What’s LEGO going to cost you this summer?

The end product of a LEGO fan’s procrastination.

I was supposed to be working on end of year report cards this weekend… what did I do instead? I analyzed the LEGO Summer 2016 Catalogue to determine the average price of a brick. While I was at it, I thought why not determine the average price per brick by theme, the average price of LEGO sets in the catalogue, and the average number of minifigures advertised in the sets. I give myself an A+ for procrastination. So, what did I discover? Well, you can read my whole seven page report by clicking here (when I procrastinate, I REALLY procrastinate). For the abridged version, read on.

The catalogue advertises 16 different themes and 86 sets. The greatest number of sets belongs to the Creator line, followed by Star Wars. Figure 1 below shows the whole breakdown.

The average cost of a LEGO brick according to catalogue is $0.11 (Canadian dollars). The best value per brick comes from purchasing the Classic theme boxes ($0.08/brick). The worst value per brick belongs to the City theme ($0.17/brick). The rest of the themes can be viewed in Figure 2 below.

Next, we can look at the average cost of sets in the catalogue. The highest average cost per set goes to the Creator line, which should not come a surprise given the large modular sets in this theme. Star Wars was next in line, followed by IDEAS (which included the Ghostbusters Firehouse). Figure 3 below shows the total breakdown. The average cost per set overall was $98.84.

My last analysis was a look at the minifigures included in sets. I only looked at standard minifigures in this section. This means that I excluded Friends, Elves, Minecraft, animals, big-figs, ghosts, and droids from my calculations. Figure 4 below shows the results.

I think the best overall value comes from buying Creator sets that include minifigures. The average cost of a set is high, but the cost of a brick is below average and you get minifigs.  The Classic boxes have a low per brick cost, but no minifigs. City sets appear to be the worst deal with the highest per brick cost and no increase in minifigs to make up for it. Take all of this with a grain of salt of course, it is all based on averages derived from only one catalogue after all… I think the average price across all sets per brick ($0.11/brick) is probably a good reference point though. As always, you can respectfully let me know what you think by leaving a comment!

-T.N.B.