[HN Gopher] Lego price per part over the years
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Lego price per part over the years
Author : janandonly
Score : 105 points
Date : 2024-03-19 20:01 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (brickinsights.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (brickinsights.com)
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| This doesn't take into account for the large amount of parts you
| can get from eBay .
| jbentleylong wrote:
| Reminds me how much I love the Power Miners sets -- hate to see
| the prices, though
| bombcar wrote:
| > Many people quote that a set should be priced at around $0.10
| per part to be worthwhile. Is this the average?
|
| This has been the average, and it's so "perfect" that it has to
| be that Lego has been aiming for it. They've accomplished this by
| having more and more detail (read: smaller pieces) in newer sets.
|
| They appear to have been forced (or trying) to jump to $0.20 per
| piece in some sets (e.g., https://www.lego.com/en-
| us/product/cinderella-and-prince-cha... )
| bleepblop wrote:
| I have a new metric when it comes to lego kits these days. How
| many stickers are in the kit? And honestly it's too damn high.
| I have been pretty vocal to lego about this in the past and
| current times. If they can mass produce an uncountable amount
| of minifigs with detailed paint schemes; they can do the same
| for bricks in the set.
|
| I have a hard time believing it's nothing more than a cost
| cutting measure. And to add insult to injury; I have noticed
| their quality control slipping over the years. For example: in
| the past 40 years or so, I might get a kit with a piece missing
| once a decade? Within the past 10 years I have had at least 7
| kits missing pieces. And the frequency keeps growing. As a long
| time lego enthusiast; they have been slowly losing my trust.
| breuleux wrote:
| How many sets do you buy per year, out of curiosity? I got
| into Lego during the pandemic and bought around 50 sets in
| the past three years. Over that sample, the number of missing
| pieces was precisely zero.
| bleepblop wrote:
| I go on some wild stints. But if I had to average it out;
| somewhere around 10-20 kits a year.
| Larrikin wrote:
| My experience is in fact the opposite. I usually buy the
| larger sets, and have nearly always had left over smaller
| pieces. It made me worried the first time it happened and I
| spent the time tracing back through the model only to find
| I didn't miss anything.
| bleepblop wrote:
| I wish I could say the same. The extra little guys is to
| be expected. I am talking about key pieces to the puzzle.
| jacurtis wrote:
| They do precise weighing of bags as a quality control
| measure. The tiny 1x1 type pieces are more likely to get
| missed by the weighing so they often add an extra of
| those pieces to offset a potential loss that might not
| get noticed when weighing them.
|
| That is why you always get two helmet visors for example
| when you buy a speed champion. The machine is actually
| just designed to give you two, because that way if it
| breaks and misses one, you still have one that you need
| and it costs them almost nothing to do that. But a
| missing helmet visor is easy to get missed by the quality
| control scale. So if you ever buy a speed champion and
| only get one helmet visor, it is because you lost one or
| the machine broke. But that's why there's an extra. They
| do that by design. That's just one example. You see it
| with magic wands in Harry Potter sets, you always get
| two, and a lot of sets with 1x1 pieces will always have
| 1-2 extras just because they are cheap to add in and more
| likely to get missed in their QA process which weighs the
| bags.
| andruby wrote:
| Every tiny 1x1 piece always comes with an extra. That
| must be by design.
|
| I think that's calculated in their cost of doing
| business. Add one extra of each 1x1 probably eliminated
| most of the missing parts issue at a fraction of the
| cost.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > and have nearly always had left over smaller pieces
|
| Almost every Lego set I've ever owned (going back 30+
| years to when I used to get Lego) and now my son's Lego
| recently have all had at least one leftover piece.
| yownie wrote:
| you and bleepblop should probably just correspond more
| often
| jacurtis wrote:
| I've also always questioned this. I have purchased about 60
| sets in the past 4 years. I have a friend who has purchased
| well over 100 (he runs a Lego YouTube channel - he spends >
| $6,000 a year on Lego by his estimation).
|
| I have never had a missing piece. There have been two times
| when I thought I was missing a piece and then found it
| stuck in a bag or hidden under another piece. I've never
| had to write to Lego to get a replacement (which I've heard
| they are really easy to work with if it does happen).
|
| Out of curiosity, I just texted my friend to get another
| sample from him and he said it happened to him one time,
| but also admitted his kids might have been to blame.
|
| So when people claim that every other set they buy has
| missing pieces, I always feel like I am either the luckiest
| person to ever live, or maybe the pieces are there and
| certain people are just more likely to misplace or lose
| them in the building process.
| robinson-wall wrote:
| Perhaps set size is a contributing factor? I've bought
| two sets over the last few years, and both of them have
| had a piece missing. One was 1969 pieces (no prizes for
| guessing which set that is!) and the other 1222 pieces.
