Slashdot Mirror

Try Brick Link .com

From the blurb... buy and sell new, used and vintage LEGO® through fixed price and auction services. :)

For the Lego geek :)
http://www.bricklink.com
Look up lego sets, buy and sell lego parts

I think if Lego wants to increase their profits, they should drop *everything* in their current product line, then go back to, say, 1987, and reissue every set from that year. Next year, they can do 1988 etc. I'd buy a lot more Lego if they did this.

I think the decline of lego began when the first glut of star wars sets were released-- sure, the first ones they did were surprisingly good, but it set a precedent for future years(meaning right now). I don't think I've bought any new Lego since 2000 or so, but I have made several purchases at Bricklink, which is sort of an eBay for Lego.

Ummm... as the risk of sounding commercial, http://www.bricklink.com/ is currently the best place to find all those LEGO sets from your childhood. Yeah, I sell a few sets there... and thanks to dot.com.go.boom and outsourcing for my career change. Go ahead, /. the server.. I'll prolly get a nasty note from admin lol

Be sure to visit for all your buy a single Lego piece needs.

I am an AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego), and I think that they are the coolist thing ever. Check out some of the more interesting LEGO sites on the net:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/recent.cgi A massive gallery of uber cool models made by AFOLs. There are some really amazing models posted here.

http://www.brickset.com/ A lego set refrence that has just about every lego set ever made. Want to get a list of every classic space set made in 1978? This is the place.

http://www.bricklink.com/ Want 150 tan 1x3 bricks? Buy them individually from fellow collectors all over the world.

http://www.lugnet.com/ LUGNET is the Lego User Group. It has an interface to all all of the Lego USENET groups, and is an easy way to keep on top of all the relevant lego news.

http://shop.lego.com/ Of course there is LEGOs homepage. Online shopping, and all sorts of other interesting stuff. They just released a program on the lego site that allows you to build virtual lego models. That isn't really amazing, since LEGO cad programs have existed for years. However, they seem to be ramping up to allow people to build virtual models, and then order the parts to build them online! Every lego fan's dream come true...

There is much more, but that is a quick rundown of some of the major sites. Indulge yourself, you know you want to....

Oh, I forgot to mention that I'm a member of the Southern California Lego Train Club.

Also check out the Bricklink site for hard to find parts. (That's mentioned in the book.)

Take a look at the prices on their Train set page. Any decent sized kit is $150+

The train sets are actually pretty good for parts. Of course, if you want to build your own stuff (and of course, you do!), it helps to have a lot -- Lego parts are exponentially useful. A lot of the new Lego sets are increasingly "juniorized" (a plague for the last decade at least) with one-use pieces and uncomplicated designs, but the trains tend to be better, since they're geared at an older audience.

But anyway, you're missing something -- these are electric model trains. That's an expensive hobby. It's not uncommon for a non-Lego engine alone to be over $500. And even the cheap crap is approximately comparable in price to an infinitely more versitile Lego train set.

After you have the core parts from sets to get started, I recommend shopping at BrickLink -- an online bazaar specifically designed for the sale of individual Lego pieces in bulk (or in small quantities -- whatever!). Get just the parts you need for the project you're working on.

I was bought my Mindstorms kit a couple of years ago as a birthday gift. Recently I've been looking to upgrade it but all the add-on kits seem to have disappeared. The Ultimate Accessories Set, the Ultimate Builders Set, the Dark Side Set and the Mars Explorer Set have all vanished.

The Lego shop doesn't list any of them other than the base set. People like Amazon list them but can't say when they will have any stock. They do seem to have vanished from the face of the net. I have managed to get a Mars Explorer set half price which suggests it's end of line. The only place I can get anything is BrickLink and at a price.

When I saw the original /. post regarding Mindstorms I assumed that was the reason. Now they've said they're not stopping Mindstorms why have these other sets disappeared and is there any other way you can you get the extra sensors these sets provides?

Ask and you shall receive.

And I assume you've seen bricklink which is not Lego affilated.

Also, try going to one of the LegoLand stores, like Legoland California. Bulk bricks by weight! Ultimate in badass Lego buying.

You must be younger than me (33) because the Technic sets back when I was young were called "Expert Builder" not Technic. Technic came later. But they still have the Technic series. When I was about 11 I got a Lego car that I believe was a model of the workings of a VW Bug (Not sure, but it was still cool). This year, I got a Technic remote control car for X-mas. Made me feel like a kid again. I would really like to see Lego get more into this kind of thing rather than the Harry Potter, Star Wars, etc. Those things can pretty much only be built one way. Thus, a toy that was once mind expanding has become limiting.

They come in buckets now. They were called Freestyle sets throughout the 90's, but I'm not sure what the series name is now. Check your local Lego aisle for buckets full of windows, bricks, etc.

If it's individual kinds of parts in bulk you want, shop.lego.com still sells the service packs that they've always sold through the Shop At Home catalog, as well as the rest of their product line.

For single special parts, or any other sort of non-set purchase, BrickLink is a great resource. That's where the resellers break down the sets they buy from stores and sell the parts individually. If you want 300 wigets in blue, bricklink is the best way to find them.

I am an adult Lego fan with quite an inventory of the stuff. This parent is right on the quality issue (and others on the thread pointing to low margins are also there).

Lego keeps on selling 1949 designs (basic lego bricks with ~11-year industrial patents) because nobody can beat them at their prices. Lego invests quite a bit in product design ... but also in manufacturing design. Their systems are partly secret (and the company is 100% privately-owned).

There are clones that can *potentially* be attached to regular Lego, but their quality is glaringly inferior ... although some are put to good use in "realistic" castle walls, depicting stones of different hues and textures. There are also extremely high quality non-official Lego-compatible components for Mindstoms, but those are another story altogether.

---

Want to buy cheap Lego? Try searching ebay for bulk lego (which can be washed with lukewarm water and soap). Keep an eye out for the (regular) Lego sales at toy stores, including the official online Lego store (which also offers bulk sales). Or use the new pick-a-brick Lego outlets. For specialized/hard to find parts Bricklink and Pitsco are your friends.

You need Bricklink for all your single piece needs.

See the links from the bottom of my site: Bricklink is king!

ABS is the single most important substance known to man; without it we'd have no LEGO!

Any true Lego geek would have headed right over to BrickLink to pick up the missing piece.

Pimpin' my own Lego store.....

Any true Lego geek would have headed right over to BrickLink to pick up the missing piece.

Pimpin' my own Lego store.....

Ritvik makes mega bloks. However, their site is very very useless. You can get them at Toys R Us, but I would suggest that you go to a local toy store (try one of the independant stores) and see if you can get them to order them in bulk?

I have no idea how these blocks are sold, so YMMV.

Lego also makes (or used to make) very large foam lego bricks. They show up on ebay and bricklink.com sometimes.

And after typing this entire post, i reread yours and saw that you were looking for 2 INCH by 4 INCH blocks... in that case what you probably want is Duplo, made by lego. look at lego's catalog.

Forgive me if this post is incoherent, I really should go to bed right now.

Check out Brick Link and pick whatever you want. It used to be called BrickBay.

Most of the collections on there are pretty large, and prices are usually reasonable. Everyone there tallies their collection by size and color. So if you want to buy 100 black 2 x 4's, you can.

Bricklink