PAB Cups: What Did You Get?

[kdenty]

I'm at my parents this weekend in Sheffield so hit the Lego shop in MeadowHell

I got a free PAB box at Christmas to fill, and filled a large PAB cup (which was £1.99 after I used my VIP points).

I'm off to Ikea tomorrow and I want to make Minifigure display with a RIBBA picture frame using Lego 2x8 and 2x4, so I filled both boxes with these bricks and used any spare space for a random assortment of small elements. The colours are a bit garish, it's just what I liked/fancied.

I got:

36 2x8 in blue

36 2x8 in red

27 2x4 in black.

Here is my haul.

[Brandon Miller]

Finally getting around to posting my PAB haul from the week after Christmas.

[dr_spock]

407 pieces in the PAB Holiday Box.

[beatpoet]

Went to the Cincinnati store on Sunday, picked up a few good things

4x6 Plates in blue, tan and white

4x4 plates in light gray

2x2 round bricks in trans-neon green

2x2x2 slope 65 in light gray

1x4 arch bricks in white

1x2 tan bricks

2x2 slope 45 in white with radar and disk slot pattern

2x6 bricks in white

They also had some of the white Fence 1x8x2 2/3

Edited February 4, 2014 by beatpoet

[kibosh]

407 pieces in the PAB Holiday Box.

I used a very similar construction when I filled my PAB box!

[michaelw116]

Had my first attempt at the PaB wall today (in Leeds) - tried the packing route when getting lots of 2x1s, didn't quite manage the number suggested - I later figured out I'd missed a layer - but still managed to pick up quite a bit. Probably helps I got a couple more cupfuls than I'd intended to...

Haven't finished counting yet, but the first 3 cups (all small) yielded:

714 off 2x1 bricks (lime green and a red brick colour)

184 off bamboo

638 off 1 stud round plates (all trans)

59 off lime green 2x1 tiles

Having counted them all, and started on the big cup, I decided to try packing the big cup with 2x1s, and got 740 in there, and the lid looks like it's on...

[Gatthekid]

I'm going to my local Lego store this Saturday. I will defenitely try to use some of these techniques in order to make the most of my money, as I'm on a budget and would like to spend my cash in the most efficient way.

[Gatthekid]

Is the cup that you posted pictures of a large or a small? And could you please tell me how much each one costs in US money. (Im planning on going to a Lego store this weekend, I want to have an idea of how much to bring for PAB.) Thanks in advance.

[meyerc13]

kdenty has a picture of a large cup. A large cup is approximately $15 while a small cup is approximately $8. Depending on where you are, you are likely to have sales tax on top of that. I've been to LEGO stores in 4 US states, the highest sales tax I encountered was just under 10% in Chicago. There may be states with a higher sales tax though. Just checked Google, and Chicago has one of the highest tax rates in the country. There are a few other cities with similarly high, but 10% is about the maximum sales tax rate you'll find in the US.

Edited February 12, 2014 by meyerc13

[Brickzoom]

How much PAB cups cost in Europe? I'm most intrested in prices in Germany and Denmark.

[Gatthekid]

Going to my local Lego store this Saturday, I'll try to get pics/info up then. Although, I probabally won't be able to get that much in it, as it's a 2 hour drive to the store and I'll be spending close to 4 hours in other stores, so I won't have time to pack the cup as good as I would like.

kdenty has a picture of a large cup. A large cup is approximately $15 while a small cup is approximately $8. Depending on where you are, you are likely to have sales tax on top of that. I've been to LEGO stores in 4 US states, the highest sales tax I encountered was just under 10% in Chicago. There may be states with a higher sales tax though. Just checked Google, and Chicago has one of the highest tax rates in the country. There are a few other cities with similarly high, but 10% is about the maximum sales tax rate you'll find in the US.

Could you post pics of a large cup beside a small cup, I want to get an idea of the size difference.

[antp]

How much PAB cups cost in Europe? I'm most intrested in prices in Germany and Denmark.

Recently increased to 9,99 & 17,99 € in Belgium & France. To be confirmed for Germany.