|
| Both occasions the pieces weren't structurally important,
| and were small decorative elements.
| andruby wrote:
| The Saturn V was a fun build :)
| bleepblop wrote:
| I don't have children and I do all sorts of kits besides
| lego; with even smaller pieces. Either I have bad luck or
| I am careless. But you'd think with multiple decades
| under my belt I'd eventually find the "missing" pieces.
| When it's like a 4x12 left wing, or a 2x1 it starts to
| get suss.
| bombcar wrote:
| The only time I ever had a large piece like that missing,
| it was pretty clear (on afterthought) that the box had
| been opened in the store before I bought it.
|
| And I've had to return a set or two to Amazon because
| they'd clearly been opened and returned (and usually all
| the minifigs stripped out).
| bleepblop wrote:
| Understandable. I am pretty selective when it comes to a
| kit. Dare I say autistic? Box condition is a
| consideration, along with down to how I open them. It's
| noticeable.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| I bet it's more likely that a given Lego set that is
| missing pieces was produced, packaged, shipped, and sold,
| nearby other piece-missing sets.
|
| In other words, I would not expect the distribution of
| Lego sets that are missing pieces to be evenly or
| randomly distributed.
| andruby wrote:
| Same. I keep pictures of each box I get for the family.
| About 130 now in the last 10 years. Zero missing pieces.
| skipkey wrote:
| For me, 100 percent of the sets with over a thousand pieces
| have been missing at least one, during the pandemic. Now
| that's only 4 sets, admittedly.
|
| The smaller sets have all been fine, tho.
| runamok wrote:
| I wonder how many pets/kids they have because my experience
| mirrors yours. No missing parts over maybe 15 sets (between
| my wife and I).
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| It's kind of funny, I got into buying random Lego knockoffs
| from alibaba, and they get around not missing pieces by
| putting a totally random amount of extra pieces in instead. I
| can usually make a small random person or statue with the
| random pieces left over from the actual model.
| Swizec wrote:
| > I have a hard time believing it's nothing more than a cost
| cutting measure.
|
| It's a "keep bricks interchangeable" measure. Every LEGO set
| designer gets a budget of a few new piece suggestions per
| year. This includes color and paint schemes.
|
| From a Verge article on how a new set happens:
| https://www.theverge.com/c/23991049/lego-ideas-polaroid-
| ones...
|
| > And those teams came up with one simple idea to stem the
| tide of complexity: "frames."
|
| > Want a part in a different color? That costs designers a
| frame. A new piece? Spend some frames. Bring back an old out-
| of-print piece? That's a frame, too. Every year, design leads
| like Scott are given a limited number of frames that they can
| spend on their entire portfolio for physical pieces that
| aren't readily at hand. "If I have five products or 10
| products coming out, I need to allocate where those frames
| go," says Scott.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| > How many stickers are in the kit? And honestly it's too
| damn high.
|
| I know I'm going against the grain here, but I love stickers.
| Many of the sets my kids got were "sticker infested" but as
| they only re-bricked it, we just did not put the stickers on
| some of them and got just more fun out of it.
|
| > Within the past 10 years I have had at least 7 kits missing
| pieces. And the frequency keeps growing
|
| I never had it. Also if you do, Lego will send you any piece
| (that is not a minifig) no questions asked. My kid threw my
| glob down and one of the parts got a bad indentation and
| looked ugly. I got a replacement part in the mail no
| questions asked.
| bleepblop wrote:
| I am fully aware of the customer service side of lego.
| That's why I still use their stuff. But I suppose that is
| where our agreement will lie. Knowing what they are capable
| of and where they are now is noticeable.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| I don't know. It very much depends on what you are into.
| I feel like a lot of the stuff that Lego does got way
| better in recent years. For instance the manuals in the
| app are a step above and beyond of where they were, and
| the build together element means that my kids are playing
| together and rebuilding old sets.
| bleepblop wrote:
| I am totally on the same page with you. It definitely
| boils down to what are you doing. There are a ton of cool
| pieces these days that would've been a pipe dream when we
| were kids. And lego's MO has always been imagination and
| creativity. I feel like the addition of stickers in
| essence sort of rules out the variable, but forces the
| builder to use it if they are following the kit by the
| book. Where as with a printed brick the person gets to
| choose whether they use it or not.
|
| It's really splitting hairs at that point, but
| ascetically speaking it doesn't fit their ethos.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| I can't help but think back to my childhood in the 1980s...
| there were always stickers included. In the Lego idea books
| they always showed those same stickers in use, making the
| association and relevance clear. So how many is too many? I
| mean, I'd say the more the merrier if that gives the set
| another dimension of play.
