Are lego prices really that bad today?

[Zarkan]

It's no secret that lego prices have been going up again, with 2011 featuring noticeably lower piece per dollar ratios than the previous few years. This, along with the fact that I'm going off to tech school pretty soon and am running out of room, has disuaded me from buying any brand new lego this year, and I'm sure it has made many an older fan turn down a set here and there in favor of other, cheaper sources of parts and minifigures. However, after pulling out my old Insectoid kits spured me to look online at a 1998 Shop at Home catalog, I was shocked to find that we actually have it pretty good today pricewise, at least compared to the begining of the dark ages. Just look at some of the set listings:

Wild West Rapid River Village: $73.00 for 343 pieces

Town Jr Cargo Center: $52.00 for 228 pieces

Aquazone Hydro Crystalization Station: $99.00 for 422 pieces(!)

UFO Interstellar Starfighter: $88.00 dollars for 289 pieces(!!!!!)

In fact, it's hard to find a kit in that catalog that wasn't significantly below the magic "10 pieces for a dollar" ratio that many long for, and in many cases the piece counts and prices were much worse than what we deal with today. Combined with the gradual decline of set quality, and it's hard to wonder why we call that era the "dark ages." But I think a lot of people mistakenly assume that the main problem early on was in design, when prices were also rapidly degrading in fairness.

So, the next time you find yourself frustrated over the price of a modern kit, just take a look over at Peeron's catalog archives around the begining of the dark ages, and I'm sure you won't be feeling quite as bad.

Edited July 18, 2011 by Zarkan

[JimBee]

Thanks for sharing this, Zarkan. I'm in the same boat as you--I've run out of room, and I need my money for other things. I didn't realize how bad those prices were back then, but keep in mind that this is right around when TLG almost failed.

[Hoboman]

This does raise an interesting counter argument to the "Lego cost is too high" point of view. Thanks for sharing this.

[ZO6]

I don't want to start down a long price rant, but I've generally found that sets of equal price contain around the same amount of plastic even if the piece count is different. Meaning that similarly priced sets should have similar weights. Take $50 sets for example throughout the years, they will all likely be similarly sized even if the piece counts varied. One observation with modern sets though is that we have so many small detail parts (the ever popular cheese slope) that drive up piece counts but don't add much substance to the model.

Some of those sets that were listed, such as the Rapid River Village and Hydro Crystallisation Station - these are both physically large sets. Sure there are a lot of large parts, but there is a lot of plastic being used in those parts. The UFO set - it was pretty large too, and included a micro motor and fiber optics.

But it's only natural Lego prices are rising, after all many things are! Certainly oil prices are skyrocketing. And TLC has figured out how hugely popular minifigures have become and now use them as a massive marketing strategy to get your hard earned money.

[AussieJimbo]

Add 50-100% to the US Dollar price, depending on the set, to get the Australian RRP and then tell me it's not expensive.

:classic:

[ziljin]

prices seem to be based on weight and not piece count. some sets have higher piece counts yea, but like 20% of the pieces will be cheese slopes, horns , and technic pins. Which might not be that useful as bricks and plates. Depends on what each lego fan wants out of the set.

But I definitely notice an increase emphasis on minifigures. Although some are more expensive. Like NinjaGo Spinners. And look at Pirates and Pharoah's Quest Battlepack. They contain less minifigures than the Castle 2007, Kingdoms, and Alien Conquest battlepacks for the same price. And the Star Wars battlepacks are even cheaper and contain an mini vehicle or structure.

Collectible minfiigures are a nice price 3 USD each. But the fact that it is random (which you can bypass of course but it would have been more convenient to be able say 20 spartans, samurai, or elves instead of hunting them down via barcodes/feeling them up or buying them in bulk and hope to get some by luck. Then you compare it to some of the small sets which have a dollar to minifig ratio of around 3-3.5 dollars per minifigure. For that extra 30-50 cents per minfigiure you get a whole bunch of bricks. and in some cases horses which are around a dollar value (making prison carriage resuce an effective army builder in price to minfigiure ratio, 3 per minfigure and 1 for the horse, and the rest of the bricks and minfiigure accessories = free).

Sorry for the long post.

And as some random wise man says "Don't dwell on the past." So even if lego sets are not more expensive than the past sets, you can still realize that some sets seem to be more price effective than others.

