Hello all

[StevenV72]

I am Steven and live in Belgium. Only a few years ago (in my mid-forties) slowly started to get back into lego with some technics sets, but recently really pulled out all the stops and went crazy  : bought myself some bulk lots in total of somewhere between 250 and 300kgs which I am in the process of sorting, as well as a bunch of sets to keep in their box as investment, which I hope will pay off in 20 or so years.

Outside of lego, my interests are movies, tv-series, mountain-hiking and -biking, via-ferrata, snowboarding, motorcycle driving, computer programming (my job actually), architecture, and a lot more.

I expect to find likeminded AFOL's here to discuss any and all subjects concerning lego!

[deraven]

Welcome to EB, Steven!  Plenty of Technic inspiration here for you, and also a whole world of part sorting theory and strategy that you may want to look into with hundreds of kg of bulk pieces to deal with now.    Happy building!  

[StevenV72]

Thanks deraven.
I will sure have a look around in the forums for sorting inspiration

My current approach is as follows:
1) rough sort into about 10 categories (bricks, plates, tiles, rooftiles, special plates, technic, small parts, minifigs, wheels, miscellaneous and weird stuff)
2) per category increasingly detailed sorting, if I have a very large amount of the same part, I also sort by colour.
3) at the end of a few sorting runs, I have detailed amounts per part and colour, which I will record into my rebrickable account.

I'm not yet sure about the parts I have that are still packaged in the original plastic bags, this is the case for quite some sets where the seller lost the boxes due to bad storage conditions, but left all the contents intact. I guess those are more valuable for resale than just one bag with all the parts of a set, no?

I've also already encountered the first three laws of lego sorting:
1) you don't have enough containers
2) if you think a certain part type will fit in a container, it won't (aka the "We're gonna need a bigger container!!"-law)
3) you still don't have enough containers

I first need to get some more table space in the lego room, sorting on a small table is not practical 

[deraven]

1 hour ago, StevenV72 said:

I guess those are more valuable for resale than just one bag with all the parts of a set, no?

Yes, if you can properly identify the set you could sell that as "new" since the internal bags were never opened.  Of course, it depends on the set as some won't have more value than the parts themselves, but doesn't hurt to check.

 

1 hour ago, StevenV72 said:

I've also already encountered the first three laws of lego sorting:
1) you don't have enough containers
2) if you think a certain part type will fit in a container, it won't (aka the "We're gonna need a bigger container!!"-law)
3) you still don't have enough containers

I won't go into detail here because there are literally hundreds of sorting & storage discussions in the appropriate forums, but my solution for this is to take a retail approach and have a (relatively) fixed number of storage containers of a few sizes, and then whatever doesn't fit in those goes into "overstock" storage.  That way I can have a nice, orderly, and not constantly-changing main storage setup that is also space-friendly since the overstock can be higher density bulk storage wherever I have the room.  What that looks like for me is Akro Mils drawers with each cabinet having its own large tub or box filled with ziploc bags of the same corresponding parts.  If I'm getting low on a particular element or need more in a specific color (though like you if I have a large number of a particular color I sort that out), etc., I just go to the overstock bin and re-fill the drawer or grab what I need from there.

The need for more surface area for building/display/sorting, however, never seems to be resolved.  

[StevenV72]

Is there an overview of which sets contain which bags? I know there are part inventories, but they don't mention separate bags.

The overstock concept is one I hadn't considered before, when building something I like to see what I have available, when it's stored in two places, this becomes harder. You also need to keep track of which item you do have in overstock to avoid ordering extra if you need more.