What's a Haul?
A haul is any time we obtain a new load of Lego - it's usually a large amount, and it could be at any one time, or from any one location - but we'll use this page to chronicle some of the best "hauls" we've ever had, and to thank the folks that made them possible!
We tag all our Instagram photos #haulinandballin (a common AFOL hashtag) as well as #legohaul - if yould like to see our photos that way.
We tag all our Instagram photos #haulinandballin (a common AFOL hashtag) as well as #legohaul - if yould like to see our photos that way.
2017
1/17/17: Two Local Pickups
Total cost: $30
After being contacted by local families, Kristie and Kaedin took a road trip to Woolwich, Mays Landing & Atco. One family had two great bins of all Lego they offered us for $30, two families GAVE us thier unused Lego...(We are SO grateful) despite having a good amount of non-Lego mixed in, we were thrilled to add to our donation bin going to Ashland Church.
This led to our bringing home 77 lbs of Lego, and 39 lbs of "fake lego" that will be donated.
In this bulk, we identified: The Scooby Doo mansion, several Harry Potter sets including the purple Knight Bus, a really cool old set that folds up inside a box that doubles as a street, several bionicals, and several Star Wars sets. There were about seventy minifigures (most were disassembled).
1/11/17: Kristie's Birthday & Lego Batman Movie Promo Event Total Cost: $34 On the 9th, we were told by a Lego Store Employee about the upcoming event, so on my birthday, at 4pm, we stopped at the Lego store. We ended up helping families feel out Batman blind packs, and we bought the new Creator Beach house. Kaedin and I also scored the Batman Batwing polybag, and Kaedin and I both did the Batman Poly scavenger hunt and got that free polybag. Most importantly, we scored four free passes to see the Batman movie a week early (Feb 4th) and posters, plus we met the characters in minifig suits! |
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2015
05/08/15: A Gift from a friend-of-a-friend Total Cost: $FREE
We met up with a friend-of-a-friend online after he contacted us about Kaedin's project. Ben met Kaedin and I are out local Rita's and he gave Kaedin several construction sets. Kaedin was really excited and couldn't wait to get home to build them - thanks so much Ben!
05/02/15: Lego Elves Total Cost: $10
Shortly after the Lego Elves series came out - I totally fell in love with them. I loved the new colors, the jewel tons, as well as many of the unique designs and cool printed pieces Lego was releasing. I'm always happy to find a parent who has Lego their kids no longer play with, and thats exactly how we scored these two complete, brand-new Lego sets that had never even been put together.. for just $10.
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05/01/15: Yard Saling Total Cost: $1
When I'd be up to it - I would love to go to yard sales looking specifically for Lego. It's always really hit or miss. Sometimes you find nothing special, other times I'd find all kinds of goodies, CHEAP. This day, I handed out slips of paper with our Lego Project information on it, and found a few Lego books for just $1. |
04/27/15: Toys R Us Trip: Collectible Minifigures Total Cost: $89
We found two series of CMF's at Toys R Us on sale and took the opportunity to stock up on them and a few sets
that were on sale too. This is a photo of Kaedin at home, digging into our purchase.
04/26/15: Super Heros Lot (online) Total Cost: $20
Just after Easter in 2015, we made a deal online to purchase the Joker steamroller, a set
Kaedin had been asking for, for a long time. We were able to make a really good deal for an
entire collection of sets, all for just $20.
03/20/15: The Massive Star Wars Collection Total Cost: $FREE
On March 19, 2015, we got a phone call from a woman who offered us her grown son's Lego collection. He was a big Lawyer in the NYC area and she was moving the next day. Her offer was for his entire collection - six large tupperware bins - all at no charge. The catch was that we would have to drive over an hour (one way) to go and pick them up that night because she didn't want to have to load them onto her moving truck, taking up space for the trip. We agreed - not having any idea how many bins there were or how much Lego she was talking about. At the time she had described it as "A lot of Star Wars lego stuff" but she said there were "multiple boxes" - we didn't realize that she had anywhere NEAR as much as they did. We arrived to find the tubs sitting on the top of their driveway and we peaked inside before loading them, one after another, into our truck. They filled up every possible seat in the vehicle including the trunk.
What was insane was that when we got home and actually opened up the containers, we realized what an insane haul this actually was. Inside those bins were HUNDREDS of Star Wars lego sets, mostly disassembled, but all complete. Not only were there dozens of early Star Wars ships- there were also SEVENTEEN of the Ultimate Collector Series Star Wars Lego ships and models. It floored us. I called the woman back immediately and told her that we couldn't accept such a valuable collection at no charge - but she insisted that both she and her son knew what they were worth and that they didn't want to take the time to sort the ships back out, to reassemble anything that had come apart, and that they were happy to share the collection with the next generation of Lego lovers. There's a photo of me down below, in the middle of unpacking this huge collection in our kitchen.
We are SO GRATEFUL for this incredible gift.
In those bins were the following:
75095: TIE Fighter
75060: Slave I (Since then, we got a second one)
75059: Sandcrawler (Since then, we got a second one)
10240: Red Five X-wing Starfighter
10236: Ewok Village (Since then, we've gotten two more of these.)
10227: B-Wing Starfighter
10225: R2-D2
10221: Super Star Destroyer
10215: Obi-Wan's Jedi Starfighter
10212: Imperial Shuttle (Since then, we got a second one)
10188: Death Star
10186: General Grievous
10179: Ultimate Collector's Millennium Falcon
10175: Vader's TIE Advanced
10174: Imperial AT-ST
10143: Death Star II
10134: Y-wing Attack Starfighter
On March 19, 2015, we got a phone call from a woman who offered us her grown son's Lego collection. He was a big Lawyer in the NYC area and she was moving the next day. Her offer was for his entire collection - six large tupperware bins - all at no charge. The catch was that we would have to drive over an hour (one way) to go and pick them up that night because she didn't want to have to load them onto her moving truck, taking up space for the trip. We agreed - not having any idea how many bins there were or how much Lego she was talking about. At the time she had described it as "A lot of Star Wars lego stuff" but she said there were "multiple boxes" - we didn't realize that she had anywhere NEAR as much as they did. We arrived to find the tubs sitting on the top of their driveway and we peaked inside before loading them, one after another, into our truck. They filled up every possible seat in the vehicle including the trunk.
What was insane was that when we got home and actually opened up the containers, we realized what an insane haul this actually was. Inside those bins were HUNDREDS of Star Wars lego sets, mostly disassembled, but all complete. Not only were there dozens of early Star Wars ships- there were also SEVENTEEN of the Ultimate Collector Series Star Wars Lego ships and models. It floored us. I called the woman back immediately and told her that we couldn't accept such a valuable collection at no charge - but she insisted that both she and her son knew what they were worth and that they didn't want to take the time to sort the ships back out, to reassemble anything that had come apart, and that they were happy to share the collection with the next generation of Lego lovers. There's a photo of me down below, in the middle of unpacking this huge collection in our kitchen.
We are SO GRATEFUL for this incredible gift.
In those bins were the following:
75095: TIE Fighter
75060: Slave I (Since then, we got a second one)
75059: Sandcrawler (Since then, we got a second one)
10240: Red Five X-wing Starfighter
10236: Ewok Village (Since then, we've gotten two more of these.)
10227: B-Wing Starfighter
10225: R2-D2
10221: Super Star Destroyer
10215: Obi-Wan's Jedi Starfighter
10212: Imperial Shuttle (Since then, we got a second one)
10188: Death Star
10186: General Grievous
10179: Ultimate Collector's Millennium Falcon
10175: Vader's TIE Advanced
10174: Imperial AT-ST
10143: Death Star II
10134: Y-wing Attack Starfighter
03/14/15: Our first Internet Trade Total Cost: $FREE
Not long after we learned about the huge population of Lego fans online, we joined some Facebook Lego groups. There, we got involved in several trades, and it's REALLY exciting when your packages arrive in the mail. This was our first trade, in which we traded several collectible minifigures for other standard figures and a few small sets - we mostly traded things we had multiples of, for things we didn't have yet. This was our first trade with Kelly Siness - a popular Lego collector on facebook.
