The LEGO Group acquires BrickLink(brickset.com)
brickset.com
The LEGO Group acquires BrickLink
https://brickset.com/article/47293/the-lego-group-acquires-bricklink
137 comments
NBA is doing this to themselves too. They keep banning these amazing youtube channels that put up 10min highlight reels within minutes of the game ending. These videos are getting millions of views and instead of hiring them the NBA has been legally harassing them for years and the biggest one announced this week he's finally shutting down for good.
There's plenty of other examples of this in the NBA itself (with their half-baked streaming options) which I'm sure exists in most other sports.
One big one is they should have a library of every game ever for a subscription fee or individual access fee - it's pretty much impossible besides bittorrent or DailyMotion to find old classic games online (even from 2012 playoff finals).
They are all just throwing money into a dumpster fire by trying to live in the past generation of media.
This is just like how we all had to wait for a decade to get decent websites from every major retail-facing corporation, instead of a non-interactive static glorified contact form website. I expect it will take another decade for the big media companies to get proper leadership.
There's plenty of other examples of this in the NBA itself (with their half-baked streaming options) which I'm sure exists in most other sports.
One big one is they should have a library of every game ever for a subscription fee or individual access fee - it's pretty much impossible besides bittorrent or DailyMotion to find old classic games online (even from 2012 playoff finals).
They are all just throwing money into a dumpster fire by trying to live in the past generation of media.
This is just like how we all had to wait for a decade to get decent websites from every major retail-facing corporation, instead of a non-interactive static glorified contact form website. I expect it will take another decade for the big media companies to get proper leadership.
I suspect it's ESPN and their ilk that pay a very hefty premium for the rights to distribute similar highlight reals. Why watch highly-opinionated fluff content when you can get the goods straight from youtube?
On the other hand, the NFL does a good job of making highlights available on their own site very fast, and there are a lot of youtubers using NFL film access to do in-depth breakdowns of players and games.
On the other hand, the NFL does a good job of making highlights available on their own site very fast, and there are a lot of youtubers using NFL film access to do in-depth breakdowns of players and games.
> LEGO sued him for having something which somehow resembled a LEGO brick in his logo.
Not true. They did not sue him, they just informed him nicely. Also, he in fact had a logo newly registrated for his businss which was resembling an old trademark of lego. This was not about his youtube-channel but his attempt to make a serious business of it. So this was just problem between two companies making money, totally normal and AFAIK demanded by law.
That guy was just spinniung tales and profiting on this to push his own business by playing the poor victim of a hobby-channel.
Not true. They did not sue him, they just informed him nicely. Also, he in fact had a logo newly registrated for his businss which was resembling an old trademark of lego. This was not about his youtube-channel but his attempt to make a serious business of it. So this was just problem between two companies making money, totally normal and AFAIK demanded by law.
That guy was just spinniung tales and profiting on this to push his own business by playing the poor victim of a hobby-channel.
> Also, he in fact had a logo newly registrated for his businss which was resembling an old trademark of lego.
So they decide to piss him off over such a triviality? That's a terrible decision; if the guy's an enthusiast with an audience, you try to put him on a payroll and go full market fanfare for you; making him change his logo and pissing him off in the process has zero opportunities to increase profit for LEGO in any way and lots of ways to backfire.
So they decide to piss him off over such a triviality? That's a terrible decision; if the guy's an enthusiast with an audience, you try to put him on a payroll and go full market fanfare for you; making him change his logo and pissing him off in the process has zero opportunities to increase profit for LEGO in any way and lots of ways to backfire.
Mixed blessing. There was - and is - plenty wrong with Bricklink. The guy who bought it wasn't nearly as nice as the guy that started it (who died in a car crash, his mom then sold it).
Woah I had no idea. I've been speaking bricklink's praise for a long time. Very sad to discover this!
Could you explain, for someone outside the AFoL community, what the downside to this acquisition is? What do people fear will change? What kind of innovation are fans looking for that Lego isn’t providing?
I’m also particularly curious what you mean about Chinese products – what have they been innovating in where Billund has been stagnant? I confess my only familiarity there has been in trying to separate knock-offs from genuine out-of-production sets on eBay.
I’m also particularly curious what you mean about Chinese products – what have they been innovating in where Billund has been stagnant? I confess my only familiarity there has been in trying to separate knock-offs from genuine out-of-production sets on eBay.
> what have they been innovating in where Billund has been stagnant?
The quality / price ratio. Chinese knockoffs are 90% of the quality for 25% of the price.
The quality / price ratio. Chinese knockoffs are 90% of the quality for 25% of the price.
> 90% of the quality
Hm, are they? I haven't actually tried recent Chinese knockoffs specifically, but historically, "almost as good as Lego" is pretty disappointing. That last mile (last micrometer?) has always set Lego apart.
Hm, are they? I haven't actually tried recent Chinese knockoffs specifically, but historically, "almost as good as Lego" is pretty disappointing. That last mile (last micrometer?) has always set Lego apart.
In my experience, yes. I’ve purchased a few sets and have been pleased.
Care to name the brand?
I have purchased Lepin. I think they're not selling under that brand anymore, I think they sell as King / Queen / Jack? Also for technic sets, I have heard that Decool is even better than Lepin, although they don't seem to have the largest technic sets. You can get them off of AliExpress, or via private sellers at r/lepin.
Maybe I'm out of touch with current lego prices, but the prices on the Lepin webstore look very high for what I expected. $70 for a small house? Isn't that about the same as lego?
Lepin doesn't have a webstore. There are a lot of webstores that claim that they're Lepin, but afaik they're all 3rd party resellers.
They are far from 90% of the quality. The production standards at Lego are decades ahead of anything a Chinese company has produced so far in terms of tolerances, durability and quality control.
Really? A friend of mine has a house full of the Lepin kits and they look indistinguishable to me. Apparently there's very occasionally a piece which doesn't snap tightly enough and needs a bit of glue or something, but then I have an official Lego kit (little VW convertible thing) on my shelf which falls apart if nudged too hard so Lego's not perfect either.
