sets, they're not part of the regular line and the low PpP (Price per Piece) helps to drive the average down equal to the non-licensed sets.

It is a good read though.