In case you missed it, LEGO is moving it’s USA operations from Enfield, CT to Boston, MA. To learn more about the move, the reasoning behind it, and to hear some more about LEGO, check out this interview with Skip Kodak, head of LEGO Group’s Market Group Americas. It’s a little over half an hour long and it has some good tidbits like how Sammy Sullivan got a LEGO set after the Olympics. Enjoy!
How Much Would You Pay for a Golden Bionicle Mask
A copy of the rare Bionicle Golden Kanohi Hau Mask was found at a Goodwill in Pennsylvania recently. You can see an article from a local news station on it here or just search for it on your favorite search engine. The Goodwill store posted it on an online auction and made $23,301 for the mask. Apparently there was a bid for $33,000, but the person failed to pay.
I’m not a big Bionicle fan nor do I know all of the background, but why would you pay so much for this? Is it the uniqueness? Do they hope to be able to re-sell it for a higher amount someday? That’s a lot of cash to dump on an item you wanted “just because.”
With that being said, I guess it doesn’t hurt to stop in at your local Goodwill shop to see if they have any random LEGO items in stock.
Happy buidling!
Beware When Ordering LEGO from Walmart.com
I used to purchase a lot from Amazon.com here in the US. They had some great deals and the free shipping with orders over $35 was reasonable since it’s very easy to spend more than that amount on LEGO sets. Then Amazon just gave up on quality shipping. As I posted here, my orders arrive with little to no packaging in larger boxes and the sets looked like they had been used in a soccer game as the ball. The last straw was when I would order a larger set and they wouldn’t even put it in a box. They would just stick the shipping label on the outside and call it good. I went to the UPS Store to return one and the worker asked why I didn’t re-package it. It was because that’s how it was packaged when I received it. Needless to say, I think I purchased one or two LEGO sets from Amazon.com over the past year.
More of my orders went to Walmart. The discounts were often the same and the shipping quality was much better. I received well packaged sets in boxes that arrived looking brand new. This went on for a while, but has recently gone down hill. At first, I started receiving sets in padded packages. The items would get smashed and I had a lot of returns. The final straw came when I received this…
I’m sorry, but nothing in the item description said I was going to receive a set where the front packaging was peeled off. How did this even happen? My suspicion is that when Walmart does their pickup in store or home deliver orders, they typically put big stickers on the items. People didn’t want LEGO sets with big stickers on them so they return them. Apparently LEGO just recycles those sets back into their inventory and you get this. And get these…
It’s been a great run, but unless Walmart can guarantee that I am going to receive a new set or if they can tell me that the set will arrive damage (and give me a substantial discount for the damaged set), I’m not interested anymore.
Target has been the holdout so far. They continue to package items well and I don’t receive beat up sets. We’ll see how long that lasts. The unfortunate part is that Target has not had the sales that Walmart and Amazon have had.
Let met know in the comments what your experience has been. Have you found a way around receiving beat up sets from any of the big retailers? Have you received worse?
LEGO In The News - The Wall Street Journal - The Economics of LEGO
This one was posted today and I figured I’d throw it out there as the rest of the fan media doesn’t seem to push these out. As a LEGO fan, I didn’t learn anything new from watching this that I didn’t already know, but it’s a good plug for people who aren’t already addicted to the brick.
It’s also fun to see some of the old commercials and ads. I wasn’t aware of the original Star Wars cartoon they mentioned. It’s just under six minutes long so check it out.
Happy building!
LEGO in the News - Wall Street Journal - Investing in LEGO is Booming?
I didn’t see this anywhere else in the LEGO Fan Media so I figured I’d publish this one. Apparently LEGO investing is where it’s at and you can make big money buying and selling it. If you watch this just under 6 minute video, you’ll see that you can make better returns than the stock market.
As someone with a Bricklink store, I can say sets and minifigures sell, but all of your sales are not what the video says. It takes work and time and not all sets have the huge returns that the videos spotlights. I can point out some of the sets that I have had for many years and they have not sold. My advice would be to be careful before jumping into “investing in LEGO.” Just because a bunch of folks on YouTube say you can make big money doesn’t mean that it’s going to be a huge cash cow. So be warned and enjoy this clip.
UPDATE: Free Castle Polybag (or not a Scam)
On 10 August 2022, the actual 90th anniversary of LEGO, fan media highlighted an opportunity to get another exclusive set. I saw a similar post on The Brick Fan, Brick Fanatics, and Brickset so I assumed this was the real deal. Here’s how it works. You order $50 or more of LEGO sets from an approved giant list from Walmart, then you go to https://www.lego90offer.com/, type in a bunch of personal information, upload a copy of the receipt, and they will process sending you a polybag for free.
