Collecting vs. Investing: Should Lego bring back retired sets?

psusyntar · 2013-08-21T21:57:41.000Z

I have always enjoyed Lego, though I have just started collecting various sets (mostly Star Wars) within the last year. I have kept myself mostly to the original trilogy sets and I have stuck with the vehicles (just because there are so many). I also have just joined this site within the last few weeks as I am getting into investing. Mostly going to be small scale for right now. I have seen posts in the forums about people talking about Lego wanting to do away with the secondary market and the "Golden Age" of Lego investing and selling being over. This is bad news for investors but as long as Lego retires sets, and people want those retired sets, there will always be a secondary market. I had an interesting thought though that could help collectors though possibly hurt investors. If Lego wanted to do away with the secondary market, they should bring back retired sets periodically. Lego has all the means to bring back sets that they created (though unless the license rights ran out, among other justifications for retiring a set). Though as I said before, I am interested mostly in Star Wars and I missed out on some great sets (mostly the UCS sets). Lego has the license to do these sets until 2022. So they could, in theory, put out these sets again that have retired. As a collector, I would be all for it. However, I could see how this could hurt the investor market. Why would someone buy an Ultimate Collector's Millenium Falcon for 2862.07 ('New' price on Brickpicker 8/21) when they could get it for 500 or maybe 600 (with inflation) from the Lego store. There would still be opportunity for investors to make money as the set would be retired again but there is always that chance that Lego could bring it back in a year or two or three after doing so. In that in between time would be the time for investors. Though there would still be a bit of mystery that could benefit investors, would the company bring it back? And if they did how long would someone have to wait? A lot of questions that could benefit investors. A patient collector like me could just wait it out, but there are people who just have to have it now and can not wait. Figured this forum was open for discussion on a number of ideas in the post. My time and knowledge of Lego investing is limited, so I know there is quite a bit I still have to learn.