What current sets are good to stock up pieces?

[youtoo]

What sets in the market should I buy to separate them and use the pieces for mocs?

I am always interested in special pieces from different themes, but not too many :P What sets have a good price per piece ratio nowadays?

Thanks!

[BrickBucket]

What sets in the market should I buy to separate them and use the pieces for mocs?

I am always interested in special pieces from different themes, but not too many :P What sets have a good price per piece ratio nowadays?

Thanks!

In my opinion all modular buildings, the medival market village and creator houses have the best price ratio and most useful pieces for mocing. They also have the most unique and useful pieces, especially pieces in rare colours and lots of tiles.

So I often I fall into the trap of buying smaller sets, but they have less pieces per price and it's better to save up and get the big expensive ones to get more value in one shot.

Edited August 10, 2011 by meatbucket

[Bayou]

So I often I fall into the trap of buying smaller sets, but they have less pieces per price and it's better to save up and get the big expensive ones to get more value in one shot.

+1 !

I recently bought the tower bridge for the same reason.

[Vindicare]

In my opinion all modular buildings, the medival market village and creator houses have the best price ratio and most useful pieces for mocing. They also have the most unique and useful pieces, especially pieces in rare colours and lots of tiles.

So I often I fall into the trap of buying smaller sets, but they have less pieces per price and it's better to save up and get the big expensive ones to get more value in one shot.

Yup, modular are your best bang for buck sets. They all are up in the higher 1,000 to 2,000 piece count. And, a good variety of pieces.

Edited August 10, 2011 by Legocrazy81

[brickmack]

The creator sets have a good PTP ratio, and so do the modular buildings. If your looking for new parts, most sets from new themes have at least a few new parts or rare colors or something. The Star Wars and some other licensed themes often have new parts and prints/stickers, but it's a much lower Price-piece ratio. The large scale sets (Taj Mahal, Tower Bridge, etc) also often have new parts or lots in hard to find colors for a good PTP ratio, but they are still quite expensive. If you want mainly basic bricks, those blue tubs and similar sets are good for that, and I think they normally have a great PTP.

[youtoo]

That's the thing, Modular and Creation sets seem good if you wanna create building MOCs, but not so good if you wanna make vehicles, or other wacky things that require small plates or not-so-common pieces...

That's why I always end up turning to BL...

(also it's such a pity to buy a Modular to take it appart - and I don't have money to buy one to keep and one to take appart :P)

[blueandwhite]

This question really depends on what you're looking to build. From the classic spaceman in your sig, I'm guessing that you're probably looking for something more sci-fi. Amassing a surplus of bricks that you'll never use isn't necessarily the best way to build a collection. Assessing what you need and then searching for an appropriate source of parts is a good way to go.

As others have mentioned, for general bricks most of the S@H exclusive sets will give you a better return on your dollar. This is also because many of these sets contain many small elements as opposed to a few large, specialized ones. Of course, not all parts are created equally. A cheese slope, while incredibly useful in large numbers hardly carries the same value as a ship hull piece. It's important not to fall into the trap of thinking that more pieces make a set more valuable.

If your looking for a general assortment of bricks that can be used across a range of themes, I would guess that Tower Bridge is the best value for your money right now. As a set it probably won't give you everything you need, but it will certainly provide you with a nice foundation of bricks. If you have more specialized needs you probably need to review your options more carefully to determine which sets are going to give you good value.

[ziljin]

lego creator 100+ sets tend to be great values because they have over 1000 pieces for 100 dollars. for other themes 100 dollar sets have around 500-800 pieces. Medieval Market Village is an exception. Essentially a Lego Creator for Castle.

[Mrlegoninja]

I'm not an expert on this, but the Temple of Atlantis has lots of round ridges.

[youtoo]

This question really depends on what you're looking to build. From the classic spaceman in your sig, I'm guessing that you're probably looking for something more sci-fi. Amassing a surplus of bricks that you'll never use isn't necessarily the best way to build a collection. Assessing what you need and then searching for an appropriate source of parts is a good way to go.

As others have mentioned, for general bricks most of the S@H exclusive sets will give you a better return on your dollar. This is also because many of these sets contain many small elements as opposed to a few large, specialized ones. Of course, not all parts are created equally. A cheese slope, while incredibly useful in large numbers hardly carries the same value as a ship hull piece. It's important not to fall into the trap of thinking that more pieces make a set more valuable.