It sounded like a good deal to me. Walmart runs a lot of sales of various themed sets and sometimes they are fulfilled by LEGO’s warehouse. I went on and ordered $59 worth of items as of course you can’t get $50 or $51 to be just over the limit. So then I went to the site to upload my receipt… As mentioned above, it is lego90offer.com. The site has logos for LEGO and Walmart along with some official terms, but that’s about it. I couldn’t find anything on the offer on Walmart’s website and it doesn’t show up on LEGO.com’s offers either.
So when you go to upload, you provide a name, address, email address, optional phone number (I didn’t list it), and then a copy of your receipt. My receipt was from an online order so it had my address and name as well.
It felt a bit awkward putting all of this personal information onto this random site, but I went ahead and uploaded my receipt and information anyways. I soon thereafter got an email stating that my order was received and would be processed in 24 hours.
We’ll see what happens. Am I the only one who found this process to be rather sketchy? The terms say you can only get one so I’m not going to try again.
Let me know if you get your copy. Post a comment here or email me at store@bricksforbricks.com.
Happy building! (I hope.)
6 September 2022: It’s been almost 4 weeks and a yellow padded envelope showed up in the mail with what sounded like bricks inside. I opened it up and my guess was correct.
This takes “only the best is good enough” to a whole new level. It looks like someone bought a bunch of plastic bags, got the bricks on Bricklink, put a printed card and instruction booklet in, and called it a day. I guess it’s Walmart though so “save money, live better” is their slogan. My opinion, this lacks the luster of a promotional set given it’s presentation and quality. Maybe LEGO should consider how they do their future Walmart promos.
I was going to add this to my BrickLink store, but a quick check showed that people were trying to sell this thing for $75 to $90 each. Really? Come on! I will wait to post it in the store until the pricing comes down to a more reasonable level.
8 Ways to Survive the 2022 Price Increases on LEGO Sets
It’s nothing new, but in case you missed it, The LEGO Group increased prices on a lot of sets in the US on 1 August 2022. Yeah, that stinks… You can see the full US list on the Brick Fanatics site here or see some of the price increases below.
The fan community has gone nuts about this with various members at the fan media and fans themselves voicing their dismay. While I’m not pleased, I can see why this needs to be done from a business perspective. Gas is expensive, food is expensive, and now LEGO is more expensive. If you want to learn more about it, then I highly recommend reading the article “Greed or Inflation? An Economic Analysis of LEGO Price Increases” from Bricknerd. It’s a good breakdown of what is going on and how The LEGO Group is looking at this from a business lens.
In the meantime, what can you do if you still want to be a fan of LEGO and pick up some of the great sets that you haven’t been able to get and now it’s even harder to get them?
1 - Check other retailers besides buying straight from LEGO. A quick scan of Walmart.com and Amazon.com over the past few days shows that they haven’t raised prices on all of the sets like LEGO has. This doesn’t apply to every set so look carefully, but you can still get a few at the pre-1 August 2022 pricing for now.
2 - Wait for sales. If you’ve paid attention to the news at all, retailers have been struggling with bulging inventories. I’m not sure if that counts for LEGO or not, but hopefully it does. We’ve seen LEGO throw in some additional Double VIP point periods and add in more gift with purchase opportunities. They even had sales on Amazon Prime day which I don’t recall happening before. With the downturn that we’re starting to see, if LEGO and other retailers can’t sell sets, they may have to cut prices. This could mean just back to the pre-1 August prices or better, so no complaints there.
3 - Be smart about timing purchases. If a new set is coming out and you “must have it,” why can’t you delay getting it? Focus on the set you’ve been looking to get that is closer to retirement. Let the initial rush happen and then get it on a later date.
4 - Enjoy the sets you have. I move a lot and my full collection is not all out for the world to see. Every so often, I take the opportunity to pull a set out of a box in a closet and rebuild it. I recently rebuilt some Architecture sets that I bought around 5 years ago and it was cool to see them back together. If you’re really creative, find another way to put them back together. Make the modular building into a different building or re-design that car.
5 - Vote with your wallet. If the new pricing on LEGO sets upsets you that much, stop buying LEGO sets. The LEGO Group will quickly get the hint if no one is buying their products. They will adjust to keep sales up. If lots of people follow you and don’t buy, I suspect The LEGO Group will reconsider how it is doing business.
