Pick a Brick is actually a good deal!

[sidersdd]

Thanks for bumping. Forgot to post my subsequent attempts with the MBA PaB. Decided to see what I could do with slopes to maximize space.

[sidersdd]

Another one. This one had horses, 1x16 white bricks, windows, and dark tan 1x2 tiles. Each window had a tile sandwiched between two panes.

[meyerc13]

I'll see if I can do the same type of fill.
I didn't know the Lego B/M would let you stack and connects bricks to fill the PAB box.

Hopefully I wont get any hassles at the Lego B/M. Cross fingers for free PAB box fill

Oh, they definitely allow it! This might be hard to do at this time of year, but if you go at a slow time, often you can get an employee to help you maximize what will fit in the cup. I've seen them do this several times, especially for the kids who throw a bunch of 2x2 or 2x4 bricks in the cup... when the staff is done the cup is only 1/2 full and the kid gets much more for his/her money.

They even reminded me to fill 2x3x2 cabinet pieces with small pieces (as if I didn't already know! ) when I was there the other week.

[Lforcey]

So, with the PAB boxes, do you have to be able close them or can you fill them up as high as the tabs will stand? My kids are just getting into Lego, so the holiday PAB box is our first. Thanks!

[vynsane]

So, with the PAB boxes, do you have to be able close them or can you fill them up as high as the tabs will stand? My kids are just getting into Lego, so the holiday PAB box is our first. Thanks!

You kind of have to be able to close it, but it can bulge out a bit. You can also fill it all the way up to the top of the closed box, like the pyramidal shape sidersdd made as shown a few posts back.

[vynsane]

PaB VIP promo, NYC LEGO Store - Cup 1 by vynsane, on Flickr


PaB VIP promo, NYC LEGO store - Cup 2 by vynsane, on Flickr

With the "Tall for the price of a small" Pick-a-Brick promo for VIP members, and $20 in VIP reward dollars burning a virtual hole in my virtual wallet, I had to pounce. I forget what the total came to with tax, but I still had to pay the tax since they can't use reward dollars towards that. In short, I got...


1x1 brick, round w/three leaves, green, 58
1x1 brick, dark bley, 21
1x2 brick, brown, 34
1x2 brick w/o tube, smoke, 17
1x2 brick w/ridges, light bley, 34
1x2 brick w/ridges, black, 17
1x2 brick w/pin, dark bley, 16
1x3 brick, dark bley, 17
1x4 brick, orange, 8
2x4 brick, red, 2
2x4 brick, dark bley, 10

1x1 plate, round, orange, 153
1x1 plate, trans green, 117
1x1 plate, trans red, 155
1x1 plate, trans yellow, 227
1x2 plate, black, 37
1x2 plate w/handle (open ends), black, 26
1x2 plate w/click hinge (single), light bley, 1
1x2 plate w/hook, light bley, 53
2x2 corner plate, tan, 87
4x4 plate, light bley, 9

1x1 cheese wedge, trans clear, 127

1x1 tile w/clip, light bley, 2
1x1 tile w/clip, dark bley, 296
1x1 tile, trans red, 4
1x2 tile, grill, white, 118
1x2 tile w/handle, light bley, 44
1x2 tile w/steering wheel, white, 27
1x4 tile, brown, 37
1x8 tile, white, 14
1x8 tile, blue, 20
1x8 tile, black, 32
1x8 tile, red, 20
2x2 tile, dark tan, 219

A total of 2059 pieces for a cool $1.06.

Cup 1 total was 1027 pieces, just a few less than Cup 2 even though I took a lot more time filling it. I did get a lot of relatively larger pieces (all the bricks) in this one than I did in the second one.

Cup 2 total was 1032 pieces, just a few more than Cup 1 even though I filled it in a fraction of the time. I used less stacking and grabbed more small pieces, though, so I might have fit more in had I taken the time, but my lunch hour was dwindling.

I might run up there again today and use the remaining $5 in VIP rewards and the couple of bucks in my actual wallet.

