It depends what you want to build. If you want to build a car, truck, plane, etc., I would start with one of those types of kits and build from there.If you want an overall parts collection, they don't do those, like with the creator buckets of bricks. Your options come down to either buying a Mindstorms kit (which is pricey because of the Mindstorms brick, sensors, and motors) or checking out what LEGO Education has to offer. I don't know your budget, but you may want to look at Simple & Motorized Mechanisms Base SetAs a general kit of Technic parts, the Bucket Wheel Excavator 42055 is great. 2 small and 2 large turntables, 1 XL motor and battery box, some gear selection parts to do multiple functions, crawler tracks and new ring gear quadrants. Almost 4000 parts in total.As a selection of motors, the Volvo front loader 42030 is good. It has one of each M, L, XL and Servo motors, 2x infra-red receiver, handset and battery box. 4 large wheels and some linear actuators.As a provider of pneumatic parts, 42043 Mercedes Benz Arocs truck has all 3 types of cylinder, 4 switches and a motor compressor as well as panels, suspension and wheels.
The best ever was 8455 Backhoe Loader years ago, with 10 cylinders, 7 switches and 2 hand compressor cylinders, but the shelf life of Technic sets is usually 2 years from either the January or August when they were released.I would recommend 42055 for you as a beginner wanting a general collection of parts. It begins with a tipper truck similar to one that is a smaller kit (with 4 medium wheels), so it breaks you in gently with the building techniques. The techniques you learn are probably more valuable than the parts. If I buy any set in multiple then I usually build at least one set into the main model, sort the others and then take apart the built one.What do a railway station, a galaxy far far away and Hogwarts have in common? The town of Springfield has just joined the list of toys that you really should have grown out of, as we are invited to say Hi-Diddly-Ho! to the Lego Simpsons House. Complete with mini figures of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie and Ned Flanders, this is sure to be one for collectors, and is the result of a deal between the Danish toy maker and Twentieth Century Fox to mark the 25th anniversary of the famous cartoon.
In addition, a special episode of The Simpsons is being made featuring the cast in Lego form. As somebody with a midly unhealthy obsession with these little plastic bricks (as an example, sat on my desk is a book called Beautiful Lego), my colleagues on Telegraph Men asked me to come up with a list of the five best Lego models ever. Such a thing would require a frightening amount of legwork for somebody who is actually at this moment supposed to be writing about cars and so I have instead created a slightly different, less well researched and entirely self-indulgent alternative: My top five Lego models of all time. Consider it a starting point for your own suggestions, which I invite you to add in the comments section. 1. Any Lego Railway circa 1980s Building the tracks was fiddly beyond belief, and we were forever losing the rubber bands that sat around the wheels in order to provide traction, but once the railway was up and running it provided my siblings and me with hours of entertainment, not to mention the most wonderful sounds and smells.
Ours had working signals and endlessly modified carriages, and with all the extended family around for Christmas one year, served the vital role of distributing condiments between tables. Of such moments are childhood memories made. 2. Lego Skull's Eye Schooner Long before Lego branched off into film franchises, some of its most creative sets were those featuring medieval castles, space stations and the exploits of pirates. The Skull's Eye Schooner was a highlight, complete with canons (from which you could fire little plastic balls), winches and even a shark, ready and waiting to devour those made to walk the plank (a flat, fat-sixer if memory serves). Mum sold our Skull's Eye Schooner when us kids moved out of home, no doubt for somewhat less than the £150 a good example commands on eBay today. 3. Lego Death Star Despite numerous unsubtle hints, I have not yet been sent a Lego Death Star to review, and thus naming it as one of my top five Lego models ever should rightly be considered as tenuous.
