Lego Investing 101
As we briefly talked last week, at its core, Lego Investing is buying a set at a low price and selling for a higher price, either after a short hold (small profit) or a long hold (higher profit). Lego Investing is no different than other forms of arbitrage, but Lego has been famously compared to other benchmark investing standards like gold and the S&P 500 as it regularly outperforms those standards. Do a google search “are Lego sets a better investment than gold?” to read a myriad of articles covering the topic.
If you were to take every Lego set that retired at the end of any given year and look at those sets 12 months after retirement, on average you could expect roughly 35% appreciation or greater. Each year there are several hundred Lego sets that retire, with 2024 having over 450 sets that are no longer for sale at retail. As an investor, you can increase that appreciation percent dramatically if you do some research on the sets you are buying. More on that later.
What do you mean by “retired or retiring Lego”?”
The short answer is all Lego sets have a finite life cycle, meaning Lego does not plan on printing that set forever and will discontinue, or “retire” the set. On average, the lifespan of a Lego set being available for sale at retail is 1-3 years. There are so many things to discuss about retirement dates for Lego I will be discussing in its own dedicated blog post in the near future. For the sake of today's article, just know that every Lego set has a limited shelf life before it is discontinued forever.
A Lego investor would only look at sets retiring in the current year if the goal is to turn over their capital as quickly as possible.
Let's take a historical look back at two examples of retired Lego sets and how they performed.
Lego Star Wars Dark Trooper Helmet 75274 was on store shelves for 21 months between April 2020 and December 2021 at a retail price of $59.99 and could have easily been purchased for $48 while on shelves. If you had bought at a discounted price and waited to sell it today you would have increased your money by over 1000% as it currently (September 2025) sells on Amazon for $500.
Comparatively, if you had invested the same amount of money into VOO, a S&P 500 index fund, you would have more than doubled your money. That’s a great return, but it's not the Dark Trooper Helmet.
This is the ultimate success story for Lego investing, which is also the exception rather than the rule.
Let's take a look at another Star Wars set from about the same time period that did not perform like the Dark Trooper Helmet.
75254 Lego Star Wars AT-ST Raider was released in October 2019 alongside Disney+ season one of the Mandalorian at a retail price of $49.99. This set saw a brief spike in popularity when actress Gina Carano, who played Cara Dune in The Mandalorian, made some inflammatory comments on social media and was subsequently fired by Disney. The reason the set spiked in value was to obtain the Cara Dune minifigure as this (at the time) was the only set this minifigure appeared. Fast forward a couple years, the exact minifigure appeared in set 75315 Imperial Light Cruiser and was no longer exclusive to the AT-ST Raider, thus causing the set to drop in value. In September 2025, you can still buy 75254 Lego Star Wars AT-ST Raider at close to MSRP.
I hope you put your money into VOO and not this set…
There is a lot to unpack in these two examples so let's talk about some of the factors that can affect the appreciation, or lack thereof, of an individual Lego set.
Exclusivity:
The Dark Trooper helmet was exclusive to Target and Lego.com
The AT-ST Raider had an exclusive minifigure at the time
Supply and Demand:
The Dark Trooper Helmet had a limited supply being an exclusive and was only on the shelf for 21 months
The AT-ST Raider was available for sale from all retailers and was on the shelf for 27 months from 2019 to 2021, but was regularly in stock by Amazon (referred to as zombie stock) at MSRP or less until January 2024, 25 months after the official retirement date.
Set/Theme:
Both sets are from the Star Wars theme showing the individual set matters, we can not assume an entire theme will be a good investment
Uniqueness:
The Dark Trooper Helmet was one of the first releases in the sub theme of the Star Wars helmet series (and the only one I do not own…not bitter at all...). This set and sub theme was the first of its kind and most likely we will never get another Dark Trooper Helmet release again.
While this version of the AT-ST is very cool with the red color variations on its legs, there have been many prior iterations of the two-legged walker and there will undoubtedly be more versions released in the future. Thus leaving this set less “unique.” It had a brief “unique” moment with the Cara Dune minifigure hype but that was temporary.
I'm sure there are some other factors you could point to to describe the extreme difference in appreciation between these two sets but the main points are addressed here. These are common characteristics of Lego that investors look at to determine if a set will be a good investment.
Final Word:
Using the two examples above also highlights why Lego Investing is so appealing. The upside can be tremendous and even though the AT-ST Raider did not perform well, it did not lose value. Showing the downside risk of losing money is much less compared to other types of investments. The demand for retired Lego is so great generally it is not an issue recouping your capital.
Do you feel there were some other factors at play that determined the different paths of these two sets post retirement? Please leave a comment below if you do. Or let me know if you think I nailed the analysis.
Over the next few weeks I will do a deeper dive into the many aspects that should be considered when deciding if a Lego set will be a good investment.
Until next time AFOL’s….