LOTR brought me back... especially Helm's Deep ...

I never had Lego as a kid - I was too immersed in pets and animals (dog training, breeding rats to sell to pet shops, riding horses, rescuing cats, milking goats, gathering chicken and duck and goose eggs, etc.)

 

When I married my husband (we met at dog training school...), I married a Lego guy. He never had a Dark Ages, he just collected what he wanted his whole life without regard for his age or dignity. 

 

I have been his parts sorter and chief fan club from the beginning, and I enjoy the displays (which it's his job to dust! He definitely doesn't trust my occasional outbursts of fumble fingers for that.   )

 

Once I figured out I could make money doing something I enjoy anyway (sorting things, building and maintaining inventory control systems I learned early on working for a machine parts company, scrounging for the best bargains) it's been a no-brainer.

 

I've been at this a whole six or seven weeks now, have built one inventory system that I scrapped today for a better (and, I hope, final one - luckily I had only 14,000 or so parts in the old one), have sold a better percentage of Lego in terms of number of listings/sales (5X more, in fact) than our current successful book business, found more hot sources for inventory than I can keep up with (always a good sign), and found some great resources, of which I consider this site #1.

 

Imagine what I'll be able to accomplish when I'm NOT also in the midst of organizing our house move at the end of this month!

It happened while I was on vacation to the US year. I had taken a guided tour through the Robie House in Chicago and saw the Lego version lying in the gift shop and was impressed. A week later I was visiting New York and accidentally walked by the Lego Store at Rockefeller Center. couldn't help but step in to take a peak at what other cool things they had.

Didn't buy anything because it would be inconvenient for me to bring a large lego box on the airplane, but wish I had. Wasn't aware of 20-30% price difference between Europe and the US at the time.

literally was the birth of my own kids. my son was about 4 months old when i did an ebay search to start acquiring some of the sets that i always wanted when i was a kid but were too expensive back then. after acquiring some of the older vintage sets, i started buying a lot of the current sets as well, and the next thing i knew i had a basement full of vintage and MISB sets. i haven't looked back and have enjoyed every minute of it since. i guess it has given this 36 year old adult a chance to be a kid again.

 

Similar story, but smaller scale   Started with the sets which just retired, now adding some current ones if I see a good price.  Looking forward to play with my kid in several years.

Never have had a dark age since my first set on one glorious Christmas morning. Although I'm starting to feel myself shifting towards a full investor rather a collector with school starting up again... Save me....

My wife actually helped get me back into it last year. She found the winter village sets and always wanted a winter village. She knew I loved LEGO so it all came together.

Now fast forward and I've dropped more than I would like to admit and she calls LEGO collecting/investing my "annoying expensive hobby." I remind her that she woke the beast when she suggested we buy that first winter set...

When I finally moved into a house with more than 2 rooms, my mother insisted I take my old junk out of her house. This included all my old Lego.

 

I was ill over Christmas 2010, did not want to go out, so I'd thought I would rebuild my old castle that I designed and built when I was a teenager. Thought it would only take a few days, which is what it used to do.

 

9 months later I finished it. To my adults eye it looked rubbish. So I thought I would replace all the multi-colored pieces with Grey (as I castle should be).

 

So I spent about

Grand Emporium.

 

Now I can't stop!

Although I never official went into the dark ages, i almost went in, but the UCS R2-D2 brought me out, and three days later, I became a member of Brickpicker.

Well, my five-year old son.  I also saw the last big Battle Endor set and loved it.  I said to myself, Lego is expensive, I need to avoid it.  Jabba's Palace and the Hoth Wampa sets were the first sets I'd purchased in years/decades.

Free Time is what finally brought me out of my dark age.

 

I stopped playing with legos in high school, I was too busy with friends, sports and a part time job. Then in college i was too busy studying, working an internship and occasionally hanging out with friends. Finally once i graduated and got a full time 40 hour a week job i actually had free time! Instead of getting out of class around dinner time and studying until midnight like i did in college, now i got off at 5pm and had nothing to do all night

Money

Seconded.  The ability to afford Lego wasn't in existence in college.

My daughter who was five and very excited about lego friends coming out. My first set was vampire's castle which the two of us built together. Our mantle last Christmas went from the usual playmobil scene to a lego winter wonderland. And despite my oldest daughters love for friends she really gets into LoTR and monster fighters.

Just wondering what rekindled your interest in lego. I was really into them until I was about 13 or 14. I did not really get back into them until my parents made me move all of my old sets out of their house and into mine about 2 years ago. I decided to rebuild a couple of old pirate ships to put on my mantle. After that I was hooked again.

Emerald Night/Maersk Train last year. 

3 things really: the release of LOTR theme, the realization that my old lego from childhood was worth something, and the fact that my sons are now old enough that we share our lego passion together!

The son of some close friends was turning 10 and I wanted to buy a gift. They said that he loves Lego and that would be a great gift. 

 

While shopping for his gift I was stunned at how Lego had changed over the years and started buying for myself too.

A couple of weeks ago I made the little polybag vw with my nephew. I would have to say it was a lot of fun seeing how excited he was. It also gave me a chance to play with toys. Winning!

Moved in with gf, while waiting for cable to be hooked up, found out she had ucs mf, deathstar, and eiffel tower.  Two years later we're running out of room.

Last fall I saw the Haunted House advertised and as soon as I saw it, I thought it was the coolest LEGO set I had ever seen and wanted it immediately!  It had been many, many, many years since the LEGO days of my youth, but that set drew me back in.  Then I discovered the Winter Village series and I was officially hooked.

I think it's funny that a 10 year old kid and a 20-50 year old adult can stand in the same target isle and drool over the same toy. That certainly is a testament to lego.

It real fun when a kid runs up and yells "ooohhh how coooool!"  at the set you were just exclaiming and pointing at 

For sure. You can completely relate to what the kid is feeling.

Having disposable income.

Lego. Free Lego to be precise. And discovering Lego stores. And CMF.

 

I wrote a blog post about it.