THIS LEGO LIFE
BUILDING ON A BUDGET
ANTHONY WALKER-COOK
Anthony makes the case for buying second hand LEGO sets
IF THERE’S one thing I love, it’s a bargain. When it’s a bargain that’s to do with LEGO sets, even better. I’ll rarely, if ever, buy a set at full price and my limited brick budget has often led to semi-inventive ways of allowing my hobby to continue.
The downside? Waiting for what can feel like an age for that perfect sale. As reviews pour out honouring and extolling the virtues of a new set, I’m often sat waiting and watching like a Dickensian orphan looking through a toyshop window – ‘one day’, I utter, knowing that it won’t be for a good few months.
This has led to my increasing habit of buying LEGO sets second hand. Those of a certain age will remember the risky business of going to a car boot, when battered boxes rarely held all the pieces. Earnest mothers would say ‘yes it’s all there’, safe in the knowledge that when you got home and had half a Millennium Falcon you couldn’t return it. But, then again, you probably only paid £15, so it wasn’t necessarily a tragic ending.