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What Happened with Lego: The price of a brick

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Re: What Happened with Lego: The price of a brick

#21

Post by magicalist »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #17
kijin wrote: post #5

In the early 80s, my parents went to garage sales and bought me tons of used Lego sets. None of the sets were anywhere near complete, and most of them didn't even come with a picture of the set they belonged to. My parents just dumped everything into a large bin and gave me no instructions other than what the shape of the blocks themselves suggested. There were parts of cars, parts of airplanes, parts of castles and…

> These days, when I browse the Lego section at any large toy store, all I see are heavily customized ("licensed") sets that seriously restrict what you can build with them. The bow of a ship is no longer a jagged stack of rectangular blocks; it's a large, smooth, custom-molded piece that can't easily fit in anything but a ship. This is another example of the rose-colored nostalgia the article mentions, I think. Lego…

Yep, I remember the exact same discussion back in the late 80s/early 90s when 1980-Something "Classic Space"[1] gave way to Futuron[2] among others.

Given how nearly everyone tends towards "kids these days" comments over time, I'm certain you're right and the same conversations were happening in the decades before that, too.

[1] http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/Classic_Space

[2] http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/Futuron

Re: What Happened with Lego: The price of a brick

#22

Post by droithomme »

uptown wrote: post #20

Yet there's still outliers that don't seem to follow the premise of this article. How do 5 lego-sized characters command $80? http://www.amazon.com/2013-Lego-Ninjago-Kimono-Ninjas/dp/B00... Any of the LEGO Ninjago stuff is ridiculously expensive. This one is $20 for a 2" figure: http://www.amazon.com/LEGO-Ninjago-Minifigure-Titanium-weapo...

Those are not actual lego sets. They are pieces broken out of lego sets that are no longer sold. It's marketed by a third party seller to the collector's market. Each figure came from larger sets. I'm sure you are aware of this, yes? And if so, you agree that your post is very misleading, yes?

Re: What Happened with Lego: The price of a brick

#23

Post by JonathonW »

eCa wrote: post #13
kijin wrote: post #5

In the early 80s, my parents went to garage sales and bought me tons of used Lego sets. None of the sets were anywhere near complete, and most of them didn't even come with a picture of the set they belonged to. My parents just dumped everything into a large bin and gave me no instructions other than what the shape of the blocks themselves suggested. There were parts of cars, parts of airplanes, parts of castles and…

Agree completely re the big specific bricks. I guess this[1] is what you're looking for. Unfortunately, Lego is out of bricks... [1] http://shop.lego.com/en-US/catalog/productSearch.jsp?searchP...

The linked set is discontinued. There are several different sets of basic bricks (of various sizes), currently branded under the Classic "theme": http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Classic-ByTheme

Re: What Happened with Lego: The price of a brick

#24

Post by kijin »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #17
kijin wrote: post #5

In the early 80s, my parents went to garage sales and bought me tons of used Lego sets. None of the sets were anywhere near complete, and most of them didn't even come with a picture of the set they belonged to. My parents just dumped everything into a large bin and gave me no instructions other than what the shape of the blocks themselves suggested. There were parts of cars, parts of airplanes, parts of castles and…

> These days, when I browse the Lego section at any large toy store, all I see are heavily customized ("licensed") sets that seriously restrict what you can build with them. The bow of a ship is no longer a jagged stack of rectangular blocks; it's a large, smooth, custom-molded piece that can't easily fit in anything but a ship. This is another example of the rose-colored nostalgia the article mentions, I think. Lego…

My pirate ship did have some custom parts for the hull, but it most certainly didn't look like that Tugboat. The hull came in several pieces, each of which could be easily repurposed for other uses because they had rectangular edges for other pieces to attach to. I don't think this is just nostalgia messing with my memory. The damn ship didn't even float, because water leaked through the gaps between the pieces.

I admit that I may be biased because of the particular selection of Lego sets at the stores in my area. But if Lego itself hasn't changed, at least their marketing focus seems to have changed.

Re: What Happened with Lego: The price of a brick

#25

Post by ijk »

kijin wrote: post #24
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These days, when I browse the Lego section at any large toy store, all I see are heavily customized ("licensed") sets that seriously restrict what you can build with them. The bow of a ship is no longer a jagged stack of rectangular blocks; it's a large, smooth, custom-molded piece that can't easily fit in anything but a ship. This is another example of the rose-colored nostalgia the article mentions, I think. Lego…

My pirate ship did have some custom parts for the hull, but it most certainly didn't look like that Tugboat. The hull came in several pieces, each of which could be easily repurposed for other uses because they had rectangular edges for other pieces to attach to. I don't think this is just nostalgia messing with my memory. The damn ship didn't even float, because water leaked through the gaps between the pieces. I ad…

The Pirate ships have pretty much always had hulls that were large modular pieces, but not completely sealed.

