Blog And News Articles

US-based online retailers now have the latest Lego Star Wars sets in-stock. Each set looks to be fun builds with neat features and desirable minifigures. Battle on Takodana 75139 , $59.99 This 409 piece is Lego's first attempt at creating a scene from Maz Kanata's castle. Lego is usually "hit or miss" with playsets and set 75139 is probably a "miss" with regards to the castle itself. A small portion of the castle's entrance can be built including the main door and wall that contains a falling tree. The banner above the door is a nice touch and screen accurate although it should be one of many. Included minifigures are Finn, Maz Kanata, unmas…

The NYT spent a lot of time visualizing the data about mail slow downs nationally. The charts confirm what we've seen and reported on the board for months. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/14/upshot/is-the-mail-getting-slower-tracker.html

Today, we are happy to report that our second book "The Collectible LEGO Minifigure: Values, Investments, Profits, Fun Facts, Collector Tips" is now available for purchase. This was a fun book to put together since we were able to work with the Lego community to obtain fun photos of Lego minifigures in action. In the coming weeks, we will be announcing winners of the contest that we had when we first introduced that this book will be published. The first review of the book has been published by Huw over at Brickset and he states that "Nevertheless, it is a fascinating book that will appeal particularly to minifigure collectors." Huw Millington and Dr. Dave Watford h…

Is it really that good? is the question I intend to answer from my point of view in this blog. Lego set 75060 depicting Slave I in UCS style has been jubilated on every Lego related forum, in every review. So, conscious of these reviews and opinions, is the build still going to be great? Can we believe the hype? If you're like me, you already know my answer because the first thing you did when clicking on this blog is scroll down to read my conclusion. For those who are not like me and want to read the whole article, I tried to write down my thoughts and feelings (immediately) after each step of the build. I won't tell all surprises and advanced building methods I encount…

The Ultimate Collector Series, or UCS for short, of LEGO sets tends to focus on the Star Wars brand. These UCS sets are the gold standard by which Star Wars sets are judged. They tend to have a much higher piece count and are much more detailed than the standard run of the mill sets. In 2000 the earliest Ultimate Collector Series began with the 7181 TIE Interceptor and the 7191 X-Wing. Like my previous article Brick by Brick, Breaking Down Expensive Lego Sets: 10212 UCS Imperial Shuttle we're going to be taking a look at what makes up one of these sets, in this case, 7181 TIE Interceptor. When looking at an old and expensive set that you want to buy, how do you d…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/10/22/seattle-lego-trafficking-baby-yoda/

Not sure if this was brought up yet. https://ideas.lego.com/blogs/a4ae09b6-0d4c-4307-9da8-3ee9f3d368d6/post/eb30a864-2ad5-46d9-804b-121383e684df 7 Projects Qualify for the Second 2017 LEGO Ideas Review The Third 2017 LEGO Ideas Review qualifying period ended this Monday morning, January 8th at 12:00 a.m. Central European Time or GMT+1. We are thrilled to celebrate the 7 great projects that have gathered 10,000 supporters between the months of early September 2017 and early January 2018. Congrats to all members who've made it this far! Something unique about this review period is that 3 projects that hav…

A long time ago in an investing world far, far away from 2016, a Lego Friends kit set the world afire. This is the story, as told by me, with mostly conjecture and wild assumptions. I've linked the data I perused. CamelCamelCamel Buy me now: Amazon The Boom The forums were surprisingly quiet in the official 41015 thread, but I do recall most of the chatter in the Daily Deals thread and the What Set Did You Sell Today thread. Camelcamelcamel.com shows the Christmas of 2013 as a sharp, powerful thrust upwards, peaking at $139.99. For a set that debuted less than four months prior to that spike, it represented a dream scenario for …

A Polish online retailer have posted images of 3 upcoming Capt. America Civil War sets. The sets appear to contain a nice array of vehicles, play sets, minifigures and a brick built version of gigantic Ant-Man. Some Marvel characters such as Black Panther and Crossbones will finally make their minifigures debut. It also appears The Quinjet gets it's third remake since 2012 while other minifigures are refreshes or carryovers from previous sets. While unsure of their investing potential at this time, I do think most of these sets will be highly popular. Source = http://www.extraklocki.pl/katalog/klocki-lego-super-heroes/marvel/3,9,id,desc/? …

Looks like Lego has some GREAT events and offerings planned for April. Both AFOLs and KFOLs will be happy. If you are unable to visit a Lego retail store, be sure to checkout their website at shop.lego.com for select offerings. Some highlights... Various polybag and promo items based on money spent or themes: 1960s Mr. Freeze minifig and Elves Sira’s Adventurous Airglider. Note: The Mr Freeze polybag is available with a purchase of $75 of more from April 1 to 15. New sets (e.g. Angry Birds) will be on-sale. Events for children include a minifigure swamp, Bumblebee build, Superhero builds and club meetings. Maybe best of a…

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 coloration to the piece.) For many years various solutions had been proposed to roll back the scourge of time. Solutions included (but were not limited to) a good scrub, bleach,…

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 interesting and fun pastime. The quest to find rarer sets, to restore incomplete sets and to assess your recently purchased lot of bricks can be exciting, relaxing and rewarding. In this …

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 heavily on math and science. As a child, I liked toys that were fun to me, and I am thankful that my parents never tried to limit my curiosity and affinity based upon some societal norm. I lo…

I have had the privilege of meeting Dr Dave Watford along with Huw Millington of Brickset fame during several of my work excursions to London. They were always gracious enough to come to take a ride into the city to meet with me when time was available. Not only are these two extremely nice gentleman, it is very evident that they know their LEGO. In all honesty, I would be shocked if you can find something to stump them on. Dr Dave works Huw on Brickset, is a Features Writer with the magazine Bricks and he has his own LEGO blog called Gimme LEGO. Dr Dave's blog articles are always detailed with strong solid points and educational, I highly recommend it. For th…

