Average price per weight of new bricks in sets purchased for retail price?

Question

What would be a reasonable estimate for the price per pound of pieces purchased for the retail price in sets? If the weight of a good sample of sets (not including the packaging or instructions) were known then a range of prices could be calculated.

The only number I can come up with now is to take the average price per new brick divided the weight of a brick- if a 2x4 brick were representative (I suspect it weighs more than average), then the price per pound would be around $0.10/2.5g * 453.6 g/lb = $18/lb, or using 2x2 as an average weight maybe around $40 per pound. The numbers are interesting to compare to used bulk prices, or the cost of new bricks from pick-a-brick/brick wall cups (the cost of those is well documented elsewhere).

Answer 1

The short answer is that for retail sets, anything under $20 USD per pound of actual parts is a great value. $50 USD per pound appears to be fairly common overall.

I calculated this based on the actual part weights of all parts in a set. I only explored recent Classic, Creator, and City sets as these tend to be a good value and use System bricks almost exclusively. I used recommended retail price and didn't account for sales or other deals that can be found on retail sets.

Here's a graph of recent Classic, Creator, and City sets showing that $50 USD is a reasonable median price per pound:

The best value are the Classic bulk brick boxes, and the worst value per pound are the City minifig sets.