Teen sells £300K of Lego on eBay after flogging childhood toys – while studying at college
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Jamie Bell started by flogging toys he had grown out of. Five years later, his Lego side hustle is turning over hundreds of thousands of pounds.
A teenager who started selling his old Lego toys at 13 has turned his childhood collection into a £300,000-a-year eBay business.
Jamie Bell, now 18, began flogging toys he no longer wanted – but quickly discovered there was serious money to be made from Lego minifigures.
What started as a bit of pocket money has grown into JTB Collectables, with Jamie now buying huge quantities of Lego online and through contacts before selling the figures to collectors and resellers.
And his biggest deal so far was a monster.
In May, Jamie listed a staggering 95kg pile of Lego Star Wars minifigures on eBay, describing it as the “largest minifigure lot ever listed” on the platform worldwide.
The bidding started at just £1.
After 65 bids, the mountain of plastic finally sold for an eye-watering £22,428.
Photos showed the enormous haul stacked across his parents’ bedroom floor.
Jamie says his business generated £300,000 in revenue during the last tax year, leaving him with around £50,000 profit after costs.
He was just 16 when he and his dad decided the operation had become serious enough to require an accountant.
“By age 15 my huge bundles were selling well because nobody else was doing it,” Jamie said.
“I realised people would buy them to sell each one individually and I could be their supplier.”
Jamie now sells around 100kg of Lego every month, either in bulk or through individual figure auctions.
Some buyers are serious collectors, while others purchase the huge lots hoping to make money by splitting them up and selling the figures separately.
But despite the staggering figures, Jamie isn't planning to turn his side hustle into a full-time career.
The Wandsworth teenager is due to study History at university next year, and says he wants the security of having a profession alongside his booming business.
He has also been putting much of his earnings towards a future first home and saving through an ISA.
Jamie started with just a few hundred pounds from selling his own toys before buying a bundle at 14 and doubling his money by selling the figures individually.
And while the business has exploded, he remains a Lego collector himself.
Other eye-watering sales on his account include a Lego bundle for £4,458 and just two Lego Batman figures for £751.
“It's exciting watching the auctions,” Jamie said. “Sometimes someone will pop in right at the end and increase the price by a few thousand pounds.”
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