Items to Look For: LEGOs

If you haven't priced Legos in the last few years, you probably don't realize that they're absurdly expensive. I'm not sure if they've always been this bad, but decent-sized sets now easily retail for more than $100 and anything in the $20-$30 range is too small to be worth buying.

The problem with buying Legos is that it's pretty much guaranteed that pieces will be missing. This is fine if you're buying them for yourself to build without instructions or to add to a box of mixed Legos. When I was in college, I bought a bag of a few hundred pieces for my dorm to play around with. If you're buying with the intention of having a whole set (either for yourself or as a gift) then you're making a mistake unless you can get them for really cheap.

I've heard that Legos can sell for quite a bit of money on eBay, especially if they come with the box and directions. This is especially true for older sets and some of the more popular themes, like Star Wars. Of course, this requires you to find a full set.

If you have a lot of time on your hands and don't mind making money fifty cents at a time, you can also sell individual pieces on eBay to people who are missing their own pieces. You can sell the pieces for anywhere from 99 cents to a few dollars, but after shipping (even a first class envelope) your profit will be small.

You most likely won't find Legos at garage sales. In the last year I've seen them twice and both times they were too expensive to purchase. Still, if you're looking for a relatively cheap gift or you don't mind spending a little more on yourself, you may get lucky.

11/3/12 Purchase Summary

I didn't actually go garage saling yesterday; I just did my normal neighborhood walk. I bought Colossus by Michael Hiltzik for $0.10. I know nothing about the book but it sounded interesting and the author won a Pulitzer so I thought it would be decent.