The price of a Brick

[asielen]

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to share this article I wrote about the price of a LEGO brick overtime. There seems to be a lot of misconceptions about LEGO brick pricing so I decided to write a program to compile data from all the major LEGO sites (brickset, bricklink, peeron) and do an evaluation on it.

After going through about 10,000 items in the online catalog between the three sites this is what I came up with.

What Happened With LEGO, The Price of a Brick

Let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions for a followup!

[nikink]

That is a fantastic essay. :) Thanks!

[Cara]

That was a really informative article, thank you.

[daisy]

Excellent article. Nice to see a mathematical analysis. I have never perceived lego as increasing in price, because I remember how little we had of it as children since it was expensive. I am glad I can afford it for my kids ( and myself) because I still believe it is of excellent quality.

[Grimmbeard]

Great article! nice graphs and analysis

[Ralph]

Great work, very interesting results!

[eurotrash]

As a professional number-geeky analyst I really appreciated the hard work you put into that document. And the results were unexpected.

Thanks for sharing it with us!

[asielen]

Thank you all! Let me know if you have any questions.

[RodimusMike]

Hey asielen,thanks for posting that page.But the past couple of weeks I have been to Walmart and found 8 or 10 Lego sets that went on clearance and I ended up getting them for almost or better than half price,like Star Wars Darth Maul Sith Infiltrator for $27 regular $60,7942 City Off Road Fire Rescue for $5 regular $11,and Clone Wars 7964 Republic Frigate for $44.50 regular $100.00 I think.But my point is this that even tho your news is right I really think even better prices can be found if you look for them,so instead of paying say roughly 10 or 11 cents per lego piece you would pay only 5 cents apiece or whatever.

Also I am not arguing with you about that I just wanted to add that for reference.I still like your post about it tho.

[harmacy]

Wonderful article! This should be mandatory reading for every Lego fan!

[HawkLord]

Highly informative. The graphs really help and it's all presented in a very professional way.

[bpbill]

Great article and an enjoyable read. Thanks for sharing it.

[antp]

Like other comments, nice info and article :)

I haven't yet read all (just read quickly), and I wonder if the graphs for Europe would be the same, as Lego prices do not really reflect the exchange rates changes.

[Maxim I]

Wow, this really surprised me!!!

And then considering that inflation isn't calculated!

I have to agree on this, around the years 2000, you had really big sets for 60$, but it was full of holes and openings...

Then I like much more the new smaller sets for the same price but which are full of details

[legolijntje]

This is a really great article.

Nicely written, good graphs, interesting information. Great :thumbup:

[XimenaPaulina]

Thank you for this highly informative article Andrew! I really appreciate all the extensive statistical research and excellent graphical presentation that went into making this write-up (I did a similar statistical reasearch before, though covering a different topic and on a much much smaller scale than this massive effort of yours, so I could realy relate on all the hardwork you've put into this )

This has really been insightful and I hope many FOLs would be able to read this so they would be better informed. Most of the time, people are quick to complain about the price of LEGO without really looking at the real picture (or are just simply lazy to be bothered to check the facts), so this study you conducted really puts into perspective the historical truth behind the pricing of LEGO.

Once again, thanks for the great article and you've done the whole FOL community a huge service with this highly educational study.

[Vincent Kessels]

The funny thing is that in my perception the price decreased in stead of increased, because when I was young I only got one of the bigger sets for my birthday if I was lucky. Nowadays I can buy multiple large sets per year.

[Bobsy]

Fantastic article, very informative. Now I'd be interested to see this compared with GBP and Euros, except of course the latter would be a nightmare to do since you'd be comparing Euro prices with pre-Euro prices in a whole bunch of different currencies.

[ShaydDeGrai]

Great article. It really speaks to my 10-15 cents per brick "value gauge" that I've been carrying around in my head since the days when gasoline was $2.50 a gallon but always questioned "has the price _really_ not changed that much?" Well, now I know.

I, for one, find LEGO sets more affordable than ever, but I know my opinion is heavily biased from personal experience. I DID grow up knowing the value of money because my family didn't have much of it. When I managed to earn a dollar here or there (raking leaves, shoveling snow, dropping flyers in peoples mail boxes, etc) I was expected to contribute at least half of what I made to the house fund to help pay for groceries. Back in those days a 25 piece stocking stuffer from LEGO _was_ the Taj Mahal to me. I've come a long way in the intervening decades and I'm very happy to know that LEGO is still with us and, now that I can afford them, is offering me plenty of excellent options.

[Sid Sidious]

It's nice to see an essay written about price that isn't just, "Every set was better when I was younger, period. And those damn kids stayed off my lawn too."

[shadowhearth]

Now i feel better on that 177eu order i placed last night at lego.com

Admit it, that was the reason for article! A very good read, thanks!

[uberbricker]

I enjoyed reading this, thanks for all the work. I wonder if the piece count is a good way of calculating cost increase since it seems to be that there are a lot more small pieces in lego sets these days than there used to be. It would be interesting to see a price to piece number and price to piece weight comparison between sets a decade or two apart.

[Bobsy]

Now i feel better on that 177eu order i placed last night at lego.com

Don't. Remember that this is only strictly relevant to US customers, since it deals with the American dollar and its inflation rate since the 50s. Outside the US the situation may be different (though not necessarily) since our respective currencies have risen and fallen at different rates and amounts. And like I said upthread, the switch to the Euro would make similar articles for, for instance, Ireland, very difficult indeed.

[LEGO Historian]

Very interesting thread!! Thanks for all the information asielen!

Here some tidbits of information you might find useful... from my LEGO DVD download.... from the chapters on Retailer and Customer LEGO Catalogs.

This is historical information from Denmark only, and cover the years 1949-65... the years that Denmark sold bricks as individual parts.

During that era (until 1965) Denmark only sold regular bricks as individual parts (other countries sold them only in spare parts packs). Here are parts of 4 catalog images that give the price of individual LEGO bricks during the 1953-65 era. These are priced in "øre" or 1/100ths of a Danish Kroner. The prices do show increases... there are 3 price ranges due to inflation of the Kroner... 1953-56... 1957-63... and 1964-65. (I only show images of parts of both the 1957 and 1963 catalogs to show that the prices did not increase in that time frame.) Also shown are the classic LEGO windows/doors (introduced in Nov. 1957 in Denmark, and the price of them did not change from 1958-63). These were sold as individual parts in all of continental Europe as well as Denmark.

Also, from 1949-52... the 2x2 and 2x4 bricks were the only brick sizes that LEGO produced, and sold as individual parts. Their prices (from the TLG Archives) were 0,06 øre and 0,11 øre respectively during that 1949-52 era.

The prices in the 1964-65 era are hard to read so here they are: 1/2 - 0,06, 2x2 - 0,10, 2x3 - 0,12, 2x4 - 0,16, 4x4 corner - 0,25, 2x8 - 0,30, 2x10 - 035.

Edited January 22, 2013 by LEGO Historian

[Hey Joe]

Thank you all! Let me know if you have any questions.

Is it possible for you to post it (or a condensed version) here? The site where it's posted is blocked here in China. Joe