AIBU to sort mixed crate of Lego back into sets?

[BackAche21]

So my children are past the age of Lego and this big crate of the stuff was knocking about our tiny house getting in the way and gathering dust. So I decided to do something about it, and looking at the adjacent box of old instructions I embarked on the task of sorting kilos of the stuff back into their individual sets thinking maybe I could resell and claw back some of my ~£600 investment in plastic bricks. That was clearly, definitely unreasonable but I started anyway. That's not my AIBU question.

I started on Lego sorting 3 weeks ago. I just finished. But out of ... counting ... 25 ziplock bags of Batman, Friends, City, Harry Potter and Ninjago there's only one that is complete. Worse than that, I now have 24 sets, each one with a list of the missing Lego pieces and their code numbers.

(Let me say here that I left a really good job 2 years ago to become an unpaid carer, so I have a lot of time and anxiety to chew through every day).

My question: AIBU to continue with this madness and seek buyers for incomplete kits? Or should I put them into the loft for my children to deal with after I've died (hopefully some decades from now)?

Lego will send you blocks missing from sets. I think it's free (maybe you pay postage) I've done it before and don't even think I had to prove sale.

Personally I would carry on sorting them out, there's always someone who would be interested in each genre you have, if you're prepared to put time Into selling them on eBay or similar. I collect Harry Potter Lego's and will buy incomplete, but only if priced accordingly.

You can also offer the whole lot to independent Lego businesses, like Bricklink and see if they'll take it all off your hands. Often prices are per kilo regardless of the genre though, but might be worth asking esp if you want to use your time elsewhere

https://www.lego.com/en-gb/pick-and-build/pick-a-brick?ef_id=CjwKCAiA3JCvBhA8EiwA4kujZnEvFV2n86U5adQSUwV2nPtSVcJvGJgOi66kWoElNp93cTWeeFYX8hoCqj0QAvD_BwE%3AG%3As&s_kwcid=AL%21933%213%21675988700144%21b%21%21g%21%21lego+pick+a+brick%2120617975117%21153795026546&cmp=KAC-INI-GOOGEU-GO-GB_GL-EN-RE-PS-BUY-CREATE-LEGO_GENERAL-SHOP-ThInt-MM-ALL-CIDNA00000-PICK_A_BRICK&gad_source=1 You can buy the missing bits here

I’d have given up after about 15 minutes! The thing is, Lego has moved from being a creative toy to being an exercise in following instructions and trying to see things in 3D. I saw an app the other day where you scan a box of Lego and the app suggests something that can be made from the pieces it sees.

If they are desirable sets it may be worth trying to sell with the missing bits listed , if they are common it’s probably more profitable to sell as a job lot . Have a look at selling sites and see what stuff is going for . We don’t sell our Lego but have some very valuable kits that are no longer in production but they are mainly adult / teen things so I’m not sure about city / friends etc . Our loft is full of it .

I would have sorted too! Yanbu

Will the bits turn up eventually around the house or have they gone up the hoover etc?

Think there's a market in incomplete sets too as long as it isn't the key parts that are missing.

Yes, you can definitely request replacement parts from The Lego website. Not sure whether you have to pay, but think they would be inexpensive.

This is what I did when I wanted to sell ds's Lego but this was about 14 years ago now.

Well done, I have just embarked on this this afternoon 😭so following with interest…

How many bricks are you missing? Lego will send you missing bricks (but only useful of there are only a few missing, rather then half a set).

I'd sort them out. When you're selling them just say there's a couple of parts missing. My friend is a Lego enthusiast & missing blocks are just part & parcel of buying used second hand sets. He has so much stuff the chances are whatever part is missing hell have & if not it gives him an excuse to go to the Lego shop

It's worth persevering. He bought a mixed set for £100 on FB. Spent a day sorting it out & ordering missing parts & ended up with about £800 of sets.

If you mainly got sets from the supermarket in the past decade or so, you might be better selling as they are although they won't get much.

If you have things like Ninjago 70751 Temple of Airjitsu, Harry Potters 4709 (Hogwarts Castle from 2001) it's well worth rebuilding them and maybe getting any odd missing bits.
Google the set numbers (on the instruction books) and you'll see how much each goes for so you can decide what you want to do.

The replacement bricks are meant to be for sets you have just opened and found a missing piece when initially building the set, not for bits your kids lost in the past few years so you should be charged, but as long as it's not rare pieces you are missing they aren't that expensive.

If you got around 25 sets for about £600, they are probably not worth getting the bits for, especially if they are just City, Friends, Police, Fire or Hospital sets.

Depending what sets they are, it is very worth sorting as they're worth a chunk when they retire (again - depending on the set)

Have a look at bricklink - put the set number in the search box and have a look at recent set price sales - they have new and used prices.

