Narrator: This thief is stealing $1,500 worth of Lego, according to the store owner. But that's just the tip of the iceberg.

In the past decade, there have been a slew of Lego thefts, including one totaling about $300,000.

But why are thieves around the world targeting a toy? Well, one reason might be that the most expensive Lego sets cost more than an iPhone 15.

That's why this guy was trying really hard to reach the top shelf. Justine: These sets went from around $120 to overnight selling on eBay for several thousand dollars.

My friends and family don't actually know about this room. I think they'd probably be quite shocked if I ever opened the door and they saw all the Lego that was in here.

Narrator: But it wasn't always like this.

In 2006, Lego's most expensive set was $270. So how did we get here? How did Lego go from a children's toy to a collector's item?

And why is it so expensive? Today, Lego is the world's largest toy company. But its story didn't start with plastic bricks.

It started with wood. While Lego found success with wooden toys, the company's first major turning point came in 1949, when its founder took a gamble and started manufacturing plastic bricks.

Plastic toys were cutting-edge technology at the time. But Lego wasn't the first to pursue this idea.

Here are two patents by a company called Kiddicraft from 1939 and 1945. And, well, you can decide how much inspiration Lego took.

Plastic bricks didn't click right away. Lego had to stick with the product and innovate to pull kids away from wooden and metal toys.

And to understand the price of Lego today, we have to rewind to its very first set. It was just a box of bricks without instructions.

Some of the earliest gift sets cost 25 Danish krone, about $60 today. But in 1955, Lego released the Town Plan, a simple version of the sets we have today.

Kids built buildings and combined them to create little Lego cities. With this release, Lego solidified what it called the System in Play.

Its guiding philosophy would be that every brick should fit together and stand the test of time, allowing kids of all ages to build in unlimited ways.

And we can't forget to mention the "reasonably priced" line.

Then, in 1958, Lego perfected its bricks with the stud and tube method, an interlocking design that enabled large yet stable builds.

Lego uses that design for its bricks to this day. Dave: Lego is brilliant. Pieces that were built from the beginning of Lego interact with pieces that were built today.

Narrator: With just a few exceptions. Do you know about brown?

There were some brown bricks that were made during a certain period of Lego that were more delicate than others, and if you try to build with some of those bricks today, they are a little brittle.

But 99.9% of all Lego that has ever been made is designed to stand the test of time and is awesome.

Narrator: By the 1960s, plastic bricks were a hit, and Lego made them its full focus.

But at the time, Lego's products were still pretty simple. Aside from reinventing the wheel in 1962, its builds were blocky and predominantly used the classic rectangular brick.

Lego's second major turning point came in the 1970s, when it started to release more creative sets, like the 1978 Space Cruiser.

It had 170 pieces and cost $10, or about $48 today.

Lego referred to these themed sets as the 'system within the system.' They added new pieces that expanded the Lego palette, like colored transparent parts and thrusters.

For builders like Dave, these pieces expanded the possibilities of Lego. Dave: It's really fun to have other options, because it's not like drawing, where you have unlimited possibilities.

Your limitations are the bricks that exist. So every time a new piece or a new color gets added, it's exciting.

Builds that I made like 10 years ago, I would build totally different now, because there's an expanded palette of what's available to build with.

Narrator: Throughout the '70s, Lego transformed from a toy into a creative medium, releasing dozens of new parts, sets, and even debuting the iconic minifigure.

The company experienced huge success and worldwide growth in the 1980s, Commercial: Hour after hour, day after day, year after year, Lego changes.

Narrator: But much like those brown bricks, cracks were starting to show. By the late 1990s, sales slumped, and the company was losing money for the first time ever.

Lego had grown rapidly and spread itself too thin, investing heavily in theme parks, media properties, and merchandise.

Meanwhile, sales for its original focus, the brick, were slipping. Lego released sets that required less building, ignoring what fans loved about the toy.

Take the Galidor theme, which barely resembles a Lego product. Commercial: Every dimension needs a hero.

Every hero needs a special power. In Galidor, it's glinching. Narrator: Glinching was not going to save Lego.

Sets like those had one-off pieces that didn't fit into the Lego system. They cost more to manufacture and were less profitable.

An executive would later say, "We had actually seen a decline in profitability, yet we continued to invest as if the company were growing very strongly.

We failed to realize that we were on a slippery path." The company's annual report described 2003 as a "very disappointing year" for Lego.

Executives were also concerned that physical toys might not keep up with the exploding video game industry. One of the few things that kept Lego afloat was Bionicle, the company's best seller for four years straight.

Another bright spot was its licensed "Star Wars" sets, first released in 1999.

These ranged in price from $6 to $90, and they flew off the shelves. Licensed sets would become hugely important for Lego.

But more on that later. Outside the company, something unexpected was growing all on its own. It turned out that kids weren't the only ones who thought Lego was fun.

Dave: Even in college, I was like, my friends were going out to the bars, and I was like, well, I could buy some more Lego with that money.

Narrator: Dave is what some people refer to as an AFOL.

Dave: Adult Fan of Lego, which, I don't know. I mean, it's a term that we use somewhat endearingly, but you know, it's also a little cheeky.

Narrator: His skill and passion for Lego earned him a spot on the TV series "Lego Masters," which millions of viewers watch weekly for its competitions between adults.

Dave: I'm like a superfan. I watch the international versions too. I love it.

