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building and playing with a classic car garage. With its base plate that
can spring the garage door to open and shut, this set offers a lot of
interactivities in addition to being a fun and buildable toy. That same
year, LEGO also introduced the Small House Set, Small Store Set, Fire
Station, Church, and ESSO Filling Station. These sets were made so
LEGO builders could expand their Towns.
In 1958, LEGO patented its “stud-and-tube” self-locking system
which added significant stability to completed pieces, transforming the
LEGO brick into the bricks children use today. Combined, the studs
and tubes create clutch power. Clutch power provides stability and
endless possibilities for combining bricks. With the new stud and tube
principle, “it is now possible to combine six 2x4 bricks in 915,103,765
different ways,” according to the company.
In 1962, LEGO mobilized
the toy market and its product
line with the LEGO wheel, a 2x2 The first baby figure was a part of this 1975 kitchen set.
brick with a metal shaft, hub, and The baby is termed a “minifigure.” LEGO Kits made prior to 1974 did not
a rubber tire that can be plugged contain minifigures. The earliest minifigures were not poseable and did not have
into a 2x4 brick with holes to faces. The modern version was not produced until 1978.
receive the shaft. With the
appearance of the wheel, the Fueled by the promise of a resurgence in the U.S. market, LEGO
brick became dynamic. It also announced in June 2022 that it plans to spend more than $1 billion to
incorporated movement into the build a 1.7-million square foot plant in Virginia and, according to the
LEGO System in Play as more company website, employ more than 1,760 LEGO colleagues. In the
and more brick-built cars and announcement, LEGO also addressed some of the negative publicity
trains entered the market up surrounding the environmental impact of the manufacturing of its
through the 1960s. plastic bricks, announcing that this new factory “will be designed to
In 1964, the “kindergarten operate as a carbon-neutral facility. One hundred percent of its day-to-
brick,” also known as the day energy needs will be matched by renewable energy generated by an
JUMBO brick, was introduced – onsite solar park. The site will also be designed to minimize energy
a block size perfect for younger, consumption and use of non-renewable resources.”
smaller hands.
To widen its appeal to a new
generation of consumers and The Market Value of LEGO
collectors, LEGO signed its first
“How many children have you on your licensing agreement in 1999 with LEGO is a collector’s dream with over 80 years of product history
Christmas list? Enthrall them all with Lego LucasFilm. It is said that 25 and innovation, and thousands of collectible objects from town/city
bricks.” This 1960s ad shows children playing million LEGO Star Wars sets plans to accessory kits, themed sets, limited edition releases, and
with a LEGO Town Plan available just in were sold all around the world licensed kits.
time for Christmas. within their first year of collabo- According to BrickEconomy, which tracks the LEGO market,
ration and that more than 1,000 “LEGO sets are bona fide collector’s items, with many sets fetching
different minifigures and around 700 sets related to Star Wars have since thousands on the resale market,” with value, of course, based on
been created. LEGO has since gone on to license other popular movie condition (box and pieces) and rarity.
franchises and today is a core licensing partner with Disney, its popular A brand-new, sealed LEGO set can be worth up to 10 times as much
characters, and movies, with key features of new product rollouts. as one that has been opened. And that’s for vintage as well as relatively
new sets. As an example, a LEGO 70922 (“Joker Manor”) set, released
LEGO Comes to the U.S. in 2017, has an asking price of $600 for a vintage unopened set against
a vintage used set price of $409. Joker Manor is a huge, 3,444-piece set
modeled after Joker’s lair from The Lego Batman Movie. The Manor
In 1961, LEGO Group looked to expand its sales to North America comes with its own roller-coaster system and was the fifth-largest
but lacked the infrastructure and logistical capabilities to do so. Instead, LEGO set of 2017. It originally sold for $270, meaning it has doubled
they formed a licensing agreement with Samsonite, the luggage in price over just four years.
manufacturer, that allowed Samsonite to begin producing and selling Ninjago City (#70620), also released in 2017, has an average asking
LEGO products in the United States and Canada but with molds price for a vintage unopened kit of $955 ($718 for a vintage used set).
rented from the LEGO Group’s tooling factories in Denmark Comprised of 4,867 pieces, Ninjago City retailed
and Germany. for $300 and came with 16 minifigures and a
Over time and dissatisfied with the Samsonite Fun Fact: sliding elevator to connect the set’s three levels.
partnership in terms of the quality of the bricks The earliest LEGO This huge playset measures two feet high and
produced, the LEGO Group, under the U.S. bricks had no hollow sixteen inches deep and has multiple interactive
subsidiary LEGO Systems Inc., opened its own tubes under the features, like a sushi conveyor belt and a swiveling
LEGO production and distribution facility in crab oven. This was the flagship of The Lego
Enfield, Connecticut in 1975, putting the company bricks. They were Ninjago Movie line and is still an extremely popular
in an advantageous and dominant position in the redesigned to have set. It now commands a price triple from when it
market … until the toy market changed. hollow tubes in 1958. first hit the market.
In 2006, LEGO announced it was closing its When it comes to value it is not only the
Connecticut facility, citing that “kids prefer playing condition (in box, unopened) but the rarity that
with electronics.” The business no longer required such a strong U.S. adds value in the resale market.
presence to meet market demand. That, however, changed again for The most expensive LEGO minifigure is considered by collectors to
both LEGO and other toy manufacturers during COVID as families be the Solid Gold 14K C-3PO coming in at around $200,000!
looked to old-school forms of family engagement. The Company Released in 2007 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Star Wars
announced that revenue jumped 27% in 2021, with sales of its plastic franchise, this rare minifigure is prized by collectors for its exceptional
bricks totaling more than $8 billion.
rarity – only five were ever made!

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