03/12/15: The Vintage Legos (from the 1970's) Total Cost: $FREE
One of the coolest things we've ever been gifted was a large lot that was given to us back in March, 2015. It was early in our collecting, but a family contacted us and offered us the toys they'd been passing down from generation to generation that were mostly sitting in a box in their garage, forgotten about until they saw our "In Search of Legos" post online. The woman offered for us to go pick up the entire box and warned me that it would be heavy- I was shocked at just how much awesome old Lego she had! We got some truly unique pieces, including some great baseplates, an old cypress tree (to this day we haven't SEEN a single other one) and many really cool pieces from the old Fabuland pieces and figures. The best part of the whole thing was that she didn't want to take any money for them - she was just happy to see them go to a really good home where they would be played with again.
One of the coolest things we've ever been gifted was a large lot that was given to us back in March, 2015. It was early in our collecting, but a family contacted us and offered us the toys they'd been passing down from generation to generation that were mostly sitting in a box in their garage, forgotten about until they saw our "In Search of Legos" post online. The woman offered for us to go pick up the entire box and warned me that it would be heavy- I was shocked at just how much awesome old Lego she had! We got some truly unique pieces, including some great baseplates, an old cypress tree (to this day we haven't SEEN a single other one) and many really cool pieces from the old Fabuland pieces and figures. The best part of the whole thing was that she didn't want to take any money for them - she was just happy to see them go to a really good home where they would be played with again.
03/15/15: The Long Beach Island bucket
Total Cost: $FREE
One of the most UNLIKELY places we found Lego was on a board about memories surrounding Long Beach Island - our family had a shore house down there back when I was just a new-born baby and I have a few memories of spending the summers there when I was just barely learning to walk and talk. Among those on the L.B.I. Facebook group, somehow children came up in conversation, and subsequently Lego - which is when I shared with folks the link to our Facebook page for the Lego project.
A lovely woman reached out and said that her grown son (whose name was Chris) said that she was pretty sure that she still had her son's Lego collection lying around and that she'd ask him if he would be willing to give it to me for Kaedin. Sure enough, Chris was happy to part with the Lego, knowing that they'd be going to a new home that would really enjoy them, and we drove down Rt 70 to meet with the family on their way to visit L.B.I. from where they now live (In Pennsylvania). They dropped off this big bucket (it's bigger than it looks!) with 21 lbs of GREAT Lego inside. We were pleasantly surprised to find so many minifigures in there- and tons of Harry Potter and Star Wars - all things we'd assumed that Chris would have been too old to play with, but as it turns out, he didn't START collecting until his late teens.
The bucket ended up being a really great addition to our collection and it was really neat to meet a family whose extended family lived just down the street from the area where my grandparents had stayed every summer. They also helped spread the word that we were looking for Lego, which led to us being contacted by several other families who had Lego they wanted to sell or give away - it was SO nice to meet that family!
3/11/15: Caveat Emptor: The Worst Buy I Ever Made.
Total Cost: $350
It was about a year into purchasing second-hand Lego when I made this AWFUL, awful mistake. I had been advertising on local Yard-sale sites, looking for people who had Lego that their families were no longer using. I was getting to the point where most of my purchases had been under $100, and I was really enjoying all the sorting and exploring and finding all the great things that were inside each lot that we'd purchase - I was starting to get more brave and excited to branch out - to make a bigger buy. That was when I came across a woman named Michelle who was advertising a "HUGE LOT" of Lego that she was selling before she moved.
Her ad said that her family had SIXTY THREE pounds of Lego, and she proudly displayed a HUGE heavy-duty tote on wheels, filled to the brim. When I contacted her with questions about what kind of Lego she had in that bin, she sent me photos of a PILE of Lego boxes, neatly stacked in a toy closet- and those sets held a TON of promise. There were many Harry Potter sets, including the largest set in the collection: Hogwarts. There were also a bunch of superhero / Marvel comic sets, some Star Wars sets, a bunch of city Police & Fire sets and more.
Her ad said that the bin was "packed full of great sets, with tons of minifigures and special parts and pieces" - she did say that she couldn't say for sure that any of the sets were 100% complete - but normally when people say that it's because sets have been built and torn down, most likely by their children - and that they were all kept together in a large bin, so you simply can't guarantee that every last piece is there, and that makes sense, but typically when people say that there are sets mixed together, it means that the MAJORITY of those set pieces are there.
This is how things went down: This woman offered to meet at her place of work in Mount Laurel, NJ. She was late arriving, and I sat in my car waiting for a response, and began getting nervous that she wasn't going to show up - but eventually she did come out of the building. She told me that she had been given her break early that day and so she didn't have very long - basically giving me the impression that she had to get back inside to her job very quickly. In hindsight, I wonder if this was actually part of her plan. She had me pull next to her SUV, and said that she would lift the bin into my vehicle (which, at over 60 lbs, I can't do, due to my serious health condition). She did struggle with the huge bin, and it was one of the largest bins I've ever seen - it was one of those extra-heavy duty bins that looks like you could drop it off the back of a moving truck without damaging the contents. She opened the bin, and I looked inside - from what I could see, everything appeared to be real Lego (no Megablocks, etc) and so after just a few moments of peering at the top of the bin, I handed over $350 - she thanked me and darted back inside.
It wasn't until she had already gone inside that it occurred to me that she had said (in her ad) that she had quite a bit of Lego manuals to go along with the bin, but she didn't answer me back when I texted her -and I presumed that she simply had forgotten to include them and since she had returned to work, she wasn't able to answer my message, and I figured I would catch up with her before her family moved in order to get that. Ooooh... how wrong I would be!
Everything went wrong from the moment I got home. I opened my trunk and thought I would take a look at the bin before asking my husband to come out and help me bring it inside - but when I took the lid off, I quickly realized that the bin was NOT as heavy as I expected - as a matter of fact - it was quite a bit LESS heavy that I expected. Despite my severe joint problems, I was able to pull the bin to the edge of my SUV's trunk area, and lower it to the ground. I became really anxious about what I'd just bought and my husband immediately brought the bin inside. I pulled the baseplates that were laying face-down on the surface of the bin off, and put them aside, and dug my hands into the bin - and two things IMMEDIATELY struck me....
First - I noticed that the Lego in the bin was NOT clean. Taking a quick look at the top of the bin, nothing appeared to be terribly out of order, but as soon as I disrupted the top surface of the bin, I noticed quite a few pieces of trash - gum wrappers, a battery, a STICKY popsicle stick, and what I thought was a wad of doll-hair.... before I could even cringe at the garbage- barely two inches into the digging-I hit a solid object!
After washing my hands and grabbing a pair of latex gloves, I dug back in - quickly finding what my hand had hit JUST below the surface of the loose Lego - I uncovered a Lego-set box that had been burried just below the surface. I pulled the box out and the ENTIRE level of Lego in the bin dropped by about 6" - what had LOOKED like a really FULL bin of Lego was QUICKLY looking a lot more empty! Inside the box was the missing Lego set manuals - but a quick comparison to the sets boxes that she'd advertised and I realized that very few of the desirable sets had instruction books - certainly NOT the Hogwarts or other Harry Potter sets, as a matter of fact - NONE of the big, expensive or licensed Lego sets had instructions in the box.
As I kept digging through - I kept finding MORE and MORE garbage mixed in with all the dirty and disgusting Legos - I grabbed a plastic trash can, put a fresh bag in it, and started collecting all the garbage that I picked out of the lot. It was SO GROSS - I found multiple food wrappers, more chunks of HUMAN hair and several hair-ties and barettes filled with hunks of hair- multiple dirty bandaids, rusty bent nails, balled-up TISSUES, hunks of candy, CRUMBS, even a CRUST from a sandwich. I was SO grossed out and HORRIFIED.
