What Will Happen to Your LEGO When You’re Gone?

[Paul B Technic]

It’s not something most of us like to think about, but if you’ve spent years building a LEGO collection, it’s a fair question: what will happen to it when you’re gone?

For many AFOLs (Adult Fans of LEGO), collections represent thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours of building, and a lot of memories. But unless you make it clear what should happen, your carefully curated shelves of bricks may end up being handled very differently than you’d expect.

Here are the most common outcomes.

1. Sold:
For many collections, the most practical outcome is that the LEGO is sold.

Reasons this happens:

Your family may not share your interest in LEGO.

Large collections take up space.

Selling can provide financial value to those you leave behind.

LEGO can hold its value surprisingly well, especially complete sets with instructions and boxes. Selling through marketplaces or collector communities can return a reasonable amount of money.

What you can do:

Leave a note explaining roughly what the collection is worth.

List where it can be sold (e.g. BrickLink, Facebook groups, etc.).

Separate rare or valuable sets from general bulk parts.

Without this guidance, a $2000 collection can easily end up sold as a $100 bulk tub.

2. Passed on to Someone Else:
Some people want their LEGO to continue being enjoyed.

That might mean:

Passing it to your children

Giving it to a relative who enjoys building

Donating it to schools, clubs, or community groups

The benefit here is that the LEGO continues to bring creativity and enjoyment.

However, it only works well if the recipient actually wants it. A large Technic collection, for example, may not be very useful to a young child unless it’s sorted or simplified first.

What you can do:

Identify who you want it to go to.

Leave instructions about whether sets should stay built or be taken apart.

Consider donating specific sets or bulk bricks intentionally.

3. Kept as a Memory:
Sometimes collections aren’t sold or given away, they’re simply kept.

A family member might store them because:

They feel sentimental about them.

They remind them of you.

They aren’t sure what else to do.

This can result in boxes of LEGO sitting in a garage or cupboard for years.

While that’s not necessarily a bad outcome, it often happens simply because nobody knows your intentions.

4. Thrown Out: 
Unfortunately, this also happens. I have recently become aware of an amateur radio operator, who passed away and his family threw out many thousands of dollars worth of radio equipment :(

If someone doesn’t understand the value of the collection, LEGO can easily be treated as old toys or clutter. Entire collections have been thrown away, donated randomly, or sold cheaply at garage sales. This usually isn’t because people don’t care, it’s because they simply don’t know what to do with it.

Making Your Wishes Known.
If you care about what happens to your LEGO, the best thing you can do is make your intentions clear.

Simple steps include:

Write it down – include it in a will or personal note.

Explain the value – both financial and sentimental.

Leave instructions – where it should go or how it should be sold.

Organise it – labelled boxes or sorted collections make things far easier.

Even a short note can make a huge difference.

Something as simple as:

“My LEGO collection should be sold through LEGO collector communities, not donated or thrown away.”

can prevent a lot of confusion later.

To non-collectors, LEGO might look like plastic bricks. But to those of us who build, design, and collect, it represents creativity, engineering, and countless hours of enjoyment.

Thinking about what happens to it after we’re gone might feel uncomfortable, but it’s also a way to make sure the collection you built with care is treated with the same respect.

And ideally, those bricks will keep building long after you’re gone. 

So, what do you want to happen when to your Lego when you are gone?

[aFrInaTi0n]

I think your mentioned scenarios are covering 99% of the cases. It may depend how your relatives can relate with the hobby of a person having passed away. As other individuals may have other hobbies, the value for brick to them may be less.

My wish for my stuff would be: As long it allows another person to be creative and feel enjoyment with it, I would be 100% happy already. Even if my MOCs would not be appreciated and be taken apart without recognition.

[Mylenium]

4 hours ago, Paul B Technic said:

So, what do you want to happen to your Lego when you are gone?

I don't particularly care. Yes, in an ideal world it would be put to good use by someone who's really interested and qualified, but since I don't have children and also don't expect my more distant relatives to put up with it, it will probably simply end up in the trash. I might give it away before I move on to that other world, but as with all these things I may simply miss the point in time where I'm too fragile to have the energy putting up with it. The rest I can't control, anyway. It's actually funny that you bring up the subject right now. I live in a small town and just the last week I found a bunch of LEGO pieces littering in the wild, which must mean that people throw it away all the time and it drops from their leaky garbage bags. So outside our little bubble the appreciation likely isn't there, which could serve as further indication that the majority of LEGO is simply trashed once someone is no longer using it.

Mylenium

[MAB]

7 hours ago, Paul B Technic said:

Making Your Wishes Known.
If you care about what happens to your LEGO, the best thing you can do is make your intentions clear.

Simple steps include:

Write it down – include it in a will or personal note.

Explain the value – both financial and sentimental.

Leave instructions – where it should go or how it should be sold.

Organise it – labelled boxes or sorted collections make things far easier.

Even a short note can make a huge difference.

Something as simple as:

“My LEGO collection should be sold through LEGO collector communities, not donated or thrown away.”

can prevent a lot of confusion later.

 

 While it might be a good idea to let beneficiaries know what is valuable, the value is not a simple thing to define when needing to get rid of a lot of stuff you are not interested in keeping. The collector might say something is worth $X but the beneficiary is unlikely to get that and telling them what they should get puts pressure on them. If selling everything in one go to a business $0.5X is more realistic. To get more will require the beneficiary to check everything and if they are not interested in it, they are unlikely to want to do that. And unless the beneficiary really cares about any of the collection, there is no sentimental value once the collector is gone.  It could just be box loads of unwanted stuff that needs storing or getting rid of. And telling someone how to sell it might also cause issues and a lot of work for someone that doesn't want to do that work. If it is give it all to my local LUG and they will auction it off, that is one thing as there is little work. If it is check each set and sell it on bricklink or ebay, that is totally different. Remember they will probably be grieving and don't want the hassle of having to spend time to sell off your life's collection or arrange and possibly pay for storage for it.

If you really care, you should sell off the majority of the collection before you go (especially if you know it is coming),  and maybe keep some smaller items that are more likely to be kept as a sentimental reminder. Or ask if anyone wants anything specific. You might even get to see someone enjoy something before you go.

[JesseNight]

I've honestly never given this much thought. I care about my stuff while I'm here, couldn't care less after.
Have to admit I don't have any children, siblings, or close relatives I could leave it to. Sure I can have wishes to leave it to someone who will appreciate it, but then I would need someone to make sure those wishes are carried out. Sounds more trouble than it's worth.

[dr_spock]

The ones with conditions attached from TLG may have to be buried or cremated with me.  The others could go to my LUG to build for our shows and events. 

[JGW3000]

Well, I'm still enjoying my collection with no plans to stop, while my kids conspire behind my back to list my sets on marketplaces. So, not an issue for me, my descendants already know what to do when I kick the brick. Regardless, having a plan is always a good thing, and prevents being a burden on the executor of your estate.

Edited Monday at 11:42 PM by JGW3000