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PAB not as good as before?

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Does anyone else think that the parts of PAB are getting worse and worse? I've been looking at old pictures of PAB, and I've found pictures of Sand Green, Dark Orange, and Medium Dark Flesh bricks being found at PAB. Where as now Most of the walls are full of wheels, 2x4 bricks, and 2x6 bricks. Am I the only one who thinks this?

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My store is sad (Pleasanton, CA), it had nothing but basic bricks and I think yellow seat parts..I left without buying anything. I asked and the only interesting thing they had in the back were some trans blue tiles..they were surprised they had that! I could find nothing in a color I could use...

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My store is sad (Pleasanton, CA), it had nothing but basic bricks and I think yellow seat parts..I left without buying anything. I asked and the only interesting thing they had in the back were some trans blue tiles..they were surprised they had that! I could find nothing in a color I could use...

Try the Santa Clara LEGO store. I've gotten some pretty good stuff there. Right now they have a bunch of good stuff for building houses :)

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Does anyone else think that the parts of PAB are getting worse and worse? I've been looking at old pictures of PAB, and I've found pictures of Sand Green, Dark Orange, and Medium Dark Flesh bricks being found at PAB. Where as now Most of the walls are full of wheels, 2x4 bricks, and 2x6 bricks. Am I the only one who thinks this?

They recently changed the setup. There are some types of parts that they now mandate will always be in the walls. Wheels topping the list. Remember the PAB walls are mainly for kids seeking to be able to compliment what they have. So the walls will carry parts applicable to building small vehicles such as cars or spaceships, etc. they also are making an effort to stock parts that are complimentary to certain lines mainly City, Star Wars and a Friends. This leaves less room for rarer or more exotic stuff that interests us. Of course the more wall space a store has the better the selection remains.

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They recently changed the setup. There are some types of parts that they now mandate will always be in the walls. Wheels topping the list. Remember the PAB walls are mainly for kids seeking to be able to compliment what they have. So the walls will carry parts applicable to building small vehicles such as cars or spaceships, etc. they also are making an effort to stock parts that are complimentary to certain lines mainly City, Star Wars and a Friends. This leaves less room for rarer or more exotic stuff that interests us. Of course the more wall space a store has the better the selection remains.

Those parts that stay up will be rotated this July.

This is what the MoA LEGO Store had today:

Flower Stems

Red Pedals

White Pedals

Palm Branches

Transparent Green 2x2 cylinders

lime green 1x2

brown 1x2

brown 1x3 plate

brown 4x4 plate

green 6x8 plate

and so on...

Edited by legoman19892

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Store selection does depend on store size and location. For instance in the DC metro area one store may get more desirable pieces first over the others due to its location (there are four stores in this area, all a good one to two hours from each other). My closest store usually gets last pick so to speak.

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Store selection does depend on store size and location. For instance in the DC metro area one store may get more desirable pieces first over the others due to its location (there are four stores in this area, all a good one to two hours from each other). My closest store usually gets last pick so to speak.

Yeah, I don't know where you're at, but I go to the Annapolis store. Their selection was kind of bland for awhile, but they've been perking up lately with all the wheels, angled pieces, and other goofy parts. The manager there is really nice, so if you're looking for something specific they may pull it out of the back. I once asked her if they'd ever get any house doors in, and she went to the back to get a box of both the frames and the doors.

I'm hitting the McLean store tomorrow, so I'll be curious how their setup has changed. I might hit Potomac Mills over the weekend, which I recollect as being a little bigger.

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The Schaumburg store is usually pretty good and the manager there is helpful. I think before it was mainly based on what the manager could get a hold of which some times it could be good. The whole mainstreaming the stores is surely going to limit some of the rarer pieces that could some times be found. Customer service after all is everything.

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at least you get PaB.....

at least you get Lego stores.....

You had your chance in 1987. What happened to make the first official LEGO store close down?

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The era in the mid 2000s just up until March 2008 was perfect; it was practically the "anything and everything" period for PAB. You would definitely walk out with a cup in hand because there was guaranteed unusual stuff.

I remember lots of dark orange, sand green, blue and red, and even teal and purple stuff. In 2007, the dark colors seemed to reign on the wall and then was the PAB tub era, which I took advantage of.

Honestly, now is not the pits for the PAB. The real worst time was between 2008 and 2011. Nothing but basic colors.

The target market is for kids, but to some extent internally, TLC does offer some yet unmentionable ways to accommodate AFOLs. But their attachment is decreasing.