I texted the woman - I could barely keep my cool, but I was SO nice, considering how completely disgusted I was. I asked her if she knew what had been spilled on the Legos, because I was looking for the best way to remove it - that was the first thing I said to her, because along with all the garbage, it appeared that someone had dumped an entire bottle's worth of sticky liquid - presumably cola - all over the bin. There were huge hunks of lego that had been glued together by this substance - and then was coated in CRUMBS and HAIR which had stuck to all the filth. The woman DID actually reply back stating that her ad said that they were "her kid's Legos" and that they were in "played with" condition - but jesus christ - these were not PLAYED WITH - these bricks looked like they'd been left in the bottom of a dumpster and scooped out after years only to be sold! Even the baseplates which had been lying face-down - when flipped, they were COVERED with sticky liquid and filth!
It was pretty clear that the woman had ZERO concern over the condition of the Lego she'd sold me, and the more I dug through - the more disgusted I got. By this time, a second trash can had joined the first - this one for all the NON-LEGO items I was finding - lincoln logs, Barbie shoes, matchbox cars, nerf darts, playing cards, dice, Happy Meal toys, GI Joes, board game pieces and Monopoly money, paper clips, ROCKS, rusty twisted nails, several batteries including two that had EXPLODED and were completely covered in BATTERY ACID. The more I threw into the trash cans, the more angry I got - I kept finding Megablocks and K'Nex and Kreeo - despite the fact that both her AD and her words in conversation had ASSURED me that there was NOTHING in that bin but QUALITY Lego-brand Lego - and she was SO CLEARLY full of crap.
I decided that I was going to separate everything in FIVE plastic trash cans and bins, so that in the end, I could find out how much Lego was ACTUALLY in that disgusting bin. The bins were to hold these five categories:
-TRASH & any items that were NOT building-bricks
- Non-Lego brand building-bricks
- Lego Manuals
- Lego Bricks
- Lego Minifigures
I figured that by pulling out all of the Lego minifigures, I would be able to tell if ANY of the Lego sets that she had photographed in her ad, were ACTUALLY there. There were many highly identifiable figures that should be in the bin, so I would know right away if there was no Harry Potter, no Star Wars, etc... but I was FAR more angry than I would have though... because by the time I got to the VERY bottom of the bin (at 3:30 in the morning!) - I'd uncovered a total of JUST TWELVE MINIFIGURES. I went online, looked up all of the instruction manuals for the sets she'd advertised as having - and I counted up a total of 77 minifigures in JUST THOSE SETS ALONE - and mind you, she'd said that there were MORE sets than she'd shown me boxes for. But all in all - there were just TWELVE minifigures, all of which were disassembled - missing heads, accessories, hair, arms, hands, etc. And of course, everything was filthy. So now I know that those "complete sets" she claimed to be selling me - absolutely WERE NOT.
Then I decided to enrage myself - I knew that even if I'd weighed that bin AS-IS - it wasn't going to weigh 63 lbs. There was supposed to be SIXTY THREE POUNDS OF LEGO in the bin - but even if she'd counted the weight of the huge heavy-duty bin, I would have let that slide. But NOPE. When all was said and done, there was just THIRTY ONE POUNDS of Lego brick.
There was TWELVE POUNDS of fake-brick - that is, building block that LOOKS a bit like Lego but that is made by companies OTHER than LEGO. This was DESPITE the fact that the seller had SWORN that there was no more than a "handful" of parts that weren't Lego-made in her kid's collection. She made it a point to even tell me that when a relative had purchased non-Lego for a holiday, she'd returned it in favor of an ACTUAL Lego set. And let's be real - I always EXPECT to find a few handfuls, and being completely honest- I most definitely would let that slide. Hell - i would have even let slide several pounds of the stuff, so long as they were disclosed. But to hear directly from her that this was ALL LEGO - and then to find out that there was TWELVE POUNDS of fake brick, and only THIRTY ONE POUNDS of actual Lego - that's not even CLOSE to 63 lbs of Lego. Hell, that's still TWENTY POUNDS SHY of the 63 lbs advertised.
So how did she come up with 63 lbs? Well - the big plastic bin with it's huge, heavy-duty hinged lid, and thick-walled sides made to be mostly indestructable - that was THIRTEEN pounds right off the bat. So she only needed FIFTY pounds worth of stuff to get to the total, right?
I already told you that the real Lego and fake stuff totaled 43 lbs - so that's still seven pounds off of the mark. And what made up the 7 lbs?
The SODA and TRASH that was mixed in with all of the disgusting, filthy brick.
The next day, I reached out to her and confronted her with what I'd found. I explained that I was NOT happy about how misleading her advertising was- how misleading I felt that she'd been in discussing the quantity and quality of what she was selling me, and how we needed to make it right - I asked her if she knew where any of the missing minifigures were, and if she would returned them - I assumed that she had either knowingly allowed her children to keep the minifigures - or she'd sold them separately - but either way, I wasn't going to let it go without asking her for them. Hell - that Hogwarts set, complete and with the box, was (at the time) worth well over $300 by itself - making her $350 price-tag a good one.
As I dug through that filthy mess and found SO LITTLE of the figures needed to complete the sets - I was really battling with weather or not cleaning the 31 lbs of Lego was even possible OR worth it. Taking advice from AFOLs online, I soaked the Lego in Oxiclean in our bathtub - in the end, it took THREE WEEKS of scrubbing those bricks with TOOTHBRUSHES and oxyclean - using bleach and hydrogen peroxide to soak parts that were stained, throwing away badly broken or damaged pieces and again and again submerging the laundry bags full of brick, again and again - running them through the dishwasher's hottest settings to truly sanitize them.
My EXTREMELY polite messages to Michelle offered two options - Either she was to meet us, provide us with the majority of the missing minifigures and a partial refund (I asked for just HALF of our money back - $175) - OR, she was going to meet us a provide us with a COMPLETE refund and she could have the entire bin back. Having photographed all the damage, filth, and all the trash and fake-brick I'd removed, if she decided that she was going to take it all back, my intention was to dump everything back into the bin together - including all SEVEN POUNDS of actual GARBAGE. But of course - Michelle's answer was this: "You had the opportunity to look at the bin before you bought it. I told you these were toys and I never claimed they were in great, clean condition. Toys get dirty, because kids play on the floor, and stuff falls on the floors - you can't control some pet hair or crumbs" - this lady was CLUELESS if she actually thinks that people live in homes filthy enough to contribute so much filth to a bin of Lego - that she could think that this much disgusting garbage, food and drink crumbs and residue.
I truly can not begin to imagine what this woman's home must have looked like if just dumping Lego onto the floor in order to play with them, resulted in so much filthy garbage winding up in the bin along with the toys - I shuddered to think about how many rodents and bugs would live in those conditions, and then I became surprised that I hadn't actually encountered dead bugs or rodent droppings in with the Lego.
And Michelle's response to my VERY polite request - in which I was firm - in stating that her ad had said that she was selling SIXTY THREE pounds of Lego and that in reality, she only sold me 31 lbs - I explained about all of the OTHER garbage that was mixed in - I told her about just how much work I'd already done to sort out everything, and that it was going to take a GREAT DEAL more work before these bricks would be safe for ANYONE to play with or even just handle... and Michelle's reply was that I could "GO TO HELL" - and that I should "GO F$@^ MYSELF" - that she was keeping the $350 - because I had given it to her having "inspected" the product and that made it HER money.
We ended up taking our complaint to the police department, who agreed that she had committed fraud. We filed a complaint, included photos and information for the judge and they said that the judge would have to make a call on weather or not there was enough probably cause to charge her with fraud for what she'd done - but long story short - New Jersey is absolutely deplorable in how they handle crime... which is to say that they basically DONT - the police officer who took our case apologized profusely, agreeing that he too would have been LIVID to have been ripped off and that he fully believed we had a solid case - but that judges in New Jersey basically decline to prosecute just about anything. He even went on to tell us that he'd seen dozens of rape cases - ones with DNA evidence - not just "he said/ she said" cases, that were declined for prosecution - and that if the state won't even arrest rapists with clear-cut evidence - that sadly there just isn't anything that is going to happen to scumbags like Michelle. He did suggest that we could spent $60 and file in small claims civil court, because she would probably not show up, and we'd get a default judgement. Unfortunately though - we had very little information about Michelle - just her first and last name as it appeared on Facebook, and it apparently wasn't actually her LEGAL name - that made it really difficult to find out her home address and other information that we needed in order to sue her. In the end - we walked away, furious, having learned an important lesson - and I have never been so careless in making a purchase since.
Buying Lego is REALLY hard - you really can't dig through Bulk Lego when you buy it - not thoroughly anyway - so it's really difficult to know what all is there, and what condition it's in. In the end - if you're going to spend money that you'd be really upset to loose - make sure that you can take a look - in person - at the items spread out on a large sheet, so that you can easily see things - like how much non-lego is mixed in, and you could easily notice if the 77+ minifigures you should have are mostly there- or NOT.
Please- learn this lesson from me - don't ever blindly trust someone just because they are a woman, a parent, or because they are meeting you at their job - all of those things led me to believe that this woman was being honest with me - in the end, that $350 bin of Lego - once thoroughly cleaned, was probably worth all of $100, without all of those important sets and with almost none of the minifigs. It was a BIG loss for us, and one that I will NOT forget easily!
Total Cost: $350
It was about a year into purchasing second-hand Lego when I made this AWFUL, awful mistake. I had been advertising on local Yard-sale sites, looking for people who had Lego that their families were no longer using. I was getting to the point where most of my purchases had been under $100, and I was really enjoying all the sorting and exploring and finding all the great things that were inside each lot that we'd purchase - I was starting to get more brave and excited to branch out - to make a bigger buy. That was when I came across a woman named Michelle who was advertising a "HUGE LOT" of Lego that she was selling before she moved.
Her ad said that her family had SIXTY THREE pounds of Lego, and she proudly displayed a HUGE heavy-duty tote on wheels, filled to the brim. When I contacted her with questions about what kind of Lego she had in that bin, she sent me photos of a PILE of Lego boxes, neatly stacked in a toy closet- and those sets held a TON of promise. There were many Harry Potter sets, including the largest set in the collection: Hogwarts. There were also a bunch of superhero / Marvel comic sets, some Star Wars sets, a bunch of city Police & Fire sets and more.
Her ad said that the bin was "packed full of great sets, with tons of minifigures and special parts and pieces" - she did say that she couldn't say for sure that any of the sets were 100% complete - but normally when people say that it's because sets have been built and torn down, most likely by their children - and that they were all kept together in a large bin, so you simply can't guarantee that every last piece is there, and that makes sense, but typically when people say that there are sets mixed together, it means that the MAJORITY of those set pieces are there.
This is how things went down: This woman offered to meet at her place of work in Mount Laurel, NJ. She was late arriving, and I sat in my car waiting for a response, and began getting nervous that she wasn't going to show up - but eventually she did come out of the building. She told me that she had been given her break early that day and so she didn't have very long - basically giving me the impression that she had to get back inside to her job very quickly. In hindsight, I wonder if this was actually part of her plan. She had me pull next to her SUV, and said that she would lift the bin into my vehicle (which, at over 60 lbs, I can't do, due to my serious health condition). She did struggle with the huge bin, and it was one of the largest bins I've ever seen - it was one of those extra-heavy duty bins that looks like you could drop it off the back of a moving truck without damaging the contents. She opened the bin, and I looked inside - from what I could see, everything appeared to be real Lego (no Megablocks, etc) and so after just a few moments of peering at the top of the bin, I handed over $350 - she thanked me and darted back inside.
It wasn't until she had already gone inside that it occurred to me that she had said (in her ad) that she had quite a bit of Lego manuals to go along with the bin, but she didn't answer me back when I texted her -and I presumed that she simply had forgotten to include them and since she had returned to work, she wasn't able to answer my message, and I figured I would catch up with her before her family moved in order to get that. Ooooh... how wrong I would be!
Everything went wrong from the moment I got home. I opened my trunk and thought I would take a look at the bin before asking my husband to come out and help me bring it inside - but when I took the lid off, I quickly realized that the bin was NOT as heavy as I expected - as a matter of fact - it was quite a bit LESS heavy that I expected. Despite my severe joint problems, I was able to pull the bin to the edge of my SUV's trunk area, and lower it to the ground. I became really anxious about what I'd just bought and my husband immediately brought the bin inside. I pulled the baseplates that were laying face-down on the surface of the bin off, and put them aside, and dug my hands into the bin - and two things IMMEDIATELY struck me....
First - I noticed that the Lego in the bin was NOT clean. Taking a quick look at the top of the bin, nothing appeared to be terribly out of order, but as soon as I disrupted the top surface of the bin, I noticed quite a few pieces of trash - gum wrappers, a battery, a STICKY popsicle stick, and what I thought was a wad of doll-hair.... before I could even cringe at the garbage- barely two inches into the digging-I hit a solid object!
After washing my hands and grabbing a pair of latex gloves, I dug back in - quickly finding what my hand had hit JUST below the surface of the loose Lego - I uncovered a Lego-set box that had been burried just below the surface. I pulled the box out and the ENTIRE level of Lego in the bin dropped by about 6" - what had LOOKED like a really FULL bin of Lego was QUICKLY looking a lot more empty! Inside the box was the missing Lego set manuals - but a quick comparison to the sets boxes that she'd advertised and I realized that very few of the desirable sets had instruction books - certainly NOT the Hogwarts or other Harry Potter sets, as a matter of fact - NONE of the big, expensive or licensed Lego sets had instructions in the box.
As I kept digging through - I kept finding MORE and MORE garbage mixed in with all the dirty and disgusting Legos - I grabbed a plastic trash can, put a fresh bag in it, and started collecting all the garbage that I picked out of the lot. It was SO GROSS - I found multiple food wrappers, more chunks of HUMAN hair and several hair-ties and barettes filled with hunks of hair- multiple dirty bandaids, rusty bent nails, balled-up TISSUES, hunks of candy, CRUMBS, even a CRUST from a sandwich. I was SO grossed out and HORRIFIED.
I texted the woman - I could barely keep my cool, but I was SO nice, considering how completely disgusted I was. I asked her if she knew what had been spilled on the Legos, because I was looking for the best way to remove it - that was the first thing I said to her, because along with all the garbage, it appeared that someone had dumped an entire bottle's worth of sticky liquid - presumably cola - all over the bin. There were huge hunks of lego that had been glued together by this substance - and then was coated in CRUMBS and HAIR which had stuck to all the filth. The woman DID actually reply back stating that her ad said that they were "her kid's Legos" and that they were in "played with" condition - but jesus christ - these were not PLAYED WITH - these bricks looked like they'd been left in the bottom of a dumpster and scooped out after years only to be sold! Even the baseplates which had been lying face-down - when flipped, they were COVERED with sticky liquid and filth!
It was pretty clear that the woman had ZERO concern over the condition of the Lego she'd sold me, and the more I dug through - the more disgusted I got. By this time, a second trash can had joined the first - this one for all the NON-LEGO items I was finding - lincoln logs, Barbie shoes, matchbox cars, nerf darts, playing cards, dice, Happy Meal toys, GI Joes, board game pieces and Monopoly money, paper clips, ROCKS, rusty twisted nails, several batteries including two that had EXPLODED and were completely covered in BATTERY ACID. The more I threw into the trash cans, the more angry I got - I kept finding Megablocks and K'Nex and Kreeo - despite the fact that both her AD and her words in conversation had ASSURED me that there was NOTHING in that bin but QUALITY Lego-brand Lego - and she was SO CLEARLY full of crap.
