This is a 100% true story. Many years ago, I had moved for work and was living with a friend going through a messy divorce, he was living in one of their homes- and was a bachelor after 30 odd years of marriage. Between that and his depression- it was a mess. Someone broke in one day while we were gone. In the House were precision tools, expensive stuff- hundreds of thousands of dollars worth. Classic car parts and keys, computers, electronics, and parts- there were guns, antiques, art, at least $10,000 cash, and it was a NICE house- 20+ LED recesses lights back when LED lights for homes were $100+ and you had to order them from specialty companies for labs and movies/photography etc. $400+ wall sconces in every room, world class flatware and silver ware and kitchen accouterments and appliances. Power tools and hand tools worth tens of thousands of dollars, passports, identity documents, I mean- it was a gold mine- that’s without my collectibles or my 2 rooms full of Lego.
So we come home. Realize there has been a break in. Get frantic. And.... whoever broke in- they cleaned the house. That’s it. They dusted. They tidied up. They organized and did the dishes and folded laundry. If they took ANYTHING besides taking out the trash- we never noticed. Neither of us called a cleaner. No bill was ever sent, no fliers or cards left. We asked anyone we knew who MIGHT for some reason have decided to hire a Cleaner for us- no one admitted it. To this day we don’t know who cleaned the house. They even made the beds. It was odd sleeping in a made bed not knowing who made it or why that night.
It was hired maids. It's actually a stupid occurrence. I'm 99% sure we've already gone over this. All they did was mistake the address and found an unlocked door.
2 rooms of Lego? Damn, have you ever done a piece count? Just what I have displayed is 100k pieces and that's maybe a fourth of what I have... but it doesn't come close taking over a room; a single wall with the right shelves would work... although I'd have to be building vertically and not horizontally. Ooooh... interesting concept; what if I start building shelves out of bricks themselves? It would provide the dots horizontally so accidentally knocking the shelf wouldn't lead towards a shatter.
lol. At one point I was building mundane items and shelves and such with bricks for a little. But I wanted to free up my bricks. I used to build cities and various displays- holiday stuff, an entire fantasy kingdom... I did a piece count but I no longer recall the number- I had to inventory when I sold. I recall I had 122 or so dwarves in the dwarf kingdom (mostly poly bag dwarfs from the mini figs collections) and something like 200 odd orks in the ork lands. Fantasy, space, and town were my largest collections dating back to the very first Lego sets. I had a lot of 80’s, early 90’s and mid/late 2000’s. Lots of stuff and many duplicates. Maybe 100 or so sets still new in box? 4 Black pearls, 2 opened, a couple ork mountain strong holds- one still sealed in box... some star destroyers
(I usually bought Star Wars only for the pieces. Wasn’t a fan so much of those- and I didn’t use flesh tone minifigs so there were some figure parts I could keep- but most of the licensed figures I’d sell or part out.)
It was pretty freakin huge. I was collecting Lego most of my life and had kept all my childhood Lego- every single one- so I never had to “start over” like many people do. I’d buy sets on clearance, at yard sales, swap meets- anywhere there was a good deal, and lots of bricks from Lego store or ordered from Denmark. They once lost an almost $700 order of bricks in shipping- and then just sent me another one. Then- later the original showed up! I called and told them- but since it was an order from the factory they couldn’t restock it and said to keep it. And they sent a gift card as an apology for the “trouble”!
Someday I’ll probably regret selling them. Some days I do already. But- it took up ALOT of space, and sorting and such was a huge time sink- and I have too many hobbies and too much work- so I decided I’d better sell them to someone who would use them more. Found a nice couple who bought them and wanted to build- most buyers when I sold were guys running stores who just wanted to flip them.
GODDAMN 4 black pearls? XD And yeah, dude that 91? was it? Spaceship that went with the moon monorail, that shit's one of the best sets of all time.
And yeah, LEGO's customer service is some of the best I've ever encountered, I literally asked them if they could just round up my VIP points as a joke and they were like," yeah man, that makes sense."
Lol. Sounds like them. Amazing company. Amazing product. The space monorails were awesome. Early 90’s space was so cool. Magnetron, Black Tron, Space Police 1, Spyrians, and icr planet? I never fully liked the pinkish red “glass” of their theme- but the color scheme was dope, the visors (re used through the years in different colors or modified molds) were amazing and ground breaking- so many new and awesome pieces came out at that time- many around still or modified version around.
The hinges looked much cleaner for canopies and “bay door” panels- but they weren’t as strong as the newer hinges and used tension only to hold, no detents so as they age they tend to get floppy, they couldn’t really bear weight, and they broke easily. The magnetic pieces and couplers were awesome. Pulled for safety reasons. I liked those a lot- you could do awesome things with them.
2 pearls I bought for killer deals at discount retailers- 1 was mislabeled on price and one was marked to crazy clearance. The other 2 I paid full retail- but teamed the buy with points/gift promo events. One of the things I would do a lot- especially with licensed sets (since I don’t like “flesh tone” minifigs and can’t use the hands/heads/often torsos...) is at least back then- with minifig prices and demand-
You could buy sets and sell the mini figs and usually you’d get the set for only a few bucks- but often you’d get it free. Rarely you could MAKE money- especially if there were some rare bricks in the set that you sell too. The minifigs from big collectible sets were often worth big money since 1. Collectors want to keep them 2. People playing with sets want to keep them because they are cool, and 3. Many people don’t want to pay the huge up front for the set- but don’t mind paying 10,20 even 50% it’s value for 1 figure. So buying a couple sets with rare pieces and high value figures would let you basically get twice the bricks minus a few minifigs and pieces for the price of one.