As usual, you are both right. There are terrible knockoffs and there are the ones that even people very well versed in all things Lego have a hard time telling from the original when just given two otherwise identical bricks.
> They are far from 90% of the quality.
I don’t know what to tell you, besides that they were for me.
I don’t know what to tell you, besides that they were for me.
I love Lego's products, and have decades of fond memories with them, but every interaction I've ever had with the company itself has been kind of disappointing in terms of quality of service. I hope that's not a bad sign for BrickLink.
> fat price tags on everything
Prices have been about the same at 10c/brick or lower for pretty much forever. It's more that kits are getting more detailed than ever.
Prices have been about the same at 10c/brick or lower for pretty much forever. It's more that kits are getting more detailed than ever.
Analysis of the lawsuit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/lego/comments/ai7rub/lego_germany_s...
Why is this bad news? The article has pretty positive spin.
LEGO's finally been realizing that they should target adults over the last several years, and have been seemingly successful. I know more adults with recent LEGO sets now than ever.
LEGO's finally been realizing that they should target adults over the last several years, and have been seemingly successful. I know more adults with recent LEGO sets now than ever.
I was cautiously optimistic until they said unequivocally that they'll be stopping all sales of BrickArms and other fan-made/third-party accessories. (And moralizing about not supporting "warfare and violence" while continuing to sell Lego Indiana Jones sets with rifle-toting Nazis.)
This is probably going to kill BrickArms. Most of their sales are through BrickLink.
https://www.brothers-brick.com/2019/11/26/news-the-lego-grou...
This is probably going to kill BrickArms. Most of their sales are through BrickLink.
https://www.brothers-brick.com/2019/11/26/news-the-lego-grou...
Stopping sales of BrickArms is a no-brainer. IIRC firearms are notoriously difficult to reproduce as models, both physically and digitally, due to the aggressive IP lawyering of manufacturers.
Also I don't think LEGO wants to be in the business of selling models of actual named firearms. I think there is a massive divide between selling models of real life firearms versus models of firearms from films/entertainment IP. Context matters a lot.
Also I don't think LEGO wants to be in the business of selling models of actual named firearms. I think there is a massive divide between selling models of real life firearms versus models of firearms from films/entertainment IP. Context matters a lot.
> Stopping sales of BrickArms is a no-brainer. IIRC firearms are notoriously difficult to reproduce as models, both physically and digitally, due to the aggressive IP lawyering of manufacturers.
Change the names to something generic. Problem solved. It's worked for dozens of popular video games, and BrickArms are much lower-detail even than those.
When Lego's stance was "we don't make violent toys, period," that was something I could respect even if it wasn't my preference. Now their stance is "we don't make violent toys unless they're more than 100 years old or from the future or from Indiana Jones," and it's impossible to take that as anything but empty moralizing. They have, again, made sets with Nazi soldiers and recognizably modern firearms. For them to now say they won't endorse "guns and things that are potentially particularly connected to things like warfare and violence" rings utterly hollow.
Change the names to something generic. Problem solved. It's worked for dozens of popular video games, and BrickArms are much lower-detail even than those.
When Lego's stance was "we don't make violent toys, period," that was something I could respect even if it wasn't my preference. Now their stance is "we don't make violent toys unless they're more than 100 years old or from the future or from Indiana Jones," and it's impossible to take that as anything but empty moralizing. They have, again, made sets with Nazi soldiers and recognizably modern firearms. For them to now say they won't endorse "guns and things that are potentially particularly connected to things like warfare and violence" rings utterly hollow.
Companies have to sue for trademark infringement or they will lose the trademark due to the precedent of trademark violations going unchallenged.
They'll probably patent the whole site to be able to sue competitive sites.
SOHO Bricks was also included http://sohobricks.com/index.html in the acquisition.
Not sure they will be interested in keeping that alive. Additionally I am guessing they will remove BrickArms content from Bricklink at some point.
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Will this have any impact on BrickLink's independence?
> Yes, and no. BrickLink will no longer be an "unofficial" marketplace and will need to be conscious of the fact that it is representing the LEGO brand in a much more direct way than before. However, BrickLink's target audience (AFOLs) will remain unchanged, and the BrickLink brand itself will remain intact.
Source: https://www.bricklink.com/r3/announcement/lego_bl_faq.page
Not sure they will be interested in keeping that alive. Additionally I am guessing they will remove BrickArms content from Bricklink at some point.
---------
Will this have any impact on BrickLink's independence?
> Yes, and no. BrickLink will no longer be an "unofficial" marketplace and will need to be conscious of the fact that it is representing the LEGO brand in a much more direct way than before. However, BrickLink's target audience (AFOLs) will remain unchanged, and the BrickLink brand itself will remain intact.
Source: https://www.bricklink.com/r3/announcement/lego_bl_faq.page
Statements of CEOs and acquiring companies around the time of acquisition should be valued at exactly nothing. They'll do what ever they want to do in time no matter what they say today.
I read a whole lot into the fact that they specifically mention only two things they won't change, the target audience and the brand.
No one has mentioned GBC yet (Great Ball Contraption). GBC is a great hobby for adults, especially if you have kids. Bricklink is indispensable to find parts for GBC.
Here are some GBC examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWd3vgLaA_M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9_b6PzrqyQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpBa59oOjVc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XqnTFSPG1I
See also: http://www.greatballcontraption.com/wiki/Main_Page
Here are some GBC examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWd3vgLaA_M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9_b6PzrqyQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpBa59oOjVc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XqnTFSPG1I
See also: http://www.greatballcontraption.com/wiki/Main_Page
That reminds me of Capsela for some reason: https://www.google.com/search?q=capsela&tbm=isch
When my son was younger - about 7 years ago - I got really into making GBC contraptions with him. The hardest bits to find were the damn Lego balls! I paid someone on eBay $1 per ball for only 20 of them, not including shipping. I have no idea if it's better now, but I'm always amazed at the numbers of Lego balls the GBC events have. Where did they get them all??
That’s about right for the price. They’re not cheap. There’s copies that do the same job, but like in any hobby, people look down on the “fakes” despite them being functionally the same thing.
Like most niche secondary markets, Lego resale has a lot of interesting dynamics from a variety of participants. For example, some unopened sets have historically done well as investment vehicles once out of production [1].
I hold the Lego Group in high esteem as a company (no affiliation, just a lifelong fan) and I hope that they will do well by this acquisition. However, it also raises questions about the economic and social effects on niche resale communities when the original producer also owns the aftermarket. What would it be like if Nike or Adidas purchased reselling platforms like StockX? What if, back in the bubble, the company behind Beanie Babies had owned the aftermarket platform? IDK how it changes incentives for the company or the market participants, but it's interesting to think about. I would appreciate any insights on the question.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-17/lego-coll...
I hold the Lego Group in high esteem as a company (no affiliation, just a lifelong fan) and I hope that they will do well by this acquisition. However, it also raises questions about the economic and social effects on niche resale communities when the original producer also owns the aftermarket. What would it be like if Nike or Adidas purchased reselling platforms like StockX? What if, back in the bubble, the company behind Beanie Babies had owned the aftermarket platform? IDK how it changes incentives for the company or the market participants, but it's interesting to think about. I would appreciate any insights on the question.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-17/lego-coll...
Look no further than StubHub / ticket scalper sales. There was a great article a while back talking about tacit agreements between originators and scalpers (scalpers provide a baseline load, and detailed / last minute customer care without involving the originator).
> I hold the Lego Group in high esteem as a company
Lego started off on the theft of IP, as a company they've been absolutely ruthless in enforcing their fraudulently obtained patents. They then attempted to whitewash this.
They're a great toy, and there is a lot of good about them but their origin story and quite a lot of their behavior is not nearly as nice as they'd like you to believe.
Lego started off on the theft of IP, as a company they've been absolutely ruthless in enforcing their fraudulently obtained patents. They then attempted to whitewash this.
They're a great toy, and there is a lot of good about them but their origin story and quite a lot of their behavior is not nearly as nice as they'd like you to believe.
Source? How would I find more about this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_Fisher_Page
Hilary Fisher, and not Ole Kirk Christiansen should get the credit for the brick.
Hilary Fisher, and not Ole Kirk Christiansen should get the credit for the brick.
Thank you, that is a sad story. And well buried - hard to Google, and I never came across this even when they were a client of mine.
IIRC Lego were originally intending to produce something entirely different with their newly acquired injection moulding machine. Then they discovered the successful bricks being sold by Hilary Page, pivoted into counterfeiting, and produced an identical rip off of product, packaging, marketing, and branding:
http://hilarypagetoys.com/Images/articlestock/article875_Ima...
Pretty sure there's a little more of the tale on the site.
I have a bit of a thing against Lego's popularity given how litigious they are, and how they themselves got started.
http://hilarypagetoys.com/Images/articlestock/article875_Ima...
Pretty sure there's a little more of the tale on the site.
I have a bit of a thing against Lego's popularity given how litigious they are, and how they themselves got started.
There were a lot of other brick toys around, but it's hard to find dates as to who was first.
As a 70s kid I played with my father's Bayko sets and what I think may have been American Plastic Bricks (maybe with a different name) that were in a big box at my grandma's house. These products did specialised pieces years before Lego though you were restricted to building houses.
As a 70s kid I played with my father's Bayko sets and what I think may have been American Plastic Bricks (maybe with a different name) that were in a big box at my grandma's house. These products did specialised pieces years before Lego though you were restricted to building houses.
Bayko were Bakelite, and relied on bars to hold the bricks together, I think metal and straight from a Meccano set. They may have even bolted to the base. (Bayko were another early product from Frank Hornby, maker of Meccano and Hornby trains). I think the sets were solely designed for making buildings with essentially all the pieces specialised.
There were plenty of others along the same lines that were building, house building or brick toys, but none had the self-assembly of the gripping pegs in the plastic bricks that became the Kiddicraft innovation, later copied by Lego. Earlier sets used, like Bayko, different materials and approaches to assembly and go back into the inter-war years, perhaps even pre-WW1.
Kiddicraft and Lego stem from injection moulding.
There were plenty of others along the same lines that were building, house building or brick toys, but none had the self-assembly of the gripping pegs in the plastic bricks that became the Kiddicraft innovation, later copied by Lego. Earlier sets used, like Bayko, different materials and approaches to assembly and go back into the inter-war years, perhaps even pre-WW1.
Kiddicraft and Lego stem from injection moulding.
> British Lego Ltd. was set up in late 1959 and the first sets were sold the following year.
Sounds like this wasn't wholly related to LEGO, if it all.
Like any good idea, invention is not even half of the battle -- marketing reigns supreme.
Sounds like this wasn't wholly related to LEGO, if it all.
Like any good idea, invention is not even half of the battle -- marketing reigns supreme.
Lego copied the packaging, marketing and branding too.
Page's suicide was unconnected, and I'm not sure he knew of the Lego counterfeiting, or the full extent of it at the time.
Page's suicide was unconnected, and I'm not sure he knew of the Lego counterfeiting, or the full extent of it at the time.
Wish Lego "reissue" old sets more, kinda feel like they are the same as Wizards of the Coast with Magic cards. I'll always regret not getting the Technic Mercedes truck (42043) when it was generally available. Argubly that's one of the biggest and most complicated set. Price is now ~400€ but it was 150€ before. Oh well
This is a great idea. Supposedly the LEGO factory is set up to produce anything - let me order some nostalgia set from 1983! Like how the Magic: The Gathering people have undermined "rare" cards by just printing so many they can never be valuable.
"Like how the Magic: The Gathering people have undermined "rare" cards by just printing so many they can never be valuable."
I don't believe that that is the case ... Alpha/Beta/ArabianNights versions of currently printed cards are quite a bit more valuable ...
