Ever use a LEGO broker?

December 14, 2016 1:35 PM

Our son is turning 16 in a few months and he/we are interested in significantly reducing his LEGO collection. He'd like to sell what he has and put the money going towards a good road bike. I know we can sell LEGOs on ebay or CL, but we've also seen ads for a few firms that buy used LEGOs. Does anyone have any experience with these, or with selling a moderate number of LEGOs? I am curious about the market, and if going through a third-party buyer is worthwhile?

Our son was very much into LEGOs for a time and he has a large number of bricks, both from themed sets he's built and from individual pieces he's acquired. I don't know how many offhand -- either by count or by weight -- but they are currently filling a six bin storage unit from Ikea. So call it 20 pounds, +/- 5 lbs?

Short of curating the collection and selling each piece individually, how can we get the most $$$ for what he has?

I feel compelled to add: FWIW, we've been donating sporting equipment he's outgrown and/or no longer using to organizations that redistribute such gear to less advantaged kids. Although we could do the same in this case, I don't have a problem with him selling these LEGO pieces and using the money to buy something like a good bike, as I think there's also a lesson in conserving one's resources. Plus, for selfish reasons I'd like to see him get a nice road bike, as I know he'd use it, and we (the whole family) could go on longer rides together.

posted by mosk to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (17 answers total)

Best answer: I confess I'm not familiar with the LEGO market in particular. But I have a very good friend who used to be a broker for a highly-regarded comics dealer. He said he constantly came up against people who wanted to sell their collections but balked when he named his price, which was often half of what they had hoped to sell it for. They'd usually point out, "But I've got issue X, Y, and Z, complete runs of this title and that title, those alone would be worth 2/3rds of what you said if you sold them individually." And they'd be right.

The point he always made --- which only sometimes worked --- was that it would be possible for them to sell their stuff piecemeal, waiting until they found a buyer willing to pay their desired price for each of the valuable pieces. But the pool of buyers for luxury collectibles is always small and selective; it might take them many months to maximize their profit in this way. That differential --- the time and effort finding buyers, listing pieces, advertizing sales, storing items --- was his profit margin. Dealers can afford to wait, dealers can afford to store, dealers have people coming to them. You can look at whatever LEGO's version of a bluebook is and come up with some valuation number for his lot, but any real life dealer is likely to make you an offer well under that.

So I feel like you really need four figures here:

--- how much you think the collections' worth, based on ebay prices, etc.
--- how much you'd want to be paid to do something mildy irksome for say, 3 hours a week for the next 6 months
--- how much your son would want to be paid for above
--- dealer quotes for the collection
posted by Diablevert at 2:01 PM on December 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

Best answer: We have a Lego obsessed son. We buy second hand Lego from BrickLink.com. This is the Amazon of Lego. There are instructions here on how to sell. This will likely get the highest value ($.01- $0.25 per piece) but require you to sort/catelogue the sets you have.
posted by saradarlin at 2:10 PM on December 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

Best answer: Speaking as a 30-something who sold his Lego around age 16, can you keep it? I regret selling it now. The money I got for it then was soon spent (and was nowhere near enough for a road bike!), and having the Lego now to give to my own kids would be worth much more.

Unless a set is a) rare, and/or b) in mint boxed condition, it's unlikely you will get much money. Selling a mixed bulk load is going to be the least efficient way - you'll get like $5-$10 per pound. More if there is a high concentration of stuff that's in demand (older themes (Castle for example) in good condition, or licensed stuff). Less if it's all generic City stuff or it's all very worn (you should definitely clean it beforehand - just soak in a bathtub of warm water with some washing up liquid).

- So, if you have a set that's rare* - can you box up the pieces and include the instructions?
- Check if any minifigs are rare*/valuable (this will be almost exclusively licensed stuff - Star Wars, Marvel/DC, Lord Of The Rings, etc - and usually a minifig that only came in a big set). A valuable minifig can go for ~$10 or more on its own.

*Look it up on eBay, check the Sold listings

Some info from the other end of the equation.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:11 PM on December 14, 2016 [16 favorites]

Best answer: Minifigs are where the $ is at. We made a few hundred from my son's ten + years of Lego collecting. He had a thing for grey Legos when he was building an aircraft carrier and they were especially prized by others as well. We sold them during a block sale but placed our own ad on Craigslist itemizing. He spent about two to three days categorizing, putting minifigs and specialized parts in sandwich baggies and using gallon bags for the regular bricks. Look at eBay for current prices. We had bargain hunters come early but stuck by our prices and sold them all at what we priced them at. We probably had at least ten Lego collectors show up from our Craiglist ad.
posted by readery at 2:24 PM on December 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I want to let the thread evolve a bit and don't intend to threadsit (though I'll be checking in periodically for updates), but I do want to respond to this point that EndsOfInvention made:

> Speaking as a 30-something who sold his Lego around age 16, can you keep it? I regret selling it now. The money I got for it then was soon spent (and was nowhere near enough for a road bike!), and having the Lego now to give to my own kids would be worth much more.

Yep, I agree with you, and this was my position when our son discussed selling his LEGOs with us. My spouse's desire to reduce clutter now, however, won out over my desire to put these in a box and forget about them for 20 years. It's still possible that we'll hold onto them if I come back with honest intel that selling them is going to be a disappointment, but the desire to de-clutter is pretty strong at the moment, so idk.
posted by mosk at 2:27 PM on December 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Speaking as a 30-something who sold his Lego around age 16, can you keep it? I regret selling it now. The money I got for it then was soon spent (and was nowhere near enough for a road bike!), and having the Lego now to give to my own kids would be worth much more.

Just wanted to echo this. I saved my Lego from when I was a kid, and a couple years ago gave it to my children. They absolutely love it, and it's super fun to see them combine that Lego with the sets they are getting now. Also, my cousin recently gave them a book showing Lego kits through the years, and I was able to point out the various kits that I had (because, of course, I no longer had the original boxes or instruction manuals when I gave them the Lego) -- they were very excited and inspired.
posted by odin53 at 2:50 PM on December 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

Best answer: Another vote for "keep". Chances are some day you'll have grandchildren. The Lego in my family is about to enter its third generation. Can you stash a storage box in a parent's attic?
posted by Leon at 3:25 PM on December 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I don't have kids and don't miss the Legos I sold at a garage sale at all. But if I had kids, I would definitely wish I still had that big crate of mixed up pieces. I know 16 is probably too young for those kinds of decisions, but if you think he might want to be a parent someday, this might be worth boxing up and storing.

And for what it is worth, I say this as a person who abhors clutter and the whole idea of saving things for later, but there is something special for small kids in having a big pile of miscellaneous Legos that can't be replicated with a new set.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:55 PM on December 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Can you store them somewhere he won't see them?

What he wants to do, your wife's aim of decluttering, and the chance to ride together all sound great. But regrets? I've had a few...

If you've got the cash, tell him you've had an offer of X, give him the money, & move the Lego.

Down the line, when he's got kids, 'fess up and hand the Legos back to him.
posted by Prof Iterole at 6:20 PM on December 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

If he has kids, he will be able to buy Legos again. Maybe even the same kinds and vintages! It's plastic, it's not going anywhere.
posted by Hypatia at 7:13 PM on December 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Another "Mom made me sell my lego, now I regret it." There's a big box of it waiting to come to my 3 year old on Christmas morning, and bringing that to her is great, but it's just not the same as it would have felt to pass on the pieces that meant so much to me. Even if you declutter and sell, I'd encourage you to let your son pick out his favorite sets, maybe 1 box's worth, and save those.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:22 PM on December 14, 2016

Best answer: I'll Nth the KEEP THEM! chorus...my husband has two big bins of Legos from childhood, and they are a beloved and prized part of our playroom, along with new ones from the modern sets that our sons (and, let's be honest, my husband) get for birthdays and Christmases. My husband also saved all the original instruction books, and it's great fun to pick out a vintage sea explorer set or moon base and reassemble - with add-ons from the newer pieces.

A lot of his other stuff (model trains, etc) got sold at garage sales, much to my husband's endless sorrow, but his mom kept the Legos. These are worth not being purged in the declutter.
posted by handful of rain at 7:34 PM on December 14, 2016

Best answer: Collections never sell for as much as individual items. I suspect that a "firm" that buys Legos would buy them by weight.
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:18 PM on December 14, 2016

Response by poster: Thanks, all - your feedback definitely helped us reach a workable solution: we're gonna keep the LEGOS in the family - some will go to our niece and two nephews next time they visit us (if they want them), while most will go up to the attic to bide their time until a future generation of mosks is ready to play w/them. In the short term, the Ikea storage unit will be repurposed in another part of the house, which frees up some space in our son's room and may help with clutter in another part of the house, too. Win-win!

Thanks to everyone who contributed, including those who offered tips on how to sell the pieces we do have for max profit. I'm liberally marking best answers here, even though "keep 'em" won the thread. Thanks!
posted by mosk at 10:30 PM on December 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

I sold my old sets on Bricklink classifieds (http://www.bricklink.com/help.asp?helpID=177). Since I had complete sets, in the box, I was able to get pretty good money. I made about $600 on 4 sets! I found a website (sorry, I don't remember its name) that had parts lists for each set, so I could verify completeness. Of course, I actually did re-build a few of them, for photo's sake and for fun! I should also mention that these were the original Technics sets when they were still called 'Expert Builder', so I'm sure their age and rarity gave me the good return.

For the bulk bricks I had, I probably could have made some good money, and there is demand for some vintage parts (like windows, wheels, trees, etc). However, I just found a kid who liked Lego and gave him the big box.
posted by Don_K at 7:42 AM on December 15, 2016

Late to party but I'm also in the keep-it camp. Mine had been in the attic a few years before my mother finally gave it all away when I moved away from home, and since I was like 17 and much too cool to care about toys, that was fine with me.

But my god did it ever cost a fortune to replace in my 30's. And with the way pricing has skyrocketed in the last decade, I can't imagine what replacing it in the 2020's will be like. I wish she had left it boxed up in the attic forever.

I guess we'll all be 3D-printing it by then. Still expensive, though.
posted by rokusan at 8:13 AM on December 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

BrickLink does that, too, Don_K, but you're probably thinking of BrickSet.

Sample Link
posted by rokusan at 8:16 AM on December 15, 2016