Brick-To-Value
It's a made up thing, but a thing nonetheless.
At any given time LEGO only has about 4 modular sets available for sale. Those usually range between $159 and $200 with the exception of Assembly Square which was $279 at release as it was north of 4,000 pieces. This means that if you want more than 4 buildings in your city, you've only got a few options to choose from.
Purchase a retired Modular from an individual reseller for an increased price
Find an "Alternative Build" option w/ instructions for a set that is currently at retail
Purchase instructions for a MOC Designed by a fellow AFOL
Design something yourself and order parts
Free-Build MOC using random parts – this is cool from the artistic perspective but usually these don’t work in a city filled out primarily by official LEGO Creator Modular sets.
Brick-To-Value.
When I talk about Brick-To-Value I'm talking about how much it costs to build the modular, how much space it takes up in your city (1 baseplate, .5 or 1.5 baseplates) and what it's potential resale value is.
I'm a dedicated collector/enthusiast but I also try to be as smart as possible when I make purchases for my LEGO City, LEGO room or sets for my wife and/or kids. I do not intend on liquidating my collection anytime soon (if ever) but when you are spending this much money on something you've got to at least plan for the future.
We know that, with very few exceptions, any given LEGO set in the 'Creator' theme will never be worth less than you paid for it so long as it's sealed and the box is in perfect condition. Even when you open and build the set while hanging onto the box and instructions the value will only go up once the set is retired.
What we don't know, however, is how much a Modular-MOC is worth. I've spoken to several AFOLs over the past year about this exact topic to gauge their opinions on the Brick-To-Value (even though it's a made-up thing) for such a build.
Some have said "nothing - the building is only worth it's weight in LEGO" - which, as of the writing of this article, is about $5 per pound for "used LEGO" with off-brand bricks, thumb tacks and marble mixed in. I find this to be ridiculous
Other's have said "Sure, it's so rare that it'd be worth $1,000 or more" - Which I also find to be ridiculous
I think it’s somewhere in between. The instructions (while yours since you purchased them) are the intellectual property of the designer - at least morally anyway – so you should not distribute these for free or otherwise. Someone who's willing to spend a TON of money on building a Modular-MOC can certainly afford 10 whole dollars for the instructions.
The build, however, is yours. I think that the value of the modular should be what you paid for the bricks (within reason) plus about $10-per-hour for unpacking shipments, sorting bricks and building the modular. Often, the instructions were put together by the designer and unless they've done several of these over the years the instructions can be quite hard to follow.
So here are examples of my non-LEGO designed modulars. For each building I’ll outline it’s overall Brick-To-Value including:
Build Category (Alternative, MOC, MOD)
Ease of procurement
Materials costs (bricks+instructions)
Potential resale value description
Modular Buildings
Brick Bank with Coffee Shop
Designed by Dagupa On Rebrickable.com
Build Category: MODification.
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Procurement: You only have to buy two copies of the original set to complete this. That’s about as easy as it gets to get a 1-off building for your city.
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Material Costs: Using the 'auto select' tool on Bricklink.com (for only stores in the US) I got a price of $644 before shipping which is really expensive. Expect to pay $700 as prices of bricks and shipping fluctuate.
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But since this is based on an original LEGO Set it didn't cost me anywhere near that much. I paid the LEGO RRP of $169.99 for the original set, twice, before it retired. So my total cost for this build was only $340! Less than half of the bricklink cost! Now that the Brick Bank is retired, it goes for as much as $300 on ebay - which, after buying two of them, is still cheaper than bricklink.com's price of $700 to order all the parts.
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Potential Resale: Simple – How much is a single copy of the BrickBank currently selling for at the time you decide to list it? At a minimum you can multiply that by two so long as you have both boxes and both sets of instructions. There might be some extra effort if you can’t find someone to buy both sets as configured. I’d say at least 2-3 hours worth of work to separate the parts back into each box.
Modular Bait Shop And Grocery
Designed by Versteinert On Rebrickable.com
Build Category: Alternative Build.
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Procurement: You only have to buy the original set to complete this. That’s about as easy as it gets to get a 1-off building for your city.
