Top Tips for Successful LEGO Investing

LEGO investing has become very popular over the past few years, which has caused the prices of retired sets to soar. This has benefited those that got in early, but there's still plenty of money to be made if you prepare well and know how to avoid the common pitfalls. In this article, we run through our top tips for LEGO investing.

Shop Around

There's no one stop shop for LEGO. Different retailers will offer different discounts at different times and certain sets are only available from certain retailers. To stay on top of the best deals there are a number of websites that offer price tracking. Our Amazon Price Tracker provides daily monitoring of the price of all LEGO sets sold by Amazon, so we recommend checking it regularly to avoid missing out on great deals.

For information on the best places to buy LEGO in the UK, we have provided a run down here.

Don't Buy Sets Straight Away

If you're buying a set purely as an investment then it's usually not the best idea to buy it when it's first released. This is because most sets are discounted at some point during their lifetime, especially if they're available from third party retailers. So if you can prevent yourself from getting swept away with the excitement of a new release, you can end up saving a lot of money. It goes without saying, but you want to avoid paying full price for a set, if possible.

The exception to this rule is when LEGO has a promotion tying into the release of a new set, such as a Gift with Purchase (GWP). Some GWPs can fetch impressive sums on the secondary market, so if you sell them on, they can equate to getting a good discount on the set.

LEGO sets also take up a lot of space, so if you buy a set early on, you're going to have to hold onto it for the duration of its shelf life. Unless you have plenty of storage, you might find yourself running out of space, which could prevent you from buying sets that are due to retire much sooner.

For a full list of what sets are retiring when, keep an eye on our retirement tracker.

Know What Sets and Minifigures to Buy

This is undoubtedly the hardest part, as there are many different factors that determine if a set or minifigure will increase in value. These include the quality of the set or minifigure, number of unique parts, shelf life, exclusivity, rarity, and the popularity of the set/minifigure's theme and source material. This last factor is the hardest to predict as it's subject to change, which is usually because of new cinematic releases and TV series.

To help you decide what sets to buy, you can check out our numerous articles on this topic here.

Become a LEGO Insiders Member

Becoming a LEGO Insiders Member is free and gives you a range of perks, so signing up is a no brainer. The best benefit is the Insider points that come with every purchase from LEGO's online shop or physical stores, which can be traded in for discounts. This points offering equates to a 5% discount on every set and 10% when LEGO runs its double Insider points promotions. This is especially useful when buying LEGO exclusives, which can't be bought from any other retailers.

Get a Credit Card

If you're going to get serious about LEGO investing, it's likely you're going to be spending quite a bit. Getting a credit card that gives you cash back on your purchases is therefore a great way of getting a bit back. Make sure you do your research on the best card to suit you and keep up with your monthly payments!

Think About Storage

As with any collectible, storage is vitally important. Badly stored LEGO sets and minifigures can get damaged, which will reduce their value.

There are multiple things to consider when planning how you'll store your stock. Firstly, you want to make sure you have a dedicated space for it. This will be somewhere out of the way, where there's no danger of tripping over it, or other things being placed on top of it that could cause damage. Ideally, this would be a separate room, but not everyone has that luxury!

Secondly, you don't want to stack lots of LEGO sets on top of one another and risk crushing the ones at the bottom. To safely make best use of the vertical space in your storage area, it's worth buying some heavy duty shelving.

Thirdly, you need to think about temperature. The plastic used in LEGO is pretty robust and durable but temperature extremes can put your bricks at risk. LEGO recommends not storing bricks in temperatures that exceed 104°F (40°C). That rules out the attic as a place to keep your LEGO during the summer months.

Keep the Packaging

When I talk about packaging, I mean the boxes that were used to deliver your LEGO. Buying additional cardboard boxes can eat into your profit margins, so although they add to the demands on space, they are very useful when you come to resell your LEGO and need to ship it off to your buyers.

Hopefully these tips have helped you to think about the things you need to do to become a successful LEGO investor. A final thing to add is that doing as much research as you can, to understand the hobby of LEGO collecting and what collectors like and don't like, is the key to success. And on that note, happy investing!

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

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