On any normal year, you can expect supply chain troubles buying LEGO sets and bricks for the holidays. With an increase in online shopping and runs on new and popular sets, plenty of you found products sold out…even before they hit the shelves! If you haven’t considered it, now may be the time for you to learn how to buy second hand LEGO.
Your first time may be a little intimidating, but there’s nothing to fear. We’ve purchased plenty of second hand pounds ourselves. While some of them have been great for our brick supply, others not so much… but we’ll get to that shortly.
Where to Buy Loose Brick
There are plenty of places where you can purchase loose brick or second hand sets. We recommend the usual suspects:
What To Look For When Purchasing Second Hand
So if you’re wondering why it can be hit or miss, there are plenty of reasons behind that. Which is why it’s important to take a look at a few things before blindly purchasing used brick.
Here are a few tips we can give you for making sure you get the best deal you can:
Purchasing New In Box (NIB)
If you’re familiar with the resale world, you’ll know the term “New In Box”. This generally means that the item is brand new and unopened.
While this is fairly straight forward, there are ways you can get scammed. We recommend that you:
- Make sure that all the tape is in one piece.
Each box end will have anywhere from one to two pieces of tape to seal the box. You’ll want to keep an eye out for cut tape or repositioned tape.
Cut tape is pretty easy to spot. However, you’ll want to scrutinize the tape to see if maybe it was removed and then glued back into position. Sometimes people will purchase boxes and open them just to get the valuable or rare minifigures, then tape them back up for returning or reselling. I don’t like it, but it has happened before. - Listen for the rattle of bricks and the crinkle of plastic.
When someone is able to convincingly replace tape on a box, they might go as far as keeping the bricks and replacing them with something else. Make sure to shake the box a bit and listen for the telltale signs of LEGO bricks hitting each other and crinkly polybags.
Purchasing “New” Opened Sets
Sometimes you’ll come across sets that come with boxes but are opened. In these instances, you’ll want to look at the bags that came with the boxes and make sure that all your minifigures are present in the boxes.
You can also weigh the boxes to verify you are getting the amount of brick you are expecting.
Look for Sealed Boxes
Sealed boxes are the holy grail of purchasing “used”. You’ll want to look for originally sealed and not re-taped. Generally, this ensures that you’re getting everything you expect in your box.
Open box? Check for minifigures.
Sometimes people buy sets just for the minifigures. So if the box is open, you should look at the packs to verify all the minifigures are there. If they’re not, you might be missing more than just the minifigures and should take that into consideration when purchasing.
Weigh Boxes
Another way you can verify you have everything you expect in a box set is to weigh the box with bricks in it. If the box weighs what you expect it to weigh based on the set description, you shouldn’t expect any foul play with the packaging.
How To Avoid Offbrand Bricks
Since they’re cheaper, many people sometimes mix in off brand brick with LEGO bricks. They may do that because to them, anything that looks like a LEGO brick, whether it is or isn’t, is called LEGO. It may also be that they are trying to bulk up a small lot of LEGO with filler brick.
If you’re wanting quality brick, LEGO is the way to go. The following tips should help you make sure you are getting just that.
However, if you don’t care, you can skip this section:
Look for LEGO symbols
If you want the original quality brick, you need to look for that little LEGO stamp on the studs. Other brands are will have their own brand marks and people may try to mix off brand LEGO in the bulk lot.
Bring Genuine LEGO Bricks With You
Sometimes it’s hard to tell if you’re looking at the real deal. There have been some really good FAGO (short for “Fake LEGO”) spotted in the wild these days, but there’s always short on some aspect of our favorite brick. You should take a couple of bricks with you to compare colors and check the sheen on the bricks. It will help you spot fakes more easily.
This is just a starting place for purchasing second hand LEGO brick, but we hope you’ll find it useful!