Edited February 13, 2014 by antp

[meyerc13]

Could you post pics of a large cup beside a small cup, I want to get an idea of the size difference.

Small cup is exactly 1/2 the volume of the large cup. However... due to piece geometry value can sometimes be surprising. Here's a great article on the topic that goes into far more detail than I ever could: http://www.1000steine.com/brickset/miscellaneous/Documents/PABCostComparisonAnalysis.pdf

[Inzane]

In Canada I thnk the small cups are $15 and large cups are $20.

I could've sworn in the US they were $10 and $15.

The large cup is definitely the better value.

[kibosh]

Last I checked, they were $14.99 and $7.99 in the US.

[Inzane]

Hmm... maybe the small cups are $12-13 here in Canada then. I've always gone for large (whether in US or CAN) and thus haven't paid too much attention to the little cups.

[iamwhoiam]

Hmm... maybe the small cups are $12-13 here in Canada then. I've always gone for large (whether in US or CAN) and thus haven't paid too much attention to the little cups.

I live in Canada too and I'm pretty sure the small cups are $10.99 but it's been a few months since I've bought one so I could be wrong. (I typically go for large cups too)

Oh yeah, and then there's 13% tax here in Ontario for a total closer to $12.50

[Gatthekid]

I'm not working on anything at the moment, so I just filled mine with a little from each bin (although I did connect/stack them). This way, I have pieces to play around with if I get bored and backups in case I have a missing piece from a set. If I start a project though and need pieces that I don't already have, I'll go back or order from BrickLink.

Edited February 16, 2014 by Gatthekid

[stevkir]

Ever since the holiday boxes my local store here in Utah has been extremely sparse when it comes to the PAB wall. I talked to an employee and they just said they can't keep it stocked for very long. I asked him if because of the poor selection on the wall if they planed on extending the use of the holiday boxes beyond the end of March and his response was a positive one. I am glad they are allowing holiday boxes to be filled after that date but I also want to see the PAB wall full again.

[LEGO Family]

Ever since the holiday boxes my local store here in Utah has been extremely sparse when it comes to the PAB wall. I talked to an employee and they just said they can't keep it stocked for very long. I asked him if because of the poor selection on the wall if they planed on extending the use of the holiday boxes beyond the end of March and his response was a positive one. I am glad they are allowing holiday boxes to be filled after that date but I also want to see the PAB wall full again.

Last week i talked to one of the guys from my local LEGO shop. He usually shares news with me sinse im such a regular customer.

He told me that LEGO from next month would be having some kind of theme based part of the PAB wall. What exactly that meen is still uncertain, but we decided that if would be something like town for a month, then star wars for a month.

He said that they hold back on ordering new bricks for the wall because of exactly that.

Anyhow, their wall were as your describe yours, really a dull mix of bricks. That was new to me in that store.

It might be the same thing going on there ! ?

[Inzane]

^ That theme based strategy sounds strange, especially given Lego won't sell any pieces related to licenses. if they did star wars for example, it would have to be carefully selected pieces used in certain sets that are also broad enough to not fall under the license specifically.

[Aanchir]

Last week i talked to one of the guys from my local LEGO shop. He usually shares news with me sinse im such a regular customer.

He told me that LEGO from next month would be having some kind of theme based part of the PAB wall. What exactly that meen is still uncertain, but we decided that if would be something like town for a month, then star wars for a month.

He said that they hold back on ordering new bricks for the wall because of exactly that.

Anyhow, their wall were as your describe yours, really a dull mix of bricks. That was new to me in that store.

It might be the same thing going on there ! ?

This is not the first time LEGO stores have done this. In April of 2011, a number of LEGO stores introduced a Hero Factory section of the Pick-A-Brick wall to promote the new character and creature building system and the Hero Recon Team online service, which allowed people to custom-order Hero Factory heroes (like a simplified, theme-specific version of LEGO Design byME — in fact, it was initially run as a part of the Design byME platform).

This was just a "trial run", and it ended soon afterward, never to return. I asked Kevin Hinkle, a member of the LEGO Group's CEE team in North America, whether this might ever come back, and he said it was unlikely, because the Hero Factory parts were confusing for average LEGO fans, who didn't understand how they were supposed to be used.

