No need to rack your brains to know what to invest in, just look under your tree: if LEGOs are there, you have a good idea, according to a study from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Economiques. from Moscow. These little toys would be more lucrative than gold, art, or stocks bought in a large corporation. Their return would be 11% on average each year.
“We tend to think that people prefer to invest in jewelry or works of art. But collectible toys are another option, says study co-author Victoria Dobrynskaya, also citing Barbie dolls, superhero figures or small model cars and trains. Although they have low base prices, it is a huge market that is not well known to traditional investors. “And to specify, in the case of LEGOs:” 11% is an average over time, some toys have generated yields of 700% “.
But then, how to explain this attractiveness? First, most of these toys were produced in limited quantities and refer to iconic movies, books or historical events through time. In a way, they are a part of history. Secondly, their presence on the market remains rare: either their owners, who are very attached to it, wish to keep them, or, on the contrary, they throw them away thinking that they have no value.
Most Popular Star Wars and Taj Mahal
The study authors analyzed the prices of 2,322 LEGO sets between 1987 and 2015, both on primary sales and online auction transactions. In the second-hand market, prices generally start to increase two or three years after a collection of stores retire.
The study notes that yields can go up to + 600% per year during the first years. The prices of small and large sets increase more than the price of medium-sized sets, especially because small ones often contain unique parts and figures.
Also, sets dedicated to famous buildings or popular movies tend to experience the greatest increase: among the most expensive LEGOs, we find the Millennium Falcon, the famous Star Wars spaceship, the local café or the Taj Mahal. The latter is currently for sale on Amazon at the modest price of… 505 euros.
“Tens of thousands of transactions are carried out on the Lego secondary market”, confirms Victoria Dobrynskaya. But if you are going to do it, be warned: “You have to be a real LEGO fan to fully understand the market and see the investment potential that each set can have.”