TIE #101: ANOTHER Update to My LEGO Set Picking System (You Need to Read This)
Allow me to explain how I am now estimating theme supply.
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In the recent LEGO July Hit List post, I mentioned that I had made the final update with a newly updated set picking system.
If you haven’t looked at that hit list, you should. It is the final update for sets retiring at the end of this month:
It is time to explain how the system has changed (again) and why I made this change.
Before we do that, I think it is important to discuss how we got here:
Pre-2022
Prior to documenting my LEGO investing portfolio, I just bought what I thought looked cool when it went on sale prior to retirement.
I didn’t have a system and this newsletter didn’t exist.
2022 - 2024
I dove into any data I could find and found the following:
Sets over $100 appreciated quicker than sets below $100
Sets below $100 produced higher return on investment in the long run
Sets with higher than average demand performed better than those that didn’t
Shelf/set life did not correlate to better returns (I had assumed it did)
Demand is doubly important because sets with high demand perform better but they also allow for easier profit taking in retirement.
Liquidity is a hidden metric that is often overlooked by most LEGO investors.
I then created a demand threshold (using Amazon sales rank data) that every LEGO set must hit for me to invest in it.
The result? We outperformed the average three years in a row (all documented in this newsletter).
2025
In early 2025 I realized that despite performing above average, the system had some issues.
It kept missing sets from themes like NINJAGO, DUPLO, and Sonic that were performing better than just about every other set from every other theme.
I didn’t like this.
That is when I realized that every theme should be treated differently.
There is no way the supply of every theme is the same.
LEGO does not make the same number of NINJAGO sets as they make for Star Wars.
They make much less NINJAGO.
For that reason, the demand I’m looking for from NINJAGO can be lower but not TOO low because of liquidity.
I want to be able to sell my investments without waiting months for my sets to sell.
Using data from 2022-2024 I created theme specific thresholds for my 2025 investments.
It is still early, but the 2025 system is currently outperforming the old system by a solid margin.
2026
While the change I made in 2025 was a good one, I still felt like it was missing something.
I spent a countless number of hours looking at every metric I could think of but nothing generated a better return when I tested it historically.
That all changed when I finally decided to look at price.
I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it earlier, but I’m glad I did.
You see, when I first got into LEGO investing there wasn’t a lot of information out there about it.
The content you could find was made by a couple people on YouTube who no longer make videos.
None of them had a “system”.
The only rule they had was to only buy sets when they were available for 30% OFF or more.
20% OFF wasn’t good enough for them.
It’s an obvious rule, the less you pay, the more you stand to gain.
The problem is that most of the investors I paid attention to would buy tons of terrible sets that had NO demand because they got it at 50% OFF or more.
They were missing the demand and liquidity that my system identified as important for investing with a sizeable chunk of money.
They often missed out on some amazing investments that never hit 30% OFF, while I was cashing in on them.
Well… here is what I found after looking at discounts and all-time low prices for each set over the last several years: