There is a line of LEGO sets that are so rare and hard to find, you will hardly ever hear about them, let alone see them in person. They are created by independent designers who are authorized by the LEGO company. The boxes have no set numbers, but they come with the standard LEGO logo, as well as the LEGO Certified Professional designation.
These LEGO Certified Professional sets are usually commissioned by a company or event, and are limited to 500 copies or less. They are mostly LEGO Architecture and LEGO Creator type sets, depicting architectural landmarks, vehicles, or animals that are relevant to the company or event. Please note that there are other commissioned models created by independent designers, however they don’t come with the LEGO Certified Professional logo. Here we will focus on the ones that come with LEGO’s official endorsement.
As the sets are almost unheard of, there is very little information about them. LEGO fan Derek Brameyer took up the task to create an index of all the LEGO Certified Professional sets. Eventually he would like to create a guide similar to Brickset with detailed information about each set; date of release, piece count, parts list, and even building instructions. Right now he is at the stage of gathering information, and created a list of the sets he was able to track down so far. Derek posted a Google Doc with the current list, which is regularly updated as new information becomes available (also copied below). And you can also check out this very informative article with more interesting details at MinifigPriceGuide.com.
- LEGO Durham Cathedral – three versions; small – 394 pieces, medium – 530 pieces, and large – 1880 pieces. All designed by LEGO Certified Professional Duncan Titmarsh (Bright-Bricks.com), and released in 2014.
- LEGO Ravenel Bridge – designed by Duncan Titmarsh, over 1500 pieces, released in 2015.
- LEGO Chester Cathedral – designed by Duncan Titmarsh, 1584 pieces.
- LEGO The Gherkin – designed by Duncan Titmarsh, 842 pieces, released in 2013.
- Fairy Bricks Logo – designed by Duncan Titmarsh, 246 pieces, released in 2015.
- LEGO ConocoPhillips Jasmine Oil Platform – designed by Duncan Titmarsh, 903 pieces, released in 2015.
- LEGO ConocoPhillips Judy Oil Platform – designed by Duncan Titmarsh, 1573 pieces, released in 2015.
- LEGO Fusion-IO ioDrive II – designed by Duncan Titmarsh.
- LEGO MEWPS Cherry Picker – designed by Duncan Titmarsh, 226 pieces.
- LEGO Farm & Tractor Trailer – designed by Duncan Titmarsh, 263 pieces.
- LEGO Montrose Fire Engine – designed by Duncan Titmarsh, 226 pieces, released in 2014.
- LEGO Wetland Animals – designed by Duncan Titmarsh, 116 pieces.
LEGO Reefscape Series – 15 sets in total; Blue Spot Stingray, Humbug Damsel, Yellow Tang, Clown Triggerfish, Juvenile Clarion Angel, Lionfish, Domino Damsel, Pair Clownfish Male & Female, Small Emperor Angelfish, Boxing Shrimp, Large Emperor Angelfish, Seahorse plus Pipefish, Black & White Bannerfish, Regal Tang, Regal Angelfish. All designed by Duncan Titmarsh.
- LEGO The Leadenhall Building – designed by Joe Perez (Bright-Bricks.com), 566 pieces, released in 2014.
- LEGO Boekentoren – designed by Dirk Denoyelle (Amazings.eu), 314 pieces, released in 2014.
- LEGO Hilton Paris Opera – designed by Dirk Denoyelle, 2503 pieces, released in 2015.
- LEGO Snap-On Tool Chest – designed by Adam Reed Tucker (BrickStructures.com), 242 pieces.
- LEGO Power [Up] San Francisco – designed by Adam Reed Tucker, 164 pieces, released in 2013.
- LEGO Abellio ScotRail – designed by Matija Puzar (Matija.no), 512 pieces, released in 2015.
- LEGO Motor Home and Caravan – released in 2015.
- LEGO Tyne Bridge – 3001 pieces, released in 2016.