I wonder what "theme" this new promotion might be focused on. Perhaps the Mixels? After all, they are made of reasonably basic LEGO parts. The only really specialized parts in the Mixels are the new cartoon eyes and ball joints, and even those are incredibly easy to use for other LEGO creations.

[DraikNova]

I just cashed in my free box of parts, and I got a variety of general bricks and tiles. Some pink bricks, some white, lime and grey bricks (it's amazing how few I seem to have), a few hinge pieces, quite a few pink and purple tiles and a number of plates, along with a number of tr. clear windows. I had spent about half an hour arranging the pieces by that point, and I had only filled one third of the box, so I decided to just throw every interesting piece I saw into it by that point, including a handful or two of each group of translucent pieces, some more tiles and a lot of lever pieces. Oh, and about ten jumper plates.

Also, I'd be very excited if my nearest LEGO store added Mixel parts to the wall (although I don't understand how understanding the workings of HF parts is difficult. It's basically just snapping parts on to a frame, after all). I'd fill a whole box full of joint pieces alone, and probably a whole other one with printed eyeballs. It'd be like the time I decided I didn't have enough tr. purple and filled the cup with 400+ (I counted once, and have since forgotten the precise number) cones.

Does anyone know whether we're allowed to reuse the holiday boxes?

Edited March 5, 2014 by DraikNova

[meyerc13]

Does anyone know whether we're allowed to reuse the holiday boxes?

You can't reuse them. When you bring your box to the register after filling it they should mark it. They don't have a price associated with them, even though they work out to about the same as a small cup. So it isn't like you can pay to reuse the box minus $.50 like you can with a cup. If they forgot to mark your box, while you could technically bring it back and refill it, that would essentially be stealing.

It's too bad they don't sell boxes instead of cups, because for normal rectangular bricks they are a lot easier to fill efficiently. However, I suspect that is exactly why they don't sell boxes - they know that the geometry of the cup always leaves some space unfilled - sometimes quite a bit of space if a kid is filling the cup by grabbing handfuls and dropping them in without packing or organizing.

[Aanchir]

I just cashed in my free box of parts, and I got a variety of general bricks and tiles. Some pink bricks, some white, lime and grey bricks (it's amazing how few I seem to have), a few hinge pieces, quite a few pink and purple tiles and a number of plates, along with a number of tr. clear windows. I had spent about half an hour arranging the pieces by that point, and I had only filled one third of the box, so I decided to just throw every interesting piece I saw into it by that point, including a handful or two of each group of translucent pieces, some more tiles and a lot of lever pieces. Oh, and about ten jumper plates.

Also, I'd be very excited if my nearest LEGO store added Mixel parts to the wall (although I don't understand how understanding the workings of HF parts is difficult. It's basically just snapping parts on to a frame, after all). I'd fill a whole box full of joint pieces alone, and probably a whole other one with printed eyeballs. It'd be like the time I decided I didn't have enough tr. purple and filled the cup with 400+ (I counted once, and have since forgotten the precise number) cones.

Does anyone know whether we're allowed to reuse the holiday boxes?

I think the question buyers had was more of how to integrate Hero Factory parts with regular LEGO parts. Yes, it can be done. There are even a number of parts that are ideal for doing so. But it's not obvious to someone who doesn't have any experience with LEGO other than stud-on-stud building.

Look at the sorts of parts that appear on Pick-A-Brick walls regularly and you'll see what I mean. Most of the parts are designed for very basic-level building. Not a whole lot of complex SNOT elements, nor a whole lot of extremely specialized designs. When the designs are specialized in any way, their function tends to be fairly obvious. Even somebody who has only ever owned basic LEGO bricks should be able to recognize a LEGO wheel or a LEGO door and understand what they're meant to be used for. Hero Factory parts are not as intuitive as the brick to somebody who has never owned a Hero Factory set, yet the parts' functions also aren't defined by how closely they resemble real-world objects as parts like doors, wheels, tires, flowers, and flags.