Weather alerts issued for 7 provinces, 1 territory
Warnings of up to 60 millimetres of rain and other alerts have been issued for seven Canadian provinces and one territory ahead of the Easter weekend.
For decades, Lego has captured the minds and imaginations of children and adults alike from around the world.
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.
Limited edition, sealed Lego sets proved to be the most valuable, but used Lego can be worth more on resale sites too, especially if the original packaging is there.
Mini figures and sets bought at a discount also could generate relatively high returns once resold.
Dobrynskaya said that the study's data ended in 2015, but she suspects the return on Lego sets sold on the secondary market have been even higher in recent years, with gold appreciating in value at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
And while Lego may not necessarily be an investment people can rely on for their retirements, Dobrynskaya says it is much more accessible to smaller investors, but does require some research.
"You need to be a specialist in this market, in fact," she said. "You need to be a fan of Lego in order to understand which set would appreciate the most."
Among those who has seen this shift in the collectible market is Paul Hetherington, an award-winning artist based in Vancouver whose Lego creations have been featured widely in news stories, books, magazines and conventions.
Turning his childhood hobby into a business, Hetherington has collected for 30 years and been commissioned to make custom creations, both large and small.
"I have a piece called Unchain My Heart, which is a big steampunk robot coming out of a mechanical heart. That one is probably my most artistic piece," he told CTV National News.
"And then of course the Joker's Fun House, which I made probably six or seven years ago, is still a fan favourite basically."
Hetherington says he really started to notice a change around the time Star Wars sets came out in the late 1990s, which brought a "whole new brand of collector back in."
That was the first time, he says, he would go into a store and not find what he was looking for.
And that trend has only continued since.
"Now some sets get retired after six to eight months, some are in there for maybe a year, year-and-a-half, but it's not the three or four years that it used to be back when I was a kid," Hetherington said.
"If you snooze you lose sometimes. If you don't get it right away, you end up having to buy it on the after-market where prices shoot up to who knows. The sky's the limit."
Warnings of up to 60 millimetres of rain and other alerts have been issued for seven Canadian provinces and one territory ahead of the Easter weekend.
Jameek Lowery was among more than 330 Black people who died after police stopped them with tactics that aren’t supposed to be deadly, like physical restraint and use of stun guns, The Associated Press found.
Luxury operator Regent Seven Seas Cruises is raising their price tag to eye-watering levels, with a suite on an upcoming 140-day world voyage costing US$1.7 million.
The Canada Revenue Agency announced Thursday it will not require 'bare trust' reporting from Canadians that it introduced for the 2024 tax season, just four days before the April 2 deadline.
A Filipino villager has been nailed to a wooden cross for the 35th time to reenact Jesus Christ’s suffering in a brutal Good Friday tradition he said he would devote to pray for peace in Ukraine, Gaza and the disputed South China Sea.
An Ontario man who built a garage on his property has been locked in a battle with his electricity provider for a year and half over a severed power line.
Millions of people in parts of Eastern and Atlantic Canada will be able to see the rare solar eclipse happening on April 8. But they should only look up if they have proper eye protection, experts say.
It was a typical Tuesday for Mabel Beharrell, 84, until she got the call that would turn her world upside down. Her teenaged grandson was in trouble and needed her help.
'Oppenheimer' finally premiered Friday in the nation where two cities were obliterated 79 years ago by the nuclear weapons invented by the American scientist who was the subject of the Oscar-winning film. Japanese filmgoers' reactions understandably were mixed and highly emotional.
B.C. conservation officers recently seized a nine-foot-long Burmese python from a home in Chilliwack.
A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.
The Ontario government is introducing changes to auto-insurance, but some experts say the move is ill-advised.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
Newfoundland’s unique version of the Pine Marten has grown out of its threatened designation.
A Toronto man is out $12,000 after falling victim to a deepfake cryptocurrency scam that appeared to involve Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
It started small with a little pop tab collection to simply raise some money for charity and help someone — but it didn’t take long for word to get out that 10-year-old Jace Weber from Mildmay, Ont. was quickly building up a large supply of aluminum pop tabs.
There’s a group of people in Saskatoon that proudly call themselves dumpster divers, and they’re turning the city’s trash into treasure.
Ontario is facing a larger than anticipated deficit but the Doug Ford government still plans to balance its books before the next provincial election.