Your best Pokemon card: A Jurassic Park toy: Power Rangers action figure: A Nickelodeon alarm clock: A can of Surge: Your Hot Wheels collection: Your Ninja Turtles action figure: But hey, look on the bright side: Your Beanie Babies are still worthless. 21 Limited Too Items That Will Make You Say, "MY MOM...Some rare Lego sets are now selling for literally thousands of pounds online, as enthusiasts snap up the popular toys. But it's not just rare pieces that are selling well, with standard sets now frequently worth more than when they were new and even old bags of unsorted bricks in demand. “With the soar in popularity of Lego with both adults and children, the effect on the values of both rare, hard to find sets and new releases has been incredible," said Bev Channell, event director for Lego event BRICK 2015, running at Birmingham's NEC this week. “It’s well worth searching through your old sets to see what treasures are hiding there.”
The bigger, rarer sets tend to be worth the most - but with Lego frequently refreshing its range that means any old set that's large enough could be worth upwards of £1,000. Currently, these are the most valuable sets: Sadly, to get the best prices for your Lego, it needs to be “mint in box” - which means not opened since it was bought and still factory sealed. The good news for people who want to play with their toys is that you can still get good returns for assembled models – as long as there are no pieces missing. The easiest Lego sets to sell are Star Wars themed, with Millennium Falcons, Death Stars and X-Wings all selling well – and some prices in the thousands. But there's much more than just Star Wars selling. A look at the best-selling kits on BrickPicker shows trains, play houses, dinosaurs, Harry Potter sets, Back to the Future Deloreans and Pirate sets all featuring. Most of the sales take place on eBay, with BrickPicker providing lists of the top selling and biggest rising prices – as well as a tool letting you compare the price of sets.
You can also search on eBay for sold prices of similar sets. If you've got a box of Lego, rather than a specific set, you can bulk-sell as well – although prices for these are a lot lower. That said, if you have the time and can split the box out by category (be it Star Wars, pirates, Medieval, Technic or whatever) these smaller – more specific - bundles will frequently sell for more than a job-lot of unsorted bricks. To get the most value, you need to be selling pristine-condition Lego toys. “As with any sort of collectible, the safe storage of the collectible is very important,” Ed Mack explains in a piece on How to make money from Lego . “Although the actual Lego brick is pretty much indestructible under normal conditions, the Lego boxes and instructions need special care.” That means quite a lot of space to store them all if you're trying to make money from them, and possibly adding the cost to your insurance. Then there are the seller fees on eBay. And the shipping costs – remember, Lego is bulky and could cost quite a bit to ship.
And if you're selling to a collector, they'll expect it to arrive in good condition, so packing costs go up again. Oh, and don't count your profits before you sell – the price of a set can drop fast if Lego re-introduces it while prices can rise as well as fall in line with demand too. Is Lego better than gold? 500+ VOTES SO FAR The market for old toys on eBay is much bigger than just Lego. If you've got some old childhood clutter just gathering dust, here are 8 ways to tell if your old toys could be worth more then just memories while our guide to getting the most cash when selling old toys on eBay can be found here.In this Brick Breakdown series I review official LEGO sets, from the perspective of looking at interesting building techniques we can all learn from. Today we will be looking at the #70411 LEGO Pirates Treasure Island. You can also check out the previously discussed LEGO techniques found in official LEGO sets at the end of this article. As you know, LEGO Pirates are back this year. A
s the movie license of Pirates of the Caribbean is now over, there is no competition for the high seas. This means we’re back to the original LEGO Pirates, with simpler designs, but more freedom in what can be created. Since this is essentially a re-launch of LEGO Pirates, it was necessary to reestablish the two sides of the conflict. This is done with some fairly basic, tried and true designs; the soldiers get their various fort/outpost bases and the pirates get wrecked islands and a cool ship. So now let’s find out what valuable techniques are buried on Treasure Island… ➡ NOVEL PULLEY USE WITH LEGO Often when you see a LEGO pulley design it is used in a very functional way; basically to lift things up – like a crane in a LEGO City set, or for closing a LEGO Castle gate. In the #70411 LEGO Pirates Treasure Island there are some minor twists to the pulley. First, the pulley is hidden behind tree leaves and is threaded among one of the pieces on the rocky outcrop. This makes the chain the pulley uses only partially visible – which differs from most pulley designs where you can see the full pulley action.
The next major difference is that when the pulley mechanism is activated, it pulls on a fixed object. The skull wall features a hinge that prevents the wall from leaving its position. The end result is a very specific redirection of how the pulley’s force is applied. In this case, the skull lifts like a hidden passageway. With all the decorations it can be easy to miss this simple yet very clever and effective technique. If you control an object’s movement with things like hinges, then the standard use of a pulley will change its effect. The real task will be figuring out the right placement to anchor the pulley and position the hinge. ➡ DECORATIVE & FUNCTIONAL WALLS WITH LEGO I would like to begin by saying that you can make these types of walls in any thickness with a variety of styles. The one style I am going to cover is probably the most common and is what is featured in this LEGO Pirates set. I would encourage builders to only view this technique as a starting point and explore more complex designs using the principles found here. I
n the #70411 LEGO Pirates Treasure Island set a wall that is both decorative and functional is the skull wall section; it has a clear decorative look and it is used as a hidden passageway. So let’s look at its basic principles applied here. For starters, the wall is two studs thick. This is very important because each row can be dedicated to a different facet of the wall’s construction. In this example, one of the stud rows is all about forming the skull with slopes and shaped elements. The second row is used for solidifying the wall by making it stable and features the hinge that gives it its functional aspect. This represents a clear separation of the two main qualities we are looking for in something that is both decorative and functional. I recommend anyone attempting this type of design to start with a two stud thick wall. It is easy to keep things in their proper place and it doesn’t take up a whole lot of space. ➡ APPLYING WHAT YOU LEARN The novel use of the pulley seen in #70411 LEGO Pirates Treasure Island set is just one example of how you can alter a simple mechanism. O
ften by adding your own restrictions to a device, you can dramatically change what the device is capable of accomplishing. Consider any LEGO model you designed with an action element. Then think of ways you can change that action with a hinge or additional mechanisms. As mentioned in the section about decorative and functional walls, the style described is only the simplest one to understand. You could build the wall sideways to add new complications, or make the wall thinner by using plates in a sideways fashion. You can even go the other direction and add more stud rows because you may want the middle to be functional and the opposite sides to be decorative. Your options will dramatically expand with just a little experimentation. For the LEGO Pirates sets see the Online LEGO Shop. So what do you think? How do you like the LEGO The Pirates sets? Did you get any of them already? And did you learn from the interesting building techniques used in the sets? Feel free to share your own experiences and tips, or ask questions in the comment section below! 😉