Sometimes I’d buy a set just because it had many rare pieces or a bunch of pieces I need lots of the same piece- and on analyzing the cost to buy by the brick vs. buy the whole set- the set or multiple sets to get the number of a specific element I needed for something, worked out to a better deal.
One of my favorite grabs (besides the complete in box with instructions and stickers on the sheet- just no minifigs) Star Destroyer I got for like $1 (or $6? I don’t recall anymore) at a garage sale since the ladies kid just wanted the figures and the star destroyer looked too hard- one of my other favorites...
I went to Kmart or something. They had these city theme police wagon sets that retail at $20. They were marked some stupid price like $6 so I grabbed a bunch and went to the register. Well- it scanned as $20. I told my girlfriend at the time who was with me to discreetly go run and get every single one they had- and put them in the cart then return. I let the cashier continue checking- and the gf returned and plopped them on the conveyor- and I told the cashier those too. My bill was huge. I said “that isn’t right. Why is it so much?” The cashier looked puzzled.
Cut to the chase- they had a store policy that items that scan wrong are free of under $5 and discounted if over that or some crap- and I like many retailers nowadays... it didn’t say “on the first item that scanned wrong...”
The manager came out and first they did that- just the first one. We had words on that and they did it to all of them. Ok. But they took the discount off the $20. I pointed out that they were not $20. They were $6 or whatever. The sticker was on the shelf plain as day and I took a picture too. They went and checked of course- and after some back and forth I got like 30 of these things for under $100. That was freaking sweet.
And yeah, the hinges on my OG quinjet are already getting sloppy. The worst thing is the fucking stickers; I retired my Ferrari simply because the damned stickers started cracking and pealing upwards.
do you remember the underwater sets? The ones with ships that looked like sharks? I STILL have all that and the magnets still work; I've stored the magnets by making one gigantic chain.
That is a genius way you can rapidly increase brick count with multiple mini-figs. I now have like 12 fucking Iron-Man's I should look into selling off... and a few Spider-Man's and Thors.
I'm also always on the lookout for plant pieces. I needs more plant pieces.
A fucking star destroyer for a even 60 bucks would be sexy as hell, but a tenth of that? JFC.
And we wonder why K-mart is now out of business while Wal-Mart thrives.
You know of that treehouse set? That's what I want... but I also want that JP collector set, the one with the big ass Rex. I'm not going to pay for either myself; as that's like $500 I'd rather not spend... so my plan is to convince my entire family and all my friends to chip in and make both my x-mas gifts. It'll be less than $10 each and I promise favors shall be returned; I mean, for example, I've been buying weed with fucking diapers and champagne for a year. Stealing diapers is actually hilariously easy as people naturally don't want to stop you.
Lol. True. And aquanauts! Awesome theme. There was also aqua raiders and later the deep sea. Lots of cool stuff. I glance at some of the newer stuff- but I liken it to a drug habit. Now that I’m out- I try to stay away. The new JP sets have some sick and tempting stuff- especially the rex. Tree house is cool too. Some good pieces in super hero sets too.
Yeah the big yellow base thing? That was also around the time Disney's Hercules came out and I shit you not I have a published retarded 4th grade story about it.
I also have another one about a fucking shark and an alien and... I still think it was the Hydra.... idk I'll go find both in maybe an hr, I'm busy. This shit is ridiculous lol
Oh shit nvm it is "The Alien, The Dragon and The Shark". The other book is called "The Little Plastic Man" and it sounds like the story of a dildo that got tossed but that was never my intention as I didn't know what a dildo was in the 4th grade.
Hmmmm... perhaps best I should put it in reverse order so as you scroll it tells the story?
Would need it dropped as swiftly as possible so there is no confusion. I can do that; just set up tabs.
youtubecom/watch?v=vnVPZRwk5N8
2 rooms of Lego? Damn, have you ever done a piece count? Just what I have displayed is 100k pieces and that's maybe a fourth of what I have... but it doesn't come close taking over a room; a single wall with the right shelves would work... although I'd have to be building vertically and not horizontally. Ooooh... interesting concept; what if I start building shelves out of bricks themselves? It would provide the dots horizontally so accidentally knocking the shelf wouldn't lead towards a shatter.
And yeah, LEGO's customer service is some of the best I've ever encountered, I literally asked them if they could just round up my VIP points as a joke and they were like," yeah man, that makes sense."
I'm also always on the lookout for plant pieces. I needs more plant pieces.
A fucking star destroyer for a even 60 bucks would be sexy as hell, but a tenth of that? JFC.
And we wonder why K-mart is now out of business while Wal-Mart thrives.
I also have another one about a fucking shark and an alien and... I still think it was the Hydra.... idk I'll go find both in maybe an hr, I'm busy. This shit is ridiculous lol
Would need it dropped as swiftly as possible so there is no confusion. I can do that; just set up tabs.
youtubecom/watch?v=vnVPZRwk5N8