Some of you guys have been mentioning that comparing to the average price of currently listed parts on Bricklink might not be the most accurate valuation. For the sake of simplicity I usually look at the averages for both current listings and past 6 months of sales, and go from there. Sometimes, looking at the last 6 months of sales isn’t particularly helpful, especially if there are no parts currently available at the old price. The market price for a piece may have shifted due to any number of reasons. People can also overprice parts and skew the current listings average. If you really want to ensure that you have a spot on number for reference, you can filter by country and minimum part quantity to see exactly how much it would cost you to order the same number of parts from a seller near you. Hopefully this helps! Either way, I find that most of the time, especially when it comes to smaller parts, it’s cheaper to get the pieces you want from the pick a brick wall.
I think, if there's no cheap offer on Bricklink for a piece on the wall, that's a big warning sign not to trust the price guide at all. This means, the piece is either very new or the wall just massively changed it's availability. If it's just new, the recent (not 6 but more 1-2 month) sales will tell more truth and even more any trend visible here. If a formerly rare part (with a Bricklink price much higher than the same in other colors) comes to the wall however, it's value will probably drop like a rock and for a while even below (!) the more established colors (as everybody will buy them now).
I think it is at least worth mentioning the online pick a brick price for comparison. The 1x2 medium nougat plate is only $0.07, so less than half the price you quoted from Bricklink. The online Lego store would still be much more costly than the pick a brick wall in store, but it is much cheaper than what you quoted from Bricklink and you still get your VIP points. You are also not limited to the selection of the pick a brick wall. The online store also qualifies for free shipping when you purchase more than $35.
That’s a fair point! I didn’t get into that for the sake of keeping the video short, but perhaps it would have been good to briefly mention. I talk about cross referencing between Bricklink and Lego’s pick a brick online service in a longer video I made about Bricklink on my channel. You can find medium nougat 1x2 plates for about 4 cents a piece in the US now if you’re buying in a quantity of 1,150 from a single seller on Bricklink. Prices change all the time, of course. Still cheaper from the pick a brick wall though!
There's also the difference between bestseller pieces and non, apparently the bestseller on lego.com comes from Indiana and gets out in about a week, whereas the regular pieces ship from Denmark and has a 30 day wait time right now, plus the service fee for each type (3.50 for bestseller and 7 for not)
@@robertclark6737 You can remove the service fee by buying above a certain $ amount of parts. Always makes me spend more than I should on pick a brick online. All in the name of avoiding the service fee haha
@Firebird Bricks Everytime! Also, the last few months have included a cool polybag if you hit £50 (same value for free shipping) and if you don't want it, you can sell it for 5-10 😁
Where I am, the large cup is exactly twice the price of the small. The volume of the cup is also twice the small. However, with the small, you get some extra due to having two lid spots instead of just one.
I did not know PAB could be such good value! I always assumed it was a bit of a tourist trap or something like that. Even at 2x or 3x, I'd be surprised but up to 10x?! Thank you for making this video and UA-cam for putting it at the top of my feed. Wouldn't have seen it otherwise.
I'm actually thinking of just having my mom go to the local Pick a Brick Wall and doing her own picking for me, so I can get a bit of a Mystery Grab Bag sort of experience!
The average price doesn’t say much to me. Some Bricklink stores that were the first puting the 1x2 plate in their inventory may have never adjusted their prices. Looking at the lower priced parts is a far better strategy and doesn’t make you think you will be saving or earning a lot of money.
I always buy parts off the wall I think would bolster our personal stock, then put half up for sale. If they sell I'll put the rest up too if we haven't already used them in moc's. If they don't sell then I will pull them from sale if or when we need them. This has worked out pretty good for the last decade or so, though our store has a very small wall and is an hour drive away. If we had a large wall like some stores have or lived closer I might have to rethink things. Also locally we get $0.50 discount for reusing cups, and they actually let me sell back about 50 perfect condition cups once about 5 years ago, so you might ask if they'd let you do that if you have a large supply. Since covid restrictions ended I've been filling up cups and then have them dump them into a zippered bag (similar to a door dash bag) I bring, and they keep the cups and give me the discount directly at checkout. I suppose it could likely depend on the temperament of the people who work at your store and how well you know them whether or not they would allow you to do that.