I decided that I was going to separate everything in FIVE plastic trash cans and bins, so that in the end, I could find out how much Lego was ACTUALLY in that disgusting bin. The bins were to hold these five categories:
-TRASH & any items that were NOT building-bricks
- Non-Lego brand building-bricks
- Lego Manuals
- Lego Bricks
- Lego Minifigures
I figured that by pulling out all of the Lego minifigures, I would be able to tell if ANY of the Lego sets that she had photographed in her ad, were ACTUALLY there. There were many highly identifiable figures that should be in the bin, so I would know right away if there was no Harry Potter, no Star Wars, etc... but I was FAR more angry than I would have though... because by the time I got to the VERY bottom of the bin (at 3:30 in the morning!) - I'd uncovered a total of JUST TWELVE MINIFIGURES. I went online, looked up all of the instruction manuals for the sets she'd advertised as having - and I counted up a total of 77 minifigures in JUST THOSE SETS ALONE - and mind you, she'd said that there were MORE sets than she'd shown me boxes for. But all in all - there were just TWELVE minifigures, all of which were disassembled - missing heads, accessories, hair, arms, hands, etc. And of course, everything was filthy. So now I know that those "complete sets" she claimed to be selling me - absolutely WERE NOT.
Then I decided to enrage myself - I knew that even if I'd weighed that bin AS-IS - it wasn't going to weigh 63 lbs. There was supposed to be SIXTY THREE POUNDS OF LEGO in the bin - but even if she'd counted the weight of the huge heavy-duty bin, I would have let that slide. But NOPE. When all was said and done, there was just THIRTY ONE POUNDS of Lego brick.
There was TWELVE POUNDS of fake-brick - that is, building block that LOOKS a bit like Lego but that is made by companies OTHER than LEGO. This was DESPITE the fact that the seller had SWORN that there was no more than a "handful" of parts that weren't Lego-made in her kid's collection. She made it a point to even tell me that when a relative had purchased non-Lego for a holiday, she'd returned it in favor of an ACTUAL Lego set. And let's be real - I always EXPECT to find a few handfuls, and being completely honest- I most definitely would let that slide. Hell - i would have even let slide several pounds of the stuff, so long as they were disclosed. But to hear directly from her that this was ALL LEGO - and then to find out that there was TWELVE POUNDS of fake brick, and only THIRTY ONE POUNDS of actual Lego - that's not even CLOSE to 63 lbs of Lego. Hell, that's still TWENTY POUNDS SHY of the 63 lbs advertised.
So how did she come up with 63 lbs? Well - the big plastic bin with it's huge, heavy-duty hinged lid, and thick-walled sides made to be mostly indestructable - that was THIRTEEN pounds right off the bat. So she only needed FIFTY pounds worth of stuff to get to the total, right?
I already told you that the real Lego and fake stuff totaled 43 lbs - so that's still seven pounds off of the mark. And what made up the 7 lbs?
The SODA and TRASH that was mixed in with all of the disgusting, filthy brick.
The next day, I reached out to her and confronted her with what I'd found. I explained that I was NOT happy about how misleading her advertising was- how misleading I felt that she'd been in discussing the quantity and quality of what she was selling me, and how we needed to make it right - I asked her if she knew where any of the missing minifigures were, and if she would returned them - I assumed that she had either knowingly allowed her children to keep the minifigures - or she'd sold them separately - but either way, I wasn't going to let it go without asking her for them. Hell - that Hogwarts set, complete and with the box, was (at the time) worth well over $300 by itself - making her $350 price-tag a good one.
As I dug through that filthy mess and found SO LITTLE of the figures needed to complete the sets - I was really battling with weather or not cleaning the 31 lbs of Lego was even possible OR worth it. Taking advice from AFOLs online, I soaked the Lego in Oxiclean in our bathtub - in the end, it took THREE WEEKS of scrubbing those bricks with TOOTHBRUSHES and oxyclean - using bleach and hydrogen peroxide to soak parts that were stained, throwing away badly broken or damaged pieces and again and again submerging the laundry bags full of brick, again and again - running them through the dishwasher's hottest settings to truly sanitize them.
My EXTREMELY polite messages to Michelle offered two options - Either she was to meet us, provide us with the majority of the missing minifigures and a partial refund (I asked for just HALF of our money back - $175) - OR, she was going to meet us a provide us with a COMPLETE refund and she could have the entire bin back. Having photographed all the damage, filth, and all the trash and fake-brick I'd removed, if she decided that she was going to take it all back, my intention was to dump everything back into the bin together - including all SEVEN POUNDS of actual GARBAGE. But of course - Michelle's answer was this: "You had the opportunity to look at the bin before you bought it. I told you these were toys and I never claimed they were in great, clean condition. Toys get dirty, because kids play on the floor, and stuff falls on the floors - you can't control some pet hair or crumbs" - this lady was CLUELESS if she actually thinks that people live in homes filthy enough to contribute so much filth to a bin of Lego - that she could think that this much disgusting garbage, food and drink crumbs and residue.
I truly can not begin to imagine what this woman's home must have looked like if just dumping Lego onto the floor in order to play with them, resulted in so much filthy garbage winding up in the bin along with the toys - I shuddered to think about how many rodents and bugs would live in those conditions, and then I became surprised that I hadn't actually encountered dead bugs or rodent droppings in with the Lego.
And Michelle's response to my VERY polite request - in which I was firm - in stating that her ad had said that she was selling SIXTY THREE pounds of Lego and that in reality, she only sold me 31 lbs - I explained about all of the OTHER garbage that was mixed in - I told her about just how much work I'd already done to sort out everything, and that it was going to take a GREAT DEAL more work before these bricks would be safe for ANYONE to play with or even just handle... and Michelle's reply was that I could "GO TO HELL" - and that I should "GO F$@^ MYSELF" - that she was keeping the $350 - because I had given it to her having "inspected" the product and that made it HER money.
We ended up taking our complaint to the police department, who agreed that she had committed fraud. We filed a complaint, included photos and information for the judge and they said that the judge would have to make a call on weather or not there was enough probably cause to charge her with fraud for what she'd done - but long story short - New Jersey is absolutely deplorable in how they handle crime... which is to say that they basically DONT - the police officer who took our case apologized profusely, agreeing that he too would have been LIVID to have been ripped off and that he fully believed we had a solid case - but that judges in New Jersey basically decline to prosecute just about anything. He even went on to tell us that he'd seen dozens of rape cases - ones with DNA evidence - not just "he said/ she said" cases, that were declined for prosecution - and that if the state won't even arrest rapists with clear-cut evidence - that sadly there just isn't anything that is going to happen to scumbags like Michelle. He did suggest that we could spent $60 and file in small claims civil court, because she would probably not show up, and we'd get a default judgement. Unfortunately though - we had very little information about Michelle - just her first and last name as it appeared on Facebook, and it apparently wasn't actually her LEGAL name - that made it really difficult to find out her home address and other information that we needed in order to sue her. In the end - we walked away, furious, having learned an important lesson - and I have never been so careless in making a purchase since.
Buying Lego is REALLY hard - you really can't dig through Bulk Lego when you buy it - not thoroughly anyway - so it's really difficult to know what all is there, and what condition it's in. In the end - if you're going to spend money that you'd be really upset to loose - make sure that you can take a look - in person - at the items spread out on a large sheet, so that you can easily see things - like how much non-lego is mixed in, and you could easily notice if the 77+ minifigures you should have are mostly there- or NOT.
Please- learn this lesson from me - don't ever blindly trust someone just because they are a woman, a parent, or because they are meeting you at their job - all of those things led me to believe that this woman was being honest with me - in the end, that $350 bin of Lego - once thoroughly cleaned, was probably worth all of $100, without all of those important sets and with almost none of the minifigs. It was a BIG loss for us, and one that I will NOT forget easily!
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03/09/15: Thanks Jennifer & Kathy!
Total Cost: $FREE
Sometimes when folks contact us about Lego - they hesitate to reach out because they think we are only looking for HUGE bins of lego or that we want complete sets or fancy parts - but we're just as happy to get the standard, generic bricks that are the foundation of building anything out of Lego - so when Jennifer and Kathy said they had a "small bucket" of Lego, but that it was ours free if we came to get it - we assured them that ANY amount of Lego is GREAT... especially when you're willing to give it away.
