BryanKinkel Posted June 24, 2006 Posted June 24, 2006 A few weeks back my aunt emails us and asks if we want a box of LEGO bricks... "just a lot of basic bricks" she says. Umm... sure! Now they live in Newport News, VA. And my family is in Berwyn, PA (Philadelphia). And as it turns out, my parents took a trip down there, picked up the box (and some furniture) and dropped everything off yesterday. The box is about 2 x 2 x 1 feet. And heavy. As we are unloading the furniture, my daughter gets into the box. Next thing we know, there are little knights, forestmen, pirates and townspeople all lined up on the driveway. It is a *great* box. I did a first pass of sorting this morning * at least 30 castle walls * two palm trees and a lot of foliage (20+ pieces of large & small) * more than 10 Crusaders, Black Falcons, etc * four complete forestmen, likely complete 6054 Forestmen Hideout * 3 islanders, 4 pirates * many, many towns people from airport, racing, Octan, motorcyle sets * White, blue, yellow, red & black Classic Spacemen * Many, many incomplete mini-figs * 10 horses * Piles of windows, doors, etc * 3 baggies full of wheels * Half built planes from one of the airports * Airport baseplates, 4 or 5 road plates * Many green baseplates * Tons of basic bricks, plates, minifig accessories, etc. In general, it is a wonderful early 90's box of mixed sets. All in generally good shape. Very, very low Megablock/Tyco content. Couple of army men, a screw... etc. I'm thrilled. My kids are thrilled. Will try to post pictures later. -- Bryan
snefroe Posted June 24, 2006 Posted June 24, 2006 what i like the most about these things is the excitement... it may just be a bunch of classic bricks, but on the other hand, there may be some hidden treasure in there...
dunamis Posted June 25, 2006 Posted June 25, 2006 That's so cool! A friend of mine did the same thing. Said he was out on a walk and stopped by a garage sale. He calls me up from his cell and said a guy was selling a bunch of LEGO for $20 and asked it I wanted it. He said there were a bunch of spaceship looking things and little figures. I told him to buy it. He brings it into work the next day and it was all EP 1 Star Wars stuff. Great find!
Jipay Posted June 25, 2006 Posted June 25, 2006 yes, some real treasures are always hidden in those box ! Excellent ! I think there are still so many boxes full of lego in the world's attics that we don't own yet ! Can you imagine all those old castle and classic space sets waiting for us ? doh !
Kikuichimonji Posted June 25, 2006 Posted June 25, 2006 Yeah, flea markets rule. But, chances that you'll find incomplete sets are rather large. But for my other collection (snes/n64 games) they truly are haeven. If only there'd be more of them around here...
BryanKinkel Posted June 27, 2006 Author Posted June 27, 2006 Digging through a big box is certainly fun - it kind of goes like this - First you pick out all the obvious things on top such as instructions, baggies of wheels, castle walls, hulls, partially built cars/planes/ships, and complete mini-figures. These are the things that give you your first ideas as to the sets the prior owner may have had. (hmmm a plane fuselage.... which airport?) Then you dig out the smaller specialized parts - trees, plants, wings, plates, jets, etc that you can find just by digging around in the big box. Army men, obvious Mega/Tyco, anything non-LEGO gets tossed in the trash. Now you need to get down to business with extra bins. I pick out a handful and drop it onto a bin lid. Here I'm looking for stray mini-fig legs, torsos, hats, flags, theme-specific items, etc. Good parts are plucked out. The rest gets put into a bin for future sorting and picking. Then you grab another handful and do it again. And again, and again.... The bottom of the box is now visible. Tiny 1x1 plates, coins, etc are all crammed into the corners and under the box flaps. But under the bottom box flaps is where you find a final round of good stuff - mini-fig hats, visor parts and weapons tend to hide there. Bag them. Now the box is empty. Nothing but grit and stray trash (ew). But it was fun. Now it is of to PEERON for instructions. I'm slowly rebuilding the sets one at a time. -- Bryan
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