Three extra things to talk about once you are in a Lego store, 1. You can build 3 Minifigures from parts bins provided for $10 + tax. 2. In some stores you can custom color print a plain white minifigure torso for $13, (Mini figure Factory. 3. NYC has 2 Lego Stores, which are open from 11am to 7pm.
Fellow Michigander here, I live two hours away from Somerset Collection and only go for the minifig station once or twice a year. If you need generic plates for cheap, there is a high quality clone brand called Gobrick that makes them in almost any color, including some metallic stuff lego won't do. They can be bought from sites like yourwobb, webrick, or aliexpress. I would highly recommend doing this instead as it's far cheaper and you end up with a product that is more or less the same.
I have a Lego store that's close by. The problem is their pick-a-brick selection is slim. I'm working on a mini diorama using the space provided in the Lego Ninjago Movie Display and Play case.
My nearest Lego store is less than an hour away from my house but about 20 minutes from where I work so not too long depending on traffic. Also idk if this is a well known tip but I asked one of the employees if I can reuse my old pick a brick cups (I have so many that I might just use them in a MOC) and they said yes and I would get a discount for it.
That’s true. I don’t recall the discount amount, but I’ve been reusing the same 6 cups (2 tall 4 small) and it’ll add up over time. Plus, I like reusing. Prevents me from getting too big a collection of pick a brick cups
Great tips, thanks for this! I knew PAB can be cheaper but it's good to see someone did the actual math. IMO, comparing LEGO prices between PAB in store, PAB online and Brickink is extremely complex because you have so many factors to consider: price, quantity, shipping costs, how long of a drive etc. etc. that it can be really hard to make a good estimation. I don't think your video is misleading at all and while Bricklink will sometimes be cheaper, overall if you can find the piece you need at PAB, it's the way to go since pieces by volume are generally a better deal than piece by price (for small pieces).
I live a 24 hour drive (2 US States away from my Nearest LEGO Store. I visited it once in my life, but the whole Pick-a-Bricks Wall was closed because of Covid....
Hello, I have been enjoying your videos as I reacquaint myself with LEGO after a 50 year absence. LEGO is proving a good hobby and creative outlet in my retirement. I would like to see the forum post you mentioned but can find no link to such in the description. I clicked on the hashtags but they only took me away from your channel to other’s channels and none of them had the forum post list you mentioned. Would you be able to post the link to the forum list, please. I thank you for assistance. Leo
Thanks for watching my videos! It looks like that link doesn’t work anymore, unfortunately… I clicked it and it said the site was unreachable. Sorry about that!
I have only used social media for sets and Bricklink for getting parts. I'm lucky enough to have a LEGO store just half an our away and can use public transport too. I guess I should give it a try. Thanks for the heads up!
lol the only lego store that is accessible to me isnt an official lego store, i found megablox in their pick-a-brick table and they use bags instead of cups
Hey! My organizers are from Lowe's. They are Craftsman organizers, typically used for organizing hardware like nuts/bolts/screws etc. I like them as an alternative to Akro Mils (the widely accepted best option) because they are about 40% cheaper.
Have you ever conspired the Lego store in Chicago? That would probably be a little further, but I’ve been to at least 6 different stores mostly in the Midwest and 2 in Florida and the one in Chicago is fairly big so maybe you’d find good stuff there too
Chicago has 4 stores in the greater metropolitan area that I know of. I have definitely found some good stuff there before! I always go when I am visiting, but don't make trips specifically for the stores since its about 3 and a half hours to get there for me.
