In a report that was most likely published just so some writer could justify spending a bunch of money on awesome Lego sets, The Telegraph has declared that Lego is a better investment than gold or the stock market. Apparently, while traditional investment outlets have done effectively nothing over the past 15 years, the average Lego set has increased in value by 12 percent annually. On top of that, the report also notes that more recent sets are worth even more money, with some released just last year going for 36 percent over the original retail price.
The reasoning for this is that Lego discontinues sets all the time and replaces them with new ones, but thanks to the standardization of Lego bricks and the unstoppable nature of plastic, there’s nothing inherently outdated about an older set. Plus, if Lego loses the licensing rights for a movie or TV show, all of the sets within that theme are pulled from shelves, making them significantly more rare and more valuable. As the founder of a Lego investment website puts it, this constant turnover means that “anyone with a set at home—large or small, it doesn’t matter—could have quite an investment on their hands.”
The key to investing in Lego, unfortunately, is that the sets have to be kept in their original packaging. That means you either have to sit there and ignore the box constantly taunting you and begging you to rip it open and build that sweet police station, or you buy two of the sets and patiently wait to make your money back in a few years. Also, Lego sets from before 2000 aren’t worth much money, so nobody’s going to dig up the Lego equivalent of Action Comics #1 and make a billion dollars. Unsurprisingly, though, some of the most valuable sets tend to be the ones with special nerd value, namely the Star Wars-branded ones, so it sounds like going out to Target right now and picking up some of those rad Force Awakens sets would not only be a lot of fun, it would also be a wise investment. (Feel free to share this story with your parents and/or spouse.)