Blog And News Articles

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

LEGO Ideas sets are projects that were submitted by fans and voted on by other fans. If a project got 10,000 supporters, the LEGO Group brought it under review. In the review process, they decided if the project fit their standards, if there was a reasonable chance that the supporters would actually purchase it, and if the build itself was feasible. They make certain changes to the set to make it fit more appropriately within their standards and release only a small portion of those that hit the 10,000 supporter goal. Disney/Pixar's Wall-E is a unique set, in that the designer of the set actually helped to create the movie that this set is based on. The flowthro…

Some people probably wonder if I'm averse to going outside the comfortable zone of Star Wars sets. There's a whole universe out there of LEGO themes and sets that have nothing to do with Star Wars or Super Heroes. Well, I wanted to start with the daddy of the modular sets, the one that began one of the most expensive (on average) series of sets out there. LEGO Modulars are an offshoot of the standard Creator line. Introduced in 2007, this sub-theme consists of large, detailed buildings targeted at adult collectors. The retail price tag of the sets and the 16+ age range tends to discourage the younger collectors. The very first set in the line was the Cafe Corner. Thi…

Ok, which one of you did this? Darth_Raichu? Veegs? According to this article, police are reporting that three men forced their way into a Toys 'R' Us in Ontario and stole a "large quantity" of Lego sets with a presumed retail value of $20,000. That is a pretty large haul even if the currency is in Canadian Dollars. I am wondering why this news is just coming out now since the crime happened back in October. The most intriguing part of this article to me is that they mention that this probably happened due to the increase in popularity because of the movie and that the high prices of LEGO have created a "black market" I am not sure if they are callin…

I've been wanting to build this set since it was released in June. I never really realized how much I enjoyed stuff from Return of the Jedi until I really looked at my LEGO collecting habits. This particular ship is a beautiful and elegant design in the films, but how does it look when translated in the most recent LEGO iteration? Well the box was pretty, so let's delve into the set. REVIEW: SET DETAILS Set #: 75094 Name: Imperial Shuttle Tydirium Theme: Star Wars Parts: 937 Price: $99.99 Before we get to the build, let’s talk value. At $99.99 the price per piece works out to a bit under $.11 each. This seems to be about average for pricing fo…

The Lego Group has revealed the first of their 2016 San Diego Comic Con minifigure giveaways: a new "Hydra-devoted" Captain America minifigure! This minifigure celebrates the heel turn of one of Marvel fans' favorite heroes. More information on the giveaway can be found at Entertainment Weekly. What do you think of the new minifigure? Please share your thoughts in the comments. View full blog article

NEXO Knights is Lego's replacement for the Chima theme. This latest "kiddie" theme is returning to television on Monday January 11 on Cartoon Network. The 2-part pilot and new NEXO Knights episodes will be shown each weekday until January 22. Check your local listings for showtime (e.g. shown at 5:30pm in the EST time zone). Will you be watching? Wikipedia: "The series describes the adventures of five young knights: Clay, Aaron, Lance, Macy, and Axl who protect Knighton from Jestro, the Book of Monsters and their army of lava monsters. They also help the Monarchy, Merlok (sorcerer) and Robin." TV advertisement. While over…

I read Captain America comics for at least 20 years. Crossbones was an interesting character to me, a nutcase that idolized Red Skull. With the small number of villains that are not related to Spider-Man in some way, I doubted I'd see him anytime soon. LEGO threw me a curveball with Crossbones Hazard Heist and delivered Crossbones. I sn I knew that Crossbones was going to make an appearance in the new Captain America movie, but who knew what we would be getting before the official announcement? I felt a lack when LEGO did nothing for Captain America: the Winter Soldier. We didn't get movie Falcon or Winter Soldier 2 years ago. They've made up for that somewhat with o…

A short time ago in a toy store not too far away . . . I was looking at this set on Force Friday and wondering if this set was worth getting. I haven't seen Star Wars the Force Awakens yet, so I don't know if this is Poe's primary fighter, or if he loses it 20 minutes in, like Obi-Wan and Anakin in Revenge of the Sith. It's $20 more than the previous X-Wing 9493, which I felt portrayed the X-Wing adequately. I knew I was likely to get this eventually when it went on sale, but I fear I fell to the dark side. As a countdown to the Force Awakens, I will be writing at least one Star Wars review each week. REVIEW: SET DETAILS Set #: 75102 Name: Poe's X-Wing F…

Welcome to the 2nd edition of the Best of Brick Classifieds - Weekly Deals. This week features 10 great deals from trusted vendors, including 2 listings for new, sealed bag, open box sets. Open box sets often provide outstanding value to collectors looking for their favorite set. This week's deals include some of the best available online pricing and represent popular themes including: Creator and Creator Modular Buildings Star Wars and Star Wars UCS DC Super Heroes Ninjago Friends Trains City LEGO Creator Town Hall #10224 by FlipBricks $499 + free shipping LEGO DC Supe…