hi they put the price of the box now i think they did this because they were losing money on PAB because the way we buy it and the new box we can fill it a lot easyer and i know lego like you in and out of the shop very fast note i go in to london in the week days working hrs when there no kids alot are men buying alot of the time my sister has 2 teens and they said the lego crazy is cooling down like the reel to reel crazy some time ago i like lego and analog recorders
I feel like the math is kinda misleading here. Instead of using the "Current Items for Sale" average, you should be using the "Last 6 Months Sale" average. The "Current" one has listings for absolutely INSANE prices at times (for example, Max Price in this video is over $200,) whereas the "Last 6 Months" shows what people are ACTUALLY paying for these pieces on average. We'll go with $0.05 since that's what this video shows for the average price of new pieces. Buying 1,150 pieces at $0.05 each would come out to $57.50, a far cry from the $172.50 calculated. If we're SUPER cheap with it and go with the lowest $0.01 per piece, that's only $11.50, which is actually cheaper than the PAB Wall. It really just depends not on what they're listed for, but what people are actually paying for them. I could list this piece for $1 each, doesn't mean people will buy them. It's a good estimation if done right, but the way it's presented in this video specifically is just a bit misleading. Hope this can help anybody with pricing parts when they come across them.
I see what you are saying, but we also have to take actual availability into account. If I want to buy 1,150 medium nougat 1×2 plates from a seller in the US right now without paying shipping more than once, the absolute cheapest I can get is for 4 cents a piece. That puts me at a cost of $46 before shipping and tax. No actual store with a significant quantity of 1x2 plates has them listed for as cheap as 1 cent like you mention. The absolute cheapest I can find is a store in Poland selling them for 2 cents a piece, but that would require international shipping. As I said in the video, this was just an example. I even offered the exact 5 cent calculation that you talk about in your comment later in the video as a "less extreme example" but still a great deal. Last 6 months of sale is a reflection of past sales, not current availability. Yes, people can tip the scales on this number with ridiculously expensive listings, so I usually factor both price averages in when I'm making a decision. There are small parts that sell for 15 cents a piece all day though, so it's absolutely possible to save more than 10X by using the PAB wall at times. I don't think this video is misleading considering that I offered 2 examples at different price points to show it can be worth it, even if it's a cheaper part.
I live 11 miles from the mall of America Lego store and there pick a brick wall is a joke Most of the pieces to choose from are things you would never really use I’ve been disappointed every time I’ve been there looking at the pick a brick wall The store is great the wall not so much Being the largest mall in America and a great Lego store there wall is disappointing at least in my opinion
Some of you guys have been mentioning that comparing to the average price of currently listed parts on Bricklink might not be the most accurate valuation. For the sake of simplicity I usually look at the averages for both current listings and past 6 months of sales, and go from there. Sometimes, looking at the last 6 months of sales isn’t particularly helpful, especially if there are no parts currently available at the old price. The market price for a piece may have shifted due to any number of reasons. People can also overprice parts and skew the current listings average.
If you really want to ensure that you have a spot on number for reference, you can filter by country and minimum part quantity to see exactly how much it would cost you to order the same number of parts from a seller near you.
Hopefully this helps! Either way, I find that most of the time, especially when it comes to smaller parts, it’s cheaper to get the pieces you want from the pick a brick wall.
I think, if there's no cheap offer on Bricklink for a piece on the wall, that's a big warning sign not to trust the price guide at all. This means, the piece is either very new or the wall just massively changed it's availability. If it's just new, the recent (not 6 but more 1-2 month) sales will tell more truth and even more any trend visible here. If a formerly rare part (with a Bricklink price much higher than the same in other colors) comes to the wall however, it's value will probably drop like a rock and for a while even below (!) the more established colors (as everybody will buy them now).
My nearest Lego store is an hour drive, then a two and a half hour flight, then a half hour drive away :(
Mines down the street, quite literally live next to the mall . I’m sorry to here this tho
You should check out the pick a brick wall exchange groups. They are great!
So this should save you money so well!
I feel your pain brother. I didn’t have a Lego store near me until about a decade ago.
America
I think it is at least worth mentioning the online pick a brick price for comparison. The 1x2 medium nougat plate is only $0.07, so less than half the price you quoted from Bricklink. The online Lego store would still be much more costly than the pick a brick wall in store, but it is much cheaper than what you quoted from Bricklink and you still get your VIP points. You are also not limited to the selection of the pick a brick wall. The online store also qualifies for free shipping when you purchase more than $35.