6 - Use your hobby to fund your hobby. As a Bricklink store owner, I give 15% of my profits to charity. I also use funds from my store to fund my LEGO addiction. Is there a way you can do this too? Sell old sets you don’t want? Buy new and hold until it retires? Sell parts? Design MOCs for people?
7 - Build digitally. You can use Stud.io in Bricklink to build all you want. It comes with unlimited parts and more parts than are in production. You can design MOCs or get set instructions online and build that way. I know it’s not the same, but it’s much cheaper.
8 - Build with a friend or share with a friend. Do you have a friend with the set? Will they let you take it apart and rebuild it on your own so you can experience the build? Did they just buy it and will they let you build it with them? Or spun the other way, did you just get a set that someone else wanted, but maybe can’t afford yet? Ask if they want to join you for the build.
If you think of any other ideas, let me know and I’ll add them to this post. We can get through this friends!
In the meantime, happy building!
What do You do if Your Set is Missing Stickers?
There is much rejoicing when I open up a new LEGO set and there are no stickers to apply. Printed pieces work for me. I am terrible at putting stickers on bricks. They always end up just slightly off center or crooked.
However some sets just don’t look the same with the added detail that stickers provide. If the stickers happen to be missing, what do you do?
I’ve had a few instances of missing stickers very recently actually. One was #60326-1: Picnic in the Park and the other was #76398-1: Hogwarts Hospital Wing. In both instances, I didn’t see the small sheet and it was either stuck in the box after I dumped the pieces out or I missed them initially. Whoops!
A lesson learned from the Bricks for Bricks BrickLink store… Someone recently purchased set #75276-1: Star Wars Stormtrooper helmet from the store (I have one more available at the time of this post if you are looking for one). When they opened it up, there were no stickers. When the buyer contacted me about it, I mentioned checking the box and build area to make sure they didn’t pull a mistake like I did. Then I mentioned they should call LEGO Customer Service to see if they could get a replacement sticker set. This was a real shot in the dark here as the set retired in the US on 20 January 2022 in the US according to Brickset.com.
We got some good news! LEGO Customer Service told them that they try to save the sticker sheets for around two years after a set retires to have on hand in event people buy some of the last inventory out there and need stickers. So they are sending one to the person who supported our latest giving campaign. Sweet! So keep that in mind if you have a sealed, retired set that you open up only to find no stickers. At some point, it will get too old and your chances are slim, but it’s good to know the option exists.
Has anyone else had this experience with missing stickers from a retired set?
Happy building!
Under Water Brick Building (for charity)
Think you are a great builder? You can follow instructions no problem and never make mistakes… What about completing your build underwater? How will you handle floating pieces? Won’t your instructions get soaked through? How do you open the parts bags? I hope there aren’t any stickers!
Check out the video below to learn about Sophie and her build efforts under water for charity.
Amazon Runs Steam Rollers Over Packages with LEGO® Sets Inside
Back in November 2020, I caught a sale on Amazon.com for set #75946-1: Hungarian Horntail Triwizard Challenge. I placed the order in late November and it showed up in mid-January 2021. Yay shipping delays! When I got the package, I didn’t know it had a LEGO set in it. It was in a padded envelope. Really? And then I opened it up and it looked like this…
And if you can’t tell how it looks like someone stepped on it after putting it in a printing press…
So frustrating! I ordered a new set, not a smashed set. That last time I received a smashed set in a padded envelope, I returned the last it. Of course the one I received in return was also beat up in a padded envelope. Go figure…
I can’t put something like this in my Bricklink store without heavily discounting it. Do I break it apart for pieces? What if I was giving this as a gift? I’m sure the response is “Well, you’re just going to open it up and build it anyways. Who cares about the packaging?”
I CARE!!! Amazon, please stop putting LEGO sets in padded envelopes!
So what can you do about it? I’m pretty sure Amazon isn’t going to listen and it is cheaper for them to ship in envelopes instead of boxes. I think your options are to order more than one of a specific set, hope it comes from the same fulfillment warehouse, and hope it forces them to put a larger box versus bag. Or just stop ordering from Amazon.com. None of those are ideal situations. What if I don’t want more than one of a set? Amazon.com is a great place for sales on LEGO sets and I want to keep finding sets on sale.
I’m sure lots of people have received damaged sets. Does anyone have any good tips on how to get around it? Please post them in the comments or send me an email at store@bricksforbricks.com.
In the meantime, happy building!