Lego sets come in all different sizes with different numbers of Lego pieces. Of course bigger sets cost more, but is there a linear relationship between set size and cost? Let’s take a look. Oh, and yes – I did look at this before, but that was a long time ago. It’s time to revisit the data. It’s not too difficult to find data for Lego prices and number of pieces. If you just look on the Lego online store. There you can find both the price and the number of pieces for each set. You can even sort them by “themes” – like “Star Wars” or “friends” Even though it’s easy to get, I only collected price data for a subset of the themes (mostly because I am lazy). If I put all of this data together, I can get a plot of the set price vs. number of pieces in set. Here is what that looks like. Let’s look at the linear function that fits this data. The slope of this line is 0.104 US Dollars per Lego piece. There is your answer. On average, one Lego piece costs 10.4 cents.
Also, I think it’s nice to notice that this data is fairly linear.What about the y-intercept for this fitting function? The value from the fit is 7.34 USD. That means that for this function, if you had a Lego set with zero pieces in it, it would still cost $7.34 – you know, for the box and instructions and stuff. Yes, I know that there are Lego sets cheaper than $7.34 – this is just the y-intercept for the fitting function. Now let me point out the three outliers in this plot. Notice that all of these (one from Duplo and two from the City theme) are train sets. Of course train sets are going to be more expensive than a set with the same number of pieces (but not a train) because of the electric motors and stuff. If you are looking for a “good deal”, might I suggest the Trevi Fountain (21020). This set has 731 pieces for just $49.99. According to the fitting function, a set with this many pieces should cost about 83 dollars. Suppose I break all the data into the different themes.
If I fit a linear function to each of the different themes, I can get both the price per piece of Lego and the price of a zero piece set. Here are the brick prices for some of the Lego themes. The error bars are the uncertainties in the fit parameters. If you know what a Duplo block is, you probably aren’t surprised that they are the most expensive (63 cents per brick). These are bricks created for smaller kids. They are all large so that you can’t swallow them. It just makes since that they would cost more. The other expensive bricks are the City sets. But this is deceiving due to the high set prices of the train kits. I suspect if you removed these train sets from the plot, it would be a more normal price. What about the base cost? This is the y-intercept of the linear fit. Here you will notice that the City theme has a negative base cost. This means that if there were no pieces (on average) in a City set, Lego would pay YOU money. But why is this negative? It’s because of the high price of the train sets.
They increase the slope of the linear fit but also push the y-intercept into negative values. The real bargains are the Architecture themed sets. These have a base cost of only 70.7 cents where as the Marvel themed sets have a base cost of 3.61 USD. I’ve probably already answered some of these questions in the past, but it would still be fun as a homework assignment. Some of these aren’t too difficult. You could think of them as Duplo Homework. Notice that not even once did I use a plural version of the term “Lego”. Welcome to Citizen Brick Congratulations on finding your way to Citizen Brick, home of the finest custom printed LEGO items around. We offer truly unique products for the LEGO fan looking for something a little off the beaten path. Whether shopping for the perfect one-of-a-kind gift, or just something for your own collection, Citizen Brick has the solution! Why are Citizen Brick products so awesome? Well, it starts with the freshest ingredients..
We use authentic LEGO and LEGO-compatible parts, and print in-house at our Chicago print shop. Other sites claim to print on LEGO, but only Citizen Brick uses authentic pad printing – the same process used to create factory-made LEGO products. We use toy-safe, medical grade inks that are tough enough to stand up to years of play. An Ape's Place: A Safe Place for Space Apes The Citizen Brick Center for the Performing Arts Meet Citizen Brick Issue 2: Master Photographer, CB Kits Designer, and Beard Enthusiast Bryan McLean Posted August 26, 2015 We spend a good amount of time making sure our product is not just the very best quality available, but that it looks cool. Enter Bryan, genius photographer to the plastic stars. When he's not making our custom figs look... Meet Citizen Brick Issue 1: Master of Printing, Color Genius, and Production Manager, Ashley Zenner Posted July 20, 2015 It might surprise you to drop in on the Citizen Brick HQ. The space is smallish, and most surfaces are covered with Lego.
I have made a couple of orders for my BB-8 Droid. In some cases I wanted a higher quantity of a piece than Bricklink could offer. If you take into account your time in making multiple orders, the convenience of a single source of new parts can work out cheaper overall.If you want gears, axles and pins then normal Technic kits have loads of them. Motors would be bought individually as Power Functions items from LEGO Shop at Home. I would usually go for new motors or other complex functional elements because I know their history. In quite a few locally-sourced 2nd hand lots I’ve had in the past, it seems the owners may have lost interest when the motors burned out.I found it tricky to get pneumatic parts or belts from LEGO Shop customer services; they always show as “out of stock”. LEGO Education may be a better source of belts as those kits use them more. I look at the latest sets containing pneumatics for those parts.At the moment the Bucket Wheel Excavator 42055 has a large selection of parts for a reasonable price.