TIE #073: What a Profitable LEGO Investment Looks Like from Start to Finish

Follow the journey from idea to money in my pocket.

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When investing in LEGO, I use a hand-crafted system to pick the sets that I believe will be the best investments every year (on average).

I released the final update for my 2024 sets earlier this week, read that here if you haven’t seen it yet:

The Best LEGO Sets to Invest in that Retire in 2024 - Version 9.0 (final edition)

But what does the process actually look like?

What happens from start to finish?

I’ll show you.

Step 1 - The Buy

Back in late 2022, there was a retiring set on my list that I just knew would be a winner:

City Passenger Airplane 60262

Kids and people in general love airplanes.

This set had a MSRP of $99.99.

It sat at that price almost all year long.

If you know me, I hate paying full price for a non-exclusive LEGO set.

So I was determined to get this set at a great price.

Thankfully, just before Black Friday it went 20% OFF, so I dove in head first and bought over 100 of them between multiple retailers (thanks to price matching):

Step 2 - The Wait

I had all of my sets shipped to a prep center instead of my home.

A prep center is a service that will allow you to ship your packages to them and then they’ll either ship it to Amazon immediately or they will store them for you.

I store all of my investments with prep centers for safety and efficiency.

If you’re just starting out or investing with much less capital, they’re unnecessary.

Some back of the napkin math shows me paying roughly ~$5-6/set in storage and fulfillment fees for set 60262.

Pretty good for not ever having to receive, store, and ship them!

We spent most of 2023 patiently waiting.

Step 3 - Prepping to Sell

As we got close to the holiday season, it was obvious that the Passenger Airplane was a great investment.

The price on Amazon was nearing $200 at a rapid pace, so I made the decision to send a heavy quantity in to list on Amazon with prime shipping.

This is called “Fulfilled by Amazon” or “FBA” and is the backbone of a business that I have operated on Amazon for over a decade now.

A couple weeks later, they were stocked and ready to sell.

Step 4 - The Sale

With around 2 weeks remaining before Christmas last year, the price spiked again so I decided to strike.

I sold a ton of sets around the $250-260 area:

On a sale of $260, I paid $53 in Amazon fees.

If you include the $6 in storage and prep fees, that left $201 in gross profit before factoring in how much we paid for the set.

So by simply subtracting $80, that meant a net profit of $121 and a return on investment of just over 150%.

Now, did I pick a set that outperformed the average heavily? Yes.

Not every set makes this much money.

It is an outlier.

But every set I’ve ever invested in has made money.

We don’t lose money here.

In that sense, every set is a winner.

That’s the beauty of LEGO investing.

The only question is how big of a winner each retiring set will be.

No one knows for sure and that’s what makes the process I just showed so fun.

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This post is not financial or investment advice.

I am simply informing you of what I have done with my own capital.

What you choose to do with your capital is at your own discretion.

While I will always vouch for the content I publish and the ideas I teach, there are limits to what I’m legally allowed to encourage without putting myself in harms way.