Best year of Lego?

[Darth_Bane13]

Obviously this is pretty subjective, based on what themes you like and when you grew up. I think 2009 deserves to be in contention, for licensed themes you had Star Wars in it's golden age, Indiana Jones, and Spongebob. For unlicensed themes you had Power miners, Space police 3, Bionicle, pirates, and Fantasy Era Castle.

[SpacePolice89]

For me it is 1989. Many of the sets and themes I love are from that year or where available in 89. SP 1 came out that year, Futuron was still available and got new sets and the same applies to Blacktron 1. It was the first year of Pirates and Eldorado Fortress is one of my favorite sets. Town and Castle had great sets also. The only major thing that is missing from 1989 is 9v trains which I like very much. In general I like sets from 1978 to 1998 and especially sets from 1984 to 1997.  

Edited 17 hours ago by SpacePolice89

[Driver Brandon Grumman]

I'm a City set collector. For me, the best years were probably 2021-2023 because of the deluge of awesome buildings we got for those years. We got several home sets, all three first responders (police station, fire station and hospital) along with a emergency hq which could double as a 911 dispatch center. We also got the first ever school and grocery store sets for the City theme - though the latter two were already there in other themes. We also got probably the best train station out there; converted mine into a bus terminal. There are other buildings too. 

[Murdoch17]

2 hours ago, Darth_Bane13 said:

Obviously this is pretty subjective, based on what themes you like and when you grew up. I think 2009 deserves to be in contention, for licensed themes you had Star Wars in it's golden age, Indiana Jones, and Spongebob. For unlicensed themes you had Power miners, Space police 3, Bionicle, pirates, and Fantasy Era Castle.

I would tend to agree with 2009, it's smack in the middle of LEGO Renaissance era (my own term) of 2005 - 2014.  CITY started in 2005 and things began to turn around, and at the other end The Lego Movie started the trend of Lego being taken seriously by the main stream (speculating investors, aftermarket going nuts, etc. are among the downsides to this!), along with the TLG becoming more like a large corporation than a family run business around this time too.

My LEGO timeline map goes like this:

wooden era - 1930s to 1960s

innovation era - 1958 to 1978

golden era - 1978 to 1995

declining era - 1995 to 2005

renaissance era - 2005 - 2014

gone mainstream era - 2014 - 2020

post-covid / adults welcome era - 2020 - ?

Edited 16 hours ago by Murdoch17

[BrickBob Studpants]

There are multiple years in hold in high regard, ordered chronologically:

• 2008: Very nostalgic year for me, with SpongeBob, Indy, and SW all having really memorables waves!
• 2012: The Lord of the Rings finally got sets, the Hobbit also had a great first wave, Star Wars was on a roll with that Jabba’s Palace and some cool TCW sets, and both Marvel and DC had their big return!
• 2014: The LEGO Movie, need I say more? The Hobbit sets were also fantastic additions, especially the Smaug set, and Simpsons had their debut with the first (non-sports) licensed CMF series. Rebels had really cool sets too and I miss the times we had 4 yearly battlepacks
• 2015: TFA had a fantastic first wave, Marvel shined with the AoU sets, and DC had awesome JL comic-based sets.
• 2017: The LEGO Batman movie had some of the best DC sets to date, The Ninjago Movie sets were also excellently designed, and TLJ got plenty of cool sets.
• 2018: The big return of Harry Potter with one of my favourite CMF series to this day, and the Solo sets were top-notch as well. Infinity War also had a great range of sets. And I never forget the moment we finally got a Minecraft chicken after waiting for 4 years!
• 2019: TROS had some really solid sets, but what makes this year special to me is the Upside Down, which still firmly sits in my top 5 sets ever released. The LEGO Movie 2 also provided some instant classics.
• 2023: The glorious yet short-lived return of Indy alone makes this year memorable, but we also had a couple really good Marvel sets like the Final Battle from NWH, some solid Mando S3 sets, the fantastic Ahsoka sets, the JP anniversary wave, the return of LotR with Rivendell, plus the long-awaited Gringotts! Oh, and Sonic came back with a full theme!
• 2024: The SW anniversary was fun, Marvel had some bangers, and the sets from the survey leak were all impressive (particularly Barad-dûr, the Snow White Cottage, Burrow, Deku Tree, Simba, and Jabba’s Sailbarge). Plus the debut of Animal Crossing!
• 2025: Babu Frik and TROS Palpatine alone elevated this year for me, but we also had the debut of the fantastic One Piece sets, the new Black Pearl, the large-scale Mario Kart set, our first Star Trek sets, and the return of Simpsons!
• 2026: It’s early, I know, but this year will easily go down as one of my faves as well. More Zelda, Stranger Things, Minas Tirith, Luigi, M&G, One Piece S2, Pokémon, and now Shrek? And even more new themes? Sign me up

[Toastie]

Best year of my LEGO experience, not set:

1965 - Got my first LEGO set. The real LEGO era: Envision.

1998 - Real Mindstorms - the RCX got me into robotics. Best LEGO set ever.

2010 - Joined Eurobricks and learned so much about LEGO and TLG. As well as alternatives. Best website ever. Countless friendly, helpful, encouraging, inspiring, mature, young, crazy, serious, enlightening, challenging (in the most positive way), people I met and I am meeting. Best staff ever. And LEGO has made that happening. Not a set, but a community, I don't want to miss. A community, that has friendly replies even when revisiting from years ago.     