| mtillman wrote:
| I was stoked to find the new Eldorado fortress to be an
| improvement on the original and free from stickers. I got
| plenty of extra pieces too.
| mc32 wrote:
| In my experience they tend to add extras for the smallest
| pieces and have never missed a piece.
| bombcar wrote:
| I just wish the stickers were high quality plastic ones, so
| you'd have a chance in hell of removing and replacing them
| immediately if you mess up.
|
| I've never had a confirmed piece missing (the few cases had
| obvious open boxes, etc), but then again I've not bought as
| many in the last ten years.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Yeah, but Lego inflates its part counts with lots of smaller
| pieces now.
|
| The licensed sets are also a big hit. The best sets Lego makes
| are the creator ones, some of them I've bought multiple of so
| my kid could have the alt builds at the same time.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Be interesting to see median or quartiles instead of just
| average; licensed sets probably skew the average up.
| bombcar wrote:
| I'd like to see it per pound. I suspect (based on my feelings)
| that licensing is less per set than you might think, and that
| the price per pound has been trending up as piece size trends
| down.
| NickNameNick wrote:
| I'd expect 2 small pieces to weigh more than 1 big one.
|
| So I'd expect you to see the weight go up faster than the
| part count.
|
| Not sure if that would confound or exagerate the trend.
| bombcar wrote:
| They're not replacing a 1x4 with 2 1x2s, they're just
| designing sets with more pieces per pound (by having
| smaller pieces for decoration).
| bena wrote:
| Another factor is that Lego is using more greebling than in the
| past. So you have more "parts", but they're all small pieces used
| for detailing rather than larger structural components of the
| build.
| yalok wrote:
| exactly, that's been my concern as well - more and more parts
| now are very specialized and hard to reuse in other projects.
|
| Makes me sad for the kids - this limits creativity...
| Jean-Philipe wrote:
| Well, yes and no. Look at the Ninjago City sets where the
| designers have used special parts in very creative ways!
|
| Otherwise, I too prefer sets without special parts. The
| Minecraft and Creator series are excellent for that.
| chomp wrote:
| There's actually less specialized parts these days, that's
| what put Lego in trouble in the 90s, I think what GP
| commenter was referring to is a ton of the studs and
| cylinders and 1x1 diagonal parts that Lego includes, that are
| "fluff". These parts are extremely cheap to produce, so you
| may have data that looks like price per part is flat, but in
| reality that's because more of your sets are now from cheaper
| detailing parts.
| jerrysievert wrote:
| having collected through the 90's, I can attest that there
| are a lot less specialty parts now, but in recent sets that
| number appears to be growing again. almost every fairly
| large set I've purchased in the last 2 years have had 10-12
| new-to-me parts in it, and the other sets continue to
| include those same parts as well.
|
| mostly, they've been pieces to make some change for SNOT,
| but there seem to be so many of them now that it feels like
| we're going back to that 90's mentality.
|
| some of those sets: * batman shadow box
| (with my first ever missing piece!) * dune
| ornithopter (great build) * loop rollercoaster (not
| counting those loop tracks) * orient express (my
| least favorite build in the last few years)
| gmueckl wrote:
| I'd say yes and no. I find very few parts that are custom
| shapes for a single set these days. Most part shapes are very
| generic, but there is an absolutely wild variety of them now.
| There is an enormous number of SNOT, tile and slope pieces,
| for example. These can make slick looking builds, but getting
| a decent and useful collection of those for MOCs is hard.
|
| Where Lego gets tricky is the combination of shape and color:
| the color palette has been growing over the years, too, but
| most of the weirder shapes are only available in specific
| colors and not always the colors you would intuitively expect
| them to have. I guess it happens because
| manufacturing/stockpiling the whole outer product of shape x
| color is just infeasible at this point. So the available
| colors are just whatever is used in the current sets, however
| weird it may seem.
| paulddraper wrote:
| So buy Lego Classic.
|
| They're not like 80s-era simplicity, but they definitely
| reuse peices.
|
| They're not rare; they're on every shelf. (But they're not
| Harry Potter, Star Wars, etc.)
| SushiHippie wrote:
| Would also be interesting to see how zhe PPP changes with the
| amount of pieces in a set. i.e. if small sets with a tiny piece
| count have a higher PPP than larger sets with hundreds of pieces.
| dhosek wrote:
| At a rough glance, that does appear to be the case.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Top tip. Buy used Lego cheap from ebay (or similar) and stick it
| in the dishwasher in a string bag. Try to avoid Lego from
| smoker's house or that has been heavily gnawed. And keep the
| dishwasher heat low, unless you want Salvador Dali Lego.