We hope this serves as a reminder - you don't have to have a ton of Lego in order to make a difference. We didn't drive very far, and the bucket didn't take up much space, but none of that mattered.
These two women wanted to help us with our Lego project and they did JUST that - and we're VERY thankful that they did.
03/07/15: Our HUGE Batcave & Dino Attack Haul
Total Cost: An UNBELIEVABLE $25
For a LONG time - this was my bragging lot. This was the HUGE score that I told every adult Lego fan that I met ALLLL about - because I was floored about how it happened. First of all - a woman had called me out of the blue, having seen one of my online "In search of " Lego ads, which was awesome. She told me that her sons had "Some Lego" and that they had been pretty big fans, but that they hadn't touched any of the Lego they had in a while and that she was ready to get all the dusty sets off their shelves and out of the bedrooms and boxed up to go. She asked me for a week to get everything together, and then lined up a date with me. For the second time in a month, I hadn't been given a price - just this photo that she took after she'd gathered all the Lego from around her house.
I was REALLY excited when I saw all those bins and boxes - but even MORE excited when an adult collector friend of mine saw the retired Batcave (the box at the very top of the stack) and he recognized the set number. He also pointed out the large Dino Attack helicopter (also complete with the box). He told me that both of them were retired sets and desirable ones at that - he actually offered to buy the Batcave set before I'd even gone to pick them up!
When I arrived at the seller's house, I figured with it being so close to our home (she was less than eight minutes from my house) that if worse came to worse & she was asking more than I could afford, I didn't have far to go home; but she definitely was prepared that I would be leaving their Legos.
That much was clear because when I rang her doorbell, she and her husband met me at the door, with a stack of Lego boxes in hand. She'd barely gotten the door open when she asked for just TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS for everything - and I'm sure my JAW dropped open at that point. She was basically just giving them to us. She and her husband VERY kindly helped to carry out everything and they loaded up the backseat AND trunk of my Toyota Rav4. I was COMPLETELY floored at what had just happened and as I drove away... my car completely loaded with Lego - I was practically SQUEELING with glee.
The one bin (in the photo, it's on the top of the stack on the floor, with a green lid) had lots of already constructed sets & ships - but the others bins were FILLED with loose brick from broken down sets - and there were DOZENS of really GREAT large, highly collectible, highly desirable, all-retired sets - and the first thing my son wanted to do was when I got home was for us to build that Batcave: and we did!
Inside that white tote bag in the picture, the seller had included all of the instruction manuals for all of the sets as well - and even more exciting, all of the sets were complete - not even a single minifigure was missing.
In the end - there was EASILY $1000 worth of sets - and that was their ORIGINAL retail value - not even accounting for the fact that there were lots of really great retired sets that had really gone UP in value. This was my FAVORITE haul for a long time, and it's still one that I think back about - both gratefully and fondly. I really, genuinely enjoyed every thing about this lot -and it's one of the best collections we've ever bought. My son STILL considers that Batcave to be one of the best sets he's ever had.
Inside that white tote bag in the picture, the seller had included all of the instruction manuals for all of the sets as well - and even more exciting, all of the sets were complete - not even a single minifigure was missing.
In the end - there was EASILY $1000 worth of sets - and that was their ORIGINAL retail value - not even accounting for the fact that there were lots of really great retired sets that had really gone UP in value. This was my FAVORITE haul for a long time, and it's still one that I think back about - both gratefully and fondly. I really, genuinely enjoyed every thing about this lot -and it's one of the best collections we've ever bought. My son STILL considers that Batcave to be one of the best sets he's ever had.
03/07/15: Cherry Hill Craig's List Minifigures
Total Cost: $16
A young kid had listed his Lego minifigures on Craig's list, and being so close, I decided to go pick them up even though he didn't include any pictures with his ad. As it turns out, it really was a fourteen year old kid who's dad had been willing to post the ad for him - and his dad let us do the transaction while overseeing, but without getting involved, which I really respected.
Originally, he'd been asking $1 per figure ($47) - and I was under the impression that these were CMFs - or Collectible Minifigures from the series of figures that Lego sells twice a year - but instead, they were common figures from popular set lines like Pirates, City, Star Wars, etc. So when I got there and got to look through them, it turns out that he had Megablocks and other non-lego figures mixed in and counted as part of the total. I told him that we had several options -and that if he was stuck on getting $1 each, that I was going to pass on the lot - but if he was willing to work with me on the price, I'd still take them. I gave him the option to keep all the fakes, in case he wanted to sell them separately, but he ended up giving them to me for free (I told him we'd be donating them to a local school, and he was happy about that). He really enjoyed meeting my son and they had a lot in common - and I think that was part of the reason he ended up coming down so much on the price.
All in all, I ended up picking up 39 real figures, and 8 fake ones - and paid just $16 - which was the price that HE asked for. (I don't like to haggle, and I CERTAINLY wasn't going to haggle with a kid!)
03/07/15: The Jersey-Shore Craig's List Buy
Total Cost: $200
High off of a couple of REALLY great buys, I went, full of wonder and excitement to meet an older woman who was selling a "huge" collection belonging to her son. Everything about the lot ended up being "Meh." It looked good on the surface - despite it looking much bigger in the picture she'd put on Craig's list (where she'd spread everything out to make it all visible) - the lot fit into one standard size 35 Gallon tub. She had separated all of the minifigs, animals and minifig accesories out, which was nice - and all the baseplates were on top - but once I started to dig in, it was clear that while I hadn't TECHNICALLY overpaid - it felt like a big hit after the last few amazing lots that I'd landed.
None of her sets were complete - all the Lego that was mentioned in the ad was there - she wasn't dishonest at all, but there wasn't anything MORE, either. There were some cool mid-to-late 90's sets like the Atlantis sets , there were a couple of nice molded baseplates, some castle sets, an Adventurers set that came with a cool Indian Temple and the first Lego Elephant I'd ever seen, plus some 9V train track as well as and a few other interesting goodies - but all in all, I felt like this was $200 I wouldn't go back and spend again if given a second chance. There was too much non-lego & too much generic brick that probably came from basic buckets.
The entire thing was also punctuated when I started finding Tyco and Megablocks bricks mixed throughout the bulk Lego that was down inside the bin - it would have been impossible for me to tell without taking out everything in the parking lot and going through it - and since everything on top was Lego, I didn't think I needed to question, but it seemed pretty intentional that the fake-stuff was hiding down inside the bin. There was also a handful of K'nex AND a few of the baseplates weren't Lego. Lesson learned. :-(
All in - there was probably all of 200 pieces that weren't Lego, but it just added more sour to a buy that was already underwhelming. It didn't help when I went inside the thrift store where I'd met up with the seller, only for her to explain that this WASN'T her son's Lego - but rather, she buys and re-sells Lego that she finds and cleans up. That was the moment when I realized that I wanted to avoid re-sellers at all costs. She'd probably picked up the bin for $20 at a yard sale and flipped it on me for $200. This was one lot that I really didn't want to tell my husband about - I was THAT disappointed about it.
Total Cost: $200
High off of a couple of REALLY great buys, I went, full of wonder and excitement to meet an older woman who was selling a "huge" collection belonging to her son. Everything about the lot ended up being "Meh." It looked good on the surface - despite it looking much bigger in the picture she'd put on Craig's list (where she'd spread everything out to make it all visible) - the lot fit into one standard size 35 Gallon tub. She had separated all of the minifigs, animals and minifig accesories out, which was nice - and all the baseplates were on top - but once I started to dig in, it was clear that while I hadn't TECHNICALLY overpaid - it felt like a big hit after the last few amazing lots that I'd landed.
None of her sets were complete - all the Lego that was mentioned in the ad was there - she wasn't dishonest at all, but there wasn't anything MORE, either. There were some cool mid-to-late 90's sets like the Atlantis sets , there were a couple of nice molded baseplates, some castle sets, an Adventurers set that came with a cool Indian Temple and the first Lego Elephant I'd ever seen, plus some 9V train track as well as and a few other interesting goodies - but all in all, I felt like this was $200 I wouldn't go back and spend again if given a second chance. There was too much non-lego & too much generic brick that probably came from basic buckets.
