Bricklink Crowdfunding Round 3 - Is It Worth It?

13th May 2022

The 3rd round of the Bricklink Designer Program opens on May 17th at 10:00am Pacific / 7:00pm CET. The program allows selected LEGO Ideas projects, which reached the 10,000-supporter threshold, but didn’t make the final selection for becoming an official LEGO Ideas set, to receive a second chance to make it into production through three crowdfunding rounds.

Each crowdfunding round typically contains 8 unrealised LEGO Ideas projects, with the first five to reach 3,000 crowdfunded pre-orders, winning a production run of up to 10,000 sets. The first crowdfunding round, which began in July 2021, saw the 10,000 pre-order limit sell out within minutes for Castle in the Forest (910001), and The Great Fishing Boat (910010) was not too far behind.

The second crowdfunding round was a more sedate affair, as only two sets sold out, but the Modular LEGO Store (910009) still hit the pre-order limit within a couple of days. The main reason for this is because in the first round, supporters were able to order up to five of each set, while this was restricted to one per supporter following complaints from the many that missed out.

This isn’t the first time that crowdfunding has been used to turn fan projects into real-life LEGO sets. In 2019, the AFOL Designer Program was launched to celebrate 60 years of the humble LEGO brick. Designers were required to submit their designs digitally using BrickLink Studio 2.0. and up to 20 were put forward for crowdfunding based on how well they scored in originality, visual appeal, building experience, use of parts, and several other factors. Given the creativity of the LEGO community, this led to some very unique and interesting builds. 13 sets achieved 100% of their crowdfunding goal and were produced by LEGO. These sets had a production limit of 2,500 and were also only made available in the US.

With limited production numbers and geographical availability, crowdfunding sets have a high degree of rarity, and as a result many are now very expensive to purchase. As we are on the cusp of the final round of the current Bricklink Designer Program, we thought we would take a look back to see how much these sets have appreciated in value. The prices below were taken from the last six months of sales history on Bricklink. The second round of the current program has not been included in the analysis because they have not yet been produced and shipped.

Set Number	Set Name	Price Increase
BL19001-1	Löwenstein Castle	£342.46
BL19002-1	Antique Fire Engine	£186.54
BL19003-1	Skyline Express	£196.71
BL19004-1	Wild West Saloon	£190.86
BL19005-1	Isle of Peril	£224.02
BL19006-1	Eight Studs	£249.02
BL19007-1	Science Tower	£190.46
BL19008-1	The LEGO Story	£158.91
BL19009-1	Imagine it! Build it!	£355.77
BL19010-1	Hot Shot Carnival	£271.65
BL19011-1	Vintage Roadster	£214.82
BL19012-1	Bikes!	£241.33
BL19013-1	Steampunk Mini Chess	193.13
910001	Castle in the Forest	£249.86
910010	The Great Fishing Boat	£233.08
910016	Sheriff's Safe	£232.23
910017	Kakapo	£216.70
910028	Pursuit of Flight	£200.78

The average price increase of all the crowdfunding sets is 230.46%, which is pretty impressive. You’ll be hard pressed to find a regular LEGO set that has an asking price that much higher than its RRP. It will be interesting to see how well the second round of sets in the Bricklink Designer Program fair on the aftermarket given that there was less demand for them. Aside from the rarity of the Bricklink sets, they are generally designed by AFOLs for AFOLs, so their appeal to adult collectors is that much greater.

If this has made you want to get your hands on one of these exclusive sets, to build yourself or to add to your collection, be sure to put a reminder in your calendar and visit this page (https://www.bricklink.com/v3/designer-program/introducing.page) on Tuesday.

Although many have commented that the price per piece for this round makes most of the sets seem expensive, at least when compared again official LEGO sets, the data for previous years still suggests these will be good investments set.

Disclaimer: This article or any others on brickranker.com should not be considered financial advice and investing in LEGO is risky.