On the LEGO Trail…

(Written by Mark H. Avery)

I’m always on the lookout to increase my LEGO collection. Since it’s been, to my mind, a very successful stretch over the last four months (2026), I thought I’d write about it and share with other AFOLs on this blog.

First, some general comments. LEGO, as a company, has grown in the last decade. That’s great for the company, but raises an issue for me. Consider Mattel, one of the other major toy companies, which is the home of Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher-Price, Mega Bloks, and other product lines. No one would mix Barbie and Hot Wheels. I doubt anyone collects both brands interchangeably. But to many, LEGO is LEGO. But LEGO has so many product lines, and many overlap, and all are referred to as “LEGO”.

I have a nice-sized LEGO City set up in a spare bedroom. (Please see some of my previous posts linked here.) I have on display a few 2025 sets, but also city sets from 2020, 2010, 2000, and 1980, mainly purchased when they first came out. LEGO Flowers are truly beautiful and a very successful product line for the company, but it has nothing to do with me. If I were twenty years younger and had lots of display space in my living room, I might collect them. Really pretty! Neither are several other product lines, such as LEGO Ninjago or LEGO Speed Champions, relevant to me. Then there are product lines such as LEGO Marvel or LEGO Harry Potter. I don’t collect those lines—except that many specific sets (typically buildings) fit into a town/city with little or no modification. So when I talk about “the LEGO trail”, I’m generally referring to LEGO City sets with the exceptions just noted. That doesn’t mean I don’t grab a LEGO Star Wars or LEGO Marvel set when it’s on great discount.

My second point is that this year (2026) has been a great year for LEGO City sets (including trains). But how many police or fire stations can one put in a city? For many of us, that’s a space issue, a financial issue, and a logical issue. Especially given the finances, hunting for old sets and brick collections has become more important to me. And much of the fun has been in the hunt.

So let me begin. One Sunday morning, my wife and I were heading out for the day. Before I left, I Googled “local garage sales”, and one showed up that was only ten minutes out of the way. I got there. Lots of interesting things, but no LEGO. They had several rather large toy fire trucks — something else that I collect. (I also collect ducks.) While paying the lady for the trucks, I casually asked my usual question: “By any chance do you have any LEGO?” And she says, “Just a minute”, and goes to consult with her husband. He says yes and goes inside, coming out with an armful of sets. He apologizes that some are open. One’s an empty box that he just tosses. But I was able to get two open sets, two closed sets, and a non-LEGO building set. They were: LEGO Star Wars First Order Special Forces TIE Fighter (#75101) and LEGO Star Wars Resistance X-Wing Fighter (#75149); LEGO Ninjago Master of Spinjitzu Street Race of Snake Jaguar (#70639), LEGO Speed Champions Scuderia Ferrari SF16-H (#75879), and something I never heard of: Meccano Maker System Race Cars, all sealed boxes. That cost me $20 total. I think I got a great deal!

FINDING LEGO AT FACEBOOK MARKETPLACE

I recently started looking at Facebook Marketplace. Again, I’m only looking at my (very) local area and looking for bargains. Multiple sellers have minifigures for sale. I’m always on the lookout for people to populate my town; basic city folks that I’d pay up to $1 per person. The other might be great bargains — but I have no interest or money. And I don’t buy for resale. I found a listing for bulk LEGO — sorted by color. I asked if it was still available — and exactly where the seller was located. The answer was she lived ten minutes away and would sell me bulk LEGO at $3 a pound. I said I’m interested. She invited me to her apartment. I said no. She said, “It’s OK, my husband’s home”. That didn’t thrill me, so she agreed to bring everything down to her front stoop. (Later, friends told me that you’re not supposed to meet like that – and the local police precinct even has a room set up for just such meetings.)

Anyway, I drove over to her house. She agreed to sell me her stash at $2.50 a pound. I bought (almost) everything to the tune of $108. For some reason, I passed on the orange and yellow brick bags and a $10 bag of all curved plastic tracks. No pinks or purples in this lot! All basic colors that I can use in my town. Especially a lot of white pieces. And lots of windows, which I always need. Then separately, some baseplates: the big grey (15×15) ones at $3 a pop, some green baseplates at $2 each, and six non-LEGO road plates at 50¢ a piece. It will take years to sort, but I already found that there are at least most of the parts for a white passenger train are included. I asked about instruction booklets, mainly to know what sets I was getting. She said she’d email me when she got them out of storage. So far, I haven’t heard anything. But the fact that she (her kids) were into LEGO City as opposed to LEGO Star Wars or LEGO Marvel was a big plus. So far, I’ve done mini-sorts on most of the bags. That means I try to put plates in separate bags and windows, doors, and fences in a separate bag, without mixing colors. It seems endless!

We do some close-by travel during the summer (I live in NYC). Clifton, New Jersey, had a town-wide yard sale. I went – and found little. But there was a flea market set up at a local park. There was a “carpet bag” of LEGO for $30. I ended up paying $20. It had mixed LEGO, including LEGO Bionicle—but also had a basic (10×10) grey plate together with most of an older police station (#7498). Not a bad find. I’ll print out instructions and start building.

Traveling upstate, I stopped in a strip mall by a small town. I was there once before. A privately owned LEGO store. I asked if he buys. He responded he pays about 40% of lower BrickLink prices. I understand. He has overhead; he has to pay salaries. But how does that work for me? I buy a set for $100; let’s say the price quickly goes up to $200. If I sell it to him or his competitors, I get 40% or $80. I lost money. That doesn’t even include taxes I paid or my time and overhead. Even if I purchased the set at a 20% off sale, it cost me $80. That’s all the stores are willing to offer me 3-4 years later. So why are all these investors hoarding LEGO? I looked at some of his stuff. Kind of expensive. But like other such stores that I’ve visited, he has a showcase of used sets with missing pieces. I purchased an ice cream truck (#60253) for $10 and two small trucks from larger sets for $5 each, including two minifigures total. (I already own the ice-cream truck, but having two in town is fine.)

