The LEGO Movie sets and their price 3 years after the movie debut

What happened to the price of The LEGO Movie sets 3 years after the movie debut? In total 20 sets have been released over the course of December 2013 till June 2014 which translates into more than 11k pieces and 84 minifigures. If you saw the movie, you probably know the main characters. I can't help myself but my favourites are Emmet, Wyldstyle (Lucy), Lord Business and Bad Cop. What I like the most about the movie, except for the E-e-e-everything is awesome song which is perfect, is the link between the LEGO world and our world and the excellent story. :-)
I thought that it would be quite interesting to look closer on this retired theme right now when The LEGO Batman Movie is about to appear officially in cinemas tomorrow and the shelves in toy stores are full of brand new The LEGO Batman Movie sets.
Even though not so much time passed since the release of the first The LEGO Movie set (3 years), you can learn quite a lot about this retired theme while observing the secondary market sales.

The LEGO Movie sets

It's been quite some time since I saw the movie for the last time, but if I should name 5 movie moments that stuck in my memory, it would be certainly those:
1. Lord Business skyscraper where all the master builders are kept in captivity (Set 70809)
2. Emmet falls down into the pit and finds the piece of resistance (Polybag 30280)
3. Emmet creates a plan how to infiltrate Lord Business office on the MetalBeard's Sea Cow (Set 70810)
4. Vitruvius is blinded by Lord Business robots and then makes a prophecy about the Special
5. Emmet and Wyldstyle are chased by Bad Cop's forces (Set 70808)

The LEGO Movie sets

I'm very happy that out of my 5 favourite scenes 3 are captured by The LEGO Movie set and one is captured by The LEGO Movie polybag ! :-)

Let's look how the price of The LEGO Movie sets changed between release date and now.

The LEGO Movie sets

It can be clearly seen from the graph above that all the small sets of up to 300 pieces increased its price above the original RRP. Some of the big sets increased in price quite significantly, but not all of them as in case of small sets. Only the big ones that seems to be perceived special in some way (e.g. having the highest number of pieces) or just being more likeable than the rest (e.g. Emmet's Construct-o-Mech) has managed to gain some value for collectors.

Before I started checking the secondary market prices I had my three secret favourites for the highest percentage increase in price: 70803 Cloud Cuckoo Palace, 70810 MetalBeard's Sea Cow and 70814 Emmet's Construct-o-Mech. Let's look how it was in fact.

The LEGO Movie sets

In case of the Cloud Cuckoo Palace I was a bit wrong. However, 70810 MetalBeard's Sea Cow appreciated by 34% and 70814 Emmet's Construct-o-Mech by 35%. :-) Here you can see more clearly, that the small sets such as 70818 Double-Decker Coach or 70817 Batman & Super Angry Kitty Attack increased in price the most by 87% and 85%, respectively.

On average, each set included 4.2 minifigures with the highest number of Robos (14 times), Emmets (11 times) and Kitties (7 times). On the other hand the main characters such as a Lord Business or Bad Cop both appeared only in two sets.

The LEGO Movie sets

Usually when something is scarce, it is expensive. Let's look whether this is true also for The LEGO Movie sets which includes Lord Business or Bad Cop minifigure.

The LEGO Movie sets

Well, you can see that there seems not to be such a relationship and I guess I have an explanation for that. First, the sets are not only about minifigures, of course. Second, majority of people who buys LEGO sets does not think about it as an investment at the beginning but rather as a joy and that's what makes the LEGO community so positive. :-) When I am about to buy some new LEGO set, I need to find it interesting and like it and that's the main decision making tool I use. :-) Then comes the fun as some time passes and I can check how the set I bought is doing in terms of secondary market prices.

I look forward to make a similar research on secondary market prices of The LEGO Batman Movie sets after a few years from now to find out whether they did or did not followed a similar trend as The LEGO Movie sets. :-)

Did you buy some of The LEGO Movie sets ? How did you actually like The LEGO Movie ?

I will be very happy if you let me know in comments bellow.

Note: Current price was calculated as an average of 10 most recent sold listings of new sets on Ebay.