In 1998 LEGO released 7 Belville sets. The largest Belville set from 1998 was
5848 The Belville Luxury Cruiser with a piece count of 223 and a retail price of $44.00. The current estimated value of all these Belville sets from this year is about $587.05 which represents a 425.6% growth.
The Belville theme which was introduced in 1994 and later discontinued in 2009 was created to appeal primarily to girls. While the sets revolved around the concept of the LEGO system it featured doll-like figures known as Belville Figures instead of regular LEGO minifigures. The Belville Figures featured multiple joints to make play more like normal doll play and were larger than minifigures. The Belville theme was the predecessor to LEGO Friends.
1998 LEGO Sets
In 1998, LEGO released several new sets and themes, including the LEGO Star Wars theme, which was based on the Star Wars movies and featured models of characters, vehicles, and locations from the films. This theme was extremely popular and helped to boost LEGO's sales and popularity. 1998 was also the year that LEGO introduced the LEGO Mindstorms theme, which was a line of sets that allowed users to build and program robots using LEGO bricks and a computer.