Blog And News Articles

I happened upon some of the new 2016 battle packs almost an entire week before their street date. I was excited to get a jump on them and to increase my personal armies. REVIEW: SET DETAILS Set #: 75132 Name: First Order Battle Pack Theme: Star Wars Parts: 88 Price: $12.99 Before we get to the build, let’s talk value. At $12.99 the price per piece works out to a bit under $.15 each. This is on the high side of pricing for a licensed set. There are 4 minifigures a First Order Stormtrooper, a First Order Heavy Gunner Stormtrooper, and 2 different First Order Crew. The Heavy Gunner and the open face Crew are currently exclusive to this set. …

This really isn't going to be a fluff article about how awesome Brick Classifieds is, but more of a small message that people are starting to take notice of it. Launching any new site is not easy at all. Google and other search engines don't even know you exist, so obtaining new customers via organic traffic is tough. Vendors that do list products don't have a lot of feedback so it's hard to show history and trust. So you might say, ok, what is so good about this? Those that have stuck it out and continued to post new quality listings with solid descriptions, real photos and priced their listings right have done well, real well. Brick Classifieds has been liv…

Here is the list of current, former, and upcoming polybags in the LEGO world. If you've found a polybag that's not on this list, or have any update to give us, please note it in the comments below. This information is put together from a number of different sources on the Internet, including real world reports. Availability in your area may vary. This information is US-based. Polybags Currently Available Set # Theme Set Name Locations Status Date 30312 City Demolition Driller TRU …

* As I was preparing to publish this article, Ed Mack announced the Brickpicker sponsored fundraiser in benefit of the St. Paul School of Burlington, NJ. I truly encourage you all to visit the following link and make a donation; besides supporting a great cause you will be entered for a chance to win some really cool, retired sets worth thousands of dollars (and appreciating as we speak!). I truly wish the St. Paul School the best, FCBarcelona101* Read Ed’s Announcement Raffle Entry and Donation Page -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------…

Hello LEGO fans, collectors and resellers… Many of you may already know who I am, but for those of you that may have just learned about Brickpicker, my name is Ed Maciorowski and I would like to ask you for a few moments of your time. Over the past five years, my brother Jeff and I have operated the BrickPicker site at no cost to members and fans. All we ever asked from members was to click on affiliate links to help pay for the site expenses, which cost members little or no out of pocket money. Many of you have gained valuable information and insight from our data and forum community that enabled you to make money from LEGO collecting and reselling. Often, peopl…

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…

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…

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…

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…

As a countdown to the Force Awakens, I will be writing reviews on Star Wars LEGO sets this week. Full disclosure, I missed writing at least one review to meet my own schedule. So I have decided to punish myself and try to make a new review each day until the opening of Star Wars Episode VII. Hopefully they will be enjoyable for you and for me. I would like to finish out The Force Awakens lineup, but I've already built Rey's Speeder twice and parted out another one, so I have no interest in buying another one to open and build. I have little interest in the Kylo Ren's Shuttle because it's ugly, and I may or may not open a Millennium Falcon. So, unless something ch…

So the past few days have been exciting since LEGO finally slapped a "Retiring Soon" label on the list for the 10188 Death Star. Everyone should jump for joy and start yelling for the money to come rolling in right? Maybe, but it might be short lived or will it. According to the new database entry at Brickset, there is a new Death Star coming and it is listing as an Ultimate Collector Series model. So is this a totally new model, or another version of the old? Is it really "The Death Star" or "The Starkiller"? The new Starkiller base as it is referred to in Episode VII is described by the official Star Wars site as "An ice planet converted into a stro…

Hello LEGO fans.. It’s been a little over a year since Jeff and I started working on our first book, The Ultimate Guide to Collectible LEGO Sets: Identification and Price Guide. Well, after a year and a half, the book is now available at retail and is selling briskly. We would like to thank everyone who has bought a copy and hope you have enjoyed the book. Krause Publishing did a very nice job with our book in my opinion and is seeing strong sales, strong enough to ask us to do a second book. The new book will concentrate on the classic LEGO minifigure (...and maxifigure) and their values and unique features that make them valuable on LEGO secondary marketpla…

I have been excited for this set for a long time. Most of the time, LEGO keeps a tight lid on their upcoming products. You only officially get to know about what is coming out a month or so before it is released. This, however, is an Ideas set. LEGO implemented a program wherein they allow people to submit their ideas for consideration. The ideas need to be a fully completed MOC (My Own Creation). Public users of the site can browse all of the submissions and decide if they would support this project. If the project reaches 10,000 supporters within a year, it moves on to the LEGO Group to review. They look at the project and evaluate it a number of ways. This par…

It's the holiday season, so pour a glass of eggnog and get your ginger snaps close at hand. Actually, are ginger snaps a holiday thing? I have no idea. Maybe I should just talk about the set. REVIEW: SET DETAILS Set #: 10245 Name: Santa's Workshop Theme: Creator (Winter Village) Parts: 883 Price: $69.99 Before we get to the build, let’s talk value. At $69.99 the price per piece works out to just under $.08 each. This is much better than the licensed sets that I am used to dealing with. There are 6 minifigures. Without a lot of experience with creator or city sets, I feel like most of the body parts are reused. In addition to all of the minifigures there …

