The Fire Brigade 10197 Series: Why this Set May be the Most Important Reitrement to Date. Part 1: Introduction

The success of the modular line in the Lego Investing culture is obvious. Market Street, The Green Grocer, and Cafe Corner all have seen and continued to see insanely successful growth rates, with the newer Modulars only boosting their appeal to people. Take a look at the CAGRs of the different sets below:

So naturally, the Fire Brigade, as what we assume will be the next modular to retire, is an important investment set because all the other modulars have seen incredible gains. However, there is much more riding on the Fire Brigade for Lego investors than just the price of the set and how many each of us as stashed away.

To most of the experienced Lego investors here (I would not be one - I have only started about a year ago), Lego investing really "got out of the bag" about 1-2 years ago. This site and many others have continued to talk Lego fanatics, and people looking to make good money, into Lego investing. Not to say that Lego itself hasn't gained an extreme amount of notoriety during this time period as well and pulled in millions of new builders, but with the amount of investing "heavy hitters" growing, the talk about the "bubble" and the comparison to other toy market crashes like Beanie Babies and Baseball Cards can not be ignored.

So what does all this have to do with the Fire Brigade? Well, the Fire Brigade has been out for just over 4 years now and counting (it looks like it could be done, but has not officially hit "retired product" on the website) making it one of the longest set retail runs to date - and one of the most high profile too. Because of the success of the first three modulars, the Fire Brigade has been a popular choice among new and old investors on top of the people grabbing it because of its modular appeal. Ed, one the site's co-owners, has mentioned that this is the most owned set in the BrickPicker Brickfolio on several occasions. It is extremely safe to say that this set is much more stockpiled than any of the first three modulars.

On top of this, the long production run has been a fear of Lego investors in general. It makes sense - the longer a set is out, the more of them are bought, and the more competition in the secondary market later on. This doesn't mean long production sets won't be winners, just that it could take a much longer time to reap the same rewards from them had they lasted the normal 2 years. Along with this long run, the speculation is that this could become the norm for Lego sets and especially large popular exclusives.

The Fire Brigade is, in my opinion, will be the highest profile set to retire with an abnormal production run in the middle of the "Lego Investing Boom". Because of this, this set may very well be a huge barometer for any of the "buy and hold" investors going forward. If the set still triples or quadruples in value within the first three years, we will know that the long production run did not have as huge an effect. If the set plateaus extremely early as 1000s of investors try to offload their stock they have been holding for 3-4 years, it tells us a lot about what to stay away from moving forward (a shift to licensed sets as better investments no doubt).

No matter what you think will or wont happen with the Fire Brigade, the set itself will tell us a ton about investments moving forward. In this set of blogs, I will be looking at different aspects of the set to set a barometer for what it "should" do based on past sets. I will also be comparing it to other high profile Lego Sets that have retired with a much longer than normal production run to see if we can draw any comparisons. I will also be looking as some best and worst case scenarios as well as what to do during those and my investment analysis from it.

It is definitely not normal to spend so much time and focus so much on one Lego set as an investor. In fact that is usually a no-no as we encourage diversity and sager investing. However, with time showing that the Fire Brigade's production run and investment hoarding may be the norm going forward as Lego fights investors, this set may have an impact on 100s of others down the line. The Tower Bridge, the Volkswagon Bus, the Haunted House, and the rash of new modulars coming out like the Town Hall, the Pet Shop, the Grand Emporium, etc. are all going to be judged by what this set does.

If this set still soars up the proverbial latter and washes away all the doubters, we will know we are living in the crux of the golden age. However, if this investment burns furiously to the ground, we better all be ready to adapt before we go down with it.