| bombcar wrote:
| Hotter tip - if you live near a Goodwill auction site, you can
| pickup "in store" and so you can bid for their bulk Lego
| without shipping.
| boplicity wrote:
| Lego is a plastics company; they're trying to become net-zero,
| but, unfortunately, being a plastics company, this is extremely
| hard:
|
| https://www.ft.com/content/6cad1883-f87a-471d-9688-c1a3c5a0b...
| elzbardico wrote:
| Why? As long as people don't burn the bricks....
| donkeyboy wrote:
| Plastic is made from upstream oil and gas companies. Kind of
| hard to be net-zero in that sector
| boplicity wrote:
| The _creation_ of plastic products causes significant
| emissions, which is something that I don 't think it widely
| understood.
| magnetowasright wrote:
| ft link:
| https://archive.is/20230924232054/https://www.ft.com/content...
| magnetowasright wrote:
| > The world's largest toymaker announced two years ago that it
| had tested a prototype brick made of recycled plastic bottles
| rather than oil-based ABS, currently used in about 80 per cent
| of the billions of pieces it makes each year. However, Niels
| Christiansen, chief executive of the family-owned Danish group,
| told the Financial Times that using recycled polyethylene
| terephthalate (RPET) would have led to higher carbon emissions
| over the product's lifetime as it would have required new
| equipment.
|
| I just thought that particular issue around new equipment was
| interesting.
| amelius wrote:
| Don't kids want 3d-printers these days?
| Arrath wrote:
| Sure, but if they're anything like my friend's kid they're not
| really computer-savvy, just reasonably proficient at driving
| apps. Thus, when he plugged in his 3d printer and was
| confronted with some driver or configuration problems he threw
| his hands up, said it was junk, and went back to roblox.
|
| Trying not to sound too much like a 'kids these days!' rant,
| but that is what happened (yes, in this one anecdotal case). I
| think we're doing everyone a disservice by abstracting away all
| the underlying layers to the point that people don't have to
| interact with the filesystem, but that's a whole different
| subject.
| gmueckl wrote:
| One thing that is not captured accurately in a simple price over
| parts count computation is the fact that parts complexity is
| wildly different between shapes. There's a huge difference
| between a 1x1 plate and a Technic baseplate with holes pointing
| in every direction, to pick extreme examples.
|
| I believe that even factoring in the extra handling costs and
| margins, the prices on Pick a Brick give a decent approximation
| of the actual price span (<$0.10 to >$2.00 per piece).
| sxp wrote:
| Is it just me or does the data aspect of the site feel horribly
| designed? E.g, the main graph is hard to read since most of the
| data points are in the $0.10/part range but the graph's y-axis is
| overwhelmed by the right side with it's $3.11/part train set. And
| if I click on that, https://brickinsights.com/sets/categories/26
| shows 4 data points and it's overwhelmed by a single outlier from
| 1991. And the time-sequence chart near the bottom uses a line
| graph rather than a scatterplot which overwhelms the useful data.
|
| A better graph would be a time-sequence scatterplot of price/part
| on a log scale like
| https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/5oanki/leg...
| ryukoposting wrote:
| I made a script last year that scraped LEGO pricing data from
| their website. Besides finding out that the Bugatti Bolide
| Technic set is a pretty good deal as a parts bag, I found that
| there's only a weak correlation between set size and PPP. The
| Dots sets throw a wrench in things, of course, and large Technic
| sets often have expensive electronic and pneumatic parts that
| must be considered.
|
| My conclusion was that PPP is useful as a bargain-hunting tool,
| but not as a model for broad price analysis.
|
| Here's that for anyone interested:
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/lego/comments/1328f52/detailed_lego...
| bombcar wrote:
| Just like the article, you really have to correct for outliers
| to make PPP work. It's more of a "rule of thumb" that you can
| use to determine if something is, as you said, a bargain worth
| getting even if it is outside your main area.
|
| Bricklink's "part out" tool is more accurate, but some pieces
| get priced "wrong" and you have to know enough to determine
| that.
| deadbabe wrote:
| Someone should figure out how to quantify how "creative
| potential" a piece has so you can measure how reusable pieces in
| a set will be for building unique things.
| bombcar wrote:
| I suspect you could do something quick and dirty with
| "connectors" - a 1x1 brick would have two connectors, a 2x4
| brick would have 16.
|
| Apply some form of modulo by piece count (8 1x1 bricks are more
| "creative" than a single 2x4) and you'd be close.
| fuzzy_biscuit wrote:
| I love the idea, but the year axis starting so early makes the
| days more difficult to read, esp. on mobile.
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