I don't believe that that is the case ... Alpha/Beta/ArabianNights versions of currently printed cards are quite a bit more valuable ...
There's always something rare, but they have consciously undermined collectability by re-printing things and banning cards from tournament play.
The value of Magic cards on the secondary market does very little for the manufacturer. Why shouldn't they maximize their profit by selling as many as they can? People who want to speculate can just buy something else.
Wait what? The secondary market value is why people are willing to buy new cards, it lets people justify spending a lot of money on new cards.
The overwhelming majority of Magic cards are bought by people to play the game.
Lego tried for a very short while to deliver sets 'to order', any set, even stuff you designed yourself.
Yeah they gave up on that which is too bad. I recall being able to upload an image, refining the output with a browser applet and getting a grayscale version of the image.
All the parts were packed in neat little baggies like it was a real set.
Mass customization is hard.
Mass customization is hard.
As a kid, I always wanted the Galactic Mediator [0] set. It was $60 at the time, which my parents could never afford. It'd be cool to see a reissue of that.
[0] https://lego.fandom.com/wiki/6984_Galactic_Mediator
[0] https://lego.fandom.com/wiki/6984_Galactic_Mediator
Same with me with the Black Seas Barracuda (the huge pirate ship from the nineties) – they kept it generally available for a long time, far longer than most sets, but right as I was making enough in my first job to be able to really spare the money (and was actually toying with the idea of buying it) they discontinued the set for good and prices rose into the sky pretty much overnight.
Both your comments make me want to dive into the storage space where I have all the bricks from the sorter project to see if I can come up with those sets. Bookmarked for when I have more time.
You remember the Millennium Falcon at scale for the mini figs a couple of years ago? I was that close buying on, but I said to myself 500 buck is tad expensive. They now sell them for more than 3k last time I checked... Maybe next te around...
One of the most dangerous ideas to get in your head is that you can invest your money in such a way as to get a more than 10x return in less than 30 years; it leaves you vulnerable to a great number of scams and bubbles.
FWIW, 10x growth in 30 years is 8% annually compounding.
Oh, I would not have left it in the box!
Good, hoarding masked as an investment strategy is rarely that rewarding (both financially and IRL). There's only so many people you can brag to about your collection of unusable boxes.
On a 30-year time horizon it would be more reasonable to use the S&P as a baseline as you can increase your short-term risk appetite. Since Nov 1989 that's a 15.82x return (incl. dividends)
That is basically where my number comes from, yes.
I use the more conservative numbers partially to account a little for inflation (inflation-adjusted, the S&P returns over the last 30 years are more like 8x, so honestly I'm not even pessimistic enough with that number), but mostly because I am using the numbers as a way to manage my own expectations about investment growth over time.
If I invest $10,000 today for my retirement 30 years hence, I'll have $100,000 in 30 years; if I want to invest for 30 years and then live for 30 years off the income, I should plan to put away 1/10th of my desired 30-years-from-now income per year. Easy peasy. I shouldn't, say, expect to put away 1/4 of my paycheck for five years and retire to live off the dividend income in perpetuity (for most combinations of "income" and "expenses"); compound interest doesn't work that fast.
Regarding short-term risks ... I'll confess to buying the odd long-shot stock and lottery ticket, but frankly once you begin managing your risk it becomes a lot less exciting -- risk management dilutes the gains as well as the losses.
I use the more conservative numbers partially to account a little for inflation (inflation-adjusted, the S&P returns over the last 30 years are more like 8x, so honestly I'm not even pessimistic enough with that number), but mostly because I am using the numbers as a way to manage my own expectations about investment growth over time.
If I invest $10,000 today for my retirement 30 years hence, I'll have $100,000 in 30 years; if I want to invest for 30 years and then live for 30 years off the income, I should plan to put away 1/10th of my desired 30-years-from-now income per year. Easy peasy. I shouldn't, say, expect to put away 1/4 of my paycheck for five years and retire to live off the dividend income in perpetuity (for most combinations of "income" and "expenses"); compound interest doesn't work that fast.
Regarding short-term risks ... I'll confess to buying the odd long-shot stock and lottery ticket, but frankly once you begin managing your risk it becomes a lot less exciting -- risk management dilutes the gains as well as the losses.
How does that relate to a 6x return?
I think the idea (buying LEGO as an investment) is stupid but your argument doesn’t even match the numbers he mentioned.
I think the idea (buying LEGO as an investment) is stupid but your argument doesn’t even match the numbers he mentioned.
It's also been less than 30 years.
10x over 30 years is just my baseline figure of what a reasonable investment looks like. Anything that gets bigger faster is probably risky as all get out, if not an outright scam or bubble.
10x over 30 years is just my baseline figure of what a reasonable investment looks like. Anything that gets bigger faster is probably risky as all get out, if not an outright scam or bubble.
It can be 29.99 years less than 30 years, it still doesn’t meet your “10x” scale.
I've always wondered, when do you round up (or down) for orders of magnitude? For instance, is 6 close enough to 10 to say it's an order of magnitude larger, or does it need to be closer (say 8), or hit a hard floor of being at least 10 times larger before we colloquially say it's increased by an order of magnitude?
Completely ignoring the time variable, I don't think it's crazy to say something 6x bigger is an order of magnitude bigger. I'm curious what other people consider a cutoff for this though.
Completely ignoring the time variable, I don't think it's crazy to say something 6x bigger is an order of magnitude bigger. I'm curious what other people consider a cutoff for this though.
If we go by log10 of the number, 4 would be enough to round up to "10" as an order of magnitude.
That just doesn't seem right to me, though. My non-rigorous intuition would put the cutoff at 7.
That just doesn't seem right to me, though. My non-rigorous intuition would put the cutoff at 7.
An order on magnitude is a factor if 10. So half an order of magnitude is a factor of a square root of ten, or 3.16, because two half orders of magnitude are a full order of magnitude.