Material Costs: I paid $150 at the time of release and built the original set. Now this set has already gone for as much as $300 on ebay and that price will only continue to rise. Maybe in a bad economy it rises slower than most other LEGO Ideas sets do but it will not go down in value. Ever.
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Potential Resale: Alternative Builds are easy – they’re worth as much as the original set is at the time you want to list it for sale – so long as you have the box and instructions.
The Fire Station
Designed by Labronco on Rebrickable.com
Build Category: MOC
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Procurement: Easy, for a MOC. It is only 1200 pieces.
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Material Cost: On bricklink I paid only about $125 for the bricks with shipping. Since this is a full size baseplate style of building it adds a lot of value to the street that it sits on.
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Potential Resale: MOCs are tough to tell. I’d like to think that I’d get at least $150 for it if I was liquidating. For now though, It adds so much to the city being on a full-sized baseplate and only costing $150. It works quite well next to several buildings which makes it quite easy to place whenever I change the layout of the city.
The European Jazz Cafe
A modular MOC designed by InyongBricks
Build Category: Alternative Build.
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Procurement: This one is an alternative build of the already-amazing Assembly Square! At a cost of $279 for that set it's a no-brainer.
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Material Costs: $279 shipped directly from LEGO (As of spring 2020)
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Potential Resale: Alternative Builds are easy – they’re worth as much as the original set is at the time you want to list it for sale – so long as you have the box and instructions.
The Queen Bricktoria
Designed by Bricked1980 on Rebrickable.com!
Build Category: Bricklink
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Procurement: Bricklink - The shipping cost was high because the parts came from over 21 stores!
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Material Cost: The Bricklink auto select tool cost on this one for me was $616.62 before shipping. In this case the only way that I was able to save even a few dollars was to take the parts list and find just about every expensive brick I could in my own LEGO room.
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One of the parts, a dark-tan 1x1 modified plate, was only available for $8 + shipping from stores in Europe. At the time there was not one available in the US. What's worse is that the plate cannot be seen from any angle and non-critical part of attaching the awning!
It's important to understand that many of the Modular MOC designers have never built these creations in real life. They design it in the computer where they have an endless and FREE inventory to work with. That makes for some awesome buildings but it's something to look out for. My cost on this one was about $500 all-in.
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Potential Resale: I’m going to say $700 at a minimum. Not a lot of people build MOCs to begin with – not to mention the ones that weigh in at 3,400 pieces.
Sanctum Sanctorum Modular
Designed by Labronco Brick Designs on Rebrickable.com
Build Category: MOC
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Procurement: Simply get two copies of the ‘Sanctum Sanctorum’ sets from LEGO
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Material Cost: You can buy to of the "Santum Sanctorum" Sets for $99 each from LEGO or you can buy one set and a bunch of bricks from Bricklink. Either way you get a FULL-SIZE MOD of this set for $200 or less.
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Potential Resale: If you want to hold on to both boxes and instruction sets you could potentially get some money back out of this down the road after the sets retire. Personally, there were lots of usable parts in the set so I just sorted the extra bricks back into my collection. I suppose the modular building should go for $150 minimum from now till the end of time.
Gateaux
Designed by BrickLab on Rebrickable.com
Gateaux is Frech for 'Cake' - so this is the cakeshop. The Brick-To-Value here is again quite high for being a Moc - it wasn't much over 1,000 bricks and only cost about $150 with shipping to order the parts from BrickLink.
The Internet Cafe
Designed by Huaojozu on Rebrickable.com
Another Alternative Build - as usual with Alt-builds, this just required a $160 copy of the "Downtown Diner" and 4 hours later you've got a decent corner building for any city.
I have a few gripes with this one. First, it doesn't look good next to anything and looks the worst next to the actual downtown diner itself! Also, this is not the best actual build - in order to make it work with the parts on hand the designer had to sacrifice the 'fun' factor from the build a little bit.
The Corner Museum
Designed by InyongBricks on Rebrickable.com
In my top 5 LEGO Builds of all time. Of course - another HUGE brick-to-value because it's an Alternative Build of the London Bridge Set. The designer KILLED this thing - inside there are sculputres of dionosaur bones, a spinx, etc - amazing stuff on this one!