[Legofan4ever88]

The prices are really getting to me. I think lego may want to see if they can cut prices back a bit. Except for Collectable minifigures(only the ones I really want) and maybe a few BL items(while i'm going for the figgies), i'm planning on hanging up my lego buying hat after this weekend(Lego store! but that will be scaled back) for now. Sorry lego, but i'm much more concerned about getting an emergency repair fund saved up for my Xl or money for if a 3DS XL is created.

and JO6 has a good point about the increase of small pieces. I noticed that with some of the latest 3-in-1 plastic container sets w/ racers and creator. There's an aweful lot of small bits w/ some of the sets. And that could partically explain why i love the 420 police racer(1973) WAY better then the Urban enforcer(2011) car. There's multiple small pieces on the UE car but only one(1X1 plate on top the car) on the 420 car that I can think of.

While I am planning on keeping my Lego magizine subscription(for now), i am planning on bailing out of the lego catalog(lining up email to lego now). I's just to disturbing to see the high price tags.

[AussieJimbo]

"Collectible minfigures are a nice price 3 USD each."

RRP in Australia is $US5.25, that is not a nice price.

:classic:

[fred67]

It's not entirely lost on me that we've been looking for the "magic" $0.10/piece price ratio since... well... since I came out of my dark ages about 10 years ago.

I have a few things I try to objectively value sets, but it's impossible, but it does make some sets that look like bad deals seem not too bad at all, while other sets seem even worse. At some point, you HAVE to subjectively say "but some pieces are worth more than others."

I don't think prices are any worse than they were 10 years ago when you adjust for inflation. LEGO is expensive, IMO, and it always has been. I didn't buy it when I couldn't afford it... that's all there is to it.

Ultimately, no matter how "logical" you want to be about it, it's entirely subjective and either worth it to you or not.

I'll tell you where I'm getting a bit disappointed... the architecture series. It started out as a premium priced (relative to the pieces you got) series. $20 seemed ridiculous for the Sears Tower and Empire State Building... but it was a nice niche and something serious us architecture fans could display in our offices and so forth, and it was "only" $20. I've kept up with each one until now, but now the next set will be $200.00. Sorry... not going to happen. I just can't see me buying that set. I get so much more from modular buildings costing $50 less, and they're only one a year, so I can afford to keep up without difficulty.

I will add this, too... at my peak I was spending upwards of $6k/year on LEGO (more I think, but I didn't keep very good track and certainly don't want to admit it to my wife). It was ridiculous... I was buying every Star Wars set that came out, Modular, Trains, Castle, any many other various sets from Creator and other themes, plus pick a brick and brick link... Now I'm about half that and falling... haven't bought Star Wars (except a second hand B-Wing here on EB) this year; a couple castle sets... and even though I very much like POTC, I decided there's no way I'd go all in like I'd done with other themes... I got a couple of the cheaper sets, and that's it... if I can get QAR on sale, I'll consider it. I got the Emerald Night and Maersk trains, but no sets, and no intentions to - I simply haven't seen any complete sets I liked in years. Even track I'm getting from ME now... you won't sell straight separate? I'm glad the community came through.

But then I'm an AFOL, so TLG doesn't much care... that's fine, I probably spend too much already... in a way, they're doing me a favor. I'll still be spending a lot on LEGO.

Edited July 18, 2011 by fred67

[22kane]

Back when I was a kid (1980's - early 90's) Legos were expensive period. Even with inflation there isn't that much of a difference in price plus look at the level of detail in today's pieces compared to 20 years ago. Minifigures have facial detailing as well as their bodies, brick colors have expanded drastically as well as hundreds of more complex pieces compared to the basic bricks that once ruled many sets. I actually just got done talking about this same thing a moment ago on a Pirate forum.

Would I love to see lower prices? Absolutely, but then again there are other ways around paying retail price. I have purchased many sets on eBay well below retail cost and taken advantage of clearance sales and what not. The minifigure thing wasn't exactly a fault of Lego. Smaller chains were and still are selling them at $2 a pack. Larger chain stores have the option of selling them at $3 or more. The fact that the whole minifigure thing is huge in the states alone, many retailers know they can get top dollar for them.

Anyway, I still believe that today's legos are fairly priced for what you get, better than 20 years ago at least.

Edited July 18, 2011 by 22kane

[Hoboman]

When I was a lot younger my father used to compair all our hobby and fun spending to a movie. So that is what I do now. A movie costs me about $10 USD plus another $8-$12 or so for snacks etc. So I am at least $20 USD for a two hour fun time and then it is gone. Compaired to a $40 Lego set. How many hours do I get out of it? If it is less then 4 hours it is not a good deal when compaired to a movie. But if it si a lot more (the reality) then it is not a bad price.