2022 - Learned from Evan and Alex on EB, two such enthusiastic energizing individuals, who taught me that TLG introduced robotics as early as 1986. I have turned to that era almost exclusively because of them. Best LEGO era.

2024 - Emanuele and Family from Italy visited our home in Germany. We have been EB friends before, because we were both active for a long time here. Emanuele being the master builder, me the admirer of his skills. The ties have become so close: LEGO is not about sets, it is about sharing a mindset.

2026 - No LEGO purchases anymore. Well, exception: <€10 "sets". And used stuff of course. But: There are uncountable LEGO bricks in my attic, I simply stopped buying these overpriced sets. Shelf-beauties from China: Yes, telephones, winter sets, Steam Punk!!! Glitzy stuff ...

One-Set summary: 1998 - the RCX 1.0

Best regards
Thorsten

 

[JesseNight]

For me it's mostly the 1987-1989 period.
I loved the space themes of the time (last bit of CS, Futuron, Blacktron 1, and Space Police 1). I loved the new 9V light & sound system (loved the lights, hated the sounds lol). Loved the Monorail. Loved the late 80s Castle and the new Pirates ships. Those were my golden years.

[Darth_Bane13]

6 hours ago, Murdoch17 said:

I would tend to agree with 2009, it's smack in the middle of LEGO Renaissance era (my own term) of 2005 - 2014.  CITY started in 2005 and things began to turn around, and at the other end The Lego Movie started the trend of Lego being taken seriously by the main stream (speculating investors, aftermarket going nuts, etc. are among the downsides to this!), along with the TLG becoming more like a large corporation than a family run business around this time too.

My LEGO timeline map goes like this:

wooden era - 1930s to 1960s

innovation era - 1958 to 1978

golden era - 1978 to 1995

declining era - 1995 to 2005

renaissance era - 2005 - 2014

gone mainstream era - 2014 - 2020

post-covid / adults welcome era - 2020 - ?

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the declining era. It was before my time so I'm not as familiar with it, although I know they were doing bad financially during that time. All the other era's makes sense to me though. Interestingly the renaissance era arguably directly matches with the Star Wars golden age.

[danth]

8 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

For me it is 1989. Many of the sets and themes I love are from that year or where available in 89. SP 1 came out that year, Futuron was still available and got new sets and the same applies to Blacktron 1. It was the first year of Pirates and Eldorado Fortress is one of my favorite sets. Town and Castle had great sets also.

I'm inclined to agree with this. It was a glorious time.

7 hours ago, Murdoch17 said:

My LEGO timeline map goes like this:

wooden era - 1930s to 1960s

innovation era - 1958 to 1978

golden era - 1978 to 1995

declining era - 1995 to 2005

renaissance era - 2005 - 2014

gone mainstream era - 2014 - 2020

post-covid / adults welcome era - 2020 - ?

Hmm, interesting, I like it!

[SpacePolice89]

4 hours ago, danth said:

I'm inclined to agree with this. It was a glorious time.

Indeed it was!

12 hours ago, Murdoch17 said:

LEGO Renaissance era (my own term) of 2005 - 2014.

That is a very good term. During those years unlicensed and licensed sets managed to coexist in a meaningful way. I wish that the renaissance era hadn't ended so soon. 

Edited 3 hours ago by SpacePolice89

[SpacePolice89]

5 hours ago, Darth_Bane13 said:

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the declining era. It was before my time so I'm not as familiar with it, although I know they were doing bad financially during that time.

In 1996 I didn't notice anything bad and loved the great Town, Trains, Castle, Pirates and Space sets. The 1997 catalog struck me like a knife in the back, mainstream Town was heavily junior zed and the introduction of UFO made me lose interest in new Space sets. The second wave of the Armada era Pirates sets didn't even get released in Europe. Divers was great and Fright Knights okay. In 1998 it was even worse, RES-Q/Extreme Team and Aquazone were the only quality themes available. In 1999 I only bought some of the Trains sets and focused heavily on MOCs and bought second hand sets from yard sales and thrift stores. In 2000 it felt like Lego was dead (regarding new sets) and I gave up hope about ever getting new sets that I like and that continued to the renaissance era when I regained interest in new sets. In 2001 something fantastic happened, 10000 Guarded Inn and the Legends sets and I also discovered the online AFOL community. I started buying sets like crazy from Bricklink especially all the sets I had wanted over the years. Today I mostly buy old sets from Bricklink (about 90% of the Lego I buy), In the renaissance era I started buying more new sets again but when the renaissance era ended I went back to buying almost everything from Bricklink.

[Wolfpack]

Anything before 1999.

If I had to choose, I would say 1990 or 1991. Great town, castle, pirates sets, monorails, no burps etc.

Here you can see a catalogue from 1990: https://images.brickset.com/library/Catalogues/c90uk.pdf

Edited 3 hours ago by Wolfpack

[Mylenium]

In  so many words: Huh? In those ten years I've been doing LEGO I'm sure I could recount great sets just as I can remember really bad ones, but never would I say that any particular year has been the best year, best theme or whatever...

Mylenium