That’s a fair point! I didn’t get into that for the sake of keeping the video short, but perhaps it would have been good to briefly mention.
I talk about cross referencing between Bricklink and Lego’s pick a brick online service in a longer video I made about Bricklink on my channel.
You can find medium nougat 1x2 plates for about 4 cents a piece in the US now if you’re buying in a quantity of 1,150 from a single seller on Bricklink. Prices change all the time, of course. Still cheaper from the pick a brick wall though!
There's also the difference between bestseller pieces and non, apparently the bestseller on lego.com comes from Indiana and gets out in about a week, whereas the regular pieces ship from Denmark and has a 30 day wait time right now, plus the service fee for each type (3.50 for bestseller and 7 for not)
@@robertclark6737 You can remove the service fee by buying above a certain $ amount of parts. Always makes me spend more than I should on pick a brick online. All in the name of avoiding the service fee haha
@Firebird Bricks Everytime! Also, the last few months have included a cool polybag if you hit £50 (same value for free shipping) and if you don't want it, you can sell it for 5-10 😁
I'm not sure if this is a new LEGO Store policy or not, but Insider points (previously known as VIP points) are no longer given for PAB purchases 😢
Where I am, the large cup is exactly twice the price of the small. The volume of the cup is also twice the small. However, with the small, you get some extra due to having two lid spots instead of just one.
I did not know PAB could be such good value! I always assumed it was a bit of a tourist trap or something like that. Even at 2x or 3x, I'd be surprised but up to 10x?! Thank you for making this video and UA-cam for putting it at the top of my feed. Wouldn't have seen it otherwise.
Fr
My favorite bulk method for pick-a-brick is making waffles from 2x4 bricks and then filling in the empty space with 1x2 plates or smaller elements
I'm actually thinking of just having my mom go to the local Pick a Brick Wall and doing her own picking for me, so I can get a bit of a Mystery Grab Bag sort of experience!
The average price doesn’t say much to me. Some Bricklink stores that were the first puting the 1x2 plate in their inventory may have never adjusted their prices. Looking at the lower priced parts is a far better strategy and doesn’t make you think you will be saving or earning a lot of money.
Nice tips! Do you have a full screenshot or other source for the list that has disappeared on that forum link?
I always buy parts off the wall I think would bolster our personal stock, then put half up for sale. If they sell I'll put the rest up too if we haven't already used them in moc's. If they don't sell then I will pull them from sale if or when we need them. This has worked out pretty good for the last decade or so, though our store has a very small wall and is an hour drive away. If we had a large wall like some stores have or lived closer I might have to rethink things.
Also locally we get $0.50 discount for reusing cups, and they actually let me sell back about 50 perfect condition cups once about 5 years ago, so you might ask if they'd let you do that if you have a large supply. Since covid restrictions ended I've been filling up cups and then have them dump them into a zippered bag (similar to a door dash bag) I bring, and they keep the cups and give me the discount directly at checkout. I suppose it could likely depend on the temperament of the people who work at your store and how well you know them whether or not they would allow you to do that.
Three extra things to talk about once you are in a Lego store, 1. You can build 3 Minifigures from parts bins provided for $10 + tax. 2. In some stores you can custom color print a plain white minifigure torso for $13, (Mini figure Factory. 3. NYC has 2 Lego Stores, which are open from 11am to 7pm.
Fellow Michigander here, I live two hours away from Somerset Collection and only go for the minifig station once or twice a year. If you need generic plates for cheap, there is a high quality clone brand called Gobrick that makes them in almost any color, including some metallic stuff lego won't do. They can be bought from sites like yourwobb, webrick, or aliexpress. I would highly recommend doing this instead as it's far cheaper and you end up with a product that is more or less the same.
super helpful!
Glad I could help! That’s the goal :)
@@firebirdbricks that was fast lol, just glad I do live close to a lego store!
@@GingaTea01 Lucky! Wish I could say the same. Maybe we will get one here someday!
