Lego prices were my introduction to economics and budgeting as a kid.
My parents worked out and explained that you should look for value per brick in the sets when choosing purchases. I learned how to rapidly estimate mental arithmetic largely from wanting to get the most Legos for my allowance. The benchmark was 10 cents per brick (in the mid 80's), sets which worked out below that were good buys, sets above that were a ripoff. Surprisingly, it didn't correlate much with set size, bigger sets weren't always so economical. There were quite a few very small sets in the Space line, things like one figure and a spaceship composed of about thirty pieces for $2.49, which were good buys and I accumulated several.
Side note, I actually didn't play with Legos as much as with a different builder set called Construx. Anyone else remember that?
The thing Im noticing with the sets these days is that overall, there are a lot more tiny pieces, variations on a 1x1 or a 1x1 flat, round, or light or something. That can really drive the piece count up on a set. I was just looking at the Fire Plane that my 6 yr old got yesterday (yay, birthday, 5 presents, 3 lego sets), and it's got a ton of little pieces to be the water that fills the plane's hold.
(Also, Compare the Tower Bridge @ 4k pieces for $250, vs the Death Star at 3k pieces for $400, though there's some licensing difference there as well)
My parents worked out and explained that you should look for value per brick in the sets when choosing purchases. I learned how to rapidly estimate mental arithmetic largely from wanting to get the most Legos for my allowance. The benchmark was 10 cents per brick (in the mid 80's), sets which worked out below that were good buys, sets above that were a ripoff. Surprisingly, it didn't correlate much with set size, bigger sets weren't always so economical. There were quite a few very small sets in the Space line, things like one figure and a spaceship composed of about thirty pieces for $2.49, which were good buys and I accumulated several.
Side note, I actually didn't play with Legos as much as with a different builder set called Construx. Anyone else remember that?