LEGO Harry Potter Data Analysis

To gain a little bit more insight into the LEGO Harry Potter theme I will be doing some data analysis. As a disclaimer - I created the data set myself with information found on such websites as www.brickeconomy.com, www.brickset.com, LEGO Harry Potter WIKI page and of course www.lego.com, however, as I am human and to err is human, the data may not be 100% complete and correct. I tried my best to make sure I captured all the correct information, however, if you should see something that seems suspicious in the data analysis - please let me know! I will try to update the spreadsheet as new sets become available and older sets retire. This is simply something for fun - I want to learn more about the LEGO Harry Potter theme and learn more about RStudio (a data analysis tool). The findings should not be taken as facts, just as something that may need more investigation to draw a concrete conclusion - if one can even be drawn.

So what is the data? I tried to capture all the LEGO Harry Potter sets from the very beginning in 2001 in the spreadsheet. The variables are:

Series: Here I stuck to the information found on the LEGO Harry Potter Wikipedia page. The classes (different options) are - Original, Revival and Second Revival. The Original sets begin in 2001 and end in 2009. The Revival sets are from 2010 to 2017 and the Second Revival sets are from 2018 till to be determined. Please remember that LEGO Harry Potter sets have not been continuously made since 2001, that is why the set have been grouped into these three classes.

Set Number: This is the number given to the set by LEGO.

Set Name: Name given to the set by LEGO.

Availability: This I kept pretty simple, we only have three classes. Retail, LEGO Exclusive and Promotional. A LEGO Exclusive is a set only sold via LEGO (ex. 75978 Diagon Alley), Promotional is a set that is not available for regular sale, but may be available to a customer if a certain criteria is met during a purchase (ex. 40452 Hogwarts Gryffindor Dorms) and Retail consists of all the sets that are available for sale that are not LEGO Exclusives (ex. 76399 Hogwarts Magical Trunk). I did not make a difference between the different retail levels. There are some sets that may only be available at certain retailers (ex. 76392Hogwarts Wizard's Chess only available at Target in the USA) in addition to being available in LEGO stores and on the LEGO websites, however, I kept it simply as Retail, rather than Retail - Limited.

Release Year: The year in which a set was released.

Release Date: The date on which a set was released.

Retirement Date: The date on which a set retired. This data was not readily available for Promotional Sets, so they have been left blank, which in turn is a 'Not Applicable.' Also, sets that are currently still in circulation and available for sale via retailers and LEGO will have a 'Not Applicable' value for this variable. I will try to update this info as it becomes available and official - which will typically be after the retirement date.

Original Price: The original price of the set. It would be interesting in the future to track the sale prices of sets, however, at this time I will only include the original price of the set when it became first available. This will be in USD.

2022 Price: To somehow be able to compare the prices of sets in 2001 and 2020 I needed to account for inflation. As a professor always told me - "a dollar today is not the same as a dollar tomorrow." I used the inflation calculator from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and for the "same buying power date" I used January 2022. You can calculate forward (so 2001 price to 2020 price) and backward (2022 to 2001).

Brick Count: The count of bricks in a set.

Minifigure Count: The number of minifigures in a set. I do not differentiate between 20th Anniversary Figures, microfigures, and regular figures. This reflects the number that is used on LEGO box.

Theme 1: Reflects the movie the set is based on. Why Theme 1, you may ask. Originally, I had thought I could track the multiple movies that a set may have drawn inspiration from, however, ultimately I went with the information that was available online. So, each set has only one movie that it is associated with, if it is not clear what exact movie a set is inspired by (ex. the Advent Calendars, Promotional sets and many regular sets) it is set the just 'Harry Potter.' Much of this information can be found on the above mentioned websites. Hogwarts Moments got their own theme as 'Hogwarts Moments.'

Minifigure 1 - Minifigure 28: Here I list each minfigure in the set. Thanks to 71043 Hogwarts Castle for all the 28 minifigures available in the set! Also, I didn't denote any special features for each figure - a goblin is a goblin no matter what the goblin is wearing. If a set included two dementors, it will have two dementors listed. The 20the Anniversary Figures are listed as '20th Anniversary Hermione Granger', etc. There is a minifigure called 'Professor Snape Boggart,' as it was Professor Snape in Neville Longbottom's grandmother's clothes. That I thought needed a special note. The minifigure count variable should reflect the number of minifigures listed in these fields.

Let us begin with the analysis...

08/02/2022 Prices are going up and up and up

Here we are two days into August 2022 and things have changed at LEGO. Well not really, but the prices of some of our favorite sets have changed. I am unsure if this has ever happened before in the long history of LEGO, but for me it was a first. Here is an article about the official LEGO press release regarding the price increase.

