If you’ve had your eye on a pricey Lego set, you may have a limited window of time before it gets pricier still. The price of some of the company’s most desirable plastic creations is going up by as much as $70. That Lego Tree House in the picture above that I’ve desired many a month? Originally $200, it’ll soon cost $250 — a 25 percent price jump.

This won’t be a surprise to devout Lego fans. The company announced in June that it would be raising prices on “around a quarter” of the Lego sets currently in circulation. But this weekend, Barnes & Noble showed us the damage; it became the first major retailer to implement those price increases, revealing exactly how much we’ll be paying for adult-friendly sets like the awesome $250 Lego Home Alone house (now $300) and the $170 Lego Back to the Future DeLorean (now $200).

But, because Barnes & Noble seems to be the only one to have implemented those prices, it looks like you’ve got a narrow window of opportunity to snatch up sets at their previous prices. Here’s a list of the top 40 adult-friendly sets with the biggest price increases, adapted from this excellent longer one at Jay’s Brick Blog:

There may be more price increases coming, by the way. Barnes & Noble doesn’t carry some of the biggest sets, like the UCS Millennium Falcon, UCS Star Destroyer, Lego Titanic, Colosseum, Diagon Alley, or the Ferrari Daytona SP3, all of which would seem like obvious candidates for price hikes based on the other sets that do feature above.

A few big, pricey sets have seemingly escaped the price hikes so far, though: the Volkswagen T2 Camper Van, Lego Batwing, Cat D11 Bulldozer, and Space Shuttle Discovery can all be had at their OG prices at Barnes & Noble still.

Why is Lego raising prices? That’s a good question. In June, the company claimed that it had to do with “the current global economic challenges of increased raw material and operating costs” and took credit for having previously “absorbed these costs to keep pricing stable.”

“However, as these costs have continued to rapidly rise, we have taken the decision to increase the price on some of our sets,” Lego wrote. This makes some sense: most Lego bricks are made from oil-based plastics, and we’re having a bit of an oil crisis right now due to recent global events.

But, as The Brothers Brick and others distinctly point out, Lego just had its best year ever in 2021 with record profits of nearly $2 billion — among many other positive financial signs.

Originally, Lego said the price increases would hit in August and September.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/11/23204181/lego-price-increase-harry-potter-star-wars-ideas-nintendo