I remember that there was a weird point in the 90's when second string comic characters suddenly became popular. Inexplicably, guys like Ghost Rider, Silver Surfer and Moon Knight picked up in popularity and no one could explain it, so we all just sort of went along with it. Ever since then, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Ghost Rider. Possessed stunt rider Johnny Blaze or geeky teenager Danny Ketch transforming into the spirit of vengeance and riding a flaming motorcycle while flailing away at bad guys with chains of fire really warm the memory box. I never tainted my memories of those fantastically bad years of reading comics by watching that Nick Cage atroc…

I don't collect modulars. I don't build modulars. I hear about them a lot though. When I do hear about them, one set seems to be spoken about more than any others. The Green Grocer pops into conversations about modulars seemingly more often than any other. Whether it's the difficulty in getting the Sand Green pieces or how good it looks, or how expensive it is, it's a popular topic of conversation. Wait, you might say. If I have no experience with this set, why should anyone want my opinions about it? Well, that's a fair question. I'm not really going to be presenting my opinions about the set, about its looks or the difficulty level of building it. Instead, I am pro…

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/? …

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…

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…

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…

Star Wars: The Force Awakens has finally arrived in cinemas, and to celebrate we’ve assembled the best builders in the galaxy to construct seven iconic saga scenes, from the classic trilogy to the new film. We also take a look at the Star Wars Battle Figures, and compare Darth Vaders new and old in a showdown of galactic proportions. Elsewhere, we find out how LEGO can be used with prosthetic limbs to improve the lives of child amputees, how Britain’s most outspoken toy retailer is preparing for the Christmas season, how to bring your minifigures to life and why not every LEGO set is a solid investment. There’s much more besides, as animation expert Stev…

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…

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(Updated 10 Feb 2022) Brickheadz (Retail Availability) Set # Name BH # 41585 Batman 1 41586 Batgirl 2 41587 Robin 3 41588 The Joker 4 41589 Captain America 5 41590 Iron Man 6 41591 Black Widow 7 41592 The Hulk 8 41593 Captain Jack Sparrow 9 …

I never had a LEGO system scale AT-ST. I got a UCS one from a comic shop, but that's not really the same. Even when I was a kid in the 80's, this was never my favorite vehicle. Now I look at my AT-AT and feel like it's missing something. The AT-AT is missing its little brother AT-ST. I was so excited to find out that this vehicle was coming for Rogue One. I really needed to fill out my display. It doesn't matter what minifigures are with it, as long as it fits with my Original Trilogy stuff. I didn't want to backtrack and find the 2007 system scale version because a set that's a decade old usually looks like a set that's almost 10 years old. This set looks good on the box…

As a countdown to the Force Awakens, I will be writing reviews on Star Wars LEGO sets this week. Today, we are going to be looking at a set that I have opened a fair number of previously. I have only built it once before, but at the time I felt like that was enough. Luckily I had a couple that I bought on discount to fill in on a day when I wanted to bang out a quick set and a quick review. I made an "artistic" decision with this set to portray the minifigures involved as building the set. Hopefully it's more amusing than annoying. REVIEW: SET DETAILS Set #: 75078 Name: Imperial Troop Transport Theme: Star Wars Parts: 141 Price: $12.99 Before w…

LEGO has released a version of the Droid Escape Pod twice previously. In 2001 and 2012, they released sets called Droid Escape (7106 and 9490.) Each time the set has been visited, it has gotten more expensive. Accordingly, the number of separate pieces has increased in each set. This set should be the most detailed and complex of the sets released to represent this scene. In 2001 the set only had the droids. In 2012, the Escape Pod came with the droids, 2 Sand Troopers and a speeder. This time, we get 2 droids, 2 Jawas and no speeders. Most people were content with the fairly recent version. Most collectors would have preferred something else take this slot. I have n…

Convention exclusive. The two words many LEGO collectors dread to hear and several investors become giddy over. To some, these highly exclusive sets with their limited availability can be the Holy Grail of a LEGO collection. They are extremely hard to obtain, and can be very expensive unless you are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. In recent years as the popularity of LEGO has skyrocketed, these exclusive sets have become even more coveted. Retailing for just $40, they can be found at conventions such as the upcoming San Diego Comic Con (SDCC) and Star Wars Celebration. These sets are small with very low piece counts (averaging around 200) whe…

As a countdown to the Force Awakens, I will be writing reviews on Star Wars LEGO sets this week. I haven't really done an exclusive set before. I kind of wonder if the exclusives are the sets that people would be most excited about getting, or the ones that people wouldn't mind missing. Let's dive into the Hailfire Droid set and see if it's a can't miss, or a swing and a miss. REVIEW: SET DETAILS Set #: 75085 Name: Hailfire Droid Theme: Star Wars Parts: 163 Price: $19.99 Before we get to the build, let’s talk value. At $19.99 the price per piece works out to a bit over $.12 each. This is to be on the high side of pricing for a licensed set. The…