Modular Building Sets - Rumours and Discussion

[Roebuck]

It is a nice set, but probably a lot voted in hopes they would be print, but as you say small chance of that with the 1 new print that seems to be the GWP limit in general..
Unfortunately no animals in this one, should have included a pigeon or two. A lot of the others had animals, but not anything more exciting than 2 pigeons  

[Pauolo]

I don't expect so many printed tiles just for a single Ideas GWP. But with hope, they'll find use to such parts in City sets. What I hope more though is that they play on the art style so it looks like portraits the designer themselves drew, rather than computer-assisted art.

[Lion King]

Ohhh I am glad they selected a very good winner!

9 hours ago, Pauolo said:

I don't expect so many printed tiles just for a single Ideas GWP. But with hope, they'll find use to such parts in City sets. What I hope more though is that they play on the art style so it looks like portraits the designer themselves drew, rather than computer-assisted art.

Agreed. And if i remember correctly, there was a cancelled Witner Village GWP a few years ago. I could not remember what kind of Winter Village GWP it was but there was a rumor that it has a printed “naughty list” piece.  It makes me wonder if we would see one printed element int the winner’s GWP. 

[Pauolo]

On 1/16/2026 at 6:29 PM, Lion King said:

Agreed. And if i remember correctly, there was a cancelled Witner Village GWP a few years ago. I could not remember what kind of Winter Village GWP it was but there was a rumor that it has a printed “naughty list” piece.  It makes me wonder if we would see one printed element int the winner’s GWP. 

Some GWP have unique printed elements, with the last I know of being the display plate on the Goonies' GWP. I'm just saying, expecting 9 new printed tiles for a GWP, Ideas or otherwise, is unrealistic. Except maybe if those tiles are reused in other sets, like City for example.

Edited January 21 by Pauolo

[Elysiumfountain]

I'm trying to wrack my brains, are there any modular buildings that have stained glass in them? I'm trying to remember if TLG has ever done stained glass in a modular set (even as a sticker) but I can't think of any large sets outside the Creel House, Beauty and the Beast Castle, and the Clock Tower with the mermaid window from the Harry Potter line that have that. There was Jazz Club I suppose, but that was with trans bricks and not an intricate design. 

[DeanLearner]

1 hour ago, Elysiumfountain said:

I'm trying to wrack my brains, are there any modular buildings that have stained glass in them? 

Detectives office also have coloured-semitransparent bricks, but not in a pattern.

Probably the closest to what you might be thinking is Brick Bank, which has an ornate print on large door glass panes.

[Dazz]

1 hour ago, Elysiumfountain said:

I'm trying to wrack my brains, are there any modular buildings that have stained glass in them? I'm trying to remember if TLG has ever done stained glass in a modular set (even as a sticker) but I can't think of any large sets outside the Creel House, Beauty and the Beast Castle, and the Clock Tower with the mermaid window from the Harry Potter line that have that. There was Jazz Club I suppose, but that was with trans bricks and not an intricate design. 

Not a modular but Stephanie's House (41314) contained large printed window pieces that could be interpreted as having stained glass at the top.

[Elysiumfountain]

3 hours ago, DeanLearner said:

Detectives office also have coloured-semitransparent bricks, but not in a pattern.

Probably the closest to what you might be thinking is Brick Bank, which has an ornate print on large door glass panes.

Yes! That was it! Brick Bank had that printed window with the middle that looked kind of like a faceted jewel or something. Thank you! 

 

3 hours ago, Dazz said:

Not a modular but Stephanie's House (41314) contained large printed window pieces that could be interpreted as having stained glass at the top.

I think I remember that set having those windows. Thanks! 

 

 

I just think it would be cool if they ever make a large civic building like a courthouse post office, to have one of those skylight windows with stained glass in it. 

[Kalahari134]

I'd love to see brick-built stained glass. It would look amazing with a lighting kit.

[Lion King]

I think Jazz Club has buildable stained glass window on 2nd and 3rd floor of the music venue. I can understand why there are so many printed elements that they opted to go with buildable stained windows.  I really don’t like buildable windows in Jazz Club as they don’t match with purge “thin” windows. 

[Pauolo]

As far as I remember, Pet Shop (top floor of brown house), Brick Bank, Assembly Square (top back of the flower shop) and the Jazz Club have what amount to brick-built stained-glass window. I'd love to see more brick-built windows like that, or more printed windows lile Brick Bank's.

