My wife and kids surprised me a gift the other day. It’s the retro Lego space ship, like what I had when I was a kid. I love it!

They got it on clearance for $56, which is about half the retail price of $100. Inflation is crazy, folks. For years I’ve mentally tracked the price of legos per brick, which was about $0.10 per brick for the Star Wars and Harry Potter sets, and less for the non-branded (non-franchised? I can’t think of that word) sets. Now it’s more.

This Space Explorer set is 1254 pieces @ $100. So about 8 cents per brick. The brand new Pirate Snub Fighter from The Mandalorian is 285 pieces @ $34.99, which is over 12 cents per brick.

I think Legos are still worth the price. We get a lot of enjoyment out of building and displaying them. I’m sure they used to be relatively cheaper back when no other company could make Lego-compatible sets. But since that was overturned 20-some years ago there’s been a lot of cheaper competitors and knockoffs come out. I think Lego took the high road and gave up competing on price. They let the low end companies have the cheap looking sets while they focused their brand on high end and highly imaginative sets.