Used Tuesdays - Have Brick Will Travel

Not the Valentine's Day post you were expecting?

My next used lot happened because I got itchy. I was visting my folks in Florida (opposite side of the country) for 2 and a half weeks. I figured the first thing I wanted to do was check the local Craigslist and OfferUp for some LEGO. I didn't find very much but there was one lady with "Legos lots of them". I checked the pictures and saw some decent pictures. She was asking $60 which seemed reasonable for the amount in there.

We met and I picked up the lot, taking a quick glance through it. She noted how much Ninjago was in there and that her son was selling it to get money for RC cars. I had noticed in the picture that there were some clones mixed in. That quick glance told me that there was probably a little more clone brand than I wanted but whatever. I got it back to the house and started sorting.

Oh. My. Mega. It never ended. Almost half of the lot ended up being clone. I pulled out the legit minifigs (including a $12 Boba Fett) and put them in a baggie. About a dozen were complete but not worth much on Bricklink, maybe $2 each. There might have been around 30 figs in some state of completion. The rest of the pure stuff I got packed into 2 gallon baggies at about 2.5# each.

With the figs it was about 6# in total. At a bulk price that's $10/# for the LEGO pieces, junk for free. If the figs had any value it might be $30 which would make my remaining 5# of LEGO parts $6/#. Still somewhat reasonable I guess for my own play brick. At least the Boba Fett helped pay for the lot and there were several pieces that I needed for my own MOCs.

Yeah, there was some Ninjago in there. But there was also a bit too much Friends for an apparent 12 year old boy who was changing hobbies. I didn't expect the enormous amount of clone brick to be mentioned. All in all I should have passed on the deal but that probably would have meant no LEGO downtime on the trip.

Lessons learned:

• Clone brick is great weight filler. Not good if you're buying.
• People are not completely honest, even about things that don't matter.
• You may often wonder where the other half of every set went,