I was very torn on 07/31/2022 (Harry Potter's birthday). I had waited to purchase some of the new sets that were released in June 2022, so I was able to take advantage of the gift with purchase deal in July (40577 Hogwarts Grand Staircase), thus fiscally speaking, I really wasn't ready to make another significant purchase.

In particular I was waiting for a deal on 76389 Hogwarts Chamber of Secrets, I am still not sure about the revamped modular Hogwarts design, so I had originally hoped that I could pick up the set below the $129.99 USD MSRP. However, many outlets were reporting prior to August 1st, that this set would see a price increase and I was questioning if I should just click the "buy" button, so I could avoid having to purchase the set at its new price of $149.99 USD. Unfortunately, I didn't make the purchase. I just recently purchased 76408 12 Grimmauld Place and 76400 Hogwarts Carriage and Thestrals and I had to draw the line somewhere. What I should have done instead of purchasing 76408 12 Grimmauld Place, is purchase 76389 Hogwarts Chamber of Secrets. However, like I said, I am just not sure how interested I am in the modular Hogwarts, but I do somewhat want the set.

The other set that I would like, which is a long-term goal, is 75978 Diagon Alley. The set itself wasn't mentioned in many articles. From what I could tell many of the articles referred to retailers having updated their LEGO prices early and since 75978 Diagon Alley is a LEGO Exclusive, we would not have known about the price increase till the actual date of August 1st, when LEGO updated their website. I wasn't going to purchase the set this year. It is so expensive and just a lot to justify for a LEGO set. However, 71043 Hogwarts Castle was reported to get a price increase, so I was hoping that 75978 Diagon Alley wouldn't get too much of a price increase, as it would just mean that it would take me longer to save the money, but also I would now need to somehow justify the new price for the set. The price did increase from $399.99 USD to $449.99 USD. Now I am very much in the camp that I wish that LEGO would sell the buildings in the set individually, because I think I could justify purchasing a set here or there much more easily than spending $449.99 USD in one purchase.

In any case there were a couple LEGO Harry Potter sets that were impacted by the price increase, so I wanted to dig a little deeper to get a better sense as to what is going on. Considering some of the sets were released before the pandemic, I am sure that adjusting the original set price for inflation would be very interesting. Below is a list of the sets that I think are still available. Please know, I created the spreadsheet so there may be some data entry issues. If you see something amiss, please let me know.

Via the data set, we have 33 sets currently available (sets that are not promotional sets and that have not retired yet). I don't include the BrickHeadz and the LEGO Art sets in this spreadsheet.

We have the set number, set name, the release date, original price when the set was released, the 2022 updated price (only applicable for some of the sets), inflation adjusted price (based on when the set was originally released and the original price - inflation data is for June 2022 (the most current available)), and the price change between the original and inflation price. So, for example 71043 Hogwarts Castle increased about 17% between its original price and the inflation adjusted price. Here is a link to explain inflation. I am by no means an economist, so it is probably best to rely on someone else for the definition.

When discussing this, please keep in mind there are many factors that impact the price of LEGO sets. Then, also please keep in mind that inflation is calculated using the Consumer Pricing Index (CPI), which is made up of data about the average prices consumers pay - so we are talking about a broad spectrum (read more about CPI here).

Generally, I just wanted to see how the inflation adjusted prices compare to the original prices and if the set saw a price increase is it close to the inflation adjusted price. This analysis was done for fun and should not be viewed as fact.

I thought it was pretty interesting that the inflation adjusted price for 71043 Hogwarts Castle is pretty much the new price of the set in 2022. 75978 Diagon Alley may still be somewhat of a deal, since the new price of $449.99 is lower than the inflation adjusted price, though it probably would have been best to have purchased it on July 31, 2022. 76391 Hogwarts Icons Collectors' Edition is an interesting one, the adjusted price is much higher than the inflation price - here I think possibly the uniqueness of the bricks and pieces that are included in the set may factor into the price. Maybe LEGO is also looking for this set to be around for many years to come and is already adjusting for future inflation. These are just my theories when looking at the data - not facts!

One theory that I have is that the sets that did see a price increase will most likely not retire this year and that many of the sets that did not see a price increase may likely be retiring (not including the sets released in 2022). I would specifically focus on the sets that have seen a price change between original and inflated price of over 9%. Many of these sets are mentioned online in articles that discuss what sets may be retiring this year.

One set that has not been listed to retire this year is 75969 Hogwarts Astronomy Tower. There could be many reasons as to why the set did not see a price increase, but a part of me thinks that maybe it could retire?! Again, inflation is more about consumer purchasing power and I just wanted to adjust the prices, but that set in particular sticks out to me.

Take all of this with a grain of salt. There are so many things that impact the pricing of LEGO sets that inflation, if at all, is just a small piece to the story. I just thought it would be interesting to look at the data.

