Lego investing success 42109 App controlled top gear car. Half-price technic can’t go wrong.
This purchase was not a great one, the only reason we were able to make 90% return, is because of the huge discount we got for this set.
Priced at £124.99 this set seemed a bit ovepriced. We managed to pick up a few at £65.96, almost half price.
It retired in 2021, and we held this set for a around a year after retirement, the price had started to go above RRP, and we sold for £155.
Therefore making a 90% ROI or £60 profit on each set, pretty decent return I think you will agree.
If we look at the set now – it still hasnt gone up much more going for about £165 -175 – but is quite a slow seller at about 8 a month. 
Why was this technic set not as good an investment
Normally we are quite happy for technic sets to purchase at about 25-33% off, they are always popular and hugely collectable, and this set perhaps lacks that collectability nature that pushes both demand and a suitable price increase.
But the warning signs were there – it always seemed a set that was a bit overpriced for what it was, often selling for much lower than the RRP and the sales rank for when at a discount of about 25% and at full price was not great pushing into the top 10,000 sales rank. (Not great for Lego.)
With a set priced so high to get a good enough return you are going to need the price to exceed perhaps twice the rrp or three times your buy price. Where this was not the best seller, buying at a discount at 25% it would need to go up quite high, where it was struggling when the price went up this transpired once on the after market.
Caution needed based on popularity
By no means was this a terrible investment, but it is a caution that getting at a much better discount was required, I was always confident when bought close to half price, and 90% return is still huge.
But just because with other sets from the same theme you can make a big return, doesnt mean it will always transpire, it is always harder with bigger sets, and then needs that extra little wow factor to make it worth while.
An example of a better investment of a similarly priced set.
Look at the Lego landrover technic set 42110, the sales rank was always much better when selling at discount and at full price, plus you had the collectabilty of Land rover, so it had dual appeal of Technic Lego and the Land rover enthusiasts, this meant, even at a lower discount of 20-25% you could claim 100% return.
Check out our other examples of Lego investing success stories