[Zeya]

I'm gonna head over there today at my lunch break. Anyone else going to be at the Santa Clara store this afternoon? Say hi to the dude in the tan pants and dark bley shirt, lol. I might just limit myself to one or two cups.

[Zeya]

I hit the PAB today at lunch. I stacked and packed. But I packed long-ways which I think may not be optimal. I think if I did the "cake layers" approach of making round-shaped sections, that may have worked out better. Oh well, maybe next time. I hope they do promotions like this at least a couple times a year from now on. This rocked! Check out the receipt:


Untitled by ZeyaV, on Flickr

[atmail35]

^ where is the photo of the full cup?

[Zeya]

^ where is the photo of the full cup?

I'll at least take a couple of photos when I get home. I have aspirations of laying it all out and counting everything to see how much savings I've had, but we will see if "better things to do" kicks in.

[dr_spock]

I made a trip on my lunch break today to get some more PAB. I didn't have time to stack and pack. It was toss in cup and run before the boss starts paging me.

[Zeya]

^ where is the photo of the full cup?

I got around to doing an audit and taking photos. Here's a copy of what I posted over on EB. (Don't flame me, the site was down over here today!)

This is my second PAB cup ever, and the first time I "knew better" and stacked/packed the cup.

I went during a promotion this week for "large PAB cup for the price of a small cup". The cost of the cup was $6.04 before tax because I also used a 10% off coupon. (I'm kicking myself for not doing 2 or more cups now that I know the savings here!)

I'm really hoping they run this type of promotion again, by the way. If/when they do it again, I'll be sure to go on the first day of the promo, in the morning, because on the second day when I went, they had run out of a lot of "good stuff" - I was after one-wide plates in earth tones, because I want to be able to do landscapes with ease.

Anyway, here's the eye candy:






So my total savings over BL was roughly $36 and savings over S@H was $105.

[atmail35]

Zeya, wow, I wasn't expecting a spreadsheet and all, well done!

The one I filled sits in the bag as I am too lazy to take pics and sort and count at the moment!

[vynsane]

Wow, yeah, comparing to BL and S@H is very comprehensive, nicely done! You still have to get the count up over 1,000 though

[nick91884]

One day I need to take a trip to the Portland store, I've never been to a lego store but PAB sounds like fun! I enjoy seeing all the stacking techniques people use to fill every mm^3 of space.

[dr_spock]

It is a lot of work and time packing and counting those pieces. I only got through 3 of 5 cups. I'm over a couple thousand pieces and counting.

[atmail35]

Today I was able to get pink and purple brick at the PAB wall. 1x4 pink bricks and 2x3 dark purple plates.

I was in a rush so I couldn't spend that much time filling. They also had blue trans clear (is that the right term) round pieces.

IMG_20120501_123957.jpg

[vynsane]

Nice haul! I'll have to see what the NYC store has once my MBA-L3 preorder kicks in... which should be sometime today...

blue trans clear (is that the right term)

"Transparent Light Blue"

[Zeya]

Today I was able to get pink and purple brick at the PAB wall. 1x4 pink bricks and 2x3 dark purple plates.

I was in a rush so I couldn't spend that much time filling. They also had blue trans clear (is that the right term) round pieces.

Wow, nice. I've never seen purple on my local wall. I think the rounds are trans light blue. There was some of that in a POTC set.

Yeah here's the name from BL: "Trans-Light Blue Brick, Round 2 x 2"

[atmail35]

"Transparent Light Blue"

Wow, nice. I've never seen purple on my local wall. I think the rounds are trans light blue. There was some of that in a POTC set.

Yeah here's the name from BL: "Trans-Light Blue Brick, Round 2 x 2"

Thanks for the correct terms ...I was too lazy to try and hunt it down. Yes, I think the PoTC Fountain of Youth set had the Transparent Light Blue bricks.

I was encouraged to see these colors. I had asked about whether they could get "Friends" colors and they thought it might take a while. I hope they get aqua or the lavendar soon!