I travelled a little further afield for this month’s pick-a-brick cup. I was visiting some friends in Seattle last weekend, so I took the bus out to the Bellevue store to see what treasures they had to offer. Though much of their wall was the type of thing that I’ve seen before, it was the 1×2 tan plates that stood out.
My local game store (Guardian Games) carries Lego. Their selection of sets doesn’t do much for me, being that they are all retail or above, but they do have a big table of used Lego. The selection varies from visit to visit, but I’ve found that I can often find an interesting selection of older brick. Since I’m interested in building outdoor environments like rocks and dirt and foliage, it doesn’t bother me to use well used bricks. The scuffed surfaces and occasional discoloration lend a more organic effect.
Here are the last two bags that I bought.
I bought this first bag a couple of weeks ago. The bin wasn’t super full, but I was able to get a lot of useful pieces in a selection of natural tones (grays, browns and greens.) I grabbed a bunch of yellow too, for an alien environment project.
After separating it out, I have a nice selection of gray slopes in various shades, and respectable piles of browns and tans. One of the nice things about buying old bricks is the inclusion of the old shades of gray as well as their newer bluish counterparts. Having all four shades (more with sun or age faded bricks) makes it easier to produce interesting color textures in rock. None of these bricks would be all that good for building shiny new spaceships.
Among the interesting pieces in this bag were a red slope with the Hamburgler’s face, a yellow panel from the old Aquanauts theme, and a green octagonal brick. None of them are particularly valuable, but fun finds none the less.
I picked up the second bag just this week. The table was super full, but mostly with colors and pieces that didn’t interest me much. I wound up with a bigger variety of pieces, but still grabbed a bunch of fun bricks.
From the contents, it is easy to see that I wound up with a bigger variety of colors. There were a bunch of interesting click-hinged plates and panels that I scooped up, along with some technic bricks that might come in handy for ship super-structure. This time, I scored a bunch of little translucent pieces.
The interesting pieces in this bag were all things a bit weirder. There usually aren’t minifig parts in this table, so I was happy to get a head in a white balaclava. The orange pin wheel and the big gray bricks were just a bit too unusual to pass up. Either one could be the inspiration for some build.
As far as pricing goes, they charge $10 for a quart sized bag and $25 for a gallon. Obviously, the gallon is a pretty good deal, but considering how long it takes me to find enough good pieces to fill a quart bag, I’ve never bought a larger one. These two bags came out to 306 and 325 pieces respectively. Based on the $10 that I paid, my price per piece came out to just a hair of 3 cents. Not bad, even for used bricks.
Now, I’ve got some more sorting to do.
It’s spring break in these parts, so the boy and I decided to start things out with a trip to the Lego store. Since we took the bus (meaning about a 1.5 hour trip each way), I figured that it would be an easy way to kill the day.
Last weekend the family and I made our monthly trip to our local Lego Store. For me, the trip had two goals: I needed to pick up the draft set for my next LUG meeting and I was looking forward to getting some cool parts from the Pick-A-Brick wall. The set was in stock, so I went back to browse for treasures in the PAB wall.
Much of the time, I just skim the wall. I walk along with my small cup and take handfuls of interesting pieces as they come. I’d actually been through the store a few weeks back and done exactly that. This trip however, was of a different sort. There really weren’t many bricks that interested me. I grabbed a little handful of 1×1 light blue translucent round plates and then I saw something that made me change tack completely: a nearly empty bin of 1×2 light blue translucent tiles.
I started scooping tiles into my small cup when I realized something. One the things that I want to start building is micro-scale fantasy landscapes and architecture. I’d like to use those lovely little tiles for lakes and moats and streams. It was time to go all in. I poured the contents of my small cup into a much larger one and began to fill it in ernest with tiles.
With this one purchase, I could make sure that I could make all the water that I desired. My wife laughed at my extravagantly large cup filled with those watery blue tiles. I carried it around as we finished our shopping. Looking back, I can see catastrophe that dropping it would have created.
When we got home, I counted all of those tiles. My curiosity and love of numbers was getting the best of me. While my wife and son assembled some of our other purchases at the table, I dumped out my cup and started counting. I made squares of 50, two at a time and ticked off the hundreds on a piece of scratch paper. For the rounds, I just stuck them together in sticks of 10.
My final count was 1595 tiles and 179 rounds. With well over 1600 pieces, I paid less than a penny apiece. Those tiles go for about 2 cents apiece on bricklink, but even with that low price I paid less than half of what I would have elsewhere. Not a bad little deal for me. Now I have that cup sitting on my work table. Who knows what it will inspire me to build.
We made our a trip to our local Lego store (our second of the month). My son picked up an alarm clock and a couple sets. One of the sets turned out to be pretty darn cool and I suspect that I’ll be getting a copy for myself in the near future. I bought a big cup of bricks from the pick-a-brick wall. Since I still haven’t started building, my selection process is mostly speculation and desire.
Last weekend the family and I made our monthly trip to the Lego store. My wife and son browse the shelves and look at sets. He changes his mind a lot, overwhelmed by the choices, and she enjoys putting sets together. The trip is a little different for me. My first stop during most visits is the Pick-A-Brick wall.