[fyrmedhatt]

It is true Lego was a lot more expensive 15-20 years ago than it is now, but i think there are many reasons for that. First, as people have already commented on, the sets had fewer, but larger pieces. Nowadays many sets have large amounts of tiny pieces, one such set is the 10193 MMV, which has a ridiculous amount of single and two stud pieces (mind you, it's still an amazing value). Going 20 years back, Lego was immensely popular and they could charge a lot for their sets and Lego Maniacs (and their parents) would still buy it.

Pieces had better quality control in general, with less color consistency issues, as well as prints being much more abundant than today. Engineering new pieces was probably more expensive, as options for accurately machining casts and using computers to design the pieces took longer than it does today.

Lastly, the experience of opening a set from those days was very different than today, with beautiful box designs, the flip open covers for the boxes, and the nicely sorted pieces in plastic trays as well as the minifigures displayed in their own pockets on the front of the box.

All of these factors probably add to the prices back then compared to now, and prices are again on the rise after an all-time low around 2006, when Lego was on the brink of destruction and certainly had a reason to have extremely low prices.

Anyways, as anyone from outside the US knows, buying Lego here is awesome, we have the best value on pretty much all sets. I grew up in the most expensive country in Europe, so the change from back then has been radical to say the least.

Edited July 18, 2011 by fyrmedhatt

[FR Rayward]

Add 50-100% to the US Dollar price, depending on the set, to get the Australian RRP and then tell me it's not expensive.

:classic:

YES amen to that.

[Aanchir]

I'll tell you where I'm getting a bit disappointed... the architecture series. It started out as a premium priced (relative to the pieces you got) series. $20 seemed ridiculous for the Sears Tower and Empire State Building... but it was a nice niche and something serious us architecture fans could display in our offices and so forth, and it was "only" $20. I've kept up with each one until now, but now the next set will be $200.00. Sorry... not going to happen. I just can't see me buying that set. I get so much more from modular buildings costing $50 less, and they're only one a year, so I can afford to keep up without difficulty.

I want to add that despite having a high overall price, I think the upcoming Robie House has possibly the most honest price for an architecture set so far. In my personal opinion, the earliest sets' prices were highway robbery, although I can see reasons why the price might be as high as it is. The Robie House, on the other hand, is $200 for 2,276 pieces, meaning less than 9 cents per piece.

Naturally, I realize I'm falling into an old trap by putting any stock in price-per-piece, considering that BIONICLE and Hero Factory, some of my favorite themes, consistently demonstrate how this is not always a valid measure of a set's value. At the same time, the price-per-piece for the Robie House still feels a lot more honest than the price of previous architecture sets. This may just be because when the price is so high to begin with, the additional costs that are probably responsible for the higher price of previous architecture sets just have a much smaller impact on the overall price.

Anyway, being a child of the 90s, I agree that prices today aren't much worse than they were then. With that said, I try to avoid putting too much stock in price-per-piece. Keep in mind that 1998 was a time when a lot of themes used parts AFOLs would consider "<insert that tiresome argument>", and larger pieces generally mean a higher price-per-piece. Of course, since AFOLs tend to value these <insert that tiresome argument> parts less than brickbuilt solutions, this still means that while maybe not getting more weight in parts for the same price these days, a lot of people will readily acknowledge that we are getting more value in parts.

[ziljin]

"Collectible minfigures are a nice price 3 USD each."

RRP in Australia is $US5.25, that is not a nice price.

:classic:

Well its not even that nice when you consider small sets have similar price per minifigure but also comes with a bunch of bricks.

[davee123]

... it's hard to wonder why we call that era the "dark ages."

That's not really the right terminology, actually-- your "dark ages" is the period of time when you're totally out of the LEGO hobby after childhood-- typically when you're a teenager.

Going by the LUGNET set database from 1996, and looking ONLY at LEGO System sets (excluding accessories like baseplates, motors, etc) for which there are also piece counts and MSRPs, I get average "price-per-piece" by year of:

Year    Sets    Avg by set              Avg by total
==========================================================
1996    68      0.272564009738978       0.126279692204751
1997    79      0.138421882343282       0.139844486333647
1998    96      0.127015090266955       0.116948198198198
1999    79      0.259996568455826       0.145192150449714
2000    90      0.174928130786745       0.138409456887718
2001    56      0.170067411645591       0.11877506379876
2002    69      0.272275693888329       0.137918912584954
2003    68      0.23817233249987        0.106228093825829
2004    70      0.1312592274928         0.108088346528163
2005    73      0.116621992488719       0.0996402246402246
2006    85      0.14092782620312        0.0896391320678397
2007    77      0.217813634394424       0.0995006473090438
2008    103     0.105812324698842       0.0918723827591791
2009    106     0.145686835747679       0.111354465328661
2010    115     0.176916115181533       0.117713516502007
2011    74      0.222636246694222       0.115922920892495

So, no real noticeable over-arching trend there...