[Pauolo]

On a different subject, I just got and built 2025's Lego employee exclusive set, the Toys Store (4002025) which is modular compatible. The designs of the custom box and instructions booklets aside, I'm surprised that this set was not commercialized instead. Its design brims with originality, from the mirrored buildings on two 16x32 baseplates to the story told throughout the set. It also has a different building technique for the spiral staircase, angled windows and angled roofs than other modulars.

Looking up past Lego employee exclusive sets on Brickset, 4002025 looks more like a cancelled modular set for the Winter Village collection, like 80107 is for the Chinese Traditional Festival theme. Also, the stickered tiles making references to Lego sets from the 60s-70s and the old Lego Systems logo would be a perfect fit for GE's last floor, if you stick to a past time era style for your modular city.

[Lion King]

4 hours ago, Pauolo said:

On a different subject, I just got and built 2025's Lego employee exclusive set, the Toys Store (4002025) which is modular compatible. The designs of the custom box and instructions booklets aside, I'm surprised that this set was not commercialized instead. Its design brims with originality, from the mirrored buildings on two 16x32 baseplates to the story told throughout the set. It also has a different building technique for the spiral staircase, angled windows and angled roofs than other modulars.

Looking up past Lego employee exclusive sets on Brickset, 4002025 looks more like a cancelled modular set for the Winter Village collection, like 80107 is for the Chinese Traditional Festival theme. Also, the stickered tiles making references to Lego sets from the 60s-70s and the old Lego Systems logo would be a perfect fit for GE's last floor, if you stick to a past time era style for your modular city.

Where did you get that employee’s executive set? 

I’m very annoyed that they are for Lego employees instead of commerizlize it to wider audience. I always want to get one or two 16x32 baseplates for mistake building collection since Bookshop set. 

I would love to see Winter Village and Chinese New Year mistake sets that can fit into modular city easily, not jsut stupid employee executive sets. 

[Roebuck]

4 hours ago, Lion King said:

Where did you get that employee’s executive set? 

I’m very annoyed that they are for Lego employees instead of commerizlize it to wider audience. I always want to get one or two 16x32 baseplates for mistake building collection since Bookshop set. 

I would love to see Winter Village and Chinese New Year mistake sets that can fit into modular city easily, not jsut stupid employee executive sets. 

I think it is nice of Lego to give the employees a set every year! 
If you want them it is easy, you can either get a job at Lego or buy them from one of the employees that sells them (usually cost a few bob)

[Pauolo]

7 hours ago, Lion King said:

Where did you get that employee’s executive set? 

Like Roebuck said, a lot of employees worldwide resell their sets. Some Bricklink resellers (from where I got mine) take advantage of that and obtain a lot of them to resell them in specific regions, but you also find some on eBay and other marketpkaces. In the end, with the initial price, the shipping fees, the rate conversion of US dollars to Euros, the import taxes and fees, it cost me around the same as the Tudor Corner at market price. If I didn't get a better deal, I would have bought the parts separately to build it instead. The set doesn't contain any exclusive parts besides its sticker sheet.

Btw, the texts on the boxes and instruction booklets were translated in 10 different languages. The set itself however isn't actually named besides its reference number. I think someone at Brickset or Bricklink came up with the name "Toy Store" / "Toys Store" instead.

Edited yesterday at 09:17 AM by Pauolo

[Lion King]

3 hours ago, Pauolo said:

Like Roebuck said, a lot of employees worldwide resell their sets. Some Bricklink resellers (from where I got mine) take advantage of that and obtain a lot of them to resell them in specific regions, but you also find some on eBay and other marketpkaces. In the end, with the initial price, the shipping fees, the rate conversion of US dollars to Euros, the import taxes and fees, it cost me around the same as the Tudor Corner at market price. If I didn't get a better deal, I would have bought the parts separately to build it instead. The set doesn't contain any exclusive parts besides its sticker sheet.

Btw, the texts on the boxes and instruction booklets were translated in 10 different languages. The set itself however isn't actually named besides its reference number. I think someone at Brickset or Bricklink came up with the name "Toy Store" / "Toys Store" instead.

Hoenslty, I’m not a fan of secondary market like Bricklink. If employees resell those excreting modaulr sets, prices would be higher, just while you said - might not be acquire deal. Parts on bricklink might be expensive twice than PAB, I think.  I would stick with PAB unless there are executive parts, I would get a few from Bricklink.