07/03/2022 What the Theme?!

I have been watching a lot of YouTube videos that discuss the LEGO Harry Potter theme and specifically the 2022 wave. Many expressed excitement that LEGO was finally taking inspiration from later movies in the Harry Potter franchise to release such sets as 76403 The Ministry of Magic, which is inspired by "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" (Part 1 to be precise) and 76408 12 Grimmauld Place, which is inspired by "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". After pondering on it a bit, I started to wonder how the different themes for the sets compare and wanted to know more. This of course meant some data analysis!

To start, I narrowed down my dataset to sets that are either LEGO Exclusives or Retail sets - essentially meaning that I am looking at sets that are/were for sale (not promotional sets, such as "gift with purchase" sets). I came up with 103 sets (I am missing 30435 Build Your Own Hogwarts Castle).

Each set in my dataset has a theme. I found this data via Brickset and BrickEconomy. In total, the dataset I have has 13 different themes for sets! Mind you, I only gave each set one theme. If multiple themes apply to one set, it typically gets assigned the general Harry Potter theme. The 13 themes are: Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (no difference between Part 1 and Part 2), Harry Potter Advent Calendar, Harry Potter Moments, Harry Potter Microscale (71043 Hogwarts Castle), Fantastic Beasts: and Where to Find Them, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

To get an easy oversight as to how many sets there are per theme, please see the chart below.

I am instantly drawn to the fact that the top four set themes account for 72 sets or about 70% of all sets in the LEGO Harry Potter theme! So chances are, if you are randomly selecting a set from the 103 sets in the dataset, most likely the set will have one of the following themes: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, or Harry Potter (the general theme). The Fantastic Beasts themes, as well as Harry Potter Microscale, Harry Potter Moments, and Harry Potter Advent Calendar are themes that make sense to have few sets.

71043 Hogwarts Castle looks to be an amazing set, I am just not sure how much of a market there is for more microscale sets. Advent Calendars technically can only be released one time per year and LEGO didn't start with the Harry Potter Advent Calendars until 2019. The Harry Potter Moment sets have a place in the LEGO Harry Potter theme, I am just not sure how many more I want to purchase. They are unique, it's a great way to add more minifigures to your collection, just for me they don't transport me into the Wizarding World like other sets do. And then there are the Fantastic Beasts sets. Considering we didn't get any new sets in 2022 for "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore," I am not sure that the theme will grow. I enjoy the movies and do think there is a potential to add more unique sets, but from what I gather the movies do not tend to perform as well as movies in the Harry Potter franchise, so there might not be too much of a demand.

I guess it makes sense that the first three movies have a high set count. "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" to me really marks the beginning of adolescent for the main characters, and the following movies did have a much darker tone. Overall, I think it makes sense, since they are getting older and the stakes are getting higher. However, the first three movies probably have a wider range of appeal (I am thinking here of younger fans). "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" is one of my favorite movies in the franchise, partly due to the soundtrack. (Side note: I just watched it again while building 76407 The Shrieking Shack & Whomping Willow and for the first time it sank in that the Time Turner could have really altered the plotline of the entire franchise).

The Harry Potter theme is a general one and consists of the following sets (many of them are very difficult to narrow down to one movie):

The more I looked at this data, the more I wanted more details. So, I created the following graph to show the set theme by Series and Year. It's definitely very colorful!

During the Original Series of the LEGO Harry Potter theme the Harry Potter movies were just being released in theaters. So it is very interesting that each year is almost dedicated to one particular theme. The first two movies were released in November of 2001 and 2002 (no wonder I thought of Harry Potter movies as Christmas movies for the longest time!). Thus, it makes sense that the Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone theme continued into 2002, and that the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets theme continued into 2003. "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" was released in theaters in June 2004. (I should note at this point, I am looking at the release dates for the United States of America). Thus, 2004 was fully dedicated to the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban theme. "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" was released in November of 2005, however, this theme was not carried into 2006. There was a LEGO Harry Potter break in 2006, as "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" wasn't released until July of 2007, which also marked the end of the Original Series.

The Revival Series started in 2010, which is interesting because "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" was released in July 2009, and in November 2010 "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1" was released. For the Revival Series you can see in the graph that in 2010 when the series started, it only had one Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince set and was otherwise focusing on the general Harry Potter theme, as well as one set inspired by Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" was released in July of 2011 and the Revival Series finally added Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sets (4865 The Forbidden Forest, 4867 Hogwarts).

By the time the Second Revival Series started all the Harry Potter franchise movies had been released and you can tell that inspiration was taking from everywhere. The 2018 wave focused more on "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets." The 2019 wave focused on the movies "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" and "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." However, since then things have become pretty colorful and LEGO seems to be inspired by all the different themes for each wave.

