FIND MORE PRODUCTS LIKE THISBuilding the new LinkedIn Logo in LEGO bricks for the Mountain View lobby required me to buy a huge number of specific bricks in the same color. This is useful because you can order any brick in production. Limitations are that you cannot order bricks that are out of production, and fulfillment times are often 10-15 business days for large orders.2) Fax an order to LEGO. The LinkedIn logo required over 5,000 blue 2x8 bricks as the primary component of the construction. For large, detailed orders you can call the LEGO store at 1-800-835-4386, and they will give you a fax number for the order. Unfortunately, fulfillment times here depend on brick type - I ended up waiting 6-7 weeks for some components of the order. Also, LEGO seems to have no concept of shipping notifications or tracking for orders placed this way.3) Local LEGO stores "Pick a Brick". I used both the Valley Fair and Hillsborough stores to acquire bricks at times. You can buy bricks three ways: a small cup for $7.99, a large cup for $14.99, and an entire box for $70.
As you can imagine, you are somewhat limited by your ability (or patience) in terms of cramming different brick types into containers. Most clerks will tell you that you can't buy bricks by the box - they are mistaken. Ask to talk to a manager, and they will sell you a box, but only if they have more than one in the back. They are not allowed to sell "the last box."The biggest limitation of this approach is that not only do stores not stock all brick types or colors, they also have no ability to "special order" Pick-a-Brick bricks. They get fulfillment once a week, and have no control over which bricks they receive. The trick is to call ahead, and be flexible with your design to adapt to the bricks they do have.4) Bricklink. For example, getting 20-30 small 1x2 tiles to finish off the base edges of the lettering. Bricklink is relatively slow on fulfillment, and it's common to get bricks that are discolored by age or cleaning. This means they may not match other orders of a similar brick.
It's also very hard to get large orders of many brick types & colors.Overall, for the LinkedIn in LEGO project I purchased approximately 12,000+ bricks. 8,000 I was able to get over 7-8 weeks from a Fax order to LEGO. /) and click on "Buy Lego." BrickLink is a kind of Craigslist for Lego bricks -- you can get pretty much any kind ever made, in any color it was made in./PAB/ Prices aren't great but they are actually roughly about the same as what you would pay in a boxed set.Yard sales and thrift stores can be very hit-and-miss. When you find them you can get great bargains, but most of the time it’s not fruitful unless you have other reasons to shop there. When I built my Pokemon sculptures, I was able to do that using a bulk brick tub that lego was selling at the time (set #3033). I bought about 20 of those at $20 each and still ran out of certain parts – that’s why Squirtle’s tail was so small. Sadly, that tub was discontinued a few years ago and the bulk tubs that are available more recently haven’t had nearly as good of an assortment or as good of a price per brick.
Probably the easiest way to get cheap parts is to shop on BrickLink. It’s an online shopping mall just for LEGO. Sellers buy sets in bulk (generally when they have clearance sales at retail stores) and sort the parts, putting the individual pieces on their stores. Then you can go in and order any part in quantity. It’s an awkward site to use, but I think the best way is to start at the Catalog tab, find the part you want in the color you want, and then find a store that has them in sufficient quantity. (Disclaimer: I have my own BrickLink store.) There’s also bulk brick available from LEGO; usually they’re a lot more expensive that way but once in a while you can find some real bargains. Look for the “Pick-A-Brick” in the LEGO Shop-At-Home Store and if you have a LEGO store in your nearby mall, they have an in-person pick-a-brick wall where you can fill up a plastic cup with LEGO parts for a set price. And of course don’t forget about buying sets on sale. Check for sales at LEGO Shop-At-Home (and try their phone number too, as they have weekly phone-only sales as well).
If you know any other good ways to find bulk LEGO at economical prices, please post it here as a comment…. Shop for LEGO on AmazonWhat will you build next with Stud.io? Available for Mac and Windows Create a Just Bricks account and you'll: - Receive exclusive offers via email (no spam, promise) - Browse and Checkout much faster - Access your purchase history and change your detailsWhen I was a kid, my brother and I built all kinds of things out of Legos -- spacecraft, buildings, pseudo-Voltrons, abstract art pieces, and so on. We kept all our bricks in a gigantic denim bag that so heavy it was hard for a four-year-old Higgins to carry. But even the bag itself was well-designed: when you opened the bag, it actually laid out as a flat circle on the floor, allowing easy access to a fantastic Lego collection heaped within. As kids, my brother and I only had one or two "themed" Lego packs -- one was a set of "moonscape" plates that you could presumably build a moon station on, and another had something to do with knights and castles.
But in general, we just had a metric butt-load of bricks, no Indiana Jones, no Star Wars, no custom "only fits in one place" bricks from those sets that kids get nowadays. So what happened to good old generic, non-themed Lego bricks? The New York Times says: Turning to Tie-Ins, Lego Thinks Beyond the Brick. From the article (emphasis added): Even as other toymakers struggle, this Danish maker of toy bricks is enjoying double-digit sales gains and swelling earnings. In recent years, Lego has increasingly focused on toys that many parents wouldn't recognize from their own childhood. Hollywood themes are commanding more shelf space, a far cry from the idealistic, purely imagination-oriented play that drove Lego for years and was as much a religion as a business strategy in Billund. In the United States, Lego's biggest market and the biggest toy market in the world, games with themes like "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" were among the reasons Lego sales jumped 32 percent last year, well above the global pace.
But experts like Dr. Jonathan Sinowitz, a New York psychologist who also runs a psychological services company, Diagnostics, wonders at what price these sales come. "What Lego loses is what makes it so special," he says. "When you have a less structured, less themed set, kids have the ability to start from scratch. When you have kids playing out Indiana Jones, they're playing out Hollywood's imagination, not their own." What Do You Think? Do your kids play with Legos (or do you still play with them yourself)? How do you feel about the themed kits overpowering the general-purpose brick sets? I'd be particularly curious if anyone out there knows of good sources for buying just the regular bricks, as indeed they can be hard to find in some toy stores. (Note: if you search on Amazon for "lego bricks" there are some good options there, particularly the "Basic Bricks" set.) Leave your thoughts in the comments! The Early History of Lego, The Lego Lifestyle Home, and Stop the Lego Mania!