DaveE

Edited July 18, 2011 by davee123

[Captain Becker]

Well, Lego is made of plastic, and plastic needs oil. Oils price has grown a bit wich could affect somehow on the prize, but i really dont think at they are that high, maby if they would be old clssic sets, then yes, but specially the last one cant be true. (And i though Lego was expensive in my country )

Captain Becker

[Zarkan]

That's not really the right terminology, actually-- your "dark ages" is the period of time when you're totally out of the LEGO hobby after childhood-- typically when you're a teenager.

I realize that, but for a while many people have also used that term to describe the era where set quality reached an all-time low, usually thought to be between 1997 and 2004.

[davee123]

I realize that, but for a while many people have also used that term to describe the era where set quality reached an all-time low, usually thought to be between 1997 and 2004.

Yeah, and also people have used it to describe when they "haven't built anything in a while", or "haven't been paying much attention to LEGO lately". I'm just being anal, really. I generally don't like seeing the term diluted, or else it won't mean anything anymore. Like, I dunno, if people started referring to models that they built from LEGO instructions as "MOCs", or if they called LDraw files "LDD" or something. It's also a problem with things like LEGO colors (thanks to the color change) and LEGO part numbers (thanks to LDraw and LEGO terminology).

Anyway, whenever I see people misusing the term, I feel like making sure that they know what the term was really intended to be used for, just in case they didn't already know, and were using it because they implied a definition. In this instance, it's possible that perhaps you read people describing their personal "dark ages" (which coincided with the 1997-2004 timeframe or something), and interpreted it to mean that that was "THE" dark ages for LEGO in general.

DaveE

[bricklayer]

Im going to get a lot of criticism for this reply.....but its based on 1 simple fact....dont forget this while reading.

Im guessing this applies to 90% of the worlds population.

The problem isnt the lego prices going up(if infact they might be)

The REAL REAL problem is that you arent making enough $$$....simple as that.

Find a way to make more money instead of complaining about it.

Im a painfully average joe working 8-5 without a degree making a painfully average wage.

BUT

I know what the real problem is,and im trying to do something about it.

I dont care if it takes me until 80,im never going to stop trying to make more money.

If you are complaining about buying a $100 set,thats a serious problem.

Rish people PISS $100 bills.

Johnny Depp made roughly $300million in the past couple of years....I dont think he would complain about dropping 12k a year on lego.

This is the matrix ladies and gentelman....we are all brainwashed!!!

Edited July 18, 2011 by bricklayer

[Aanchir]

Yeah, and also people have used it to describe when they "haven't built anything in a while", or "haven't been paying much attention to LEGO lately". I'm just being anal, really. I generally don't like seeing the term diluted, or else it won't mean anything anymore. Like, I dunno, if people started referring to models that they built from LEGO instructions as "MOCs", or if they called LDraw files "LDD" or something. It's also a problem with things like LEGO colors (thanks to the color change) and LEGO part numbers (thanks to LDraw and LEGO terminology).

Anyway, whenever I see people misusing the term, I feel like making sure that they know what the term was really intended to be used for, just in case they didn't already know, and were using it because they implied a definition. In this instance, it's possible that perhaps you read people describing their personal "dark ages" (which coincided with the 1997-2004 timeframe or something), and interpreted it to mean that that was "THE" dark ages for LEGO in general.

DaveE

It's always been a problem with colors, because frankly LEGO only started making their color list public very recently. So lots of different sites (Peeron, Bricklink, etc.) have different names for the colors, which often fail to match up with the official ones. I cringe every time I hear a person refer to Medium Nougat (the new color introduced in Prince of Persia) as just "nougat", failing to realize that there's an entirely unrelated color (Bricklink's Flesh) that already has that name.

I've heard both definitions of "Dark Age". I don't seem to think there's a problem with that, though, because usually you can tell from context whether a person's referring to LEGO's "dark ages" or their own personal "dark age". That's just my opinion, though, and I understand there's good intentions behind being stricter with one's own terminology (the same way TLG is so insistent on using LEGO as an adjective only, all caps, and never plural).