I have a Lego store that's close by. The problem is their pick-a-brick selection is slim. I'm working on a mini diorama using the space provided in the Lego Ninjago Movie Display and Play case.
I am a bit luck to be 35 minutes from a lego store. To bad the pick a brick wall never has anything I want ever!
My nearest Lego store is less than an hour away from my house but about 20 minutes from where I work so not too long depending on traffic. Also idk if this is a well known tip but I asked one of the employees if I can reuse my old pick a brick cups (I have so many that I might just use them in a MOC) and they said yes and I would get a discount for it.
i think you save something like 35 cents per cup if you reuse them. i could be wrong but its around that price.
That’s true. I don’t recall the discount amount, but I’ve been reusing the same 6 cups (2 tall 4 small) and it’ll add up over time. Plus, I like reusing. Prevents me from getting too big a collection of pick a brick cups
Great tips, thanks for this! I knew PAB can be cheaper but it's good to see someone did the actual math. IMO, comparing LEGO prices between PAB in store, PAB online and Brickink is extremely complex because you have so many factors to consider: price, quantity, shipping costs, how long of a drive etc. etc. that it can be really hard to make a good estimation. I don't think your video is misleading at all and while Bricklink will sometimes be cheaper, overall if you can find the piece you need at PAB, it's the way to go since pieces by volume are generally a better deal than piece by price (for small pieces).
I live a 24 hour drive (2 US States away from my Nearest LEGO Store.
I visited it once in my life, but the whole Pick-a-Bricks Wall was closed because of Covid....
Hello, I have been enjoying your videos as I reacquaint myself with LEGO after a 50 year absence. LEGO is proving a good hobby and creative outlet in my retirement. I would like to see the forum post you mentioned but can find no link to such in the description. I clicked on the hashtags but they only took me away from your channel to other’s channels and none of them had the forum post list you mentioned. Would you be able to post the link to the forum list, please. I thank you for assistance. Leo
Thanks for watching my videos! It looks like that link doesn’t work anymore, unfortunately… I clicked it and it said the site was unreachable. Sorry about that!
OK. Thank you. That explains my difficulty. Thanks for the informative content and for your prompt reply.
Yo there's a Lego store in Kalamazoo, it's significantly closer to Grand Rapids then Detroit, sadly for me both are about 2 hours away lol
Is there a way to see what is instock ahead of time?
I have only used social media for sets and Bricklink for getting parts. I'm lucky enough to have a LEGO store just half an our away and can use public transport too. I guess I should give it a try. Thanks for the heads up!
lol the only lego store that is accessible to me isnt an official lego store, i found megablox in their pick-a-brick table and they use bags instead of cups
you’re such a chill lego youtuber you need more subs
Thanks! Working on it! :)
This is awesome. Especially since I've got a Lego store at a close by mall
Hey, this sounds very similar to the minmax strategy for when you're at a buffet restaurant.
I just got lucky as they just opened a new Lego store here in NH. NO sales TAX.
I am jealous!
Hello, and thank you for the information....... I have to ask, where you got your storage "containers" that are behind/beside you?
Hey! My organizers are from Lowe's. They are Craftsman organizers, typically used for organizing hardware like nuts/bolts/screws etc. I like them as an alternative to Akro Mils (the widely accepted best option) because they are about 40% cheaper.
@@firebirdbricks oh sweet. Thank you.....
@@donaldbright9310 No problem!
I'm subscribed now 😁
🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼
Luckily my closest LEGO store is only 31 minutes away
Just found ya.Excellent content.
Great job Firebird.
Have you ever conspired the Lego store in Chicago? That would probably be a little further, but I’ve been to at least 6 different stores mostly in the Midwest and 2 in Florida and the one in Chicago is fairly big so maybe you’d find good stuff there too
Chicago has 4 stores in the greater metropolitan area that I know of. I have definitely found some good stuff there before! I always go when I am visiting, but don't make trips specifically for the stores since its about 3 and a half hours to get there for me.
@@firebirdbricks of the ones in Chicago you’ve been to which do you consider being the best stocked and or having the newest stuff?
