Community LEGO Blogs
LEGO Blog Articles Submitted by the Brickpicker Community
259 blog articles in this category
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INTRODUCING THE BRICKPOINTS STORE... Jeff and I have been hinting around over the past several months on ways to earn BrickPoints. We also hinted about various ways to spend these points. Well today I am here to inform and explain the current BrickPoints system and the new BrickPoints Store. The BrickPoints system is based on site activity and producing site content such as LEGO set reviews and LEGO blogs and articles that get published on the BrickPicker site. A member gets points for all sorts
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By popular demand, I moved the up to date stats and blog contest data to the Community Blog to simplify matters for members and contestants. Please feel free to add comments or correct mistakes that I have made. The Blog Contest will end August 1, 2013. As with the Review Contest, there will be a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winner with some Honorable Mentions thrown in. The winning blogs/writers will be based on content quantity and quality...with an emphasis on creativity, accuracy and originality.
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BrickPicker Notes: Hello. I would like to introduce you to Owen, AKA Stomping Freak. He has quite a story to tell. Owen was a Sergeant in the Cheshire Regiment of the British Army. He has served tours all over the world. Jeff and I thought Owen's story is a must read for many LEGO fans...and even some non LEGO fans. Owen suffers from many physical and mental disorders, but has found relief and help through building and handling LEGO bricks. I hope you enjoy his blog. It is our wish that his stor
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Hello. My name is Elaine, and I am a Lego addict. I have often said this in jest, but I’ve started to realize that it is not a joke. I woke up this morning, and the first thing I did was check Brick Picker for the deals buzz. As soon as I had put the kids on the bus, I started planning my buy of the day. Since I went to see “The Force Awakens” (again) last night, I was feeling like I needed some more Star Wars sets. I took to the web, and made a plan to go to TRU (since it was Thursday) t
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Hello fellow BrickPickers... The end of the Summer is approaching quickly and we are heading into the prime LEGO season...Fall. There are many great new LEGO sets getting released and many great old ones getting retired. One thing is for sure, it is an active time of year, with the Christmas buying season right around the corner. Our recent Review and Blog content contests were very successful and we received a large influx of quality and informative LEGO set reviews and LEGO based blog articles
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Back in 2000 a movie came out starring George Clooney and Marky Mark called The Perfect Storm. This movie told of a confluence of weather patterns that led to a "perfect storm". Unfortunately for our heroes, they were aboard the Andrea Gail in the middle of the Atlantic when the storm hit. So what does this have to do with Lego and Lego Investing? Well, nothing really...except that on September 1st a confluence of polybags has made a "perfect storm" scenario at the Lego Store. To further explain
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The relationship between LEGO and Maersk has existed for decades. Other than both companies being founded in the same country, I have a really hard time finding exactly how or why these two titans decided to occasionally produce sets together, but we can all be glad they did since most of the sets produced under the shipping company's brand have been quite successful once retired. One of the reasons I personally find the Maersk line appealing is that they add some more realistic feeling to the
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For decades, the problem with collectible toys has been degradation of the materials. For most toys made in the past 40 years or more the main component is ABS plastic. ABS plastic breaks down and changes color as it ages. This process can be accelerated via exposure to UV rays (sunlight or fluorescent bulbs), Heat, and chemical reaction to other plastics. Most collectors have fought a losing fight to prevent their lighter colored plastics from turning yellow (or green if there is a blue
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With the recent disappointment of Pirates of the Caribbean and Price of Persia LEGO themes, are we looking at another flop theme when seeing the Lone Ranger? Not to say that the POTC sets weren't well designed and put together, but the overall popularity of the fourth movie didn't have the same appeal as say the first movie. The Lone Ranger is out in theaters and with that we have seen the LEGO Lone Ranger sets out on the shelves. I personally have put together three of these sets and I am very
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There’s no way that I’d be an AFOL if I hadn’t first been a CFOL (child fan of Lego – is that a term?). So many of us grown-ups would cite “getting the Lego I always wanted” as a top reason for still being into Lego way into our 20s, 30s, 40s and beyond. For me, as a child, new Lego was only to be had at birthdays and at Christmas. Kids these days seem to be showered with expensive toys with no sense of occasion – that wasn’t me. January to August would be spent playing with new Christmas Lego
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For as long as I can remember, people have been puzzled by my interest in many things that were “for boys”, and I have been equally puzzled by why toys have a gender at all. As much as I am genetically and physically female, I have never been one to adhere to the likes and behaviors deemed appropriate to my gender. I am a builder and a creator. Both of my parents worked as computer engineers (although I used to think they worked on a train), so my brain and its nurturing were focused heav
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Many Lego-related blogs are written about modern sets. This especially applies to investment-related blogs. In a series of articles I try to generate enthusiasm for some of the more interesting vintage Lego sets. We enjoyed building them as kids, whereas probably more often we jealously admired them in our best friend's collection or in the Lego catalogue we devotedly picked up in the toy store. This is primarily a blog of nostalgia. However, investing in vintage Lego can be an interestin
