When should you sell your LEGO investments? How long is it worth waiting after EOL?

When is the best time to sell a LEGO investment? This is a question I find myself asking again and again when it comes to my own sets. One year after EOL? After three years? Or should I just wait until the price eventually peaks?

I think that’s exactly where we sometimes make things too easy for ourselves. Of course, I’m happy when a set goes up in value. But if I wait five more years and end up getting maybe only ten percent more, I have to ask myself whether it was really worth it. After all, the money is sitting in storage the whole time. And I could use that money to buy new LEGO sets.

That’s why I try to get a good price when I buy—often about 35 to 38 percent below the MSRP. But at some point, you have to sell. And when I do, I don’t just look at the price; I focus mainly on how the set has performed over the past few months.

I think the biggest leaps often happen relatively early on

My impression from past years is that many sets can see a significant price jump right after their EOL. The bargain deals from retailers are slowly disappearing, remaining stock is dwindling, and suddenly a set costs significantly more than it did just a few months earlier.

This can happen after half a year, or sometimes not until one or two years have passed. And, of course, there are also sets where hardly anything happens even after several years.

But here’s what I find interesting: At some point, price fluctuations for certain sets level off significantly. Once the big jump is over, the price might only change slowly from there. That’s exactly when I’d start thinking about whether I really want to keep the set for several more years.

This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule that applies to all LEGO sets. It’s an observation that I keep checking against the Price History on Brick-Tracker.

A 100 percent increase in value—but how long did it take?

Let’s take two simple examples. Both sets had a MSRP of 100 euros and eventually reached 200 euros. At first glance, both have increased in value by 100 percent. But what if the first set took only two years to reach that price, while the other took eight?

That makes a huge difference. If I had actually bought it for 100 euros and sold it for 200 euros, that would amount to a return of about 41 percent per year over a two-year holding period. Over eight years, it would be only about nine percent per year. This doesn’t even take into account fees, shipping, and taxes.

I think that last example in particular is important: If my set is already worth 200 euros and I then wait three years to maybe get another 20 euros, that wouldn’t necessarily be appealing to me. I could have reinvested that capital in other sets long ago. Of course, the table is just an illustrative example and not an actual Price History.

What do the latest Brick-Tracker data show?

To do this, I looked at the market analysis covering the EOL years 2022 through 2026, across all product categories and price ranges. For the last 90 days, the export from October 16, 2026, shows a total of 2,079 sets. Of these, 960 are above MSRP, 1,015 are below MSRP, and 1,285 have increased in price over the past 90 days.

These figures alone show me that just because a set is EOL doesn’t automatically mean it’s priced above the MSRP. And a price increase over the last 90 days doesn’t necessarily mean the set was a good Investment overall. Some of the sets are exactly at the MSRP or have no comparable value; that’s why the numbers above and below the MSRP don’t add up exactly to 2,079.

Besides, 2026 isn’t over yet. That’s why, from a purely post-EOL perspective, I wouldn’t lump the current model year in with the older ones.

Seven sets where you can really see the difference

I deliberately didn’t just pick the seven biggest winners. I find it more interesting to look at sets that show just how differently the market can perform.

As of: Brick-Tracker data export from October 16, 2026; EOL 2022–2026. The prices are recorded retailer listings, not verified resale prices on the secondary market. For some sellers, a single deal can significantly influence the displayed price.

Let’s take a look at the 75313 AT-AT, for example. The set is now trading well above the MSRP. That’s quite an impressive trend, especially for such an expensive model. The situation is quite different for the 42129 Mercedes-Benz Zetros: Although the price has risen over the past 90 days, it’s still well below the original MSRP.

Or take the 60418 Police Truck with Lab. Its price has risen sharply over the past 90 days. But that doesn’t automatically mean I could sell it privately right now at that retailer’s price. With the 10297 Boutique Hotel, on the other hand, you can see that even a popular set doesn’t necessarily see huge price jumps right after EOL.