Of course, nowadays the wall can never match the current available parts variety, which exploded over the last three years especially with SW, Friends, and some other licensed lines. The July overhaul may bring in some from the Friends line though, but time will tell.

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The era in the mid 2000s just up until March 2008 was perfect; it was practically the "anything and everything" period for PAB. You would definitely walk out with a cup in hand because there was guaranteed unusual stuff.

I remember lots of dark orange, sand green, blue and red, and even teal and purple stuff. In 2007, the dark colors seemed to reign on the wall and then was the PAB tub era, which I took advantage of.

Honestly, now is not the pits for the PAB. The real worst time was between 2008 and 2011. Nothing but basic colors.

The target market is for kids, but to some extent internally, TLC does offer some yet unmentionable ways to accommodate AFOLs. But their attachment is decreasing.

Of course, nowadays the wall can never match the current available parts variety, which exploded over the last three years especially with SW, Friends, and some other licensed lines. The July overhaul may bring in some from the Friends line though, but time will tell.

*oh2* :drool:Teal...... Mind Blown.... hopefully some good stuff coming in July.

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The era in the mid 2000s just up until March 2008 was perfect; it was practically the "anything and everything" period for PAB. You would definitely walk out with a cup in hand because there was guaranteed unusual stuff.

I remember lots of dark orange, sand green, blue and red, and even teal and purple stuff. In 2007, the dark colors seemed to reign on the wall and then was the PAB tub era, which I took advantage of.

Honestly, now is not the pits for the PAB. The real worst time was between 2008 and 2011. Nothing but basic colors.

The target market is for kids, but to some extent internally, TLC does offer some yet unmentionable ways to accommodate AFOLs. But their attachment is decreasing.

Of course, nowadays the wall can never match the current available parts variety, which exploded over the last three years especially with SW, Friends, and some other licensed lines. The July overhaul may bring in some from the Friends line though, but time will tell.

Keep in mind though that in the early naughts, the LEGO color palette was ballooning out of control. The current color palette is around 60 colors, while in 2003 it was over 100 colors. The move to reduce its size between 2004 and 2008 could easily have reduced the NUMBER of bricks being produced in some of those rarer colors. It's also possible that between 2004 and 2008 the LEGO Group might have been clearing out overstock of parts in colors like teal that they were trying to reduce or phase out in regular sets.

I have some parts in rarer colors that my family got from Pick-A-Brick walls back in the day, but it says a lot that some of the ones that stand out to me are colors like Light Yellow that were discontinued in 2004.

There's another thing to keep in mind when it comes to which molds appear on the walls: familiarity. I would LOVE if the Pick-A-Brick walls would stock LEGO Hero Factory parts, for instance, and for about a month in 2011 they did (as part of a promotion for the new Hero Factory sets and the new Hero Recon Team custom-ordering service on LEGO.com). When I asked Kevin Hinkle (TLG community coordinator for North America) whether this would ever be likely to happen again, he said probably not, because they did not sell very well — parents and kids couldn't figure out how they were supposed to be used. So it makes sense that when you do see specialty parts in Pick-A-Brick, they tend to be things like treasure chests, plants, doors, windows, and wheels that have an obvious specialized function.

Edited by Aanchir

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Keep in mind though that in the early naughts, the LEGO color palette was ballooning out of control. The current color palette is around 60 colors, while in 2003 it was over 100 colors. The move to reduce its size between 2004 and 2008 could easily have reduced the NUMBER of bricks being produced in some of those rarer colors. It's also possible that between 2004 and 2008 the LEGO Group might have been clearing out overstock of parts in colors like teal that they were trying to reduce or phase out in regular sets.

I have some parts in rarer colors that my family got from Pick-A-Brick walls back in the day, but it says a lot that some of the ones that stand out to me are colors like Light Yellow that were discontinued in 2004.

There's another thing to keep in mind when it comes to which molds appear on the walls: familiarity. I would LOVE if the Pick-A-Brick walls would stock LEGO Hero Factory parts, for instance, and for about a month in 2011 they did (as part of a promotion for the new Hero Factory sets and the new Hero Recon Team custom-ordering service on LEGO.com). When I asked Kevin Hinkle (TLG community coordinator for North America) whether this would ever be likely to happen again, he said probably not, because they did not sell very well — parents and kids couldn't figure out how they were supposed to be used. So it makes sense that when you do see specialty parts in Pick-A-Brick, they tend to be things like treasure chests, plants, doors, windows, and wheels that have an obvious specialized function.

