Back when LEGO was going crazy thanks to The LEGO Movie, I remember reading about how you could buy illegal drugs with them in Europe. This story from The Guardian is taking it a step further. However, I find it really comes from the No Shit department of the Media. Unless you’ve been living under a rock and never heard of eBay, Mercari, Craigslist and the granddaddy of them all for LEGO, BrickLink.com; it’s not a shock how old, out-of-circulation sets are going for ridiculous amounts, especially if the box it came in is in pretty good shape.
LEGO knows this as they bought BrickLink.com to probably make sure they get piece of every reseller, collector and master builder’s action. Unlike the video game publishers who were pissed about GameStop and their ilk making any money, they found a new way to screw their customers by download-only distribution; sucks, now it’s harder to loan a game to a friend. Since LEGO can’t sue every garage sale on the planet, BrickLink.com was the next best thing. So far, they haven’t done anything to piss me off yet, namely preventing resellers from selling me proprietary parts I want and then I can make my own Star Wars creations.
I’m also curious if the LEGO bubble will ever burst. They’re the number one toy company in the world. They’re privately held which kept the Investor Caste and Hedge Funds from raping them and shoving thousands of Danes into the cold. They’ve built additional factories since the first movie while transitioning to be more environmentally sustainable. Lastly, children as they age and get replaced by younger ones, are a fickle bunch. The AFOL (Adult-Fan of LEGO) can’t sustain the whole market.
Well, I think LEGO is a more sound investment than comic books (how I remember the Nineties) and certain toys. Even if the market collapsed, unlike a Ponzi Scheme, you still have something enjoyable to tinker with. They could take your mind of how hungry you might be too.