Lego sets have a scarcity factor that is fueling a pricey resale market, making some sets worth as much as $16,000.
The New York Times reports that this has led to Lego kits (Lego—and the NYT—note that the plural of Lego is Lego, not Legos) being considered a collector’s item, like Pokémon cards. It has also led to a thriving criminal network of thieves looking for their next plastic brick score.
A few weeks ago, a 29-year-old man was arrested for two separate Lego heists in California, one where he is accused of stealing 200 Lego boxes, and another alleged robbery of over $10,000 worth of Lego merchandise. Last year, thieves in Oregon were caught stealing 4,000 Lego sets worth more than $200,000, and robbers in California stole more than $100,000 worth of Lego sets and accessories from a store there. The owner of that shop said the stolen items were on eBay within hours.
“It’s really ramped up in the last five, six years,” Meghan DeGoey, the owner of a toy store with eight locations in Northern California, told the New York Times.
DeGoey said that her stores recently had $7,000 worth of Lego sets stolen.
Shane O’Farrell, the YouTube creator behind “Bricks Bucks,” a Lego-investing and reselling channel, told the New York Times that the reason why Lego sets increase in value is because of the way the system is set up: A kit spends about two years on store shelves max, and then isn’t manufactured again.
According to BrickEconomy, a website dedicated to the “economics of Lego,” the most valuable Lego set right now is a “new and sealed San Diego Comic-Con 2013 Spider-Man.” It’s estimated to be worth $16,846 today, with an average annual growth of about 10.8%, according to the outlet.
There are several other expensive sets listed, including a T-rex kit worth nearly $9,000.
In 2024, Artnet reported that a rare Lego minifigure from the 2000s found at a Goodwill in Pennsylvania sold for almost $20,000 at auction.
So, it might be time to check your old toy bins and closets.
O’Farrell told the New York Times that he made $250,000 last year and has made even more than that in the past when he put more time into reselling.
Never, ever “legos.” We would say LEGO bricks as the word “LEGO” should always be used to describe another word.
— LEGO (@LEGO_Group) March 20, 2017
Related: World’s Largest Toy Maker Abandons Initiative to Make Recycled Plastic Toys
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