When I created BrickWhisperer, I wanted to do something different. Other Lego-focused blogs post plenty of product reviews and general information, but I wanted to bring real experiments to the world of Lego Blogging. So, I did just that.
On this page, I post my findings and link to my spreadsheets, graphs, and other experimentation methods. I hope you find it as interesting as I do.
July 26, 2022 – Lego Set Valuation Study with & without Instructions / Box, and Opened/Unopened.
I was curious whether or not it’s worth keeping a Lego set’s box or instruction manual. To see how the amount a Lego set sells for with and without its box and instruction manual, I compared 7 Lego Sets I own across various themes. I found the following:
- Opened Lego sets without a box or instruction manual dropped 55.75% in value on average.
- Opened Lego sets without a box, but with its instruction manual, dropped 52.55% in value on average.
- Opened Lego sets with their original box and instruction manual dropped 45.25% in value on average.
- By keeping a lego set’s instruction manual, but not the box, it will sell for 3.20% more on average.
- By keeping a lego set’s box and instruction manual, it will sell for 10.50% more on average.
- Just by opening a lego set, it loses 45.25% of its value on average.
| Lego Set Name | No Box or Instructions (Avg) | Instructions (Avg) | Box & Instructions (Avg) | Unopened (Avg) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lego City Dump Truck 7631 | $35.15 | $37.47 | $44.17 | $88.18 |
| Lego Star Wars Battle of Endor 8038 | $147.79 | $166.32 | $208.53 | $292.37 |
| Lego Star Wars Naboo Starfighter 7877 | $54.78 | $62.83 | $87.74 | $141.66 |
| Lego Marvel Avengers Thanos 76141 | $11.30 | $11.87 | N/a | $17.96 |
| Lego City Airport 3182 | $99.43 | $104.75 | $127.35 | $287.91 |
| Lego Star Wars Slave 1 8097 | $104.21 | $102.44 | $127.64 | $213.26 |
| Lego SpongeBob SquarePants Krusty Krab 3825 | $58.92 | $64.98 | $70.40 | $171.39 |
I highly recommend you view my Google Spreadsheet for this study to see all of the data collected. I gathered the data from eBay.com. I set the filter for each set to “Sold Listings” and gathered all of the transactions eBay displayed. This usually spans over the past three months.
I ignored sets that were incomplete, damaged, or missing pieces.
August 8, 2022 – The difference in cost between buying entire Lego Sets vs individual Lego pieces.
With the rising prices of Lego sets, I wondered if I could save money if I bought the Lego pieces individually from various suppliers. With pieces costing as little as 1 cent, I thought this was feasible. Here’s what I found:
- Buying individual Lego pieces for an entire set cost 86.27% more than buying from Lego.com on average.
- Buying individual Lego pieces for an entire set, but without the Minifigures, cost 41.61% more than buying from Lego.com on average.
- There was no instance where buying an entire set’s Lego pieces individually was cheaper than buying the complete set on Lego.com.
I highly recommend you view my Google Spreadsheet for this study to see all of the data collected. I sourced the pieces from Bricklink.com using their “smart buy” option. This compares various brick sellers and their shipping methods to find the lowest price possible for each combination of bricks. The prices were compared to Lego.com’s current price for each set on August 8, 2022.