If your looking for a general assortment of bricks that can be used across a range of themes, I would guess that Tower Bridge is the best value for your money right now. As a set it probably won't give you everything you need, but it will certainly provide you with a nice foundation of bricks. If you have more specialized needs you probably need to review your options more carefully to determine which sets are going to give you good value.

hehe, my profile pic may be misleading. I'm mainly focused on Town, on small buildings and vehicles, following the 80s-90s design (open buildings, 4stud0wide vehicles)...

Also I'm thinking of creating a Theme Park for the town, so I was thinking of making an Atlantis section, a Pharaon section, maybe a SWars one... etc...

[BrickBucket]

hehe, my profile pic may be misleading. I'm mainly focused on Town, on small buildings and vehicles, following the 80s-90s design (open buildings, 4stud0wide vehicles)...

Also I'm thinking of creating a Theme Park for the town, so I was thinking of making an Atlantis section, a Pharaon section, maybe a SWars one... etc...

What I like to do is go on bricklink and look at certain parts or colours that I'm interested and find the sets in the past 2 years that have the most of that colour or piece and buy those.

So I was interested in castles, wanted lots of gray and earthy colours so I bought the fire brigade which has tons of gray as well as most dark red of any set. I also got medieval market village which was just a must for all the accessories of food and ornate windows.

Honestly MMV (medival market village) is probably a must buy no matter what your building.

If you want vehicles get the creator vehicles sets like the rig with the helicopter 5765.

Check out sales on toysnbricks.com for deals online and buy what's currently cheap and will improve your collection.

Also In my opinion it's better to have more of the same type of part/brick than to have a larger variety of different kinds of bricks. Cause when you end up building something your less likely to run out of the colour/part you need since you'll most likely be sticking to a certain colour or repetitive motif. Which is why I sometimes buy multiple copies of the same set.

[Oky]

Shouldn't this be in the "What should I buy" thread?

Anyway, I can recommend the City of Atlantis! It has a good price per piece ratio and lots of interesting pieces which you can't get anywhere else, most notably the grooved round bricks, not to mention the cool minifigs!

If you're looking for 4-wide vehicles and parts for buildings, I can recommend Flo's V8 Cafe. It has 6 4-wide cars which can be easily converted to fit minifigs or parted out to create your own vehicles, and a gas station.

[Follows Closely]

hehe, my profile pic may be misleading. I'm mainly focused on Town, on small buildings and vehicles, following the 80s-90s design (open buildings, 4stud0wide vehicles)...

Also I'm thinking of creating a Theme Park for the town, so I was thinking of making an Atlantis section, a Pharaon section, maybe a SWars one... etc...

The Modular buildings for sure then. You may also want to hit the PAB wall if you are close to a LEGO store, you can get pieces there for well less than any other means, but the selection is slim.

Edited August 10, 2011 by Follows Closely

[HighFlyer]

MMV and Modular Buildings for me are too stunning to take apart for pieces (I'm not a huge MOC'er ), so other than those, Creator houses and other buildings are your best bet. For example, 5766 Creator Log Cabin is great for pieces.

Apart from that, it has to be PaB.

[AussieJimbo]

I've bought plenty of Apple Tree House and Log Cabin sets for parts, moving on now to buying Lighthouses which have lots of useful and interesting pieces.

Out of left field, I got a tip the other day on the piece value of the Harry Potter board game. It's got lots of useful parts and with a current special I picked 3 for 2 and ended up with about 1000 pieces for $100 which is pretty good by Aussie standards.

US buyers would get better value, for example ThinkGeek currently has a buy one get 50% off on their very limited Lego range which does include the games, so you can get two sets (~660 pieces) for $US45 plus delivery. (They won't ship to Oz though).

:classic:

Edited September 4, 2011 by AussieJimbo

[snaillad]

Depends what country you are buying from I suppose, I also bought apple tree house and the log cabin reduced for pieces, I also bought the scorpion pyramid, atlantis temple with about 20-30 percent off for pieces. I would say the exclusives and modulars are decent value for pieces.

I actually bought diagon alley even though I don't really like HP just for the parts and wasn't disappointed! Plus I sold all the figs as I wouldn't miss them, so I got some money back aswell!