[Edit:] A nice consequence of that limit is that 3.16 and 3.14 are almost the same number, so pi sits nicely on the border between this order of magnitude and the next, so you can approximate it as either one or ten, depending on what makes your estimate look better.
[Edit:] A nice consequence of that limit is that 3.16 and 3.14 are almost the same number, so pi sits nicely on the border between this order of magnitude and the next, so you can approximate it as either one or ten, depending on what makes your estimate look better.
I've always thought of "order of magnitude" as adding a zero, so anything less than 10 is a different order of magnitude.
Gets weird thinking about 9 being both one number less and one order of magnitude less than 10, while 99 is both 89 more and the same order of magnitude, but it's supposed to be a rough approximation.
Gets weird thinking about 9 being both one number less and one order of magnitude less than 10, while 99 is both 89 more and the same order of magnitude, but it's supposed to be a rough approximation.
Stepping back for a moment.
The problem isn't that a thing, somewhere, increased 6x in 10 years.
The problem is getting into the mindset where you think, "This is going to increase 6x in 10 years, or 10x in 10 years, or 2x in one year."
Once you start thinking that way, there's no point in putting $500 into the investment and accepting the measly $2500 payoff. You should put in $5000 and make $25,000, or take out a second mortgage so you can put $500,000 into the investment and retire in 10 years on your $2,500,000 gains.
Hell, some of the time your crazy investment will pay off and you will get rich! But most of the time your great investment opportunity will go bust and you will too.
That is the greedy mindset to avoid, if you don't want to find yourself skipping from one get-rich scheme to another, losing money the entire time, but thinking you're just one good payday from an easy life.
I bring it up apropos this thread because any time someone says, "If I had invested in X, Y years ago, I would have Z dollars now!!!", that's the beginning of the road to madness.
The problem isn't that a thing, somewhere, increased 6x in 10 years.
The problem is getting into the mindset where you think, "This is going to increase 6x in 10 years, or 10x in 10 years, or 2x in one year."
Once you start thinking that way, there's no point in putting $500 into the investment and accepting the measly $2500 payoff. You should put in $5000 and make $25,000, or take out a second mortgage so you can put $500,000 into the investment and retire in 10 years on your $2,500,000 gains.
Hell, some of the time your crazy investment will pay off and you will get rich! But most of the time your great investment opportunity will go bust and you will too.
That is the greedy mindset to avoid, if you don't want to find yourself skipping from one get-rich scheme to another, losing money the entire time, but thinking you're just one good payday from an easy life.
I bring it up apropos this thread because any time someone says, "If I had invested in X, Y years ago, I would have Z dollars now!!!", that's the beginning of the road to madness.
> I bring it up apropos this thread because any time someone says, "If I had invested in X, Y years ago, I would have Z dollars now!!!", that's the beginning of the road to madness.
I did say, “I think investing in LEGO is a stupid idea”.
I did say, “I think investing in LEGO is a stupid idea”.
IMO, the thing about collectibles is that you would need to be way ahead to make money.
GI joes were collectable in the 90s, and I'm pretty sure almost no GI joes made in the 90s are valuable now. Same with baseball cards.
Legos have value now that were bought long ago or in special circumstances, but the vast majority will be worth less in the future than today.
GI joes were collectable in the 90s, and I'm pretty sure almost no GI joes made in the 90s are valuable now. Same with baseball cards.
Legos have value now that were bought long ago or in special circumstances, but the vast majority will be worth less in the future than today.
> I'm pretty sure almost no GI joes made in the 90s are valuable now.
More than I thought. $1000+ is pretty impressive:
https://www.cbr.com/most-expensive-g-i-joe-figures/
More than I thought. $1000+ is pretty impressive:
https://www.cbr.com/most-expensive-g-i-joe-figures/
I could be wrong, but those were all from the 1980s and became valuable in the 1990s. The 1990s gi joes never really gained value because so many people collected them
Also, re: 6x over 10 years versus 10x over 30 years, 6x over 10 years amounts to ~200x over 30 years, and 10x over 30 years only amounts to ~2x over 10 years; it is a fantastic return.
Ok I’ll wait here you go invest in legos if you think they’re gonna be worth 200x as much in a few decades.
Case in point; Bitcoin
Hopefully the one that bought the set you were thinking about buying actually built and enjoyed the set instead of thinking about the resell value...
Don't fool yourself into believing these sets are hard to come by and that someone buying an "investment opportunity" is depriving someone else. The "hard to find" Saturn 5 rocket set has been on sale everywhere for 25% off recently.
If you receive the Lego catalogs, it's pretty evident that they're targeting all demographics now. The ultimate collector line of sets is aimed pretty squarely at the "investment" market and people with more money than sense. They recently started putting out sets for the nostalgia and pop culture markets with sets for the Flintstones, Steam Boat Willie, Stranger Things, and Friends.
You know when you're actively selling a toy set for a late 90s sitcom popular among 40 something single women that you're pandering to everyone. Honestly I'm surprised there isn't a Gilmore Girls set yet.
My four year old has the Summer, Fall, Late Holiday, and Christmas catalogs splayed out on the counter with all the sets she wants circled. Not surprisingly the following sets aren't on her shopping list:
4784 piece Imperial Star Destroyer
4108 piece Liebherr R 9800 Excavator
3306 piece 1989 Batmobile
2287 piece The Updside Down
1197 piece Trafalgar Square
1023 piece Harley-Davidson Fat Boy
826 piece Vestas Wind Turbine
I am a little offended she doesn't have the new Slave 1 set on her list though.
If you receive the Lego catalogs, it's pretty evident that they're targeting all demographics now. The ultimate collector line of sets is aimed pretty squarely at the "investment" market and people with more money than sense. They recently started putting out sets for the nostalgia and pop culture markets with sets for the Flintstones, Steam Boat Willie, Stranger Things, and Friends.
You know when you're actively selling a toy set for a late 90s sitcom popular among 40 something single women that you're pandering to everyone. Honestly I'm surprised there isn't a Gilmore Girls set yet.
