Lego Themes

In this week’s Lego investing blog we will discuss using Lego themes as a differentiating factor to find solid investment sets.   In a previous blog post, we discussed the importance of using retirement dates as the primary filter.  If you want to revisit my post on retirement dates, click here.

After narrowing down by using retirement dates, looking at Lego themes is a powerful data point used when analyzing sets.

What is a Lego Theme?

A Lego theme is a series of sets based on a common subject or intellectual property, such as Star Wars or Ninjago. Themes can also be based on broader concepts, like building with specific colors (Classic) or building realistic models for adults (Icons).  

Is one theme better than another for investing?  The short answer is YES.

Star Wars is extremely popular, can I just buy all the sets retiring this year in that theme and call it a day?  

Please don’t. This holds true for all themes.  Not all sets are created equal and some sets are just hot garbage regardless of the theme.

While the Star Wars theme has produced many great investment sets, not all sets within the theme will appreciate in value at the same rate, or at all. 

Every Lego theme has sets that end up being solid investments.  If you look at Lego.com in 2025, there are over 40 themes and close to 1000 sets for sale.  That’s a lot of sets to sort through to find a few to invest in.  

How do we whittle down that list of 1000 sets?

As we already know, we only look at sets retiring in the current year.  In 2025, that still leaves roughly 400 sets.  

Each year, The Lego Group announces their top selling themes from the previous year with their annual reports.  Want to know what themes people are buying?  Using data directly from Lego seems like a great place to start.

Over the last 5 years, Lego has highlighted the following themes as being among their most popular:

1. City

2. Technic

3. Harry Potter

4. Star Wars

5. Ninjago

6. Ideas

7. Creator

8. Icons

If you looked at all the sets in these 8 themes we are down to 159.  That's still quite a few but more manageable than 400.  

Playing devil’s advocate, there are sets that are great investments not in the 8 themes referenced above.  There are actually some very notable themes not included in the most popular list that regularly produce great investment sets, like Speed Champions and Marvel.

As a beginner investor, DON’T GET FOMO AND TRY TO INVEST IN EVERYTHING!  It will only cause you frustration and disappointment.

Here is what I would recommend when using themes as a criteria for Lego investing:

1. As a beginner investor with limited experience and capital:

1. Pick a few themes where the subject matter is familiar to you.

1. Themes attached to brands (Speed Champions has Ford, Mercedes, etc.) and IP’s (Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc.) can be beginner friendly as popularity and collectibility can be easier to gauge as there is an inherent demand from brand/IP recognition, in addition to the Lego demand.

2. Study those themes over the last several years to determine if the sets in that theme historically produce consistent appreciation.  Use tools like Keepa or camelcamelcamel.com to check historical prices.

3. Take extra time to educate yourself.  Select a few themes that are unfamiliar to you for research purposes only, no purchasing.  Check historical data and make predictions on potential investment sets.  Then track those sets over the next year or two and see how you did.  These “practice reps” will build your confidence in the years to come.

2. As you gain more experience and capital:

1. Broaden your research and look into more themes.

2. Keepa is a must at this point if you want to have the most accurate historical data.  (Keepa gives us historical sales and price data from Amazon only, however it is one of the best tools available to gauge demand).

Lego investing is more of an art than a science.  That being said, we can still use data to help us make educated decisions on investment potential.  As a beginning investor, using Lego themes to narrow down your investing strategy is a great tactic to keep you from feeling overwhelmed with the large number of sets retiring each year.  As you gain more experience you will be able to confidently expand into other themes using the best data available to us.

Looking for an easy way to research your Lego investment sets?  Check out The Brick Dynasty App.  There you can check set retirement dates, sort by themes, and make lists of your favorite sets.

Until next time AFOL’s….