Is Lego Speed Champions the best theme for Lego Investing?
When you start Lego investing you want to focus on the right themes, There are some themes that you will always be able to pick out winners that double your money, and other themes, that will never see that good a return or will only be with specific sets
With Lego Speed Champions this is not the case – As a Lego investment, there is none better, consistently if bought at the right price you will make an excellent return and often find yourself with your money doubled. There are a number of reasons why Lego Speed Champions is a great way to double your money.
It is a popular theme
What you want from any Lego investment is a popular set and with that a popular theme. If you want a set to do well post-retirement and people to pay more than what it was selling for at RRP, then this is only going to happen if it is popular.
We can track this by checking the Amazon sales rank for the sets.
You will see a very clear trend with the speed champions sets, they are always hugely popular sellers. This means that more are being sold than other items in the same category.
It stands to reason that this continues, and when the demand starts to outweigh the supply, which will happen when the set retires then the price will naturally go up.
If a set is unpopular then it is not going to sell as much and equally will take much longer for the stock to shift and the demand will not outweigh the supply.
They are very collectable sets
Another reason why Speed Champions is a very solid investment is that they are collectable sets. With many items such as these, people will have new Lego speed champions, and realise just how awesome it looks sitting on the shelf. They will want the whole collection, so will be looking at past sets, of which some will have retired and you will be holding.
The great thing with Speed Champions, is you are looking at lots of different collectors. We have the Lego collectors, but by their nature, you also have the car collectors. So you are hitting it two ways. If you have someone who is a massive Ferrari fan and likes car models, they will be wanting the Lego Ferrari cars. Also now some of the latest are based on popular movie franchies like bond and fast and furious.
By tapping into a few different markets, you have more customers who will be more than happy to pay for sets that have retired because there is no opportunity anymore to get them.
The sets from this theme are unique
A similar reason to the collectability is that they are unique, not only are they hugely popular, but the same could be said for example Lego City police car, always one of the most popular sets, but once the Lego police car retires, you will know for certain that there will be another police car. This limits how much of a return you will get on your original police car.
But with speed champions, each set is unique because it is a particular model, they are not going to make another speed champion of the same model. You may get a Ferrari, but the next Ferrari speed champs will be a different model. Both of which will be popular and collectable.
Popular with both Adults and children
Speaking from experience here, both myself and my 8-year-old old both love the speed champions. Car enthusiasts will love these sets and want to put them on display. Then children will naturally want to play with them, they come with minifigures to give that full driving experience.
So again you are looking at a bigger market with these sets, and it is not just kids who will have these on their shopping list, (which they will, but also the grown-ups as well
Often discounted
You will often be able to get the Speed Champions sets at an excellent discount. For a decent return on investment you often only need a discount of about 25-30%. Which are readily available throughout the year.
But often you can get even bigger discounts, one of the most popular sets last year 76911 was available a number of times at half price. As is sometimes the case for others. Retail clearance discounts on these sets are also common and can fetch for half price as well.
But the standard discounts you need to be able to get a great return are always available, so you will easily be able to pick these sets up.
The shelf life of the set is not too long
One of the problems with Lego investing sometimes is that the shelf life can be too long on some really popular sets, often the case for technic, ideas and Star Wars. With speed champions, the shelf life is normally less than two years. Meaning you have a good idea of when it is going to retire.
You can always check out the latest retirement dates here.
However there are still some that can go past the 2 year mark.
Here are some of my top Lego Speed Champions wins from past years
The best way to highlight why Speed champions is my favourite is to highlight a couple of my successes with Speed champions sets.
Lego 76896 Nissan GTR
Bought this set for £12.36 close to a third off
Sold it £39 and made over 135% return after fees.
76898 Bought for £17.50
Got a fair few of these at a retail clearance sold soon after for over 100% return.
75890 Bought for £7.5
One of the first sets I bought here and very quickly made it to selling over £25, for another easy 100% return.
Current 2023 retirees performance
I didnt have many sets that retired in 2022 so most of my stock at the moment has only just retired.
I went very big on 76900, 76911 and 76912, so am expecting a good return on these.
We are very early on since retirement for these, but already seeing good movements.
76900 is already at £27 – when bought most of mine at £12 – bit longer to go and will easily get the 100% score. But considering we are only in february this is a preety good start.
76911 bought a fair few of these at half price or around the £10 mark and already they are already at just under £30 as well. Again will hold for longer for more return.
76912 wasnt able to get for much cheaper than £12 again, but this was enough of a discount. We are already around the £26-28 mark, so would already see a very tidy profit, but more time in the year this will go higher.
Hapy with the sets that bought last year most certainly and now looking to see which ones to invest in 2024.
