Become a Lego Appraiser

[james.hendrickson]

Okay - the lego corporation is now the world's largest toy manufacturer. Their market capitalization is bigger than Mattel and Hasbro combined. There is also a robust secondary market for Lego sets, with several companies repurposing blocks to make custom sets and lots of folks buying and selling legos bulk collections online and or manufacturing lego parts themselves.

As a result, everyone's childhood stash of lego is now worth money. Some of these collections can be large, which suggests there may be a need for specialists to value these collections.

So, if you know about Legos and are interested in making some extra money, consider setting yourself up as a lego appraiser.

You'll need:

1) A website
2) Business cards
3) Knowledge of legos
4) Connections in the insurance industry

[StormRichards]

I think I encounter at least 50 "Server Error" messages today trying to access this site, and you are spending time and brain cells on this?

[bjl584]

I have a rather extensive lego collection from my childhood. I can't imagine it's worth too much though. It would be fun to try to look some it up if I get some free time.

[bjl584]

If Ebay is any indication, then I would be sitting on a gold mine if I never opened any of my Legos as a child and played with them.

All of my collection was opened, built, and played with. They are only worth big money if you still have them in the original packaging never opened.

[disneysteve]

If Ebay is any indication, then I would be sitting on a gold mine if I never opened any of my Legos as a child and played with them.

All of my collection was opened, built, and played with. They are only worth big money if you still have them in the original packaging never opened.

That's true of most old toys. Most valuable is mint in package. Next is great used condition but with the original packaging. And then is what most people have - used and the box is long gone. Sometimes the box can be just as valuable as the toy itself. A fellow collector friend of mine once sold a box - no toy - for $2,000, and that was 15-20 years ago.

[bjl584]

That's true of most old toys. Most valuable is mint in package. Next is great used condition but with the original packaging. And then is what most people have - used and the box is long gone. Sometimes the box can be just as valuable as the toy itself. A fellow collector friend of mine once sold a box - no toy - for $2,000, and that was 15-20 years ago.

My collection is what most people have. Used and box is long gone. The sets are complete however, and nothing is broken. It appears that most of the Lego sets from the 80's, which are the ones that I have, are still worth about what they retailed for new even out of the box. So, they have basically held their value. I could probably sell the whole set for close to $1000. If they were all still brand new in the box I could probably get 4 to 5 times as much.

[StormRichards]

Never entered my mind as a child, or the minds of my parents to keep boxes for toys unless the toy was best stored in the box. Board games are a good example of things we kept in the box. Legos ended up in a big bin.

[thestrongprofessional]

Lego appraiser

Hey guys,

That seems like a unique profession. I'm sure other collectibles such as Pokemon cards will eventually be quite lucrative. Pretty interesting way to make money.

Raphael

[JoeP]

Lego flipping has become more or less a market, complete with futures! My brother uses https://www.brickpicker.com/ to price out his collection value ("brickfolio"), which is over $25k now. I believe he spent just south of $10k to date. He'll watch for new releases and buy anywhere between 3-5 of the same. He has a whole spare bedroom set up as a stockroom.

[harvie]

I wish I didn't throw away those Lego bricks and the boxes when I was a kid. I did not know that they can become valuable in the long run. If I did, I would be rich by now.

[Moolah22]

That sounds like a really unique profession.

[PeggyHefferon]

Seems a bit bizarre to me.

[msomnipotent]

I made about $200 by putting Legos on Ebay. I started with my daughter's unopened girl Legos that she received as gifts and didn't want. Then I bought a couple of the expert sets that were about to sell out and flipped them. They can be really expensive to ship if they are still in their original boxes. Some of them are huge.

[SavvyShopper24]

The problem being most children play with toys and therefore you'll find they're not in the best condition to be sold