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PaddyBricksplitter

Moc builders vs Collectors, Lego civil war!

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I just view my collection almost solely as a group of parts that can form MOCs (although I do assign a bit of sentimental value to my childhood sets). I can see the appeal of just collecting Lego for display or profit, but I don't find set displays very interesting and they take up a lot of physical space as well.

Edited by Dubbadgrim

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I'm at war with myself. I MOC and collect. Will there ever be peace? :classic:

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Devil's advocate here.....isn't there beauty in rarity? The argument above is akin to saying that baseball cards were made to be traded, touched, etc., coins made to be spent, stamps made to ship letters and materials. However, I don't think there are many who would say that just because they were created for those certain intentions, they HAVE to be used that way.

While I see the point/comparison in collecting coins (I once did that myself, though never full heartedly), stamps etc., I still think it is a pity that all those wonderful bricks are never being used :cry_sad: But dear collector, please feel free to leave the bricks in the boxes, if that is what you want. And there is one good thing about this way of collecting - it is so much easier to keep the collection free of dust :laugh:

I know someone who is a speculator/collector. He always buys high end kits in threes and stores them for years. One for his personal collection, one he sells to cover the cost of the three kits, and one he sells for pure profit. He never opens any of them. He gets no joy from the Lego itself, he just gets a thrill out of selling a Green Grocer on ebay for three times what he paid for it. He does the same thing with Beanie Babies and Star Wars action figures. For him, it's all about the thrill of the auction and turning a profit. As an aside, he likes the fact that _I_ open _my_ sets; he says it makes his pristine copies more valuable every time some "foolish builder" breaks the seals "destroys" the value of their kit.

He certainly has not been caught by the LEGO brick spirit - though he knows how to take advantage of it...

I, myself, am both a collector and a MOC'er. Though my unopened boxes are only in this stage because of lack of time and space. My childhood sets, I want to keep built mainly as shown in the instructions, though I would never constrain myself to make it exactly as "in the picture" (and NO Krangle!). I will put things differently, and might... might even also do some light MOD'ing :wink: Newer sets I am not emotionally attached to in the same way, so there I am more likely to MOD them, if not even use them for MOC'ing. Sets used for MOC'ing is mainly sets from series I normally do not collect/play with, like Star Wars polybags and Friends, but which provide interesting bricks. These will be parted out and used for other things.

/Laka - a foolish builder :laugh:

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Any still boxed Lego sets I have are just that way because my brick room is tiny and disorganised and I need to sort it out before I can open them up. Oh, and one small set that was a freebie, which I haven't felt the need to open yet.

I have a few models which I've kept built, a couple of classic space vehicles mostly, but a lot of it never ends up built to the instructions in the first place. As for keeping things in their packaging generally? Eh, I have a couple of things, but they're things like action figures that even if I opened them would just be sat on a shelf looking pretty and hey they have transparent packing anyway, so why not have them hanging on the wall looking pretty instead?

Lego though, that gets opened and played with.

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Agreed 100%!!! LEGO REFORMATION TIME!!!! WOO! EVERYONE GRAB YOUR MINIFIG PITCHFORKS, IT'S TIME TO PUT SOME PEOPLE IN THEIR PLACE!! REVOLUTION! WAR!!!! :tongue:

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I'm not a skilled MOC builder so I have to follow some instructions for things I want to build. However, I would say I have started to become an MOCer but there are official Lego builds that I own that I refuse to take apart. Examples would be the hovercraft from this year's Hovercraft Arrest set, the police jeep from set 60007, and the Speed Champions Porsche 918 Spyder.

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If it weren't for nuts who keep sealed sets for 30+ years, we wouldn't be able to buy "new" trans-yellow windshields for our space ships :)

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If it weren't for nuts who keep sealed sets for 30+ years, we wouldn't be able to buy "new" trans-yellow windshields for our space ships :)

Good point! Lego also has a vault themselves of MISB sets! :wink:

Edited by Deathleech

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I have probably 80 or more sealed sets sitting on shelves... but I did not buy them for speculation, I bought them build. Unfortunately, I do not have the space to display them, so while my wife and I are planning to get a new house within a few years, one with a large room for me and my LEGO, the collection keeps building, because I will not miss out on sets that I like only to have them double or triple or more in price.

Occasionally I clear off the shelves of sets I have on display to make room for building newer sets. That's how I got my tag. My daughter wanted to do a "family" build, so I told her to pick out a modular building... she picked the Cafe Corner, MISB. Just out of curiosity, I checked bricklink... and it was selling for over $800 at the time (a LOT more now!). But I didn't buy it to sell it, so I shrugged and we built it.