My four year old has the Summer, Fall, Late Holiday, and Christmas catalogs splayed out on the counter with all the sets she wants circled. Not surprisingly the following sets aren't on her shopping list:
4784 piece Imperial Star Destroyer
4108 piece Liebherr R 9800 Excavator
3306 piece 1989 Batmobile
2287 piece The Updside Down
1197 piece Trafalgar Square
1023 piece Harley-Davidson Fat Boy
826 piece Vestas Wind Turbine
I am a little offended she doesn't have the new Slave 1 set on her list though.
You'd be surprised, though, sometimes. My 10 year old loved building the "age 16+" modular buildings, Tower Bridge, container ship, etc, when he was 4-6. Only grownup assistance needed was providing thumbs to mash things down occasionally, and sometimes suggestions on how to sort.
He'd still be doing it, too, if he'd not run out of room to build :P
("Age 16+" LEGOs really just require ... typical age 6-7 spatial skills plus not screaming in terror when you see thousands of pieces).
He'd still be doing it, too, if he'd not run out of room to build :P
("Age 16+" LEGOs really just require ... typical age 6-7 spatial skills plus not screaming in terror when you see thousands of pieces).
> Don't fool yourself into believing these sets are hard to come by and that someone buying an "investment opportunity" is depriving someone else. The "hard to find" Saturn 5 rocket set has been on sale everywhere for 25% off recently.
I definitely wanted to buy some sets to build, but they were out of production, and had outrageous prices.
I even had a spreadsheet trying to find nice sets with good pieces per dollar ratio, but the out of production sets had consistently poor one.
The Ghostbusters headquarters for example is a really nice set. In my national eBay shop, there are zero used sets available - only new ones. This is a clear example where collectors are depriving actual users of opportunity.
I definitely wanted to buy some sets to build, but they were out of production, and had outrageous prices.
I even had a spreadsheet trying to find nice sets with good pieces per dollar ratio, but the out of production sets had consistently poor one.
The Ghostbusters headquarters for example is a really nice set. In my national eBay shop, there are zero used sets available - only new ones. This is a clear example where collectors are depriving actual users of opportunity.
There is always scarcity with out of production sets, how is that an indicator of collectors depriving the market? If anything, your ability to purchase an out of production set new in the box is because of collectors.
Tried to convince my son to add the new Slave 1 to the wishlist. Lost against a XBOX and Fortnight. Kind of a double loss for me on that front it seems...
Don't let your brain fool you. You need to also take a moment to think about all the times it didn't go in your favour.
10x would be ridiculous, but so far LEGO's limited run models means that if you buy a popular model at the end of its run for its normal store price, you can effectively double that money by just having it in a closet for 1~2 years. Are you going to get rich off of a LEGO buy-now-sell-later scheme? Heck no. But is it a perfectly sensible way to double a small amount of money over a 1~2 year period? Absolutely.
huh? 75192? It's $800 like it's always been, and in stock everywhere.
Exactly, it's a slightly different set but for all intents and purposes, Lego can just reissue a set that is so poplular/expensive in the aftermarket. Frankly, I'm glad the Lego company is not playing the scarcity and collectibles game--that's not what Lego are about. Because once it's worth 3-4x, nobody is going to open it and play with it, it just gets sold between speculators.
For example, I wanted to get the Saturn V kit for my (adult) brother, and I was afraid it would be gone from stores and cost 500%. But no, there it was at lego.com, along with the moon lander kit as well--easy holiday shopping. Thank you Lego.
For example, I wanted to get the Saturn V kit for my (adult) brother, and I was afraid it would be gone from stores and cost 500%. But no, there it was at lego.com, along with the moon lander kit as well--easy holiday shopping. Thank you Lego.
Founded by Dan Jezek, who unfortunately died young: https://www.danjezek.com/index.html
Yes, it's a sad story. I worked at BrickLink shortly after he died and the company was acquired, and helped port some of his code to Java. It was all very dense ASP (classic, not ASP.net!) and SQL Server stored procedures. It was written perfectly for what it was: the product of one person's passion, one person's mind.
He did lots of little simple things, like just delete all data after 30-days. This decision alone saved an incredible amount of complexity (and was charmingly naive).
I've always been a minimalist myself, but I'd never seen minimalism taken so far. This was a very active, very data-intensive webapp that served the whole world basically running on two machines. It was a the webapp version of that 'aha' moment you get when you see what someone can do with 1k or 10k of code in code golf or the demoscene. We all pay a very heavy price for collaborating on software!
He did lots of little simple things, like just delete all data after 30-days. This decision alone saved an incredible amount of complexity (and was charmingly naive).
I've always been a minimalist myself, but I'd never seen minimalism taken so far. This was a very active, very data-intensive webapp that served the whole world basically running on two machines. It was a the webapp version of that 'aha' moment you get when you see what someone can do with 1k or 10k of code in code golf or the demoscene. We all pay a very heavy price for collaborating on software!
Super nice guy, really a pity.
Bad news for Lego resellers, the original manufacturer taking full control of the bulk of the secondary market for their product can't end well for the people active in that marketplace. Fortunately I never really bet on Bricklink (didn't want to set up shop in someone else's ecosystem), but there are plenty of people augmenting their living there.
as a die-hard lego fan I am quite worried about this. Will an alternative marketplace develop?
yeah, when I read this headline, my first reaction was "uh-oh" -- for years, Bricklink has been the only reasonable way to get specific [i.e., not subject to pick-a-brick selection]
bulk parts / bricks -- the stuff my kid and I build wouldn't be possible without Bricklink -- I sure hope they don't functionally torpedo it, or just kill it outright
I don't think so, in the end BrickLink is more like ebay then amazone, i.e. a platform which helps you by from other shops. And it also has the custom builds program.
If they crack down on reselling parts someone will just create a new platform doing that. What might be lost is some of the custom builds stuff and "automatically find parts" functionality. At last for some time.
