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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.

MECHS!!!! -- Bricks in the News - NPR

A lot of the Fan Media sites are quick to publish articles when LEGO shows up in popular media or a larger news media site. I caught one yesterday that I haven’t seen posted elsewhere. It was posted on 28 November 2022 on NPR. The article is written by Rakiesha Chase-Jackson. It’s titled “How Legos helped me rebuild my foundation.”

And before I go any further, I will acknowledge that there are some fans out there screaming about the misuse of “Legos” and how she should have said “Lego Sets” or Lego Bricks” or something like that. It’s all good friends. Not the end of the world. We get what she’s talking about.

You can find the NPR article here. It’s a good story about someone stumbling into the hobby and how they came to enjoy it. I think it also does a good job pointing out the benefits of LEGO producing sets in different themes to appeal to different audiences. Not everyone has to be a die hard Star Wars fan. Some people are really into mechs.

Enjoy the read. Happy building!

2021 Bricklink Designer Program - Round 2 Sets Finally Delivered!

I lost track when I made the initial order. The last estimate I saw, it was 10 months ago. Well, they’re finally here. The 2021 Bricklink Designer Program Round 2 sets are shipping or maybe already arrived to you all. In case you aren’t familiar, the Bricklink Designer Program for 2021 was a chance to bring back some of the non-licensed Ideas sets that received 10K votes, but didn’t make it to production. LEGO, through Bricklink, crowd funded these sets and selected the ones that achieved 10K pre-orders. I managed to get the five that made it and they just arrived. A quick rundown of the sets is below. I’m not sure which ones I will build and which ones I will add to the Bricks for Bricks Bricklink store. You’ll have to check the store for updates.

#910003-1: Mountain Windmill
2,085 pieces
Retailed for $179.99 in the US
$0.086 per piece

The design of this one is cool, but I saw something that it was originally supposed to have minifigures and then they were removed before production. I’m thinking I may add this one to the store at a later date. We’ll see.

#910009-1: Modular LEGO® Store
2,149 pieces
Retailed for $179.99 in the US
$0.084 per piece

The box I received had a few rips to the printing on the box on the side. Nothing major. I like the concept of a modular building that fits with the others, but I’m not sure if I’ll build this one. We’ll see.

#910013-1: Retro Bowling Alley
2,779 pieces
Retailed for $229.99 in the US
$0.083 per piece

The idea of this one is great and the design is cool. Sadly my box showed up pretty beat up. As you can see by the picture of the back of the box, there is a large crease. Some of the seals showed up detached from the box. I will most likely keep this one, but am not sure whether it will be a display piece, if it could fit in a city scene, or if I will build it and then store it for a future date.

#910015-1: Clockwork Aquarium
874 pieces
Retailed for $64.99 in the US
$0.074 per piece

This one is a fun concept, but I’m not sure what I’d do with it. This one will end up in the store at some point.

#910023-1: Venetian Houses
3,470 pieces
Retailed for $289.99 in the US
$0.084 per piece

I think this one is awesome. This is a definitely must build on my part. Sorry if you were hoping it’d end up in the store!

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.

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!

Just so you don't think I'm slacking off...

I try to put out a blog post once a week. Someday I’ll work to put out more, but for now with all of the other life commitments, we’ll stick to one. This one will be short as I’m busy with some new arrivals.

The first one is #21333-1: Vincent Van Gogh - The Starry Night. I was excited to see this one come out and I really liked the final design they came up with. I’m mid-build right now so no spoilers before the final review, but so far so good. I managed to pick it up with some VIP points and when #40567-1: Castle Hideout was the promotional set so I can’t complain.

And then in my building backlog…. I also picked up a copy of #42143-1: Ferrari Daytona SP3. I want to say it’s a Technic Supercar, but the official branding is now “LEGO Technic Ultimate Car Concept Series” so let’s get it right. My version is way easier to say. Thanks to a whole bunch of VIP points and then the recent double VIP point period, this one wasn’t so painful to get. I’m looking forward to digging into this one and I promise to get a review out.

Have you grabbed any of the newer sets that have come out over the past month or two?

Happy building!

Edible Minifigures

My NLS (Non-Lego Spouse) isn’t a huge brick fan, but she is very artistically talented. When my son asked for LEGO themed cookies for his birthday, using some cookie cutters we were gifted, she took the challenge on. She used our sugar cookie recipe that we usually use for Christmas cookies and got some made some royal icing (I was not aware of royal icing… she made a frosting and added special food coloring to it).. We’ve made these sugar cookies before so I knew they were good and usually you can’t go wrong with frosting, but they just look so fun!