I do hope that in the following years LEGO Harry Potter will be able to add many more sets that are inspired by "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" (Part 1 and 2), but I do understand the appeal of the Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban themes. I suppose I would just like the different themes to be more balanced in how many sets they account for in the LEGO Harry Potter theme.

06/26/2022 Sets with Harry, Ron or Hermione

I recently saw a t-shirt that said "Girl Power Without Hermione, Harry would have died in Book 1." I think the statement is pretty true, as I am not sure Harry would have been able to solve Severus Snape's potion riddle by himself. In any case, it did make me wonder about our three friends and their minifigures. We have already explored the sets with and without Harry Potter, but Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger are so important to Harry's journey that I wondered how often they appeared in LEGO Harry Potter sets. One thing to know right away, I am not considering the 20th Anniversary Golden minifigures for this analysis. The 20th Anniversary minifigures for Harry and Hermione are in sets that already include their regular minifigures (Harry Potter - 76386 Hogwarts: Polyjuice Potion Mistake; Hermione Granger - 76387 Hogwarts: Fluffy Encounter), Ron Weasley is unfortunately included in 76388 Hogsmeade Village Visit, which doesn't include his regular minifigure.

Also, I did include 76403 The Ministry of Magic, depending on how you play or display the set you do have the Harry, Ron and Hermione minifigures.

In any case, first I excluded again all the promotional sets, which left me with 103 sets. In that list is also 76393 Harry Potter & Hermione Granger, which doesn't have any minifigures. Let us see how the three friends compare!

Just to give some perspective, Hermione Granger is in 36 sets, Ron Weasley is in 40 sets and Harry Potter is in 80 sets. I am a bit torn, on one hand all three of them are such integral parts of the story that I would almost think all three should be in all sets, however, that would get boring pretty quickly and I do love looking at all the different minifigures that LEGO creates! It is interesting that Harry is in 80 sets and then both Ron and Hermione are in about half as many sets. I would have thought they may have been in about 75% of the sets that Harry was in - there are some sets that I can completely understand why either Ron or Hermione may be missing, with one example being 75968 4 Privet Drive. I don't think Hermione made it there prior to "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1." But 50% is throwing me for a loop!

It looks like Ron was in a couple more sets during the Original Series of LEGO Harry Potter sets, however, Hermione has been in a couple more sets during the current Second Revival Series. To me that type of shift is pretty interesting. Below I have a list of all the sets that include Hermione and Ron.

SETS THAT INCLUDE HERMIONE GRANGER MINIFIGURE

SETS THAT INCLUDE RON WEASLEY MINIFUGRE

Two sets that immediately stick out are 76401 Hogwarts Courtyard Sirius's Escape and 76402 Hogwarts Dumbledore's Office - both of them don't include Ron and they were just released. For Sirius's Escape Ron was in the Hospital Wing, so I suppose he would not be included in the set and then for Dumbledore's Office, the set also comes with the library and a minifigure for Madam Pince, so I suppose it would be natural to also include Hermione in the set as she is always in the library.

I am glad that Ron and Hermione are in as many sets as they are, as I do think that they add much to the story. And I am not sure Harry Potter would have been able to make it through his journey without them. They are just a really great trio of friends that balance each other so well!

Below is the list of sets that include Harry. Considering he is in 80 sets out of 103, I am always surprised that there are sets with the Harry Potter minifigure in the LEGO Harry Potter theme, however, I am excited to get unique minifigures such as Madam Pince or Professor Sinistra. There are just so many great and beloved character in the Harry Potter journey that I am glad LEGO makes an effort to bring us as many minifigures as possible to have the Wizarding World at home!

SETS WITH HARRY POTTER MINIFIGURE

06/12/2022 The new sets are coming!

I know I said I would wait to update my spreadsheet until the new sets were officially released, which is technically 06/19/2022 in the U.S.A., however, I couldn't help myself! I am extremely excited for the sets! I did end up pre-ordering set 76407 The Shrieking Shack & the Whomping Willow via LEGO's website. Long story short, I am not 100% sure that this will be my favorite set of the wave, however, 76395 Hogwarts: First Flying Lesson had finally come back in stock on the LEGO website and I needed something else to get free shipping. So, I decided to pre-order the set to make sure I would get my hands on it!

I thought about updating the graph below regarding the sets without the Harry Potter minifigure, however, good news is that the Harry Potter minifigure is included in all the sets that are being released in the June 2022 wave. Yes, the Harry Potter minifigure for 76403 The Ministry of Magic will share the "body" with Albert Runcorn, but Harry will still be there. So there are really no new sets coming this June that are excluding Harry.