That’s why I always check the Price History for sets like these. I want to know whether the price has been rising over a longer period of time or if it’s just that the last few bargain Deals have sold out.

When will I reach the point where I should sell?

That’s actually a question I ask myself time and again when it comes to my own LEGO investments. How long should I actually hold onto a set? Two years, five years, or maybe even ten?

Personally, I believe that for many sets, the biggest price jumps happen relatively quickly after EOL. Maybe as early as six months, maybe not until a year or two later. But eventually, there comes a point where the price doesn’t fluctuate much anymore.

And that’s exactly when it gets interesting for me. Why should I hold onto a set for another five years if it might only go up by ten or twenty percent during that time? I might as well take that money and invest it in new sets, where I see significantly more potential.

Of course, there are exceptions. Some LEGO sets continue to appreciate significantly in value even after many years. Others, on the other hand, reach a high price relatively early on and then remain at that level for a long time.

That’s why, on Brick-Tracker, I don’t just look at how much a set is currently selling for above the MSRP, but also how the price has changed over the past few months. And for me, that’s the real question when it comes to selling: How much potential does the set still have, and would my money perhaps be better invested elsewhere?

Earning over MSRP doesn’t mean I make that much

That’s always important to me when it comes to this topic. The MSRP is, after all, just a reference point. If I bought a set at a 38 percent discount, I might already be making a profit, even though the current price is still below the MSRP.

Here’s a simple example: I buy a set with a MSRP of 100 euros for 62 euros and later sell it for 100 euros. If we deduct, for example, 10 euros in sales fees and 8 euros for shipping and packaging, that leaves 82 euros. That’s a 20-euro profit on my 62-euro purchase—about 32 percent—before taxes, storage costs, and my labor.

On the other hand, it doesn’t do me much good if a seller offers a rare set for 300 euros but I can’t find a Buyer at that price myself. That’s exactly why I always distinguish between seller prices in my market analysis and what actually ends up in my bank account when a sale is made.

Here’s how I inspect my sets before selling them

When I’m thinking about selling something from my inventory, I first check the Brick-Tracker market analysis. There, I can narrow down the EOL years and see which sets have gone up in price over the last 90, 180, or 365 days.

Then I open the Price Comparison tool and, most importantly, the chart for that specific set. Was there a big spike? Has the price been moving sideways for months? Are there still several sellers offering reasonable prices? And after fees and shipping, how much would I actually make from a sale?

If I have a lot of copies of a particular set, there’s another factor to consider: I can’t just assume that I’ll be able to sell them all at once for the same price. Sometimes it makes more sense to sell them gradually and hold onto part of the stock for now.

I can also track my purchase prices and holdings in the Brick-Tracker Investment Tool. This makes it easier to look not only at the current price, but also at the money I originally invested.

My conclusion: It’s better to take a good return than to wait forever for that last euro.

Of course, I find it exciting when a LEGO set eventually sells for 100 or even 200 percent above the MSRP. But what I find even more exciting is how long it took to get there.

I don’t have to aim for the absolute highest price on every trade. If I’ve achieved a good return and can then reinvest the money wisely, that’s often a better solution for me than hoping for a few extra percentage points for years to come.

Based on this snapshot alone, it’s not yet possible to say with certainty whether the biggest price jumps actually occur for most sets in the first six to 24 months after EOL. To determine that, we’d need to conduct a targeted comparison of historical Price Histories. Until then, this remains my assessment based on practical experience—and that’s exactly why I find it so interesting to continue monitoring these trends with Brick-Tracker.

More Articles and Experiences

• Selling LEGO: Which Platforms Are Worth It?
• Which EOL sets actually sell from my inventory
• My Sales and the Actual Return on Investment

I also talk more about my experiences and mistakes in my YouTube video about LEGO Investments. You can find the other Brick-Tracker tools at brick-tracker.de/app.php.