2003

In 2003 LEGO proved once again to be a fantastic year for collectors with the release of 352 sets, many highly sought after. This included 45 promotional and special released sets in addition to the 307 retail sets released through LEGO.com, the LEGO store and various other retail channels.

Based on the 352 sets released for that year, the retail value was $7,954.29 with a current value of $48,700.18 for the combined new/factory sealed sets. As of present, the best performing theme for 2003 is currently Duplo which has seen an average annual growth of upwards of 12% to date.

While 2003 proved to be a financial disaster for LEGO we did see a number of signification events that set the tone for future LEGO recovery and investments. Most important, LEGO introduced new realistic minifigure skin tones that affected licensed themes including Star Wars, Harry Potter, Basketball, Ferrari and Spider-Man, but kept yellow skin tones for all other minifigures. In 2003, the LEGO minifigure celebrated its 25th birthday with just under four billion minifigures being produced. LEGO that year introduced a number of new themes including Clikits, Designer, Sports which consisted of hokey, basketball and Gravity Games, World City and 4 Juniors which replaced the Jack Stone theme.