Lego architecture is often very sought-after, They are popular LEGO sets that have good collectability, ideal for decorating homes or offices with famous landscapes across the world. Normally I would steer clear from architecture sets, as they stay on the market for a very long time. One of my early investment escapes was buying the London skyline that now I doubt will ever retire. That being said we have honed the process, and we know there will only be one retiring this year. The LEGO 21054 white house.
So let’s look at the past LEGO architecture sets to see how they increased in value over time after retirement, and how your investment would be doing had you bought them, this will give us a good idea whether the white house can double our money.
More of these investment guides will be coming in different themes to give an idea of which sets to be on the look out for, and make sure to check out the Lego investing basics.
The last ten Lego architecture sets and how they performed after retirement
Let’s not pick and choose let’s go through the last ten retired architecture sets and see how they performed after retirement.
For your own research if you are looking at past sets the best tool out there is ‘brickset’, with information on the Lego sets release and expiry date a hugely useful database of old and new sets.
Lego 21055 Burj Khalifa Retired 31 Dec 2022 RRP: £44.99
This Lego depiction of the world’s tallest building retired last year so it was only 8 months ago since it has left the market.
Can’t quite see it on Amazon at the moment, but it is selling at about £65-75 pounds on eBay so is a good sign that it is doing well already
Bit of an unusual one for this one as it was a re-release set so it was out a couple of times. You can find 21031 on sale on Amazon for over £130 so is clearly popular after retirement, but that specific set will have been retired much longer
Lego 21051 Tokyo Retired 31/12/2022 RRP: £54.99
Another one that hasn’t been retired for long. Currently selling at about £80
The cheapest could have bought it for was about £41, so around the 25% discount which is what would expect.
Currently short of the 100% return but again could be too early we normally want to be making a return within 12 – 18 months of retirement.
Lego 21047 Las Vegas Retired 31/12/2020 RRP £34.99
Las Vegas has a couple of years of data now, quite a cheap set this one, but the first one we have looked at that is an American Architecture piece, one of the ‘skyline ones’
This within a year of retirement was hitting £70-80 so if got at a discount of 25%, then 100% return after all fees was very doable.
Now it is even higher currently on sale for £105, with a sales rank of 20k, you are still going to be selling this regularly./
Lego 21046 Empire State Building Retired 31/12/2021 RRP: £89.99
Within a year of retirement, this was selling at £180, again another 100% return if bought at a discount, £65 being its bottom price.
Another solid 100% return on investment
Lego 21045 Trafalgar square Retired 31/12/2021 RRP £79.99
Very similar price to the set that is retiring this year and a similar build set-up.
Trafalgar Square has been retired for a year and a half now. Still under £100 on Amazon
That being said there have been times where it has been at £145 a couple of times, so not as clear cut as the Empire State Building but still able to get 100% return if sold at the right price.
It was very popular whilst on the market always above 5K sales rank
Had I had the opportunity I would have picked this set up when discounted as it was a hugely popular LEGO set. I see it going to the magic 100% return mark at Christmas again.
Lego 21043 San Francisco Retired 31/12/2021 RRP: £44.99
Selling for £95 at the moment, and since retirement, it has fluctuated from £95 -130
Buy this at a 25% discount and again looking for a comfortable return.
Lego 21041 Great Wall of China Retired 31/12/2019 £44.99
This is another that would see a comfortable 100% return within 12 -18 months after retirement, that 25% discount target being there again.
The sales rank was floating between 5-10k
Lego 21039 Shanghai Retired 31/12/2020 RRP £54.99
Sitting at £120 currently, again it hit this price point a year after retirement, buying for £40 would be enough to double your money here.
Not quite going that low on Amazon at any point, however. But still good profit here.
Lego 21036 Arc de triomphe Retired 31/12/2018 RRP £29.99
A relatively cheap set but one that retired many moons ago. £25 was a common buy price point.
Within a year 100% return was easily achievable. It selling for £70, and it has peaked at £130
Excellent return over time.
Lego 21035 Soloman R guggenheimer museum Retired 31/12/2018 RRP £64.99
Another one back before Lego investing was a thing for me and a bigger set.
This set took a bit longer to get where we would have wanted, Year 1 after retirement was slow progress but by the second year it had jumped to selling for £200, and at this point was well worth a buy.
The one and only architecture set retiring this year
There is only one set retiring this year, which is often the case. The white house currently priced at £89.99 has been on the market since June 2020, so not a massively extended haul of time on this set, but still more than many other themes.
This will surely be another iconic retired architecture set. Be popular among many collectors, less so in the UK but imagine this will fit in well with collectors.
I would be hoping for a discount of 25% on architecture sets so we could see a good profit.
We have seen this price on Amazon, it is currently out of stock on Lego.com, so we may or may not see it at the end of the year. I don’t really see this going to be less than 25% off
How did the first Lego white house do?
This is not the first incarnation of the white house in Lego architecture form, the last one was released in 2010 and retired the following year, as you can see considerably less detail.
You can see details of the set here
Difficult to draw comparisons with the sets but it is not wildly sought after at the moment, currently at just under £100 so has gone up as expected but not after 10 years of crazy prices. But as we said there’s a new set out there with considerably more detail.
Conclusion Is the Lego architecture white house a good investment
There is some reservation with this set, in comparison to the other sets, the sales rank for this one is not great, not terrible but not great, its average kind of sitting between 15-20,000.
I do think it will make money, but I am not sure about the quick turnaround, Given plenty of time tucked away we will likely hit our 100% return, but I am wary about this happening in the first year.
It all depends on your capital, if had an abundance I would tuck some away into this set.
If however like many your Lego investing budget is limited I would look elsewhere, as think this is less of a guarantee than so many other themes.
Stay tuned for the latest investment guides