Welcome to the first entry of what I would like to think of as a revamped Evaluation Corner article. The idea behind this new format is to offer a little more historical and analytical data when evaluating sets for potential investment, in a more visual way. Hopefully you will like it; be sure to add your feedback or comments! Historical & Theme Analysis The topic of this first article will be the recently released The Brick Bounty – 70413. The “Pirates” LEGO theme has become one of those recurring ones we expect to pop up in stores every few years. It really needs no explanation; kids love pirates and AFOLs really appreciate a well- designed LEGO ship. So…

As a countdown to the Force Awakens, I will be writing at least one Star Wars review each week. Full disclosure, I have already built one of these previously, and I was not a fan. I found one at a significant discount, wanted a few more troops, and felt like writing a review because I had a joke in mind. I didn't think it was fair to write a review on a set that I built over 2 months ago, so I refreshed my familiarity with this set, and took plenty of pictures. I think my understanding of what works in these pictures is starting to get better, so hopefully you agree. REVIEW: SET DETAILS Set #: 75103 Name: First Order Transporter Theme: Star Wars Parts: 7…

I want to make a blog post that summarizes the Black Friday deals. A lot of the talk is going on in the Daily Deals thread, and we will try to bring deals over into the content here so that it is easy to see what might be out there. The reason I turned the summary into a blog is because for any comments, the deals are on each page and there will not need to be searching back 10 pages to see what was missed. This list will be available all the time. I am hunting through the Daily Deal thread to find the deals, so you will continue to see this update. BLACK FRIDAY LEGO SHOP @ HOME DEALS - A list of everything on sale @ LEGO starting tonight …

The holiday season is officially on! This year, we have one of the best seasonal GWPs we have ever offered, free shipping on all orders, and plenty of discounts on some fantastic sets! (Please note that some of the product sales start Friday and others begin on Monday). Gingerbread House GWP on orders of $99 or more. Valid: 11.27.15 – 11.30.15 while supplies last No Code Required Free Shipping on all Orders Valid: 11.27.15 – 11.30.15 No Code Required Brick Friday Sale Items! Valid 11.27.15 - 11.30.15 while supplies last table.tableizer-table { border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; …

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…

As a countdown to the Force Awakens, I will be writing at least one Star Wars review each week. This polybag was available for free with a $40 qualifying LEGO Star Wars purchase from Toys R Us. Some stores allowed buyers to purchase some for $3.99, but not every store did, and not even the same quantities. EDIT: Toys R Us appears to have shipped more of these to some stores and increased the price to $5.99. REVIEW: SET DETAILS Set #: 5002948 Name: C-3PO Theme: Star Wars Parts: 3 Price: $3.99 Before we get to the build, let’s talk value. At $3.99 the price per piece works out to $1.33 each. However, it's ridiculous to do the 3P math on a…

This set has been sitting on my shelf since May the Fourth. I never really got around to it, always kind of figuring I would eventually. This week its time came. I don't recall why exactly I decided to pay full retail for this except since I was trying to get a Yularen minifig. It looks good, and I don't have another model of the N-1 anymore, so maybe that was part of it. As a countdown to the Force Awakens, I will be writing at least one Star Wars review each week. REVIEW: SET DETAILS Set #: 75092 Name: Naboo Starfighter Theme: Star Wars Parts: 442 Price: $49.99 Before we get to the build, let’s talk value. At $49.99 the price per piece works o…

Aha! You likely supposed this thread was going to be about the much-derided but wildly successful (for investors) Delorean Ideas set. You couldn't be more wrong, even if you were wiping out polybag stocks across entire retail shelves. Granted, the example given might fall more under 'moral' wrongs, and doesn't fit this example well, but here we are. We might as well get used to tenuously related metaphors and similes, as I just used my best one above and it goes downhill from here. Wait – I was trying to get to something important there, before you derailed my train of thought with your insistence that you could be more wrong and in so many more appropriate wa…

The 2015 Target Exclusive Minifigure Gift Cube is now available. Four minifigures are available per cube, with Lightning Lad (DC Super-Heroes), Kai (Ninjago), Sir Fangar (Chima), and Scuba Diver (City). This set is available to purchase separately for $9.99, or you can get it free with a $50 City, Ninjago, or Super-Heroes purchase. The DCPI for the set is 204-00-1716, which can be used to check the in-store inventory Brickpicker Target Inventory Tracker. The item number is 49153007, and can be ordered online here. The 2014 Target Exclusive Minifigure Gift Cube performance can be found here. It retailed for $15.00. These were hard to come by in the initial fi…

Reading some of the threads on the forum, members sometimes bring up the amount of vendors that are selling a particular LEGO item. This made me think about coming up with a way to see how many people are selling an item and then what the sales rank of that item is. This can be a good indicator for you aggressive sellers out there to see a void that might need to be filled. If you see a low number of vendors with a lower numbered sales rank (lower than 100), this could be a great opportunity to unload some of those sets. If you see a high number sales rank with a high number of vendors, you might want to either hold on for a while and see what happens or just unload t…

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…