Plastic gold: How Lego is attracting the eyes, and wallets, of collectors

Certain sets of the popular toy Lego could result in fairly high returns once resold, with some research suggesting gains of as much as 11 per cent.

And as new research has shown, there may be some money to be made in one of the world's most popular toys.

Researchers from HSE University in Russia recently published a paper in the journal Research in International Business and Finance, which looked at the average returns on 2,322 retired, sealed Lego sets sold on the secondary market.

Although returns did vary significantly, the study found the value of those sets rose by as much as 11 per cent annually between 1987 and 2015, outperforming some stocks, stamps, wine and even gold.

"Many people do this business and they generate quite high returns in fact, and they make money for a living by this business, so it's possible," Victoria Dobrynskaya, a co-author of the study and an associate professor in the faculty of economic sciences at HSE University, told CTV National News.