In any case, let's look at something new! Today I wanted to take a look at price per brick and price per minifigure for all the non-promotional sets and also excluding 71043 Hogwarts Castle, since that is a microscale set. In total I have 102 sets for this analysis, however, ultimately 76393 Harry Potter & Hermione Granger will be dropped from the analysis as well, as this set doesn't include any minifigures. So, really we are down to 101 sets. Also, I will be using the "Original Price" variable for this, rather than the price adjusted for inflation, as inflation data is not yet available for June 2022 (since we are currently in the midst of June). Also, please keep in mind I am working with the USD pricing.

The graph is very difficult to read I would say due to some outliers that are stretching the X and Y axis. But before we get to that let's get the overall graph figured out. "Price per Brick in USD" is located on the X-axis. While the "Price per Minifigure in USD" is located on the Y-axis. (Both variables are found by dividing the price of the set by the amount of minifigures and bricks in the set). The various points on the graph represent non-promotional LEGO Harry Potter sets. I did add the shape and color attributes to the data points to make it easier to see what LEGO Harry Potter Series the set is from (also it somewhat helps to see the different points, as well as if there would have been a pattern). You are seeing a lot of blue squares, because the Second Revival Series has the highest set count and we are currently in the midst of the Second Revival Series.

When looking at the graph, my eye is immediately drawn to the blue square that is over $80 for "Price per Minifigure in USD". That blue square represents 76391 Hogwarts Icons Collectors' Edition. The set costs $249.99 USD and has 3 minifigures, hence the high price per minifigure. However, it has a brick count of 3010 bricks, and the "Price per Brick" is less than ten cents!

The next blue square my eyes are drawn to is the one that has a "Price per Brick" over 40 cents. That one is 40500 Wizarding World Minifigure Accessory Set. This set has a retail price of $14.99 and comes with 33 bricks. However, as the set is essentially minifigures, the "Price per Minifigure" is about $3.75 USD.

It is interesting to see that most of the sets are between a "Price per Brick" of ten to fifteen cents, and a "Price per Minifigure" of less that $20 dollars. I am sure this assessment would change slightly when we use the set price that is adjusted for inflation. I would think that the older sets would increase in both "Price per Brick" and "Price per Minifigure." Maybe I will revisit this when the inflation data is available for June.

I just want to mention that these are just calculations and this doesn't reflect the actual price/cost of the bricks or minifigures. It's simply taking the Original Price of a Set and dividing it by the Count of Minifigures or Count of Bricks in the set. The actual cost of bricks and minifigures depends most likely on a variety of inputs, which only LEGO would know. Also, this doesn't reflect the value of the individual bricks and minifigures. I think at best this may be viewed for "what am I getting for the money." For example, taking set 76391 Hogwarts Icons Collectors' Edition as an example - you aren't getting a lot of minifigures for $249.99, however, you are getting a ton of bricks.

Since I have not really decided on what other sets I will be purchasing from the June 2022 release, I figured we could explore those sets a bit deeper.

76406 Hungarian Horntail Dragon only comes with one minifigure (Harry Potter) and thus looks to be an outlier, since the "Price per Minifigure" is the same at the price of the set ($49.99 USD), which is pretty high. However, the set does have a good many bricks, so the "Price per Brick" is only about seven cents. Since I already pre-ordered the 76407 The Shrieking Shack & Whomping Willow set, I was a bit torn if I should then also purchase 76403 The Ministry of Magic or 76408 12 Grimmauld Place when the sets are released. Looking at this, I would say 76403 The Ministry of Magic appears to be the better deal between the two, because both the "Price per Brick" and "Price per Minifigure" are lower than those for 76408 12 Grimmauld Place. However, again this calculation is just based on numbers and doesn't take into consideration the uniqueness of the minifigures, the uniqueness of bricks, the size of bricks, etc. You really have to look at this as something very high level, that definitely is not very detailed. I am very much drawn to 76403 The Ministry of Magic just because of the color - I love the green, but the design of 76408 12 Grimmauld Place looks amazing! Down the road, I am hoping to add both to my collection, but for right now I may just stick to 76403 The Ministry of Magic.

I still need to get set 76389 Hogwarts Chamber of Secrets, so I am not too eager to purchase either 76401 Hogwarts Courtyard Sirius's Rescue and 76402 Hogwarts Dumbledore's Office. However, when looking at the data above, it does look like 76402 Hogwarts Dumbledore's Office would be the better deal since both "Price per Brick" and "Price per Minifigure" are lower than for 76401 Hogwarts Courtyard Sirius's Rescue, but 76402 Hogwarts Dumbledore's Office is also $30 USD more expensive. When you look the at the "Price per Brick" and "Price per Minifigure" some sets may hold exceptional value, however, justifying the overall price of the set may be a different story.