But thank you for some advices tho! 

[Murdoch17]

53 minutes ago, Lion King said:

Hoenslty, I’m not a fan of secondary market like Bricklink. If employees resell those excreting modaulr sets, prices would be higher, just while you said - might not be acquire deal. Parts on bricklink might be expensive twice than PAB, I think.  I would stick with PAB unless there are executive parts, I would get a few from Bricklink.

But thank you for some advices tho! 

I tried pricing out a large Blacktron modular building with over 1000 parts (that's minus the 700 parts for interior details). It cost over $220 according to PAB standard, and still needed $60 of older parts from Bricklink. Then I tried a Bricklink for almost everything but the window panes, as nobody had that many. In all, it was much cheaper to do the latter method - it wasn't even 200 for the whole thing, maybe 180 before shipping and taxes. For some things, Bricklink loses out on (rare parts in large quantities) but in most cases Bricklink is cheaper than LEGO.

[Pauolo]

I'm going to speak out of personal experience, having built MS, CC and GG from parts bought here and there.

The main problem I have with PAB is the parts limit per amount, but most especially the limit per types (which isn't well communicated if you don't know where to look for that information). I tried to be smart about it when buying parts for both CC and GG at the same time, but it still took me months organizing myself and at least 2 seperate PAB orders + several orders through Bricklink of both current and older parts. Older parts aside, I would have not been able to get all the parts for either of them in a single order because of PAB's limits. That aside, you will find that most of the parts you need for older modulars are available through PAB, so it's a huge convenience, besides having to pick parts one by one on Lego's not-so-convenient-yet website. Rare parts can still be replaced, sometimes at the cost of remaking the instruction plans with cheaper parts.

 

Now with Bricklink, I faced a similar "limit" to PAB's : chances are high you won't find a single seller from which to buy all the parts you need and in the quantities you want (both common, retired and rare/unique ones). Plus, you have to take into account that

* There will be shipping fees, multiplied by how many sellers you have to go through.

* You will probably have to order from sellers in different countries. So the shipping fees but also import taxes and fees may vary.

* Some sellers actually sell parts at a higher price than on PAB. So consider spending more time on prices.

You can parameter Bricklink to automatically find all the sellers you need based on your geographical preferences and budget on each part, but the outcome will most likely be expensive because of all those extra fees. So yeah, if you need to order 1000+ parts, chances are you won't save much money compared to using PAB, unless you spend a lot of time carefully picking up sellers.

 

The actual cheapest way to get parts is probably through Lego stores' brick walls, but that's the lowest possible variety in parts and colors. Also, some stores manage to have more useful parts than others, it's up to whoever manages it. Another wayIto acquire parts for cheap I guess would be buy cheap sets you can part out for the bricks you need. You'll just have to deal with all the extra bricks however you want.

=====

To sum up, if you want to save yourself a lot of time and effort, PAB is the better solution. But if you have all the time in the world, try a combination of all solutions to save the most money. You can also remake instructions to save money on rare parts, which I did for both CC, GG and MS. Still, be warned that it may take you months of preparations just for a 2000 parts set, and will still cost you more than the original set's market price.

Edited 23 hours ago by Pauolo

[Lion King]

This is why employee executive sets should be generalized to public for purchase (as regualr sets) rather than be resold through secondary market. This is why I feel frustrated with Lego. I mean, sure it’s very nice of Lego to give employees those executive sets but still…. 

[Pauolo]

7 hours ago, Lion King said:

This is why employee executive sets should be generalized to public for purchase (as regualr sets) rather than be resold through secondary market. This is why I feel frustrated with Lego. I mean, sure it’s very nice of Lego to give employees those executive sets but still…. 

Imho that really depends on the sets themselves. I can't imagine a large audience is missing out on most of exclusive sets when they are more related to Lego as a company, its activities and history than to a specific theme. Even the Friends' 10th anniversary set isn't that interesting compared to the creativity of the commercialized sets in that theme. 

The only exceptions I can see from these are 4002019: Christmas X-wing (which is currently sold on the 3rd party market at an indecent price because it's Star Wars), 4002021 (I guess? I'm not into Ninjago) and 4002025, as I mentioned previously. These 3 feel the most like they could have been commercialized to some success as seasonal sets.

I'm also baffled Lego isn't even releasing the instructions for these sets, to let people buy the parts on PAB to build them.

Edited 15 hours ago by Pauolo