The entire thing was also punctuated when I started finding Tyco and Megablocks bricks mixed throughout the bulk Lego that was down inside the bin - it would have been impossible for me to tell without taking out everything in the parking lot and going through it - and since everything on top was Lego, I didn't think I needed to question, but it seemed pretty intentional that the fake-stuff was hiding down inside the bin. There was also a handful of K'nex AND a few of the baseplates weren't Lego. Lesson learned. :-(
All in - there was probably all of 200 pieces that weren't Lego, but it just added more sour to a buy that was already underwhelming. It didn't help when I went inside the thrift store where I'd met up with the seller, only for her to explain that this WASN'T her son's Lego - but rather, she buys and re-sells Lego that she finds and cleans up. That was the moment when I realized that I wanted to avoid re-sellers at all costs. She'd probably picked up the bin for $20 at a yard sale and flipped it on me for $200. This was one lot that I really didn't want to tell my husband about - I was THAT disappointed about it.
3/07/15: The Woodbury Dino-Score!
Total Cost: $35
There are those times when you're asking if anyone has Lego they no longer need- and you get responses where people say "oh yeah - my family has TONS - you can have all of it!" - and then you go to pick it up, and you find out that they had a single bucket of brick from the early 90's - or worse, you get a bucket of k'nex with a handful of Lego mixed in...
And then there are THESE hauls. When the mother called me and told me that she had "some Lego" for me, and said "Come and take a look and we can discuss the price" - I was a bit nervous. I don't have endless cash, and I'd actually bought a pretty decent amount of Lego recently, so this entire haul couldn't have been MORE shocking.
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First of all - I get there (Woodbury, NJ) and mom meets me at the door with a canvas bag in hand - which I originally thought was going to be "the Legos" - but instead, it was a HUGE stack of instruction books, including nearly every single Lego-Dino theme set that Lego had made. Then, she led me inside, where she showed me two BIG plastic tubs that weighed at least forty pounds each - and that's when she gave me the big news. She was "really hoping to get" just *thirty five dollars.*
After catching my breath, I paid her - and then we had to get her older son to help carry the HUGE bins out and load them into my car. I paid less than $.50 a lb for REALLY clean, really complete Lego, and EVERY SINGLE SET that she had the book for, was present, in the bins, complete. There were hundreds of minifigures - all of the Dinos were in tact - it was probably my first truly AMAZING haul. |
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03/16/15: The Blue Bin of Bulk
Total Cost: $25
On a local yard sale site, we found a mom in Deptford NJ who'd collected all the Lego she could from her son's bedroom, their playroom and all over the rest of the house after threatening him multiple times to pick it all up himself - she put it up for sale for $25, which I jumped on. There were a lot of great bits and pieces in this lot, and the entire lot ended up costing us such a tiny amount considering that there was almost 35 lbs in total - plus a decent amount of baseplates. We didn't get any instructions with this lot, but there were more than fifty (common) minifigs in there, and i'm NEVER going to complain about a good deal on minifigs!
3/05/15: Our First Great Friends Lot
Total Cost: $20
I had bought a bunch of Friends sets at Target and the Lego store - so I was completely flabbergasted to find this lot of Friends for $20 just around the corner from my house in Berlin, NJ. The family said their daughter had been "really into them" for a little while and then completely lost interest. It was crazy to me - because all the sets in the lot had not been out for very long, and there was EASILY $400 worth of brand new sets, plus, they actually kept ALL the manuals.
I was a little worried when I got there and picked up a cardboard box off the porch - pieces were falling out of the bottom and I was like - "Oh hell... god only knows how much is going to be missing" - but after applying pressure to prevent "bleeding" -and breaking out the handy duct-tape I keep in the car, I think we kept the hemorrhaging to a minimum. I was really excited to get the pool, Stephanie's house and the Riding Academy - but it's funny to look back at this lot... because now I have at LEAST a dozen of each of those sets, and I'm no longer surprised by how many families buy a TON of Lego friends for their daughters, only to toss them out mere months later.
Total Cost: $20
I had bought a bunch of Friends sets at Target and the Lego store - so I was completely flabbergasted to find this lot of Friends for $20 just around the corner from my house in Berlin, NJ. The family said their daughter had been "really into them" for a little while and then completely lost interest. It was crazy to me - because all the sets in the lot had not been out for very long, and there was EASILY $400 worth of brand new sets, plus, they actually kept ALL the manuals.
I was a little worried when I got there and picked up a cardboard box off the porch - pieces were falling out of the bottom and I was like - "Oh hell... god only knows how much is going to be missing" - but after applying pressure to prevent "bleeding" -and breaking out the handy duct-tape I keep in the car, I think we kept the hemorrhaging to a minimum. I was really excited to get the pool, Stephanie's house and the Riding Academy - but it's funny to look back at this lot... because now I have at LEAST a dozen of each of those sets, and I'm no longer surprised by how many families buy a TON of Lego friends for their daughters, only to toss them out mere months later.
1/21/15: 80 lbs of 80's, 90's & Lego Sports sets
Total Cost: $30
So, early on, we did a lot of hunting on Craig's List. The key was that you had to be online CONSTANTLY - because often times, any good deals on Lego would be bought up seconds after they were posted. We were lucky to catch someone in central Jersey, that had a big bin of Lego - almost 80 lbs, and most of it was class 80's and early 90's Lego, and a lot of sports sets, including this complete soccer stadium set. It was my first introduction to Lego Sports -we also got a snowboarder half-pipe set and a downhill skiiing set as well - and for a while, Kaedin was VERY into playing soccer with anyone and everyone he could rope into giving it a shot.
We had sorted all of our lego by color up until the point where we brought home this huge bin of Lego, and that was when we realized we were going to need a MUCH better system -and we started breaking down the brick into types that we would eventually use for the model for our entire collection. We also got most of the books with the sets - so all in all - it was a GREAT early haul.
Total Cost: $30
So, early on, we did a lot of hunting on Craig's List. The key was that you had to be online CONSTANTLY - because often times, any good deals on Lego would be bought up seconds after they were posted. We were lucky to catch someone in central Jersey, that had a big bin of Lego - almost 80 lbs, and most of it was class 80's and early 90's Lego, and a lot of sports sets, including this complete soccer stadium set. It was my first introduction to Lego Sports -we also got a snowboarder half-pipe set and a downhill skiiing set as well - and for a while, Kaedin was VERY into playing soccer with anyone and everyone he could rope into giving it a shot.
We had sorted all of our lego by color up until the point where we brought home this huge bin of Lego, and that was when we realized we were going to need a MUCH better system -and we started breaking down the brick into types that we would eventually use for the model for our entire collection. We also got most of the books with the sets - so all in all - it was a GREAT early haul.
1/21/15: Newark, DE A fellow EDSer offered us her family's Lego Collection
Total Cost: $Free
A big thank you to Jena, a girl I met through the EDS support groups online. She had offered me her family's Lego collection - she wasn't able to track down most of the Lego that they ultimately had, but she did come up with this OLD set (from the 70's) which was complete in the box, which is always a REALLY neat thing to find. We have a handful of these early sets with their boxes, and I hope to one day have a beautiful display area in order to display a museum of Lego - including lots of these really great classic Town-Plan sets.
1/21/15: Newark, DE A fellow EDSer offered us her family's Lego Collection
Total Cost: $Free
A big thank you to Jena, a girl I met through the EDS support groups online. She had offered me her family's Lego collection - she wasn't able to track down most of the Lego that they ultimately had, but she did come up with this OLD set (from the 70's) which was complete in the box, which is always a REALLY neat thing to find. We have a handful of these early sets with their boxes, and I hope to one day have a beautiful display area in order to display a museum of Lego - including lots of these really great classic Town-Plan sets.