Through they might put up a bit more quality assurance, i.e. follow complains about non-official LEGO parts being sold and similar. It also prevents the platforms from starting to sell non-Lego blocks and figures.
Through we probably can be sure that militaria LEGO builds are not unlikely to disappear.
If they crack down on reselling parts someone will just create a new platform doing that. What might be lost is some of the custom builds stuff and "automatically find parts" functionality. At last for some time.
Through they might put up a bit more quality assurance, i.e. follow complains about non-official LEGO parts being sold and similar. It also prevents the platforms from starting to sell non-Lego blocks and figures.
Through we probably can be sure that militaria LEGO builds are not unlikely to disappear.
If I had to guess, this is related to Brickset working with LEGO to sell those custom sets recently. They're probably going to sell extra stuff occasionally through it and maybe some exclusive parts etc. Leaving the reselling alone. Just a thought.
I'd be a bit concerned too. I have got the distinct feeling that over the last ten years or so Lego has been working harder to control both it's image and how the fan community uses its products. Stuff like suing YouTubers for a variety of reasons and being ever stricter about how and when you can use the Lego name.
My concern would be that Lego will make BrickLink the "approved" community and resale site and make it harder for alternatives to exist.
I hope I'm wrong, but I cant help but think that because the resale/collector value of Lego increases it would make sense for Lego to try and control that market.
My concern would be that Lego will make BrickLink the "approved" community and resale site and make it harder for alternatives to exist.
I hope I'm wrong, but I cant help but think that because the resale/collector value of Lego increases it would make sense for Lego to try and control that market.
I was wondering what would be the general opinion of the effect this will have on BrickLink going forward. I, too, am concerned about how this will affect BrickLink's autonomy to operate as it has for years.
Bricklink will be hard to beat for an alternative marketplace, it's been tried a couple of times by people not happy with the way Bricklink was run but just like Ebay it's a two sided marketplace and those have very strong network effects that once a party is established make it very hard to enter that market.
There already is https://brickowl.com
There already is https://brickowl.com
pours one out for Bricklink
Gonna miss you Bricklink, its was good while it lasted.
Gonna miss you Bricklink, its was good while it lasted.
As an AFOL: I'm actually cautionally optimistic about this.
I actually trust the TLG to do good here. They have had a bunch of exposure to the "internet people", over the years. I think they'll handle this well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Mindstorms#History
> The original Lego Mindstorms Robotics Invention System was born out of a collaboration between The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Lego group. In 1985, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, then Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of The Lego Group, heard of the work of MIT's Seymour Papert and was struck by how similar his goals of learning through building were to those of The Lego Group’s newly formed educational division. The Lego Group began a partnership with Papert’s Media Lab, funding their research and sharing ideas.
Also, if TLG fucks this up: It's not like it's that hard for someone to create a new bricklink-like brick trading site.
I actually trust the TLG to do good here. They have had a bunch of exposure to the "internet people", over the years. I think they'll handle this well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Mindstorms#History
> The original Lego Mindstorms Robotics Invention System was born out of a collaboration between The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Lego group. In 1985, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, then Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of The Lego Group, heard of the work of MIT's Seymour Papert and was struck by how similar his goals of learning through building were to those of The Lego Group’s newly formed educational division. The Lego Group began a partnership with Papert’s Media Lab, funding their research and sharing ideas.
Also, if TLG fucks this up: It's not like it's that hard for someone to create a new bricklink-like brick trading site.
> It's not like it's that hard for someone to create a new bricklink-like brick trading site.
That was my first thought.
That was my first thought.
The people at Eurobricks.com don't seem to like the news though:
https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/174...
https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/174...
I've bought through BrickLink before and I am pretty sure I got non-branded lego clone parts.
I wonder if Lego will clamp down on that and ensure everything is genuine.
I wonder if Lego will clamp down on that and ensure everything is genuine.
No doubt they would love to but that would take a lot of work on their part, telling counterfeit Lego from the real thing is harder than it seems. The knock-offs are getting so good now that I have to resort to destructive testing to know for sure. Most of the clones still respect the Lego logo at the top and replace it with their own. Blox is particularly impressive, their precision is on par with Lego's and the plastic is just as good as well.
I hate them with a passion because there is no way to automate that part of the recognition process with sufficient reliability.
I hate them with a passion because there is no way to automate that part of the recognition process with sufficient reliability.
As a long-time BrickLink user/buyer I would welcome that kind of quality control.
Laughing at the irony and change of tone.
Our love and appreciation for adult fans of LEGO. They have always been very important to us and have contributed so much to helping us build the brand.
Their original tact was --
http://www.ibiblio.org/team/history/mirrors/lego/
Our love and appreciation for adult fans of LEGO. They have always been very important to us and have contributed so much to helping us build the brand.
Their original tact was --
http://www.ibiblio.org/team/history/mirrors/lego/
Surprised at the number of typos in that document. Lawyers got paid good money to write that up I assume.
I'm excited but hesitant to see what happens, as an adult who recently got back into Lego I think there could be some great support given. Or it could all go to hell in a handbasket.
This is either incredibly good news, or incredibly bad news, and I think that Lego's near-death experience and family ownership might mean this is good news ... maybe.
It will be interesting to see what parts of the site LEGO keeps and which they discard. BrickLink is one of the primary reseller marketplaces.
Lego not creating minecraft seems like the modern day kodak digital photo story everyone will be studying in a decade or two.
I’ve heard this sentiment before, but I don’t see why one would expect a toy company with decades of expertise in toy design, manufacturing, and plastic chemistry to invent a multiplayer computer game. It’s more like expecting Kodak to invent Photoshop.
Also, computer and video games haven’t exactly done to the toy market what digital photography did to the film market.
Also, computer and video games haven’t exactly done to the toy market what digital photography did to the film market.
Actually, the Lego group might have been in a great position to create a multiplayer computer game. They have been running games on their website for years, and even had a massively multiplayer game for a bit. The failure of their own multiplayer game was due to poor management, and not listening to user feedback. Also, they were pretty greedy with their pricing model. It was more expensive than other games at the time.
