Are the mosaics worth the money? ?

[JRBricks]

Excellent points @ShaydDeGrai, very well said. We all have definition of what is valuable to us and to each his own. I grew up very modestly too and at times have been through up and downs financially. I am grateful to be able now to afford a little income towards Lego, even some higher end sets that I certainly couldn’t have afforded in my younger years (such as 3 mosaic sets!) And yes Lego has a lot of intrinsic value and I hope we all can enjoy this great hobby no matter who we are. 

[JintaiZ]

1 hour ago, JRBricks said:

Excellent points @ShaydDeGrai, very well said. We all have definition of what is valuable to us and to each his own. I grew up very modestly too and at times have been through up and downs financially. I am grateful to be able now to afford a little income towards Lego, even some higher end sets that I certainly couldn’t have afforded in my younger years (such as 3 mosaic sets!) And yes Lego has a lot of intrinsic value and I hope we all can enjoy this great hobby no matter who we are. 

I certainly get your opinion. Different sets appeal to different people.

I really like these sets, so I won't hesitate to grab them at a discount. But for $120 just meh.

[MAB]

18 hours ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

Well, speaking as a former kid of modest means (i.e. there were times when putting food on the table was an issue) who grew up with Lego envy, Lego has always been a luxury item, some people were just well enough off not to realize it.  Personally, I've come a long way and I reward myself by making Lego my vice of choice, but I still recognize its expensive and some sets have more intrinsic "value" than others.  As I think @MAB pointed out, that "value" really varies with the nature of the consumer.  Is it the subject matter? The build experience? The number or variety of parts? The play or display factor after you're done? The minifigs? Different people want different things and how much they are _willing_ to pay to get what they want versus what "the system" requires then to pay really defines "value."

Exactly. I see the mosaics and the SW ones are a theme I like. I used to make lots of mosaics in the past and I'd probably enjoy building them although not as much as I used to enjoy the process of designing my own. They'd take a while to build due to the nature of mosaic building, so get a tick for (some) play value. I can afford three, so I could build each, then combine them to make the big Vader one. But from my past experience with mosaics, I'm unlikely to display them for much longer than 3-4 months in my office. Mosaics don't look very good unless you are at least 6-8 feet away. So where I'd put them makes me think they are not such great value to me. Rather than spending the $400 or whatever on three, I'd prefer to get a decent poster frame and rotate repro posters in it. They are better value to me - there is no play or build value, or resale value, but the display value is much higher. Whereas if I displayed LEGO in my living area (I don't, just in my office and in my LEGO room), then having those mosaics on the wall might give them more value to me. Value is so much more than number of parts, or weight of parts, or even what the parts are. It depends totally on what the person is going to do with them.

 

[JintaiZ]

20 minutes ago, MAB said:

Exactly. I see the mosaics and the SW ones are a theme I like. I used to make lots of mosaics in the past and I'd probably enjoy building them although not as much as I used to enjoy the process of designing my own. They'd take a while to build due to the nature of mosaic building, so get a tick for (some) play value. I can afford three, so I could build each, then combine them to make the big Vader one. But from my past experience with mosaics, I'm unlikely to display them for much longer than 3-4 months in my office. Mosaics don't look very good unless you are at least 6-8 feet away. So where I'd put them makes me think they are not such great value to me. Rather than spending the $400 or whatever on three, I'd prefer to get a decent poster frame and rotate repro posters in it. They are better value to me - there is no play or build value, or resale value, but the display value is much higher. Whereas if I displayed LEGO in my living area (I don't, just in my office and in my LEGO room), then having those mosaics on the wall might give them more value to me. Value is so much more than number of parts, or weight of parts, or even what the parts are. It depends totally on what the person is going to do with them.

 

But then the part out value might be even lower, even though when you add shipping it isn't as cheap...

[howitzer]

For me the most interesting thing about the mosaic sets is the new brick separator. Those basebricks are interesting too, but I don't think I'd have that much of practical use for them in the end. Maybe if I had many of them (like couple dozen) but buying those secondhand would get expensive fast unless they are available in B&P...

Anyway, considering the parts the price is pretty absurd for what you get, the 18+ tag combined with the display piece-purpose is probably why TLG thinks they can charge so much for these. Time will tell if they thought correctly.

As others have pointed out, price per piece seems low but when you examine the parts it really isn't. Price per gram is more telling, and shows you the low value of these sets.

Someone on Eurobricks did some statistical analysis comparing PPP and PPG as a metric for set value, and while both are generally pretty good, PPG correlates better with price. They used the whole set (including instructions and packaging) as opposed to only using the weight of the finished set for the calculations, as whole set weights are easily available for wide variety of sets in Brickset and other sites, while weights for finished sets aren't. PPP is mostly good metric too, but some special cases throw it off, like sets with a lot of electronics (few but expensive parts) or sets like ISD, which have a lot of large plates etc. which again skew the average because of their relative cost to produce. I'm sure the mosaics are also outliers with PPP metric, but to the other direction as you get a huge number of very small parts. PPG metric is better, because large, heavy parts are also more expensive, including motors and such.

Again, though, PPP is a good way to measure set value for vast majority of sets and PPG is only better when considering the outlier sets.

As Classic sets were mentioned, I really don't think they aren't that good value either, or maybe for some they are but not for me. I'd be more interested in that style of sets, but with just a few colours in them. I'd love to see general parts packs with colour themes, like various reds in one box, various blues in another, and grayscale in yet another. But the rainbow colouring doesn't really work for me.

[JintaiZ]

5 hours ago, howitzer said:

For me the most interesting thing about the mosaic sets is the new brick separator. Those basebricks are interesting too, but I don't think I'd have that much of practical use for them in the end. Maybe if I had many of them (like couple dozen) but buying those secondhand would get expensive fast unless they are available in B&P...

Anyway, considering the parts the price is pretty absurd for what you get, the 18+ tag combined with the display piece-purpose is probably why TLG thinks they can charge so much for these. Time will tell if they thought correctly.

As others have pointed out, price per piece seems low but when you examine the parts it really isn't. Price per gram is more telling, and shows you the low value of these sets.



Someone on Eurobricks did some statistical analysis comparing PPP and PPG as a metric for set value, and while both are generally pretty good, PPG correlates better with price. They used the whole set (including instructions and packaging) as opposed to only using the weight of the finished set for the calculations, as whole set weights are easily available for wide variety of sets in Brickset and other sites, while weights for finished sets aren't. PPP is mostly good metric too, but some special cases throw it off, like sets with a lot of electronics (few but expensive parts) or sets like ISD, which have a lot of large plates etc. which again skew the average because of their relative cost to produce. I'm sure the mosaics are also outliers with PPP metric, but to the other direction as you get a huge number of very small parts. PPG metric is better, because large, heavy parts are also more expensive, including motors and such.

Again, though, PPP is a good way to measure set value for vast majority of sets and PPG is only better when considering the outlier sets.

As Classic sets were mentioned, I really don't think they aren't that good value either, or maybe for some they are but not for me. I'd be more interested in that style of sets, but with just a few colours in them. I'd love to see general parts packs with colour themes, like various reds in one box, various blues in another, and grayscale in yet another. But the rainbow colouring doesn't really work for me.

I absolutely agree. Also, you can't compare a set with almost all studs with a regular set.