Where Are They Now? is an ongoing blog series dedicated to analyzing specific high-profile Lego sets that have been targeted for investment and sold out / retired a year or more in the past. The idea is to review and summarize a wide range of investment factors surrounding the set a few months before, during, and after it stopped becoming available at retail prices... then look at the financial performance of the set thus far, and perhaps discover a clue about future growth and/or similar sets yet to retire. I absolutely have to begin with the Lego exclusive set that blew the doors off the investment world in Fall of 2014: Town Hall. Released: March…

Toys"R"Us will have their latest in-store Lego building on Saturday August 27. Like similar past events, it begins at 12PM and it's suggested to arrive early with the kids. Personally, it looks this build should be fun for Lego fans of all ages. For more info inlcluding store locations, please visit the link below. http://www.toysrus.com/shop/?categoryId=4311963 TRU's fine print : *Event intended for ages 6-up. Parental supervision required at all times for minors. All giveaways and event materials available while supplies last and distributed to participants only. Limit one per customer. Quantities limited; no rain checks." View full blog arti…

Many Bothans died to bring us this information. The official Xbox website has launched a page showing screen captures from an upcoming entrant into the LEGO Star Wars game series. This time it is Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The date given for the release of this game is 6/28/16. Players will be able to play as their favorite new and classic Star Wars character. One screen capture shows Han, Leia, and Chewbacca as they appear in the 75094 Imperial Shuttle Tydirium set. What that means about playing older movie scenes has not been shown yet. Warner Brothers games has not officially announced the forthcoming game Is this the releas…

This is packaging excellence. Even though the product is still essentially petroleum based, its good to see changes in the packaging, making it 100% recyclable. https://brickset.com/article/53790/plastic-bags-inside-sets-to-be-replaced-with-paper-ones

The article I am sharing is not an in-depth article by any means, but I know there are a lot of you that like to take a peak behind the curtain and see how all your little bricks and figures get made. Bloomberg Business visited the Kladno LEGO Factory in the Czech Republic and it looks like quite an operation. I could only imagine how it would feel to be let loose in one of these factories for a day. I am sure it would be like visiting Willy Wonka, just not as strange, but then again, you never know The article's opening paragraph reminds us that it wasn't that long ago that "LEGO was losing nearly a million dollars a day". I wonder how often they wou…

Hello Lego fans, link = https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072MHYHXJ/ As reported by members this morning and online discount sites, Amazon.com has an EXCELLENT sale today on Lego's Creator Expert Carousel set. It is also likely a set that will be retiring soon so buy it while still available. 35% off $129.99. (Retail Price is $199.99) Like many AFOLs, I purchased one set today along with both optional Power Function parts (88000 and 8883) for automatic play. The kids will love this, As some folks may remember, 10257 was somewhat of a refresh for the hugely popular 10196 Grand Carousel from 2009 . View full bl…

I thought it would be a great idea to check in on some sets that don't get a lot of press around here to see exactly how they are doing now. I love 'where are they now' editions of TV shows so if nothing else posting this will please me, and perhaps others like me. Also, I think learning from history is better than not learning history, so for new(er) members, these type of posts might be instructive at best or eye-rolling at worst. I was casually checking through my stockroom a few days ago, organizing, moving boxes around, admiring pretty sets, etc., when my eyes fell upon my admittedly small stash of #60026 Town Squares (in all fairness, I admit to on…

Both Ed and I would like to thank each and every one of our members and guests for allowing us to have the best year ever. It was an amazing year of new opportunities and expansion. We launched new products and hit milestones that the two of us joked about hitting not too long ago. Brickpicker just celebrated its fourth full year of existence and we couldn’t be happier that early in our fifth year we are oh so close to registering 55,000 members. Because of the success we have had, Ed and I were honestly blown away when I received an email through our contact us form that I honestly thought was a joke at first. I couldn’t believe that someone was contacting us to…

In recent weeks, LEGOLAND California has gone through another price structure change. This time, removing discounts from "Sale" and "Hard to Find" items that are carried in their shops. In year's past, annual passholders would expect to find LEGO sets priced at RRP. With a LEGOLAND California Annual Pass, a 10% discount was applied to all orders. During the years of "no discounts on exclusives," this made purchasing exclusives, such as modular buildings, a little more desirable at LEGOLAND. Late last year, LEGOLAND California started raising prices on certain items, to "balance" the Annual Pass discount. Items such as the Disney Castle, which has an RR…

While I am getting closer to releasing a long overdue update to BrickPicker, now is a good time to release some content that I was hoping to release with the updated site. @belljohn has been talking with Ed and I for a very long time and has spent a lot of time in creating a series of Brickvesting videos that he is happy to share on the BrickPicker YouTube Channel. I am hoping to see this expand this into a bunch of different topic series and welcome any of you that are interested in working on some videos to reach out to me and we can work on it. Set reviews, investing tips, set builds, etc. It's not easy to speak for ~15 minutes, but Brook does an amazing job c…

Good news fellow Lego fans. We are getting a Finn Stormtrooper polybag (30605-1). That means no more switching minifigure heads to reenact Finn and Poe being best buddies while escaping the Star Destroyer. Details will emerge about soon enough about how to acquire it. Most likely a Lego or Toys R Us promotion. It could be a Lego promo for the May the 4th weekend. I do expect this minifigure to have demand especially if the sand stains print remains exclusive. Source : http://brickset.com/sets/30605-1/Finn-(FN-2187) View full blog article