Also, I was just watching a video from YouTuber TopicBricks where a LEGO Harry Potter gift with purchase in July was discussed. This is another thing that makes me wonder if I should just stick with my pre-ordered 76407 The Shrieking Shack & Whomping Willow for a little bit until I can figure out if I could purchase enough to get the gift with purchase on the LEGO website (I love gift with purchase promotions, however, I am mindful of the qualifications, if it is too high I will pass on the gift).

Take the data with a grain of salt. We just simply divided the original price of a set by the number of minifigures and bricks in a set. It doesn't take a lot of things into consideration and should definitely not be used for investment decisions. I just thought it would be fun to look at this data.

Below are all the sets that are shown in the first graph. 76393 Harry Potter & Hermione Granger wasn't included in the graph because it is missing the data for "Price per Minifigure," as the set is without a minifigure.

One thing that really stands out to me is the low "Price per Brick" for 75978 Diagon Alley. The set looks amazing and I have been trying to figure out how to possibly ever justify purchasing the set since it does cost $399.99 USD. Considering the set does have 5,544 bricks, the "Price per Brick" comes down to about seven cents. That sounds like a pretty good deal to me! Still an expensive set, but I think that could be eventually something to help me justify the purchase (just maybe, it is still a lot of money).

04/23/2022 Harry, are you there?

I know the books, the movies and the LEGO theme include the name "Harry Potter," however, I have often wondered: are there LEGO Harry Potter sets without the famous Harry Potter minifigure?

For this analysis I excluded all the promotional sets and I am not considering the 20th Anniversary Golden Harry Potter minifigure in this. That special minifigure was included in the 76386 Hogwarts: Polyjuice Potion Mistake set, which also features a regular Harry Potter minifigure. Also, in this data are the 2022 Wave sets that have been released at this point, not the sets that have been announced. In total we are working with 96 non-promotional sets that have been released since 2001 in the Harry Potter theme.

This graph shows how many sets in each wave included and excluded the Harry Potter minifigure. Sets during the Original Series (2001 - 2009) seemed to have somewhat of a good mix of sets with and without the Harry Potter minifigure. Looking at the very first year for the theme in 2001 - four sets did not include the Harry Potter minifigure, while seven did. The sets in the Waves for 2007, 2010 and 2011 all included the Harry Potter minifigure, however, it should be noted that the 2007 Wave only consisted of one set 5378 Hogwarts Castle. For the Revival Series (2010 - 2017) all sets included the Harry Potter minifigure. From 2018 onwards the sets have a pretty good mix, though in 2020 all sets included the Harry Potter minifigure, which stands in contrast to the 2021 Wave (20th Anniversary) during which half the sets included the minifigure and the other half of sets did not. Just thinking about it three of the four Hogwarts Moment sets released in 2021 did not include the minifigure (included in 76385 Hogwarts Moment: Charms Class).

As we have 96 total sets and 23 sets are without a Harry Potter minifigure - about 24% of LEGO Harry Potter themed sets are without the Harry Potter minifigure!

To me it seems reasonable that about one fourth of the sets don't include the minifigure. I love the Harry Potter minifigures and the different iterations of it, however, I do also get very excited when the less famous characters get their moment to shine as minifigures.

SEE LIST BELOW FOR THE 23 SETS WITHOUT THE HARRY POTTER MINIFIGURE

After reviewing the list, it is obvious that Harry Potter would not be included in the "Fantastic Beasts" sets (75952 Newt's Case of Magical Creatures and 75951 Grindelwald's Escape). There would also not be a reason for Harry to be included in 4768 The Durmstrang Ship and 75958 Beauxbatons' Carriage: Arrival at Hogwarts. The 76393 Harry Potter & Hermione Granger set is also included in this list, because it does not come with a Harry Potter minifigure - but a large Harry Potter build. I guess it is debatable if it should be included on the list. While I am not a big fan of the Hogwarts Moment sets, they are a great opportunity for LEGO to include different minifigures and on this list we already find four out of the six released Hogwart Moment sets! I do love the minifigures from all of the Hogwarts Moment sets! Technically, 76399 Hogwarts Magical Trunk does include the Harry Potter minifigure, however, it is advertised as only including Professor McGonagall, as it is up to the builder as to what unique minifigures they would like to create, Again, debatable!

I don't know too much about the Original Series sets, but I am surprised that there is 4707 Hagrid's Hut released in 2001 and 4754 Hagrid's Hut released in 2004 and neither include the Harry Potter minifigure. Don't worry, a Harry Potter minifigure is included in the 2019 set 75947 Hagrid's Hut: Buckbeak's Rescue.