It's also really exciting when you find sets, intact (especially still in their original box) that have set numbers that are only three digits long. This set (#733) is really unique and has a great crane piece, lots of real metal bits in their wheels and moving parts - and even the box isn't in bad shape considering that these were Lego that were really cherished and played-with!
Plus... if I've said it once - I've said it a million times.... there's NOTHING better than Free Lego! It was really cool to get to meet her and her mom at their beautiful home in Delaware. EDS is still classified as rare- although it's much more likely that it's just incredibly under-diagnosed, under-researched and misunderstood -but it's always nice to meet others who are going through the same things you are. It validates you, it reinforces your choices, and its great to talk to other people who truly understand how you struggle on a day-to-day basis.
Plus... if I've said it once - I've said it a million times.... there's NOTHING better than Free Lego! It was really cool to get to meet her and her mom at their beautiful home in Delaware. EDS is still classified as rare- although it's much more likely that it's just incredibly under-diagnosed, under-researched and misunderstood -but it's always nice to meet others who are going through the same things you are. It validates you, it reinforces your choices, and its great to talk to other people who truly understand how you struggle on a day-to-day basis.
1/11/15: Christiana, DE Lego Store - My Birthday Modular
Total Cost: $395
For my birthday, Kaedin and I took a road-trip, 45 minutes away to the Christiana, Deleware Lego store, where I bought my first ever modular building, the Detective's Office. We brought it home and built it right away. One of the other sets I'd been dying to get my hands on, was the new City Center set - which we also snagged that day - funny enough - it's January 2017 as of the time I'm writing this, and I still haven't opened the set to put it together!
Along with that big purchase, I got the free Flower-cart Poly-bag, which was a give-away at the time. Since we'd made the trip to Delaware, we also bought the "slice of Birthday Cake" small boxed set. We also scored some pick-a-brick cups and a bunch of the build-a-minifigure three-packs.
11/11/14: Our First Local Haul! Police & Fire Lego Sets
Total Cost: $150
We found a local woman who had many 2009-2011 Police and Fire sets that her son was no longer playing with, and she was willing to sell them. (We found her on a local Facebook yard sale site). We had looked through Craig's list first, but found that most people were selling only complete sets and that they were asking prices close to new / retail, so we decided to go the yard-sale page route, which worked out nicely.
We met up with the woman at the Echolon Mall, in the parking lot by Boscovs- and she loaded the big box full of sets into our truck. In that first bulk purchase, we got a VERY big cardboard box filled with dozens of completely built sets, which would be a Christmas gift for Kaedin. As you can see, he was very excited to open it on Christmas Morning.
Total Cost: $150
We found a local woman who had many 2009-2011 Police and Fire sets that her son was no longer playing with, and she was willing to sell them. (We found her on a local Facebook yard sale site). We had looked through Craig's list first, but found that most people were selling only complete sets and that they were asking prices close to new / retail, so we decided to go the yard-sale page route, which worked out nicely.
We met up with the woman at the Echolon Mall, in the parking lot by Boscovs- and she loaded the big box full of sets into our truck. In that first bulk purchase, we got a VERY big cardboard box filled with dozens of completely built sets, which would be a Christmas gift for Kaedin. As you can see, he was very excited to open it on Christmas Morning.
How it all began...
The Evans Family Lego Project basically started right before Christmas in November 2015. It was the first time I started looking for second-hand Lego to add to our collection. I really wanted to get what we had, organized, and so I pulled out all of my childhood lego bricks and began to sort and organize the collection. Prior to November 2015, we had about 140 lbs of Lego, total, and all of the sets we had were bought from stores, or, on a rare occasion, we had bought a few retired sets on ebay (I cringe now thinking about what I spent on some of them!)
Kaedin was four years old- Kristie had just been diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome in 2012, and was adjusting to life without her Law Enforcement career. She'd just ended thirteen years of working in animal rescue as well, giving up both due to her health. Kaedin was showing early signs of EDS - random hives caused by Mast Cell, loose joints that would click, pop and slide.
Kaedin was just beginning to get interested in Lego. I would build everything and he would play with it until it broke apart - and then we'd start over. Kaedin loved Lego from the very beginning, but he wasn't old enough to understand the building process. We DID figure out early-on that he didn't like Duplo, so we went right for the good-stuff. The rule was... as long as nothing goes in your nose or mouth, you can play with Mommy's Lego collection. Only a few of my most special pieces (including the first "hovercraft" I built when I was three years old - it's still shelved in our bedroom - safe and sound!
Kaedin was four years old- Kristie had just been diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome in 2012, and was adjusting to life without her Law Enforcement career. She'd just ended thirteen years of working in animal rescue as well, giving up both due to her health. Kaedin was showing early signs of EDS - random hives caused by Mast Cell, loose joints that would click, pop and slide.
Kaedin was just beginning to get interested in Lego. I would build everything and he would play with it until it broke apart - and then we'd start over. Kaedin loved Lego from the very beginning, but he wasn't old enough to understand the building process. We DID figure out early-on that he didn't like Duplo, so we went right for the good-stuff. The rule was... as long as nothing goes in your nose or mouth, you can play with Mommy's Lego collection. Only a few of my most special pieces (including the first "hovercraft" I built when I was three years old - it's still shelved in our bedroom - safe and sound!
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Our Collection 2014 and before...
2013 was really when I started to come out of my Lego "Dark Ages" (that's the time period in one's life that Lego falls out of priority - it's usually sometime in late childhood and goes on until sometime in adulthood when one's love of Lego. In 2013, Kristie spent a lot of time in the hospital, and decided that Lego would be a great way to pass some of that time. We bought two Christmas sets that year, what would be the first of our Christmas collection.
Mid-2013, when Kaedin was was just two years old, Justin and I stumbled across boxes of older series Minifigures on clearance at Walmart - they were marked down to $.97 - I kick myself now for not just buying the entire box, but at least we bought ALL of the series 3 and series 5 & 7 figures really cheap. (They are normally $2.99 - $5.00 each, depending on where and when you get them.)
Mid-2013, when Kaedin was was just two years old, Justin and I stumbled across boxes of older series Minifigures on clearance at Walmart - they were marked down to $.97 - I kick myself now for not just buying the entire box, but at least we bought ALL of the series 3 and series 5 & 7 figures really cheap. (They are normally $2.99 - $5.00 each, depending on where and when you get them.)
On February 7, 2014, the Lego Movie Premiered. That was really the spark that set-off our interest in collecting Lego Minifigures - it was the first series that we went out and bought, and it was when I learned to feel the packages (Lego minifigures are sold in blind-bags, so the only way to know what you're getting, is to feel the packages, identify the parts with your fingers, and line that up with what characters are in the set - that way you don't end up with a bunch of doubles and you can be sure to buy a complete sets.
Kaedin, his daddy and I went to see our first movie as a family of three - and it was both Kaedin's first movie AND his first 3-D movie. We were impressed that he sat through the whole thing. The day after the movie opened, we went to Toys R Us for a free build of Emmet's car. We also bought all the Lego Movie series Minifigures, and I helped hundreds of other kids and parents get the minifigures they wanted.
Kaedin won a raffle... and though we were disappointed that he didn't win any of the big Lego Movie sets- we had no idea how awesome that little raffle prize would be. That was the day that won the stuffed animal that would end up becoming his bestest friend in the whole world - Lego Bunny. It's a small, red, stuffed bunny that is made in the image of the Duplo logo - the line of larger Lego bricks for young kids. Kaedin won the bunny, and from that day forward, he has never gone on any trip or slept without his "Lego Bunny" at his side.
Kaedin named his stuffed Lego bunny "Uncle Jon" (The bunny was named after Kristie's Sergeant at the Sheriff's Office where she used to work - Jon had helped her out early in her pregnancy, and Kaedin loved to hear stories about their adventures at work before he came along.) Years later, Kaedin announced that his Lego bunny was actually a girl, but her name never changed. That's how we ended up with a girl bunny named Uncle Jon. Eventually - after we had a scare / missing bunny emergency - a second bunny (Uncle Jon's cousin) Robbie, came to live with us as well.
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