FINDING LEGO AT TRAIN SHOWS

There’s a toy and model train show about 20 miles away every 4–5 months. I try to attend. Dealers sell slot cars, Barbie dolls, Beanie Babies, Thomas the Engine trains and tracks, toy trucks, Matchbox cars, and more. And some have LEGO, but it’s mainly model trains and their accessories. One woman seller is a regular there. She sells LEGO minifigures ranging from $1 to $6 a piece. But she’ll sell me 30 random figures for $15 — she gets to pick what she has a surplus of. For people on line in my amusement park or walking around town, almost any additional minifigures are good. (For balance, I tend to need more women and children minifigures, especially in the park, but it’s not something I worry about.) A friend of hers at an adjoining table had four old road plates at $2 each. (She knew I wanted them.) That was a quick buy. He had bags of “accessories” at $7 each. I passed on those. Then he had bags of “odd parts” at $5 each. I purchased two. When I opened them at home, I found an almost complete Dodge Charger (#76910) and the front half of a car/trailer set (#60117). I think that covered my $10. He also had a bag of metal tracks. With one exception, they were all curves. (I think they can be had for 50¢ a piece on BrickLink, but a straight track goes for 5 or 6 dollars.) And at the bottom of the freezer bag was a train motor that hopefully works. (I didn’t get to test it yet.) I thought that was worth the $10 he was asking for the lot. I pointed out the motor to him, and he said he doesn’t collect LEGO trains.

A little boy was standing by his father’s train table selling minifigures for $1 each. I couldn’t really negotiate with a child — but I bought three female figures to add to my city. At another table, someone was selling sealed LEGO BrickLink Designer Program sets. Out of my price range. Someone else had the terminal building only (with instructions) for one of the older airports (#3182). I bought that for $15. (My grandson already built it.) Some train dealer had several freezer bags of random bricks at $8 per bag. I passed on those. There’s often someone at these shows selling what I call minifigure knockoffs — President Trump, other politicians, Elvis, other famous people, dinosaurs. He gets $5 each. I’ve never bought. Back to the first table, the guy was selling a pre-owned LEGO Lone Ranger Constitution Train Chase set (#79111) with instructions (but no box) with a dozen missing small pieces, a few unique. He said it’s $160 on eBay — but he’s selling for $80. I wasn’t biting, but it was toward the end of the show, so when he went down to $60, I became the proud owner of the train. I always planned to build a western theme section for my amusement park, and I think the train together with my makeshift creation of Fort LEGOredo will be the highlight. I’ve been accumulating brown log-panel pieces for several years. (My grandson has already started on building the train.)

FINDING LEGO AT CRAIG’S LIST

It was another hot, humid Sunday in August. I knew I needed to pay two condolence calls that day. But first I did my typical Google search for nearby garage (or yard) sales. The search took me to Craigslist. Someone was advertising ten pounds of LEGO for $50. The posting said to call. The location was about ten minutes away from my condolence call. It said it included 50 LEGO people. I said I’d like to see what she had. I could be there in about 25 minutes. She said to call when I got to her block. I called, and she came out pushing a shopping cart. She had three taped post office boxes of different sizes. I insisted she open them and let me see what the stash looked like. There were about 25 LEGO Friends figures and about 25 minifigures in a plastic bag. Looking at the pieces, there were plenty of partial segments of Friends cars and buildings. Included were clearly parts for an airplane (#41100) and for a balloon (#41097). Most of the pieces seemed to be from the LEGO Friends line. I tried offering $40, but she wasn’t buying. Even though I’m not into LEGO Friends, I still figured that the 25 minifigures had to be worth at least $12. $38 for the remaining 9–10 pounds seemed reasonable, so I bought. Now I’m trying to identify unique pieces (usually stickers) to help me figure out what sets I have. But as always, no guarantees. I look through the parts, and I’m finding additional parts for the minifigures and LEGO Friends people. I’ve already identified two Santa Clauses, Mrs. Claus, a LEGO Lord of the Rings torso, a LEGO Harry Potter Hagrid, and a LEGO Superman minifigure. I also already printed out the instructions for the plane and balloon.

None of this is to say I’m not buying LEGO through normal retail outlets. In the last four months, my purchases have been from Target, Macy’s, Walmart, Amazon, the Online LEGO Shop (at least twice — to get freebie promos), and the local LEGO shop, where I can’t resist the Pick-A-Brick wall. Last time the wall was very disappointing. They should try offering matching pieces. So, for example, if they want to offer light-aqua bricks, they should offer 1x1s as well as 1x2s and/or 1x4s, so one can build a wall. And it doesn’t end. Just yesterday, I purchased two LEGO City Burger Trucks (#60404) at Target (Amazon had the same deal) for $12.79 — 36% off. But there’s not the same “thrill of the chase” when I go online, although sales are always nice.

And then there’s BrickLink. It’s addictive, but I’m trying to stay away — especially from those stores with high shipping charges. In the last four months, I must have placed five orders, usually for $30 to $70 each.

There are always regrets in this hunt! I should have offered less for that bag. I should have bought three bags, not two. I’m getting minifigures for 50 cents. Why did I buy the three at a dollar each? I should have gone earlier in the morning. A lady at a garage sale in Jersey told me she sold all the LEGO she had two hours ago. I should have gone later — sellers cut prices at the end of the day. Maybe I overpaid for… What am I going to do with forty pounds of LEGO? And why do I need a LEGO Friends set? But as I said, it’s the thrill of the chase.

You should try it. And feel free to share your own LEGO hunting adventures in the comment section below!