Strictly speaking, tsundoku is the acquisition of books that pile up without being read. It's starting to be used for other things like movies and games that pile up without being watched/played. So why not LEGO sets?

I have several sets I have tsundokued including 79018 Lonely Mountain, 850936 Halloween Set and 6599 Shark Attack. I bought them when they were still being sold in stores or soon after but just haven't gotten round to opening them.

NB that tsundokuing is not the same thing as buying sets but not opening them because they are an investment and you intend to sell them. A tsundokued set is one you intended to build or at least planned to use for parts, but never even opened. 

What sets have you tsundokued?

Edited July 29, 20186 yr by AmperZand

Yes, this is a thing. However I like to call such sets as "backlog". Something I have purchased for parts or other reasons (not for resale), but don't need the parts or sets to be assembled yet. Some time this is purely for collection reasons - I just need to have it now, because later it is going to cost a lot.

At some point I've asked myself how many of such sets do I have. Well, I was pretty surprised there were more than 20 at that time.

Never on my part, but Friends and some Creator sets pile up as my Mum wants to build them but never does so quickly. 

Sometimes I end up opening them for parts and distracting her with more recent purchases!

I feel it is same as 'hoarding' ;)

Yup, I have a sizable baclog myself, though mostly due to lack of space and permanent storage/display area. I'm a postgrad student, living in a shared apartment, so my bigger LEGO purchases are shipped to my parents' house and stored in my old room, until I can get a better living place for myself. Current unopened hoard includes Mercedes Arocs truck, UCS Snowspeeder, Saturn V, Ninjago City, Ghostbusters HQ, Diner modular, some LEGO store promo sets and random polybags. There's also some stuff like 8480 Technic Space Shuttle and 8421 Technic Crane that came off Bricklink, which I intend to enjoy putting together when my life becomes less hectic. Though it's veeery tempting to crack open a box at times... 

Oh, jeez, way way way too many. I have so many that I could actually put some of the smaller ones together in less time than it would take to list them all.

Yeah, it's happening to me as well. I have several older sets in my backlog but as well some newer sets that I have bought and "hoarded". At the moment I don't have much free time, but I hope this is changing soon... I was about to build some of the older ones (from mid-80ies to beginning of 90-ies) and make a review.

I do not have the intention to sell any of the sets at the moment. But I'm feeling more and more pressure from my other half to do "something" about them

I have sets here and there and everywhere and some forgotten.  Hopefully I'll have time to build them after I retired...assuming I can retire. 

 

Yes.  While I've sold a lot of LEGO, I've never bought it without the intention of actually building it.  Like a lot of people, I have little space to display, but I don't want to miss out on certain sets, so I buy and find a place to sock it away.

 

It often happens with sets I buy for parts: I open them only when I need the parts.

Some others were bought to be modded, so I wait to have time/motivation do that.

For some I needed the space for display (e.g. Sydney Opera that stayed in its box for 2 years)

In my Brickset collection I have a custom tag for these sets, so I know what is waiting to be opened (as the boxes are stacked in less accessible areas under the table of my diorama in the Lego Room), and before adding something to my Bricklink wanted list I check if by chance the part hasn't appeared in of the sets bought for parts - I already had that chance a few times, and then I open a box of a 1000+ parts set just to take one small part... and then I have to sort all the rest in my parts bins

On another forum, we call all these unopened boxes that pile up the "Pile of Shame"

Edited August 4, 20186 yr by antp

I have a lot of sets bought yet not assembled or parted out. I only but sets I intend to assemble or part out. The problem for me is I want you but sets while they are available, as the out of print sets are just too expensive, so any set I buy I try to get it in the first year of production.

Since I have so many sets still in boxes I am trying to be more discriminating in what I buy.

Andy D

I have quite some large sets that I haven't built, because I know it's gonna be lengthy & less fun than small sets which I build right away. Exactly for the same reason as buying movies or games I have never watched/played: why do now what I can do tomorrow? & of course I never do it tomorrow.

I have several 71204 and 21304.

By the way, AmperZand, do you remeber your old moc of D&D?

 

I am really looking for the red sorcerer's hat? cap?

But cannot find even similar one from lego parts.

Do you remember it?

 

 

On 8/2/2018 at 9:33 AM, dr_spock said:

I have sets here and there and everywhere and some forgotten.  Hopefully I'll have time to build them after I retired...assuming I can retire. 

 

Yeah, that's what I thought... I *am* retired and they just keep piling up... I will never get them all built, however, I can just go shopping in my backlog to find a new set to build anytime I want!

Andy D

Edited September 15, 20186 yr by Andy D

I buy 'em on sale and I keep them in stock until I'm ready to build them.    I kept one set unopened for 8 years this way.

I have quite the stack of sets that were originally planned for building/parting out. Who has the space? I barely have space to stack unopened sets (and it looks bad when you think about it). I also don't have the display or storage space (and I actually do have too many pieces, so I don't need more sets). So that is overwhelming. My main ones are the Classic Batcave/Jokerland sets since I was planning on doing a large Wayne Manor/Batcave MOC at some point. Then multiple modulars I need to modify or part out.

I have actually sold a lot of sets that I had backlogged because I figured I would never have the time for them and they somehow rose enough in value I couldn't justify opening them when I finally did have time (not my original intent to sell).

On 9/15/2018 at 3:35 PM, iPsych said:

I have several 71204 and 21304.

By the way, AmperZand, do you remeber your old moc of D&D?

I am really looking for the red sorcerer's hat? cap?

But cannot find even similar one from lego parts.

Do you remember it?

 

 

More than a bit OT, but of course I remember MOC D&D minifigures. They're still in my display collection! 

By red wizard's hat, do you mean the one on the left in this picture also from my display collection?

Back on topic (sort of): in addition to tsundokuing sets, I also get spare parts I never wind up using. I literally have hundreds, possibly thousands. I have a spare of the red wizard's hat above for example.

On 9/15/2018 at 6:17 PM, TheLegoDr said:

I have actually sold a lot of sets that I had backlogged because I figured I would never have the time for them and they somehow rose enough in value I couldn't justify opening them when I finally did have time (not my original intent to sell).

I completely empathise. While I haven't sold any of my tsundokued sets, I have been tempted. Some have surged in value and I feel badly knowing I could make a mint out of them but would feel even worse if I got rid of those sets. Ahhh, first world problems!