That's interesting Aanchir.

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Sand Green 1x2

Really?

I hope I'll find that next time I'll go to Lille (France) store

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Really?

I hope I'll find that next time I'll go to Lille (France) store

It was actually that blue used in the Creator Beach House. Oops. :blush:

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In 2004 I took home several hundred 1x2 and 1x6 bricks in sand red from one of the southern California PAB walls. I'm kicking myself for not having them still!

I distinctly remember other basic bricks in both sand blue (long before it's recent resurfacing) and dark turquoise as well. I completely understand the logic behind the PAB wall being redesigned to accommodate parts children are often looking for, but all the same I miss the era when the walls offered a large selection of pieces that couldn't be easily found in other sets.

Sand Red! *oh2*:cry_happy::drool:

I know right, It's like tires you can find an a lot of sets in a high quantity.

So LEGO put some bricks in for us T-AFOL's because do you ever see a nine year old walking out of the LEGO Store with a bag of PAB Cups?

Edited by lego3364

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I haven't bought a cup since before Christmas! I had trouble filling my Christmas box, because the wall hasn't changed.

Its not just the colours, which are better than the last few years. We waited so long to get pink on the wall!

Yes they are still selling probably in mass quantities, but there is definitely untapped market potential, its whether AFOLs are worth their time/cost/distribution to change the wall bricks more often or have that range of colours on the wall. We might be too small a market share, for all that AFOL can spend a large sum at once.

My very first pick a brick was a Christmas box I was given back in 2004 ish. I filled it with sand green 1x2, teal 1x2, red 1x2 and some other miscellaneous. I regret those red bricks now :laugh:

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There are primarily two factors that determine the PAB wall selection, Managers who order the parts for the wall and the current part selection that is distributed. For instance at the Westfield Shepard's Bush store in London, UK has a really excellent selection of parts. (I was there this past April got some cool parts and colours) I know the manager makes a concerted effort to order the more unusual parts or colours. Whereas when I visited one of the Toronto stores last year I found their selection was pretty poor. Lots of standard 2x4 and 2x6 bricks. Very minimal on the colour selection too. Honestly it was night and day between the two stores for selection. I'm hoping that when I do re-visit the Toronto store they would have updated their selection. However it pays to ask. The manager there was extremely nice and found clear windows and frames for me from the back. So unless you have a store that does not have a proactive manager your likely to get the standard PAB wall selection. :sadnew:

Oh one more thing, AFOLS are the ones predominately buying from the PAB walls. All I ever see are kids picking bricks from there to build with on average.

Edited by Wodanis

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There are primarily two factors that determine the PAB wall selection, Managers who order the parts for the wall and the current part selection that is distributed.

At my store, we are at the mercy of what is sent. We aren't given the option to ask for things for the wall.

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The Schaumburg store is usually pretty good and the manager there is helpful. I think before it was mainly based on what the manager could get a hold of which some times it could be good. The whole mainstreaming the stores is surely going to limit some of the rarer pieces that could some times be found. Customer service after all is everything.

My store is Gurnee. A little bit north of you. Good to see a fellow Illinoisan here! =)

My local wall currently has some pretty good parts. They have a TON of tile pieces(both 2x2 an 1x2) which I mainly stocked up on Gray 2x2 Tiles. They surprisingly have a huge stock of the Brick 1x1 with Studs on 4 Sides(or as I like to call it, The SNOT Brick) in black. Something I've been wanting to get a stockpile on for a while. I will probably go back there just to fill up a small cup with that part and more Gray Tiles. There was also a good selection of wheel bearing plates. And of course a large selection of basic pieces.

Edited by Tech Artist

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At my store, we are at the mercy of what is sent. We aren't given the option to ask for things for the wall.

That royally sucks. Maybe try speaking to the manager? If you haven't already?

My local wall currently has some pretty good parts. They have a TON of tile pieces(both 2x2 an 1x2) which I mainly stocked up on Gray 2x2 Tiles. They surprisingly have a huge stock of the Brick 1x1 with Studs on 4 Sides(or as I like to call it, The SNOT Brick) in black. Something I've been wanting to get a stockpile on for a while. I will probably go back there just to fill up a small cup with that part and more Gray Tiles. There was also a good selection of wheel bearing plates. And of course a large selection of basic pieces.

Sounds great! I wish I could just get Drk stone grey 2x2 tiles from PAB. Have yet to see that.

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