You can also buy/make a list of missing pieces on there and they will bring up sellers that stock the pieces. There is a way to see if they are sold by the same seller as well which will cut postage costs.

If you can complete the set it'll be worth it when selling on :)

But there will be people out there who will buy part sets if they have lots of spare parts and can complete them themselves.

Have a look as well at the facebook group "Lego (R) - sell it want it swap it"

Helpful bunch and a good platform to sell through as well - they may be able to advise, especially if you have a list of the missing pieces done by set!

Lego will send replacement pieces. You need a set of instructions so you know which pieces to order. They charge pennies for them plus postage.

You can sell them for more if you have the original boxes and instructions but you can print out instructions from internet if you know name/number of each set

Well I didn't expect this response! All practical tips and encouragement when there was me expecting to be mocked and shamed. Thanks so much everyone.

Just sell it to an online company by the weight.

I am genuinely impressed that you had the patience to do that. Don't quit now.

My husband did this in lockdown- sorted out so many sets and made a good amount selling them on eBay. Good luck!

Op I'm 55 and I've just started to buy myself Lego sets again.....the madness never ends 😂😂😂

I also have boxes and boxes of the stuff from my sons.... they are older teen-ager now so not so much loss

Me and OH did this when our son went to Uni! Took ages to sort out, but there were only a few misses pieces per set and we either put in alternatives (i.e. a different colour) or ordered missing bits from the lego website.

Got some decent money from Ebay, especially for the collectables like Indiana Jones, Minecraft, and Atlantis. Did exceptionally well with a couple of radio control train sets and virtually got our money back with the Lego Robotics set.

The generic ones like City police, fire, refuse sets didn't generate much revenue, but still worth selling for a few quid after fees and postage. For the smaller sets, i.e. individual vehicles, lighthouse, etc we put them in small bundles and sold as bundles of 2,3 or 4, including the multi sets, i.e. 3 different models made out of the same box.

Having the original boxes and instruction booklets well preserved certainly helped to sell them and get decent money. Also helped that we made our son look after it all carefully, i.e. put it all back in the huge storage chests between uses, so I don't think there'd have been much lost or vacuumed. He never left it out strewn over the floor!

For the really small stuff that wasn't worth selling on Ebay, we just gave the boxed sets to the charity shop.

In the end, we ended up with a small box of odds and sods, presumably "extras" from the sets as there was usually 1 or 2 extras in the bags. Sold that as an "odds and sods" job lot on ebay too!!

We're now officially a lego-free house.

@taxguru you are a class above! Congrats on smashing the Lego/ebay challenge. I am nowhere near your level. I had thought we had looked after our Lego pretty well but every set (bar one) has 5-15 pieces missing, and a few quite well chewed too. I blame my son's oral fixation. Or my husband's inclination to lob things in the bin. Or my poor loft management.

Thanks, it was all about getting our son to look after it all the bits and put them away after use, even if "putting it away" was just chucking them into the storage boxes as it was. At the same time, I religiously put instructions back in boxes after the set was made and stored them neatly in the loft, so they were basically "as new" when the time came to get them down again.

The only real "damage" as such that we faced was faded bricks from made up sets which were left out for lengthy periods on the window ledge, fireplace, etc. as lego does seem to fade quite easily. Ebay buyers didn't seem to mind that and we were honest on listings about substitute bricks and fading etc.

It's what we've done with all his toys from a young age, i.e. kept the boxes, and kept them in good condition as we always planned to sell them on as he grew out of things, so if you start with that mindset, you can keep things stored and organised properly from day 1 which does make it a lot easier when the time comes to sell.

What I would say is to order any lost parts asap as the Lego site seems to go out of stock of some special pieces a few years after production stops, so if you don't get on in there and order the special/rare pieces, you could end up with not getting them at all and having sets that aren't complete with pretty important missing parts. The individual bits are pretty cheap and if you buy all you need in one go, the postage cost is bearable.

I buy Lego sets from eBay as it’s cheaper and I can get sets my kids what but are no longer available. Every time there are bits missing, I build them all up or at least organise the bits and hope I have the missing parts in our own Lego…. This year we didn’t but I could but them from brinklink or owl bricks…something like that! So yes you can sell how they are or you can complete them and sell them easier! I’m the idiot who doesn’t read the small print!

Taxguru. Wow!

What would you have done if you had my DS?! He read every instruction book so much it fell apart, as in he would take them to bed and just look and look at them repeatedly! We take Lego and playmobil and everything else into garden or down the beach to create scenes and play. When we got to my mums I go back down memory lane playing with my old Lego and toy sets with my kids. I love it. I’m not a hoarder I’ll keep certain things for future generations. I hope your kid gets to play with their toys. I had a cousin who wasn’t allowed to undress her Barbie’s. Kind of pointless?! I do love buying spotless toys from eBay though ….even if I worry about the poor kid who never played!