LEGO

Play sets, adult display models and the LEGO lines in between:

the age printed on the box tells you more than the picture. City, Friends, Ninjago and the licensed Marvel sets are built around minifigures and a scene to play in, so they get pulled apart and put back together. The line LEGO marks for adults goes the other way: Icons cars, the Botanicals flowers and the Star Wars helmets are display pieces, built once and dusted after that. Technic sits apart, built from beams, pins and gears rather than studded bricks, with working steering and gearboxes on the bigger models. Speed Champions cars belong beside the die-cast and remote-control cars in vehicles and RC, while DUPLO and tubs of loose bricks sit with the rest of the building sets and blocks.

Choosing a LEGO set by who is going to build it:

a child who plays with what they build wants minifigures and something that moves, and two mid-sized City or Ninjago sets give more play than one huge box. A child who takes things apart to see how they work is a Technic builder, though Technic parts mix poorly with ordinary bricks. For an adult the question is shelf space more than piece count, because a finished Icons car or a Botanicals bouquet is something you live with. Collectible Minifigures come one to a sealed packet with the figure hidden, so a series gets completed by swapping duplicates, and a full series with its display stands is worth more than the same figures loose.

The US list price every LEGO buyer in Panama checks:

with the brand sold in dollars, anyone who knows LEGO looks up the set number on LEGO’s US site before making an offer. On most mid-sized sets the Panamanian price sits a third to a half above that list, so a Speed Champions car is around $40 here against under $30 in the US, while the biggest flagship sets cost much the same in both places. A used set is measured against the US figure, and once it is built and out of its box, even a complete one goes for well under it, because the buyer is trusting a piece count they cannot see. A sealed set that LEGO has retired, usually after a year and a half to three years on sale, works the other way: collectors set that price, and it can climb past what the set first cost.

Missing minifigures, swapped bricks and fake figures in a used LEGO set:

count the figures against the box art first, because they go missing before anything else and they are the parts copied most often. Pull a head off: a genuine torso has LEGO moulded on top of the neck post, so a figure with a blank neck, a waxy feel or printing that sits slightly off is a copy, even inside an otherwise genuine set. Then compare the built model with the photo on the box, since a rebuilt set often hides missing pieces behind substitutes in the wrong colour. Missing instructions are no reason to walk away: LEGO keeps free PDF instructions for thousands of sets, searchable by set number. An unused sticker sheet is worth more to a collector than stickers already applied, and on a sealed box a crushed corner or a lifted seal takes it out of collector money.

Listing a LEGO set, built or still sealed:

the set number from the box or booklet goes in the title, since that is what buyers search for. Say whether the set is sealed, built, or taken apart and bagged; whether the box, the instructions and the sticker sheet are there; how many minifigures it has; and whether you counted the pieces or are assuming. Photograph the model from every side and each minifigure on its own. If LEGO has retired the set, say so, because that changes who will be interested. A big model like a Technic supercar rarely survives a car ride across town in one piece, so agree beforehand whether it is handed over built, boxed, or broken down into bags by build stage.