It’s that time of year again! And, no, I don’t just mean that the holidays are coming. I am actually referring to the latest LEGO catalogue. Though, in all fairness, it is the 2017 Holiday catalogue… So, the holiday season is coming… As usual, I have analyzed the catalogue to determine the cost of LEGO advertised this season. Keep in mind, this analysis is done mostly for fun to give an idea of price trends in LEGO sets. It is based on the Canadian version of the catalogue, and as such, all prices are in Canadian dollars.
I have given the latest LEGO catalogue a thorough look, and I have come up with a few (hopefully) useful bits of information for you. First is a breakdown of the themes in the catalogue. The themes with the most number of sets advertised this time around are Creator and Star Wars, both tied at 15% of the sets in the catalogue. It should come as no surprise that the Ninjago Movie sets come in at a close second place with 14%. The movie is currently in theatres as I am writing this, so it makes sense. You can see the full breakdown in the image above. Keep in mind that this analysis is based on the number of sets in each theme, and not the page coverage. You will note that there is a “robotics” category. This refers to both Mindstorms and Boost. Advent calendars were included in their respective themes, and “seasonal” refers to the advertised Christmas ornaments.
The average cost of a set in this catalogue is $129.01. This number doesn’t really tell you much in reality. Neither does the average cost of a set in each theme. These numbers depend entirely on what sets LEGO choses to advertise in any given catalogue. In many themes (Classic, Ideas, Juniors, Minecraft, and Pirates of the Caribbean), only one set is advertised, so it isn’t really much of an average. What is interesting about this number is that it is much higher than in the January (click here to read my review) or Summer (click here to read my review) catalogues. It is almost identical to the average cost of a set in last year’s Holiday catalogue (click here to read my review). In the lead up to the biggest buying season of the year, LEGO has thrown almost all of the mammoth sets currently available into this catalogue. Oddly enough, the new Millennium Falcon is conspicuously absent (it is currently that largest LEGO set ever produced, and was just recently released).
A more telling indication of LEGO pricing is the average cost of a brick in the catalogue. Interestingly, the trend towards increasing brick prices has been broken this time around. Since the summer of 2016, the average cost of a brick has gone up by $0.01 every catalogue. This time around, it has actually gone down. In the summer, the average cost of a brick was up at $0.14, and now it is down to $0.13. As usual, I have excluded Mindstorms, and this time around I also excluded Boost. These sets have a higher than average cost per brick due to the programmable components and software that are not standard LEGO fare, so I don’t include them in the calculation. There is nothing else terribly shocking about this information as, in general, things have not fluctuated that much. The drop in the average cost of a brick can possibly be attributed to the inclusion of a lot of large sets in this catalogue. Large sets, like all of the expert Creator sets, have low brick costs because they amount to buying LEGO in bulk. Let’s hope that this trend continues though, and is not just a fluke of advertising. One thing that does really stick out, is the seasonal Christmas decorations. I would steer clear of those as they are clearly overpriced for what you are getting.
If Minifigures are very important to you, then you might want to consider a set’s brick-to-Minifigure ratio. The lower the number is in the above chart, the more Minifigures you are getting in your brick count. Currently, the average ratio is one Minifigure for every 228 bricks across all sets advertised in the catalogue that actually contain Minifigures. Numbers for Disney, Ideas, Juniors, Minecraft, and Pirates of the Caribbean should all be taken with a grain of salt as they are not based on very many sets (one or two in each case). As with the last catalogue, City and Marvel remain the best themes to invest in for the purposes of getting Minifigures. But, remember, City also has one of the highest costs per brick.
So, there you have a quick breakdown of the cost of LEGO as per the latest catalogue. The most interesting number to see, in my opinion, was the drop in the average cost of a brick. Otherwise, if you wanted to buy one of every set in this catalogue, it would cost you a whopping $10,966.15 before taxes. But, on the plus side, you would get 94,122 bricks, including 312 Minifigures.
Until next time,
-T.N.B.
Very insightful. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
I imagine the drop in the average price per brick is statistical noise, not the beginning of a new, downward trend. I expect the cost will probably start creeping up again in 2018. Unless there’s something I’m missing in the numbers?
No, you are probably right… But, we can all hope.
Indeed. I don’t know how it was in Canada, but here in the States the price really seemed to jump sharply in 2017. Even if it stays level for a while that would be a really good thing.
There was a noticeable hike here too… Particularly in City sets…