The Tugboat was one of a long line of floating ships; they all had one-piece hulls so that they'd be completely watertight.

Though you could get the pirate ships to float if you used ballast and sealed them off with the right bricks; I got mine to float in the backyard pool.

Re: What Happened with Lego: The price of a brick

#26

Post by ijk »

virtuallynathan wrote: post #6
angersock wrote: post #3

The problem that I have with Lego isn't the cost of them, the price-per-brick or whatever. The problem is that when I go to Target or someplace to just buy a big tub of generic bricks--like I grew up with--I instead see an aisle packed full of special-use packages. I don't want Harry Potter or Pirates of the Carribean or super-specialized Technics...I just want a big gallon of assorted, simple bricks. Seriously, it's…

Looking at the Lego website, that does seem to be the case - but I couldn't tell if that has always been the case. Many of the sets don't look like you'd have much freedom other than to follow the directions due to the large number of set-specific pieces.

Modern Lego design has come a long way. You might be surprised by how versatile some sets are:

http://rebrickable.com/

Re: What Happened with Lego: The price of a brick

#27

Post by arrrg »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #17
kijin wrote: post #5

In the early 80s, my parents went to garage sales and bought me tons of used Lego sets. None of the sets were anywhere near complete, and most of them didn't even come with a picture of the set they belonged to. My parents just dumped everything into a large bin and gave me no instructions other than what the shape of the blocks themselves suggested. There were parts of cars, parts of airplanes, parts of castles and…

> These days, when I browse the Lego section at any large toy store, all I see are heavily customized ("licensed") sets that seriously restrict what you can build with them. The bow of a ship is no longer a jagged stack of rectangular blocks; it's a large, smooth, custom-molded piece that can't easily fit in anything but a ship. This is another example of the rose-colored nostalgia the article mentions, I think. Lego…

Also, when I played with Lego (that was actually during the dark times, the late nineties and early 2000s) I actually loved special and weird pieces I would get in sets (excluding pieces with stickers)!

If those pieces weren’t overly large and specific at the same time – and they rarely were – my growing collections of weird bits and pieces could be endlessly repurposed in cool new builds. I was always on the lookout for cool new computer monitors or cool new wheels or whatever to build cool new things with.

I would definitely agree that the late nineties and early 2000s were aesthetically a dark time for Lego and I actually prefer the aesthetics of today’s Lego sets (colors, part choice, building styles), but I’m not really aware of any kid for whom those sets – the standard ones you could always get, the police station, train station, the space shuttle, the cargo train station, the passenger double-decker train (ah, memories) – were the be-all end-all. They were always just a starting point and the whole things was to repurpose them and you really always could with those sets. And then those weird pieces were a cool assest that allowed you to be more specific.

I can see the ascetic ways of building only with four types of blocks or so, sure, but I’m not sure that’s something I personally would have enjoyed. I liked my weird bricks.

Re: What Happened with Lego: The price of a brick

#28

Post by arghbleargh »

angersock wrote: post #3

The problem that I have with Lego isn't the cost of them, the price-per-brick or whatever. The problem is that when I go to Target or someplace to just buy a big tub of generic bricks--like I grew up with--I instead see an aisle packed full of special-use packages. I don't want Harry Potter or Pirates of the Carribean or super-specialized Technics...I just want a big gallon of assorted, simple bricks. Seriously, it's…

I played with Legos a ton as a kid, and I have a completely different view on what made Legos good. Building Legos with only basic bricks can be fun, but there's only so much depth to it. It was actually the special pieces that enabled you to make really interesting things, and I didn't feel like they stifled creativity at all. Not having the special pieces would be like cooking with only flour, butter, salt, and water. You can probably make a few tasty things, but I don't think you would want to eat that every day.

Re: What Happened with Lego: The price of a brick

#29

Post by city41 »

> Not all old LEGO sets fetch such high prices, but of course all the popular ones do. These are the ones that we wanted when we were younger, and now that we have a bit of our own money we want to buy those dream sets from our childhood.

Many toys from our youth now command incredible prices because of this phenomenon. Retro video games can command absolutely obscene prices (four and even 5 figures sometimes). My Neo Geo collection in particular is worth dramatically more than what I paid for it.

Re: What Happened with Lego: The price of a brick

#30

Post by hangonhn »

I purchased the Lego Space Shuttle in October, 2012 for my nephew for $94.99. I had so much fun putting it together with him a couple years later that I decided that I want one myself and it's now at $300:

http://www.amazon.com/LEGO-4657599-Shuttle-Expedition-10231/...

I know this because Amazon has a notification at the top to tell me that I purchased it in 2012 and I can see the order. In the span of 2.5 years, it's tripled in price.

I wish he had done a graph of the prices for the same sets over time. That way I can compare if it is the Space Shuttle set that's skyrocketed in price or if it is across the board.

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