Because these LEGO Certified Professional models are available in such limited quantities, they usually command a high price on the secondary market. BrickLink does not list these sets in their catalog as regular items, however they do have some of them listed for sale. You will have to search for each set by name, as they don’t have a set number. The best and most consistent place to find these sets is on eBay (in fact the pictures I used here are all from current and past eBay listings). Here is the page where you can find them: LEGO CERTIFIED PROFESSIONAL SETS ON EBAY
As Derek is still gathering information on these very unique sets, he is also asking for help from the LEGO fan community. If you own or have access to any of the LEGO Certified Professional sets, he would like to get a copy of the instruction manuals and the list of pieces used in the set (PDF copies, LDD files, or videos are all okay). You can reach him through the above mentioned Google Doc posted on Reddit, through this thread at EuroBricks, or just comment below.
So what do you think? Have you ever heard of the LEGO Certified Professional sets? Do you have any of them already? Or do you know someone who does? Are you interested to collect them, or build them from instructions? Feel free to share your thoughts and discuss in the comment section below! 😉
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Wow! These are really interesting! Never heard of them before. I especially like the reefscape and wetland animals. So eBay is the only place to get these?
Yes, eBay is pretty much the only place you can get them. A few of them are listed on BrickLink also, but you have to search for them by name as they don’t have a set number. Another problem with BrickLink is that you can’t put these sets on your Wanted List because they are not in the main catalog. This means you won’t get a notification when a rare set shows up, and you will have no idea someone listed them. However on eBay you can save your search and get notified when new listings become available. It is worth doing it if you are looking for a specific one, and it seems like eBay is the place where most of these get listed anyway.
I never heard of these before either. Thanks for listing them. Very interesting. So are they considered official LEGO sets?
They are designed by LEGO Certified Professionals and officially endorsed by LEGO. So while they are not in regular LEGO catalogs as they are usually designed for a particular event, they are LEGO sets with the official LEGO logo.
My Dad, went to England last year and visited the Durham Cathedral. They were selling LEGO bricks in order to make money to do a lot of repair work on the Cathedral and at the same time with the LEGO bricks that people bought they used it to make replica of the Durham Cathedral.
Nice that your Dad was there! They actually made three versions of the Durham Cathedral for that event, and sold them as sets. All three are excellent.
I’ve seen a handful of these but never in “sensible” price range. I want the leadenhall building model (I work less than 5 mins walk from it) but it’s so hard to get hold of its unreal.
For me, it doesn’t seem worth the hustle to collect, but since I guess they don’t contain any unique parts, save stickers, I might download some free instructions out of interest…
A “Boekentoren” should mean a “book tower”, for the part of the blog’s readership with deficient Dutch skills…
Apparently, it’s a famous building in Ghent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boekentoren
Thanks for that! I was wondering what that meant! 😀
Yeah, that’s why I feel that Derek’s project is so worthy. He is trying to get all the parts-lists and instructions in one place. Unfortunately most people who have these sets never open them, so it is hard to get that information.
I have all of them, except for the reefscape which I dont really care for.
Wow! That’s amazing! Would you be able to help out with this research? Or do you have them all sealed?
The whole concept seems to be a pretty recent thing. If you’ve jumped on the train early, the prices might have been fairly low…
Started in 2007
Ryan McNaught LCP from Melbourne Australia has released at least 3 of these sets in conjunction with Brickvention. They are Melbourne Tram, FJ Holden and I think the current one is an EH Panel Van.
Interesting! Any pictures?
We saw the wetland animals ones for sale at the London Wetland Centre last summer, but don’t buy any. They are fairly expensive new, though they would need to be too make such small production runs viable.
The wetland series were associated with a Lego sculptures of Wetland animals around the centre, they moved to other Wetland Centres but I don’t know if the sets were available everywhere the brick animals went.
Dulwich Picture Gallery and Water of Life Chester are 2 more sets.
Oh, wow! Those are nice ones! (I just looked up pictures.) Thanks for sharing!
Hi there,
Just thought that I’d let you know that there are some Limited Edition – Lego Certified professional kits by Bright Bricks available that a replicas Large and Small here from St Edmundsbury Cathedral > https://www.stedscathedral.uk/lego/cathedral-models
200 small
and 250 large
There is also a Bury St Edmunds ‘Wolf’ available soon.
Matt @BuryStEdsLego #afol
Thanks for sharing that! Awesome! 🙂
Here’s a new one https://www.tcplfoundation.org/tcpl-lego-build
Those are cute. Which LCP built them?