[Legofan4ever88]

Im going to get a lot of criticism for this reply.....but its based on 1 simple fact....dont forget this while reading.

Im guessing this applies to 90% of the worlds population.

The problem isnt the lego prices going up(if infact they might be)

The REAL REAL problem is that you arent making enough $$$....simple as that.

Find a way to make more money instead of complaining about it.

Im a painfully average joe working 8-5 without a degree making a painfully average wage.

BUT

I know what the real problem is,and im trying to do something about it.

I dont care if it takes me until 80,im never going to stop trying to make more money.

If you are complaining about buying a $100 set,thats a serious problem.

Rish people PISS $100 bills.

Johnny Depp made roughly $300million in the past couple of years....I dont think he would complain about dropping 12k a year on lego.

This is the matrix ladies and gentelman....we are all brainwashed!!!

That's really a matter of opinion. For me, it's the price tag of lego that has stopped me from any real buying. I see sets that I like but then I see the price tag and i'm ready to yell out "you want HOW much for the set???!!!". Just thinking off the bat, there's at least 3 sets that I'm after and at least 3 that my mother is after(she's after a few HP sets) and it's the price tag that's holding us back.

if it wouldn't be for the price tag, i'd be after a couple sets at the lego store. Here's the catch: I only have about 40 dollars for the trip(trip notice was only a week ago so I had no time to plan saving up more) for the museum gift shop and the lego store. At this point my buying plans are 1 or 2 BAM kits(saying 2 if there's a bunch of good stuff), 1 or 2 collectable minifigures, small car set(if it's still available and pending on price) and,(pending on what lego says), I am planning on using a few dollars and the 5 dollar card I get w/ the VIP thing to get a small PAB cup(8 bucks - 5 dollar card = 3 dollars). if the sets wouldn't be so much, i'd look into a small set.

[davee123]

The problem isnt the lego prices going up(if infact they might be)

The REAL REAL problem is that you arent making enough $$$....simple as that.

I don't really see a problem.

I think the difference between now and (say) before 2005 is that LEGO has been producing more awesome sets that you're all drooling over. IE, they're making a LOT of high-priced LEGO sets like the Modular Town buildings, UCS sets, Winter Village sets, Architecture series, Landmarks (Eiffel tower, etc), and other amazing sets for adults like the carousel, Medieval Market Village, Imperial Flagship, etc.

They're also making more cool themes, like PotC, Alien Conquest, Space Police III, LEGO Games, LEGO Minifigures, Indiana Jones, etc. Back in the 90's, most people stuck to a scant few genres, and ignored others. But now, it's just LOADED with cool themes.

Finally, LEGO's been growing. Not only are they producing more awesome sets, they've also just been producing MORE sets. So there's even MORE that you want and are drooling over.

Essentially, you now have tons more desirable stuff.

As for the prices of individual sets, I don't really think we (here in the USA) have a right to complain in the slightest. If there's been an increase in the last few years (it seems there has been, albeit not all that much compared to the late 1990's), that'll just get us more in line with other countries' prices on LEGO, and I'm all in favor of that. LEGO's always been an expensive toy-- I'm glad that I've been as lucky as I have been in the past, but I don't necessarily think it's fair to assume that that's how we "ought" to be treated price-wise.

DaveE

Edited July 18, 2011 by davee123

[Pingles]

I still gladly pay Lego their "premium" after my daughter got a MegaBlocks set as a gift. The models won't even stay together the quality of the bricks is SO bad.

But I have to admit that my last purchase was a $99.99 set. I liked the models so I bought it and then the next day realized I spent ONE HUNDRED dollars on a plastic toy. I am lucky enough to be at the point in my life where that $100 is available without too much trouble but still... it's a HUNDRED DOLLARS.

[ziljin]

If you are complaining about buying a $100 set,thats a serious problem.

Rish people PISS $100 bills.

Johnny Depp made roughly $300million in the past couple of years....I dont think he would complain about dropping 12k a year on lego.

I don't have the ambition or motivation to become rich. But if I was, I would buy up every minfiigure I could get my hand on. Hire people to buy me lego and set up my armies. Build lego museums out of the minifigures recreating historical battles and scenes. The only problem would be how to prevent theft and tampering?

How come there are no rich people who buy hordes of collectibles/toys? Seems like all rich people just collect art and houses. It would be cool to see some rich guy who has a mansion filled with toys.