The gift we were given came with three cookie cutters. One was a full minifigure, one was a minifigure head, and the other was a 1x4 brick. The full minifigure had issues with the hands. They were just too thin to last and either broke off while cutting the dough, while cooking, or when they were removed from the cookie tray. Other than that, there weren’t issues. Before I go on, I did a search and apparently these were from Target. It doesn’t look like they are available anymore, but you can find them online at places like eBay if you still want them.

For the icing, my NLS found examples online of various faces and went to work. She did an awesome job! She tried adding a black outline to show texture on one of the full minifigures (above) and one of the bricks below, but it was a lot of work, for not much gained. In the end, the main customer was very satisfied and everyone enjoyed devouring minifigures.

Here’s a few more of the heads and full minifigures.

Here are a few more of the 1x4 bricks.. You can see the one she outlined in black icing. I don’t think it added much to the look in my opinion.

Have you made these before? We enjoy them.

Happy eating and building!

How Do You Sort Your Bricks?

Does anyone know how many different types and colors of LEGO pieces exist out there?

I have no idea, but there are a lot and when you have bags of unsorted pieces, they become kind of useless if you can’t find the pieces you need to build what you want. Especially when you have a bunch of plastic bags full of random parts like me.

Let me back up a minute. I move a lot if you don’t follow my blog. A few years back, I had a decent space where I had some trays and my parts stash was separated by… um… random categories that I made up limited by the number of tray spaces I had. The space I have now still has the same trays and drawers, but not as much space to get to them. I just assumed I would not do much free building until I move to a better bricking space (some day). Then I got some of the train kits from Brick Model Railroader. The kits come with a few unique parts and instructions, but you have to provide the pieces.

So there is my dilemma… I want to build from some instructions, I don’t want to go out and buy all brand new pieces (especially if I already have them), and I don’t have my parts separated so I can actually figure out what I have.

Time to do some research..

Okay, first off, this is a definite no. 159 bins and 189 drawers. Really? How practical is this? I’d need a map of the room just to figure out where everything is and would spend most of my time searching for what I needed. Sure it “looks” great for TV, but come on!

Former LEGO designer and now YouTuber Tiago Catarino has a good video on sorting. I agree with him that sorting by color will only get you so far. I also agree with his point that having a lot of tiny drawers with each part will take you a long time to find what you need. I don’t have an Ikea nearby anymore, but the big drawers he has with all of the compartments look awesome and seem to be really useful when you build.

AFOL Tom Alphin from Brick Architect has some good points on sorting as well. In particular he offers a file you can print to help label drawers. The article where he links to his labels is here. He has a section on sorting your bricks as well. His guide breaks it down by the size of your collection which is useful, but he still recommends some of the smaller drawers versus the larger ones Tiago Catarino recommends. Back to the labeling, I could see that as very useful and have even seen people attach one of the parts on the outside of the drawer to show what is inside.

Those are just a few examples and thoughts. Do you have any suggestions or other resources I should check out when I go to sort out my bags-o-bricks? Put them in the comments or shoot me an email. I’m always curious to learn how I can better set up my parts for future building. Thanks!

Happy building!

A Walk Down Modular Building Lane

I’ve reviewed a bunch of the modular buildings since the start of my site in 2014 and I have most of the sets. Sadly, I do not have #10190-1: Market Street or #10185-1: Green Grocer. Maybe some day I will see if I can piece them together with my collection and BrickLink orders. I do have the rest and they are awesome sets!

If you’re a modular building geek like me or just want to learn more about them, Jamie Berard, who many folks know from the LEGO Masters USA TV show, did a 40 minute walk through of the history of the modular building line for LEGO on YouTube. Hopefully you can find that chunk of time to watch it or watch it over a few sittings like I did as it’s an interesting video where you learn about some of the insights that went into each design. You can check it out below.

Why You Should Use BrickLink

Did you miss out on a specific set release by LEGO? Are you looking for a specific minifigure to complete your build? Do you need a bunch of bricks or plates to complete a building or vehicle?

How can you get these items?

There are a lot of marketplaces out there that you can turn to. You can try EBay, various sellers on Amazon.com, Brick Owl, FaceBook Marketplace, Craigslist, but in my opinion, there is only one place to turn.

Full disclosure… I have a store on BrickLink with a bunch of retired sets and minifigures. So while BrickLink isn’t sending me money for this article, I do make money selling on BrickLink.

BrickLink was founded in June 2000 by LEGO fan Dan Jezek. Dan sadly passed away in 2010 after working to build up the marketplace. It was continued by Jay Kim and a team of folks until the LEGO Group purchased BrickLink in 2019. There was some minor turmoil with LEGO buying the secondary marketplace for its product, but it has mostly remained the same marketplace. BrickLink currently boasts over 10,000 sellers from 70 countries with over a million registered members. The total number of items for sale is… I have no idea. Probably in the millions.