I feel lucky rn, I can go walking to my nearest lego store lmao, it's just 7km away from my home
It’s weird where they place Lego stores and how few there are.
Thanks for the tips I have never been to a lego store I’m my life and I’m 11
hi they put the price of the box now i think they did this because they were losing money on PAB because the way we buy it and the new box we can fill it a lot easyer
and i know lego like you in and out of the shop very fast note i go in to london in the week days working hrs when there no kids
alot are men buying alot of the time my sister has 2 teens and they said the lego crazy is cooling down like the reel to reel crazy some time ago
i like lego and analog recorders
I feel like the math is kinda misleading here. Instead of using the "Current Items for Sale" average, you should be using the "Last 6 Months Sale" average. The "Current" one has listings for absolutely INSANE prices at times (for example, Max Price in this video is over $200,) whereas the "Last 6 Months" shows what people are ACTUALLY paying for these pieces on average.
We'll go with $0.05 since that's what this video shows for the average price of new pieces. Buying 1,150 pieces at $0.05 each would come out to $57.50, a far cry from the $172.50 calculated. If we're SUPER cheap with it and go with the lowest $0.01 per piece, that's only $11.50, which is actually cheaper than the PAB Wall.
It really just depends not on what they're listed for, but what people are actually paying for them. I could list this piece for $1 each, doesn't mean people will buy them. It's a good estimation if done right, but the way it's presented in this video specifically is just a bit misleading. Hope this can help anybody with pricing parts when they come across them.
I see what you are saying, but we also have to take actual availability into account. If I want to buy 1,150 medium nougat 1×2 plates from a seller in the US right now without paying shipping more than once, the absolute cheapest I can get is for 4 cents a piece. That puts me at a cost of $46 before shipping and tax. No actual store with a significant quantity of 1x2 plates has them listed for as cheap as 1 cent like you mention. The absolute cheapest I can find is a store in Poland selling them for 2 cents a piece, but that would require international shipping.
As I said in the video, this was just an example. I even offered the exact 5 cent calculation that you talk about in your comment later in the video as a "less extreme example" but still a great deal.
Last 6 months of sale is a reflection of past sales, not current availability. Yes, people can tip the scales on this number with ridiculously expensive listings, so I usually factor both price averages in when I'm making a decision.
There are small parts that sell for 15 cents a piece all day though, so it's absolutely possible to save more than 10X by using the PAB wall at times. I don't think this video is misleading considering that I offered 2 examples at different price points to show it can be worth it, even if it's a cheaper part.
@@firebirdbricks Good response and I agree with that, the math changes all the time as well.
I just got a whole cup of red diamonds last weekend! Was it worth the price? Maybe not. Do I need a whole cup of red diamonds? Probably not
Happens to the best of us 😂
Great to see another michigander in the lego community
Good info. I live 15min from a lego store lucky me lol.
Thanks man!
Why am I watching this? I dont live near any lego stores. I dont play or build with legos, I dont even own a single brick, lol
Thanks for watching anyways 😂
Man goes to Sommerset
If the stock is decent 😂
i live somewhere where the closest store is 6h away bcus they closed it for no reason. These tips might actually work so thanks
an even better way:
get rich and buy as much as you want 🤑😎😂😂😂
we go once a year emtpy most of the all and go home its also 2 hours drive for me so i bring my brother for help
my lego store is a six hour drive
You live pretty close to me😂
Mate are you related to Kenny KO you look and sound the same 😂😂😂
My Lego store is 5 huares from me😢
The best strategy is to take a look on Bricklink first. There are most likely better offers than on Pick A Brick.
You’re a pretty guy
I live 11 miles from the mall of America Lego store and there pick a brick wall is a joke
Most of the pieces to choose from are things you would never really use
I’ve been disappointed every time I’ve been there looking at the pick a brick wall
The store is great the wall not so much
Being the largest mall in America and a great Lego store there wall is disappointing at least in my opinion
I was surprised at how bad it was there when I visited earlier this year.
I live near it, heading there this weekend how would I get ahold of you , or you can call me let me know