One set that does stand out is 4752 Professor Lupin's Classroom. The set comes with the minifigures for Professor Lupin, Neville Longbottom and the Professor Snape Boggart based on the scene from "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban." The Harry Potter minifigure was already included in seven sets in the 2004 Wave and was excluded from three sets during that wave. Considering this was the Original Series and it was the very first time "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" movie was used for LEGO sets - I completely love the idea of this set! It is such an iconic scene that this set makes complete sense with the three minifigures that it includes!

Review the list below and let me know your thoughts on Instagram- also let me know if I missed a set or there is a set in the list that shouldn't be included.

04/30/2022 Wait, there is an Original Series, Revival Series and a Second Revival Series?!

To better understand the LEGO Harry Potter set releases, I heavily relied on the LEGO Harry Potter Wikipedia page. On the site it mentioned the "Revival Series." Also, as I was watching YouTubers discuss the LEGO Harry Potter theme they used such terms as "Original Series" and "Second Revival Series."

How does one make sense of that?! From what I have gathered thus far, there are two different words when it comes to the releases of LEGO Harry Potter sets. One word I often hear is "wave." "Wave" is a term used to group together all the sets released during a certain year. So, there is the 2020 Wave, the 2019 Wave, the 2022 Wave and so on. As you will see, for my reviews I also grouped the sets by which wave they were released in. Simple enough!

The second term I often hear is "series." As I am not too familiar with the other LEGO themes, I am not sure how applicable the term is to other themes, however, for the Harry Potter theme the term series (from what I can tell) is used to group together different waves.

LEGO has been creating Harry Potter sets since 2001! However, LEGO has not been making Harry Potter sets continuously for the past 20 years. Would it be possible to do that - probably, but that would be a lot of sets, so it is probably best to take a creative break every so often!

In any case, from what I can tell there are three different series in the Harry Potter theme: Original, Revival and Second Revival. The Original Series ran from 2001 to 2009. It was the very first time that LEGO had released any Harry Potter sets and the waves coincided with the release of the movies! So for example, the sets in the 2004 Wave were mainly based on the "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" movie, as the movie was also released in 2004!

The Revival Series had me a bit confused, because according to Wikipedia it started in 2010, however, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1" and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2" movies weren't released until 2010 and 2011, respectively. In 2010, from what I have gathered, LEGO decided to continue with the Harry Potter theme, but no longer follow the pattern of releasing sets inspired by the movie that was released that year. Hence, 2010 marks the beginning of the Revival Series, because the sets released that year were either updates of Original Series sets or new sets that were based on previous movies, rather than "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 & Part 2."

The Revival Series looks like ran from 2010 till 2017. Though I didn't find any sets released after 2011.

Then came 2018 and the Second Revival Series started. This is also the Series we are currently in. The Series has been mixed with updates to older sets and also brand new creations! While the 2018 to 2020 waves appeared to follow a pattern of each wave drawing inspiration from two movies (in chronological order), as of the 2021 wave this pattern is no longer being followed (also it wasn't a very strict pattern from 2018 to 2020), as sets for the 2021 Wave drew inspiration from various movies (emphasis on "Harry Potter and the Philospher's Stone" and "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets").

The above is my interpretation of the information I have found online. I encourage you to check out the LEGO Harry Potter Wikipedia page and do research online, as my interpretation may be incorrect at times.

In any case, with the foundational information out of the way - lets look deeper into the different Series. Only released sets are considered - thus the sets to be released later in 2022 are not included. I have also excluded promotional sets. I am left with 96 sets for this analysis.

Just looking at the Original Series - what happened in 2003? 2001 and 2002 had a pretty decent sized waves and then suddenly in 2003 there was a drop! I believe the answer may be in the release years of the movies. The Harry Potter movies were released between 2001 and 2011, however, no Harry Potter movies were released in 2003, 2006, and 2008. That would explain the low to no set counts in 2003, 2006 and 2008. 2007 saw the release of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," which apparently didn't garner much interest from LEGO as the wave only consisted of one set (5378 Hogwarts Castle). Even more interesting is that in 2009 the "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" movie was released and no sets were released at all! LEGO did include a "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" set (4840 The Burrow) in the 2010 Wave, which is also the first wave of the Revival Series.

*Something to consider in the Original Series is that some of the earlier movies were released later during the year (I always thought of the first couple Harry Potter movies as Christmas movies, as they were released just before the holiday). For example, while many sets during the 2002 Wave are inspired by "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," some sets released in 2002 were inspired by "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone."

The Revival Series didn't last too long - only from 2010 till 2011. Though, it looks like the Harry Potter theme really has hit its stride in the Second Revival Series. The Original Series includes 39 sets, the Revival Series includes 10 sets, and the Second Revival Series includes 47 and counting! Is LEGO Harry Potter more popular now than when the movies were first released? I, for one, think it is amazing that the LEGO Harry Potter theme has had such a strong comeback and helps younger kids discover the magic of Harry Potter!