However, you only need to look at the pictures (not to mention the £275 price tag) to know that this is a formidable set, a point backed up by the fact that it takes 3,803 pieces to build and comes with 24 mini figures. One day I will build it - it is my destiny. 4. Lego Technic Arctic Rescue Unit I’d wager that of all my choices, this is the one people would regard as the weakest. It is, after all, a fairly simple model, not all that expensive back in the day and with no real innovation as far as features were concerned. However, as a youngster obsessed with anything that had wheels, set 8660 provided incredible value for money. For a start, there were two vehicles - the six-wheeled rescue van itself and a snow plough that sat in its rear compartment. Plus, there was a set of skis and not one but two Technic figures, who even got their own helmet. This was a set that, in the mind of a 12-year-old boy, was prepared for every situation the living room could throw at it. 5. Lego Technic Unimog Nine-and-a-half hours.
That’s how long it took me to build the Lego Unimog. By the end of it my back was burning, my eyes were bloodshot and I’d lost any concept of what was going on in the outside world. More than 2,000 pieces went into it (another reason that leads me to believe the Death Star must be quite a challenge), and the result is as much a mini engineering marvel as it is a toy. An electric motor activates a pump so that you can pneumatically control the rear claw, at which point you will be genuinely baffled that it was in fact you who built the various gears and linkages that make all of this work. Therein, of course, lies the genius of Lego. Read about Chris Knapman's attempt to build the 2,048-piece Lego UnimogSome rare Lego sets are now selling for literally thousands of pounds online, as enthusiasts snap up the popular toys. But it's not just rare pieces that are selling well, with standard sets now frequently worth more than when they were new and even old bags of unsorted bricks in demand.
“With the soar in popularity of Lego with both adults and children, the effect on the values of both rare, hard to find sets and new releases has been incredible," said Bev Channell, event director for Lego event BRICK 2015, running at Birmingham's NEC this week. “It’s well worth searching through your old sets to see what treasures are hiding there.” The bigger, rarer sets tend to be worth the most - but with Lego frequently refreshing its range that means any old set that's large enough could be worth upwards of £1,000. Currently, these are the most valuable sets: Sadly, to get the best prices for your Lego, it needs to be “mint in box” - which means not opened since it was bought and still factory sealed. The good news for people who want to play with their toys is that you can still get good returns for assembled models – as long as there are no pieces missing. The easiest Lego sets to sell are Star Wars themed, with Millennium Falcons, Death Stars and X-Wings all selling well – and some prices in the thousands.
But there's much more than just Star Wars selling. A look at the best-selling kits on BrickPicker shows trains, play houses, dinosaurs, Harry Potter sets, Back to the Future Deloreans and Pirate sets all featuring. Most of the sales take place on eBay, with BrickPicker providing lists of the top selling and biggest rising prices – as well as a tool letting you compare the price of sets. You can also search on eBay for sold prices of similar sets. If you've got a box of Lego, rather than a specific set, you can bulk-sell as well – although prices for these are a lot lower. That said, if you have the time and can split the box out by category (be it Star Wars, pirates, Medieval, Technic or whatever) these smaller – more specific - bundles will frequently sell for more than a job-lot of unsorted bricks. To get the most value, you need to be selling pristine-condition Lego toys. “As with any sort of collectible, the safe storage of the collectible is very important,” Ed Mack explains in a piece on How to make money from Lego .
“Although the actual Lego brick is pretty much indestructible under normal conditions, the Lego boxes and instructions need special care.” That means quite a lot of space to store them all if you're trying to make money from them, and possibly adding the cost to your insurance. Then there are the seller fees on eBay. And the shipping costs – remember, Lego is bulky and could cost quite a bit to ship. And if you're selling to a collector, they'll expect it to arrive in good condition, so packing costs go up again. Oh, and don't count your profits before you sell – the price of a set can drop fast if Lego re-introduces it while prices can rise as well as fall in line with demand too. Is Lego better than gold? 500+ VOTES SO FAR The market for old toys on eBay is much bigger than just Lego. If you've got some old childhood clutter just gathering dust, here are 8 ways to tell if your old toys could be worth more then just memories while our guide to getting the most cash when selling old toys on eBay can be found here.