Narrator: But the hobby looked a lot different when Dave first started building. Before the 2000s, even Lego's most complex sets had age recommendations, like 9 and up or 11 to 16.

But that didn't deter creative people like Dave from getting into the hobby.

Dave: This is like 40 years of collecting Lego. It's almost embarrassing to think about how much the dollar value of this Lego is.

If I buy a set, I'm taking it apart. I'm building it once to learn the techniques, but then I'm taking that set apart and integrating it into this collection so that I can use the pieces for my own ideas.

Narrator: By the 1990s, there was a growing group of passionate fans like Dave who had either played with Lego as kids or discovered it in adulthood as a creative outlet.

And they were spending a lot on Lego. For enthusiasts, having a room or an entire basement dedicated to Lego is a common practice.

Dave: Everybody has a different system that works for them. It's in here somewhere. You just have to find it.

The system's always changing. One of my favorite containers right here, I sold those three goats recently, got croissants, bottles, and eggs, chicken legs.

So this is a whole container that just has minifigure hair. Maybe this is a little morbid, but you could have a whole container of just minifigure heads.

It's definitely more than 100,000 bricks in this room. It's probably somewhere between 100,000 and 500,000.

just individual Lego elements in this room. But like, some of them are really small. I mean, there's probably 10,000 pieces right here.

Narrator: Dave estimates his collection is worth about $50,000. Dave: There are lots of ways to have a collection to build up.

You know, it might be a collection of vacations that you've taken over time, and this is a collection of memories and builds.

And pieces from many, many, many years of doing this. I love it because it's a way to tell stories.

I can talk about or think about things that have been happening in my life or things that are happening in the world or tell imaginary stories.

I was, you know, younger building by myself in my apartment. It's a very solitary thing, building Lego.

You're usually by yourself, or maybe with a sibling or a family member. It really can be for anybody because there are so many different ways to engage with Lego.

Narrator: In the 1990s, the passion of builders like Dave was quietly growing, waiting for a spark that would forever change the hobby.

I'm at the center of the web. High-tech illusion. Fantasy. As someone who can hardly turn the computer on, it's all a bit worrying.

Dave: When the internet started to catch on, people like me who had been building discovered that there were other people like me.

And it was great to be able to connect, to see that other people were building.

It wasn't just, like, building in solitude. And that's really, I think, when Lego started to become something else and not just a kid's toy.

Narrator: But Lego didn't always accept or understand its adult fans. One former executive said that decades ago, Lego saw fans like Dave as a source of irritation.

Another said Lego didn't think their adult fans had value. One of Lego's former CEOs said, "We kept thinking that much more should be done for the adult.

Most people on the management team thought we should concentrate on children instead." For a long time, up until the 1990s, being a fan of something was not seen in a positive light.

Like, why are you wasting your time playing with Legos? And so I can totally see why a company in the 1990s would really want to project that.

Narrator: But the AFOL community's momentum was not easily stopped. It was growing not just online, but in person.

Dave: People from all over the world would come together to be part of a convention. Narrator: In the early 2000s, conventions helped fans connect and build a strong community.

It was also great marketing for Lego because enthusiasts would display giant creations, like this 8-foot-wide "Lord of the Rings" build that took 11 years to construct.

It was definitely in the thousands. Like, for me now, I'm done buying Lego. I feel like I have enough here.

Julian: I've been playing with it since I was a kid. And I got my first set when I was 4 or 5.

A good portion of the apartment is filled with Lego. When we buy a house, we'll very quickly have a Lego basement.

Paul: We often find that the most powerful and longest-lasting fandoms come from the community. They tend to be grassroots or ground-up kinds of fandoms.

That sort of creative transformation strengthens a fan community, I think, more than if a media corporation or a toy company says, "Here's how I want you to be a fan." Narrator: But remember this set?

I bought two; I sold one, and I think I'll hold on to this one for a while and see where I get to.

Narrator: One huge aspect of the hobby driven by the community is the resale market.

Lego retires its sets every few years. After that, if you want to buy it or need a specific piece, your only option is to buy secondhand.

Because of this artificial scarcity, some sets skyrocket in value.

And savvy buyers view Lego as an investment. Justine: So this is my Lego storage room. I'd say there are over 600 to 700 of them stored inside this room.

My kids aren't allowed in here. It could probably be stored better, but I have an air vent for ventilation and I store a lot of them in cardboard boxes to keep the boxes in good condition.

I know the retail value of the sets I've purchased is over $50,000.

The secondary market value, I would suspect, is a lot more than that.

Some of the sets alone are worth three to four times what the retail price was. I keep this nicely locked away.

That is not a set to play with. Narrator: Justine says she collects Lego not with the intention of reselling it, but because she wants to build each one.

Justine: Just lift it to get
it out. That's a big one.

Narrator: However, knowing
that many sets increase in value gives her some pause in
cracking open the box.

Justine: So I don't really have a strategy or approach to buying Lego. I buy what I like. Unfortunately, I like a lot.

On occasion, I have bought a set twice because I've forgotten
that I purchased it. There is one minifigure alone
within that set, Harley Quinn, that is worth $400, and the
set itself is worth $1,200.

So I'd love to build it, but at the same time, it's
really hard to say I'll go, you know, spend $400 overnight
while building that set and reducing its value.

Why Lego Is So Expensive | So Expensive | Business Insider

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Why Lego Is So Expensive | So Expensive | Business Insider

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