One thing I am always interested in is the price of sets. Price is typically the deciding factor for me if I am going to buy a set or not, so I want to see how the different Series stack up against each other. Things to remember - I am using USD (United States Dollar).

Above, I am comparing the Average Original Price of a Set per Series to the Median Original Price of a Set per Series. We need to define a couple things here:

Original Price is just that - the Original Retail price of a set. Sets will go on sale from time to time, however, I do not consider the discounted price in my spreadsheet. For example, 75968 4 Privet Drive was originally available for $69.99 USD, you can now find it every so often on sale, however, in my spreadsheet the Original Price for this set is listed as $69.99 USD.

What is the average? That is a good question. Here we are finding the Average Original Price of a Set per Series by adding up all the Original Prices of the sets in a particular series and then dividing the sum by the number of sets in that series. So, for the Original Series we should have 39 different Original Prices that are added together and then that sum is divided by 39 to give us the average Original Price of a Set in the Original Series.

What is the median? Another good question! The Median is found by listing all the Original Prices (in order from smallest to largest) in a Series and then finding the middle point. For example, for the Second Revival Series we list all 47 of the Original Prices in order from smallest to largest and then we find the "middle price" or midpoint. If we have three prices of $5, $9, and $1, we would first order them into $1, $5, $9 and the median price of those three numbers would be $5. If you should have an even number of things you need to arrange, then you take the middle two numbers, add them up and divide the sum by 2. Or you can just have the computer do all the work for you!

One thing to consider is also that the average is susceptible to outliers, or observations that aren't like the others. For example, the Second Revival Series has the highest average Original Price with $65.29 USD. However, during the Second Revival Series LEGO introduced two very large sets: 71043 Hogwarts Castle for $399.99 and 75978 Diagon Alley for $399.99. Most likely, we can consider these two sets outliers as most sets in the Second Revival Series are typically not that expensive. However, when we are finding the average for the Second Revival Series, the average Original Price is heavily influenced by those two sets.

See, for this one I did not include 71043 Hogwarts Castle and 75978 Diagon Alley in the Second Revival Series and the average Original Price dropped from $65.29 USD to $50.41 USD! The sets did heavily influence the average original price!

Thus, we might want to stick to the median Original Price, which is interestingly enough the highest for the Revival Series and lowest for the Original Series (similar to average but the monetary amounts are different). With the median you can say, that 50% of sets in the Revival Series were either priced equal or less than $44.99 USD and the other 50% were either priced equal or more than $44.99 USD.

I often complain about the prices for the Second Revival Series sets, which I am collecting, however, consider the median is $39.99 USD, sets may not be as expensive as I make them out to be - or at least there are many sets available that are economically priced - as again about 50% of sets in the Second Revival Series are prices below or equal to $39.99 USD and the other half of sets should be prices above $39.99 USD.

Next up is inflation! I am not an economist, so I would suggest researching the definition of inflation on your own. The way I understand is that inflation is related to the value of money. For example, $1 USD had a completely different buying power in 2001 than it does now in 2022. That is typically why grandparents will say such things as "when I was a kid you could buy a gallon of milk for $1 USD." In any case, to be able to compare the different Original Prices, I did adjust them for inflation via a nifty website. I adjusted all the Original Prices to January 2022 - so sets that were released before January 2022 typically rose in price, and sets released after January 2022 decreased in price. I am adjusting for inflation from the original release date. I know sets can be around for many years, however, I simply adjusted the Original Price from the sets Release Date to January 2022.

When comparing the inflation adjusted median original prices, we have to note that all the prices rose and that the Revival Series continues to have the highest median price. However, when we looked at the median price with just the original price (not adjusted for inflation), the Original Series had a median price of $19.99 and the Second Revival Series had a median price of $39.99 - a $20 USD difference. However, when we compare the median prices now the difference is down to about $12 USD. The difference in the median price definitely shrunk!

As a last point I also want to look at the median brick count per series. Again, the average would be heavily influenced by 71043 Hogwarts Castle and 75978 Diagon Alley, so I am just going to focus on the median.

I think it makes sense what we are seeing here - the Revival Series which had the highest median price of a set, also has the highest median brick count of the sets (which would indicate larger and more expensive sets). The Original Series had the lowest median price and also has the lowest median brick count (which would indicate smaller and less expensive sets). Can you believe 50% of the Original Series sets have a brick count of equal or less than 188 bricks? Those are not very large sets at all, but then again that explains the low median price!

Definitely take everything with a grain of salt - I tried to keep my data as updated as possible, and do the analysis as accurately as possible. However, I am human and to human is to err.