Lego find of the century: this is how much the auction raised

Patrick Toggweiler

What a bidding war! Yesterday, the first 150 Lego sets of the Uster find of the century were auctioned. Some rarities left behind by the unknown man from Uster reached staggering prices. We look back at yesterday’s highlights and reveal how much the auction raised and when the next 150 sets will be auctioned.

The majority of the 150 Lego sets on offer are absolute rarities. However, some of them are still available in specialty stores. These are therefore valued slightly below the retail price. But things turn out differently.

The crocodile locomotive (10277) retails for less than 200 francs. It fetched more than twice as much at auction, just over 400 francs.

The same happens with set 42123. Galaxus has more than ten in stock (Mc Laren Senna GTR). For 42 francs. At least two bidders must have missed this. They raised the price to 136 francs.

The “Garage with automatic gate” (1236-2) from 1956 achieved the highest price at exactly 7,000 francs. The auction of this rarity was awaited with great anticipation, as it has never been sold in this quality anywhere in the world. It is uncertain whether a similar example still exists.

The next places are the knight’s castle (set no. 6080) for 3,660 francs, the Futuron Monorail (6,990) for 2,710 francs, the rocket base (358) from 1973 for 2,630 francs and the fire boat (4020) for 2,510 francs. 15 sets achieved four-figure sales.

Two Lego Technic sets plus old instructions for 29 francs. You can really call it a bargain. Usury is also the wrong name for the second cheapest ticket (41 francs) with five unopened Lego boxes and a Disney set.

Excitement at 3.18 pm Lot number 98, three Fabuland sets, is suddenly withdrawn. Auctioneer Fuchs says: “We discovered that one of the boxes had already been opened. Under these circumstances, an auction would no longer have been serious.”

But withdrawn is not canceled – just postponed. The sets will be auctioned in the next round.

“The Fabuland sets were the biggest surprise for me,” says Brixpo and Brick Bazaar organizer Michael Strasser of Watson, as he assesses the auction. “There are only a few fans of it – and yet it was enough to drive up prices enormously.” Ticket number 17 even achieved a place in the top 20 with 800 francs.

For Stefan Bommeli from Swiss-Brick, the biggest surprise is the locomotive from 1970: “I expected a price of 450 to 500 francs for this. A price of 1,200 francs plus six percent buyer’s premium and VAT was achieved. That means the set was worth no less than 1,370 francs to someone!”

Particularly astonishing to the uninitiated layman was lot number 75. The new owner paid 1,010 francs for 28 empty Lego packages.

Auctioneer Fuchs works as a curator with the bankruptcy office. He is therefore obliged to maintain confidentiality and does not provide Watson with any information about the total proceeds. The following figures are therefore NOT official.

Watson’s calculations (we added up the individual proceeds from the 150 auctions) and those of an unnamed Lego fan differ by 2 francs. According to Watson, the total proceeds amount to 72,871 francs, the Lego fan came to 72,873 francs. All this without premium or VAT.

The first wave contained 150 of the 600 remaining Lego sets. From November 22, another 150 will be auctioned on the auction platform Fuchs Liquidationen Liqwerk.ch. This wave ends on December 11th.

It will be exciting to see which treasures will go under the hammer.