So why should you join into the group?

1 - Fans selling to Fans

Many of the sellers on BrickLink are fans of LEGO themselves. They care about the product and aren’t going to send you something they wouldn’t want (usually). That’s not to say there aren’t a few bad apples in the barrel of BrickLink sellers, but overall I have never been disappointed. Read feedback ratings, check on the store terms page, and then see #2.

2 - Ability to verify items, check in on sellers, and select shipping

We’ve become used to placing online orders at Amazon.com, Walmart, Target, or other retailers. We click on the buy button and we expect our order to arrive in a certain period of time as advertised. You can do the same for BrickLink, but you also have the ability to do your research. If you want to buy that old modular building, Series 1 Collectible Minifigure, or 500 1x2 black plates, ask the seller for details. Get a picture of the item. Ask if it is used. What are the details that concern you and get them worked out before clicking on the buy button.

Then verify their feedback. What are other buyers saying about them? Do they ship promptly? Do they pack items well? Do they respond to questions?

And while BrickLink has an instant shipping function, take the extra time to get real shipping quotes. My instant checkout is set up to go from FL to WA (most expensive option). If you live in GA or TN or another closer location to a seller like me in FL, odds are shipping will be less. Ask and save yourself a few dollars while waiting a day or two.

3 - Wanted lists

I don’t build too many MOCs, but when I do, Bricklink is a great place to turn to for parts. I appreciate the Wanted List function. While it may take a bit to insert it all in if you have a lot of different pieces, It can save you in the long run. The system will tell you where you can buy the parts from. Does one seller cover everything you are looking for? While that seller may have a slightly higher price, you save by not having to pay for shipping from multiple buyers. You can also update it when you have acquired some of the pieces you need or maybe you’ve found some in your own collection.

4 - Ratings matter

You often see stories about Amazon.com ratings and how vendors often pay people to write reviews. I’m pretty sure no one on Bricklink has done that. Besides, you don’t get a lot of space to post feedback. If the seller has hundreds or thousands of positive reviews that all seem to say the same thing, you will probably say the same thing too. Yes, there is always that person who leaves a neutral or negative rating, but what do the vast majority of people say?

If the person is new to selling and doesn’t have a lot of feedback, then take the time to ask them questions. Send a message to ask what you are concerned about and to verify how the order will go. If the seller doesn’t respond or doesn’t give you the answers you are looking for, check in with another seller.

5 - You can see all the prices people are charging and work to find the best one

BrickLink will show you a price guide for each set/part/minifigure/item. You can see the last six months of sales and then what is available for sale at the current time. This is pretty useful if you’re trying to find the lowest priced option or to find someone who has 80 1x4 red bricks.

With this information, you can also negotiate if you want to take the time. The seller with the lowest price may have a higher cost to ship. Another seller may have a higher cost, but have a lower shipping cost. Ask the sellers if they can match prices. Will the one lower the shipping cost to make the sale? Will the other lower the item cost to make the sale? If they say no, but you still want the item, you can still purchase it.

6 - Low fees equal lower prices than some other marketplaces (usually)

I’ve had a few potential buyers complain about the price I’m charging for a set. I will then look the set up on EBay and Amazon to see what it’s going for. More often then not, the price is much higher. Some EBay sellers include shipping so that can cut down on the price difference, but look around if you want the best price. BrickLink charges a 3% fee to the seller on top of PayPal or Stripe fees. EBay charges 10% to 12% or so. Amazon can be a fee in upwards of 20%.

7 - If you can’t find it on BrickLink, it might not exist

The stock on BrickLink is pretty extensive. You can find just about any part, minifigure, or set produced. If you can’t find it there, it might not be anywhere else either.

8 - Studio 2.0

BrickLink has its own digital building program. You can build with endless amounts of digital bricks and create whatever you want. Then you can upload it for the world to see or buy all of the bricks you need to make the MOC into reality. While I prefer building with physical bricks, this is a great option if you want to build something large and don’t have all the parts or you don’t have space to build.

9 - Custom sets to piece together

Once you’ve built a MOC in Studio, you can upload it for the world to see. The digital instructions are not LEGO set quality, but you can re-build what someone else designed and it will let you buy the parts as well.

10 - Become a seller

Do you have a bunch of sets lying around you want to sell off? Maybe you have a whole bunch of bricks you no longer want. Well you can apply to become a seller. When I became a seller, I don’t remember the application process so it is either new or wasn’t a big deal a few years back. I don’t know how that works, but once you are in, you can start to sell. I fully admit that it will not lead to instant riches, but I can’t complain about the extra income and my NLS is happy that my store funds my personal brick addiction.

Anything I missed?

Happy BrickLinking!