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Before I was an investor, or even a collector, I was... A TRADER. I think that I started out back in 2006 with a friend who was years older than me and a large collection of Lego. I got a few figs off of him for some pieces (he was being generous) and was hooked from there. Through the years, I have expanded my minfigure collection through trading and buying, and now about 2/3 of my minifigures are pure profits from trading. (I don't want to argue out this whole profit thing now, so you can find
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This blog follows on from my previous blogs presenting the top 20 sets in terms of secondary market price growth according to the data we have available here on Brickpicker. Apologies as I’ve been a bit slack and missed the last data update that was in January and had data up to the 10th of Jan. As such this update will be based on values as at the end of Feb-14. This means comparisons in the “Last Rank” column of the tables will be comparing movements from the Nov-13 positions. Again, here a
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We have all read it before: "I got 5 Vampyre Castles at Walmart for $ 50 each!". Clearance finds is one of the most popular topics of this site, to the point that there are several different threads centered around it. Of course, it makes sense. It is to be expected that when a LEGO investing sets gathers around people from all around the world there is going to be some natural "bragging". To me, that's not bad at all, especially since most of the times members of this site are helpful enough to
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Bo and Luke Duke, the eponymous leads of the early 80's hit TV show The Dukes of Hazzard, were two rural Georgia “good ol’ boy” moonshiners that were always on the run from the show’s villain, Hazzard County Commissioner “Boss” Hogg. The show's story arc revolved around the efforts of Hogg and his sidekick, Roscoe P. Coltrane, to intimidate the Duke cousins into leaving them alone to hatch their nefarious, and often times illegal, schemes. Inevitably, Bo and Luke would wriggle out of Hogg’s gras
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I own every set of the Hobbit and both waves of the LOTR sets and I want to create a battle scene, it will be my first scene ever creating so I need my fellow brickpickers insight and advice here's some photos of my sets feel free to shoot me any ideas thanks for the help and criticism.
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Modular buildings. Considered by some investors as the gold standard of LEGO investing along with the UCS line of Star Wars, have been around since 2007, when LEGO decided to release the first one of the line, the coveted 10182 Cafe Corner. The story of how this line of sets became a reality is a very interesting one, and very different to what usually happens when LEGO decides to produce a new theme. Let’s go back a few years and see how this really popular line was conceived. Most of you prob
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"Ed"itor's Note: Over the past three plus years, I have encountered many types of people on our site and other LEGO sites. One common thread that connects many LEGO fans is that many are highly educated. There are many programmers, stock brokers, doctors, accountants, chemists, engineers and business owners that inhabit the various LEGO forums. DoNotInsertInMouth is one such person...or character. To make a long story short, I almost banned him for his name and wacko avatar he originally us
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The Ninjago theme is one that has proven to be one of the most successful themes in LEGO's recent history, as evidenced by its first place in the Top Themes when considered CAGR. The theme has been a hit ever since it hit the shelves for the first time a couple of years ago, product of a mix of sets and a popular TV show, a combination LEGO hopes brings the same results with the released of the somewhat recent Legends of Chima. Ninjago has been discussed and analyzed several times in this forum
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If you remember The Perfect Storm, it didn’t end very well for the heroes. George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg went on to create classics such as The Descendants and The Departed while their on-screen alter egos – Captain Billy Thyne and Bobby Shatford - were swallowed in a monstrous tidal wave never to be seen again. So how did I fare with my Lego selling experience in September? Was the “perfect storm” of Lego giveaways successful, or was it a disaster? My Original Proposal On Sunday, September 1
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When I left Lego behind, I left it for something way more rock ‘n’ roll: rock ‘n’ roll. The move from primary school (elementary school) into secondary school (high school) marked the graduation from the precious toys of my childhood to the world of the pop charts. Here in the UK in the nineties, the battle was on betweenthe two biggest ‘Brit Pop’ bands of the time; Oasis (from Manchester) and Blur(from London). As a cash-strapped teenager you followed one – for me it wasOasis (although my fi
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Thought you'd never use math once you got out of school? Think again. Today, as my first personal blog article, I am going to briefly describe a method to predict a set's worth using its CAGR. A while ago, Ed showed us what CAGR is, and how to calculate it in this blog article (http://www.brickpicker.com/forum/index.php/blog/4/entry-15-cagr-compound-annual-growth-rate-and-lego/), but for all of you who don't want to open a five hundredth tab, CAGR, or Compounded Annual Growth Rate, is basically
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Welcome to the July 2013 Best Selling Sets on eBay blog entry. Unfortunately, there was a delay in the updating of June's numbers that did not allow me to write a list for that month, but that's in the past already. Here are the Top 10 Best Sellers in July!: (Positions in the list are determined by both Used and New listings, but I will only include information for new copies) July 2013 Top Ten 1- One of the favorite sets for investors has finally made the best selling lists and in what a wa
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"Marty, we need to go back! Back to the Future!" - Doc Brown In 1985, the first movie of the blockbuster trilogy Back to the Future was released to accolades. It quickly became an 80's classic movie with kids and adults alike routinely quoting famous lines from the movie. From Bif bellowing "McFly!" to Doc stammering about flux capacitors, this movie quickly worked its way into pop culture, and today it stands as an all-time great. Imagine for a moment that we were actually able to time travel.
