Better to buy sets or individual brick?

[Oberst Hajj]

Hello, new member here. I did a search but did not find anything specific to this...

I've just got into Legos (well, as an adult) and I'm more interested in building my own designs (mainly planes). Does anyone have any thoughts on rather it is better to start building a brick collection to build from by buying sets or just ordering individual pieces as I need them or in "bulk"?

Looking at the Set route, it would seem a good way to build up a nice collection of all the different bricks and some odd ones that might be expensive or hard to get as individual ones. It would also give me a pool of bricks to go dig through during a project if I was short a few different bricks. The draw backs that I can think of are the higher cost on basic bricks and getting color that I will most likely not need.

Going the individual/bulk route could save money, but would not allow me to "free" build as easily since I'd have no or very few bricks just laying around.

Anyone have thoughts on this?

[vynsane]

Hi, and welcome to TnB Oberst Hajj! Very interesting first post!

Both of your "devil's advocate" arguments are spot-on. I find a balance of buying full sets and individual bricks nets the best of both worlds, allowing you to fill your collection quickly with pieces that you might not pick (from sets) but getting the exact pieces you need (via Bricklink).

Also, look for bulk deals on eBay and scour yard sales for big mixed bins - you never know what you'll find in those.

[dr_spock]

I started with sets. Now that there is a local Lego Store, I do more pick a bricks than sets.

[Oberst Hajj]

Thanks for the replies. I've actually started doing both already (couldn't wait!), but it's good to hear what more experienced members are doing. I've managed to pick up two of each of these sets:





They both had quite a few slope and tile pieces that will come in handy for building planes. I also like the darker blue that came with the Super Heroes sets. For my bulk bricks, I had a small find at a yard sale on Friday, it contained an older Creator car set and a robot set. Then today I went to the local flea market and scored a couple of pounds of mixed bricks. I washed them all and they are drying now. I'll have to see how good of a deal it was once they are dry and I can weigh them.

I'm pretty interested in picking up a couple of these as they have lots of the dark blue (and dark red) that I like and lots of slopes and tiles as well.