Most collectors are just interested in the figures and have not interest in the sets themselves. I have a hard believing a lot of what goes on in bricklink and elsewhere is the result of harvesting minifigs out of boxes and boxes of minifigure sets.
I surely dont know something about how all this works both officially and unofficially
I surely dont know something about how all this works both officially and unofficially
I'm not sure that's the case for much older stuff. You regularly see complete old sets on ebay go for nonzero money. You can get upwards of three hundred for a working Space Monorail.
There is a huge untapped market opportunity for Lego in the adult space IMO. I am a lifelong Lego fan (48yrs young), and I still buy the odd set (just finished 42099 which was epic).
The problem is the perception by many that this is a kids toy. I have a 5 year old daughter, so even that excuse barely works :D
The problem is the perception by many that this is a kids toy. I have a 5 year old daughter, so even that excuse barely works :D
Why untapped? Lego is tapping the hell out of that market. It's both for 5 year old daughters and 48 year old parents.
It's insane to consider how massive Lego has become. In my mind, the 1980s are still the golden age of Lego: every set was iconic, at least in my mind. Many of the current themes were started in the early 1980s. At some point, ver a decade ago, I feared they'd lost their way and making sets of questionable design that seemed to have forgotten what Lego was about, but now they're back. They're just doing everything: the Creator line that's about building stuff, the City line has more than just police and firefighters now, there's a new, more realistic space line (part of City actually), the different look of the friends line, but also (finally!) more female minifigs in other lines. There's tons of licenses, collectibles, programmable Lego of several kinds, mobile games, the cool stuff coming from Ideas, etc. The only thing I kinda miss is their Lego boardgame line. But other than that, it seems they're hitting every market at once, from every possible angle, and they're surprisingly effective at it. I think they surpassed Hasbro as the largest toy maker in the world, didn't they?
It's insane to consider how massive Lego has become. In my mind, the 1980s are still the golden age of Lego: every set was iconic, at least in my mind. Many of the current themes were started in the early 1980s. At some point, ver a decade ago, I feared they'd lost their way and making sets of questionable design that seemed to have forgotten what Lego was about, but now they're back. They're just doing everything: the Creator line that's about building stuff, the City line has more than just police and firefighters now, there's a new, more realistic space line (part of City actually), the different look of the friends line, but also (finally!) more female minifigs in other lines. There's tons of licenses, collectibles, programmable Lego of several kinds, mobile games, the cool stuff coming from Ideas, etc. The only thing I kinda miss is their Lego boardgame line. But other than that, it seems they're hitting every market at once, from every possible angle, and they're surprisingly effective at it. I think they surpassed Hasbro as the largest toy maker in the world, didn't they?
5 years is old enough for the junior/4+ sets.
Those sets have larger parts and can be build within the attention span of a child. And they are mostly something hands on like cars or planes that the kids like to play with.
Then even larger sets can be cool for children. I just bought and build the current moon station but that turned out to be not as good looking as I imagined. But my daughters (4 and 6) immediately took control of it. Especially the pizza dispenser was a highlight for them.
Those sets have larger parts and can be build within the attention span of a child. And they are mostly something hands on like cars or planes that the kids like to play with.
Then even larger sets can be cool for children. I just bought and build the current moon station but that turned out to be not as good looking as I imagined. But my daughters (4 and 6) immediately took control of it. Especially the pizza dispenser was a highlight for them.
A kinda interesting way to make money is to go to flea markets and buy Lego bricks at a discount, then sell them at the likes of this site. Normally I see bricks go for about 60USD per kilo I think if not more, but in flea markets you can make some good deals.
This reminds me:
A few years ago, Jacques Mattheij accidentally won a lot more bulk lego auctions than he meant to. His story of sorting through them with a homemade hopper/camera/ML/computer vision showed up on HN.
It's still a good read today. It begins at:
https://jacquesmattheij.com/sorting-two-metric-tons-of-lego/
A few years ago, Jacques Mattheij accidentally won a lot more bulk lego auctions than he meant to. His story of sorting through them with a homemade hopper/camera/ML/computer vision showed up on HN.
It's still a good read today. It begins at:
https://jacquesmattheij.com/sorting-two-metric-tons-of-lego/
Buying bricks at flea markets has gotten a lot harder in recent years. Occasionally you run across someone selling random bags of minifigs in packs of 5 for $10, or the occasional damaged box at 25% to 50% off retail, but in my experience, the prices at flea markets have gone up dramatically and finding 'deals' has gotten veyr hard.
I hope this market inefficiency doesn't get ironed out. Yard sales and flea markets are where I got all the lego I had when I was a kid. My parents couldn't afford to buy that much lego new, nor at the prices charged online.
60USD/kilo is vastly overpriced, you should pay no more than 8 in bulk. Sorted and cleaned it's a different matter.
This is why you ignore copyright. There are zero consequences for doing so. I have zero respect for copyright. You can do whatever you want and you might be get a letter in the mail that can be thrown in the trash
Any idea how this affects peeron.com? Will they develop their own marketplace?
As someone who uses bricklink from time to time, I believe Lego is trying to control counterfeits. I know it’s becoming easier to replicate Lego products especially minifigures.
I'm sorry for Bricklink, may you rest in peace!
Maybe it's LEGO attempt to clutch at any straw and they finally trying to be better, but I really doubt it. LEGO has moved themself into a position where they are really cornered. No innovation, fat price tags on everything... – There is a German guy who had a LEGO store in Frankfurt, called "Held der Steine" (hero of the bricks). His YouTube account is quite popular and became a meme in Germany. LEGO sued him for having something which somehow resembled a LEGO brick in his logo. On his channel he reviewes all the "new" stuff LEGO is putting on the market; and he's showing how desastrous the Danish company became. They simply don't care anymore at all as it seems.
Now he's also presenting all the Chinese stuff as well – they are actually ahead in the game already.