At the same time, some realism sets in, and there might be the odd set that doesn't fit with my collection that I just found interesting at the time, and I decide to sell it... but that's not why I originally bought it. I just realize that when I am able to build, it still might not fit. I have several sets like that... I was collecting architecture, ended up getting a few of the larger sets, but then decided to only stick with the smaller ones. Now I have a Robie House that I bought on sale on Amazon that's worth a WHOLE lot more.

I also am prone to modding sets (usually removing play features since I put them on display, but not just that), and I buy tons of parts on BL for my own creations. In fact, a lot of bricks go to LEGO displays for LEGO sets, like Ghostbusters and CMF displays. When I want parts, I get them from BL, I don't like breaking up sets because I rarely buy sets that I don't like as sets... I have, on occasion, for some minifigures when, as pointed out, it's sometimes easier and cheaper than just buying the figures.

So I guess I'm sort of a jack-of-all trades in this thread.

I will admit to this, though - I have, for example, a UCS Naboo Starfighter, MISB. I actually bought it on Ebay back in my early days, because you couldn't buy it anymore. I already paid well over MSRP for it... but before I opened it, I got another one - the one with just gray instead of chrome, for a lot less. So I ended up saving the UCS version and building the "regular" version... now the UCS version is worth about six or seven times what I paid for it, and I'm still happy because I was able to build a Naboo Starfighter for display. I still have it; I may still build it, but it's one of those ones I'd have to think twice about.

So, for example, from Star Wars I just want ships, mainly OT, but also some new ones. I got a 4504 MF on black Friday sale, but it's so big I have no place to put it when built... but then I got the midi scale ones. It's not the same, but all I really wanted was one of all the ships, I didn't care which version. The midi scale lets me build and display it with fraction of the space... but now what do I do with the 4504? I don't want to sell it - I may yet have the space some time....

So what does that make me?

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Keeping the sets on the boxes, damn I envy you... I cant look to a freakin LEGO set just bought without having the feeling of tearing those plastic bags and start the fun, IM IN to fight those damn collectors, you proud hoarders ! :tongue:

Edited by rahziel

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I'm both ways..

Have build almost all the modulars except the Fire Brigade. But still have all the Ideas sets unbuild in their sealed boxes, and some other items from the Friends line which are for resale, or building not sure yet.

I would need to make some money to put back into my LEGO collection. :grin:

Edited by Dennan

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I have probably 80 or more sealed sets sitting on shelves... but I did not buy them for speculation, I bought them build. Unfortunately, I do not have the space to display them, so while my wife and I are planning to get a new house within a few years, one with a large room for me and my LEGO, the collection keeps building, because I will not miss out on sets that I like only to have them double or triple or more in price.

...snip

So what does that make me?

I seem to be in the same situation... I buy many sets when they are available because I do not want to miss them, but I do not have the space to display them even if I had the time to build them all. However I am working on a space where I can switch out built sets, so I can have more sets built than I can display at any time. Also some of my display space is taken up on a seasonal basis. I try to have my Halloween display (which I rebuild the majority of each year) up fro September until the first couple of weeks in November, then I have my Christmas display up from mid-November until mid-January. So five months are taken by seasonal displays and about two months are used for building seasonal displays. All this doesn't help to diminish my stack of unopened sets. I have decided to only buy the modular of the year (two copies) the Winter Village set of the year (two copies) and maybe one or two other sets because there is something interesting. The extra sets I usually build to learn something, then disassemble to but the parts in my inventory.

I still have some sets that I really have no interest in and I don't want to part them out as I know someone else would like to have and I plan to organize and sell them at some future time.

Andy D

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I am an MOCer to the core nothing is sacred in my collection, I can't look at a set for too long before my fingers start to itch... The only exception is my palace cinema which sits fully built on my shelf, it was a gift and has sentimental value as it is - as for having sets still in sealed boxes, I struggle not to open them on the way home!

Edited by mmcclelland

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Some sets I buy for the set as is for display, mostly I buy sets for the bricks so that I can build other things. I also struggle to keep the box closed till I get home and that is almost an hour by bus. I only have The Heroic Knight still in packaging but that is because I already have an open one for play/display.

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Lego civil war, excellent. It'll be over in a minute, I've got twenty bucks on the MOC guys. We've got tanks, we've got mechs, we've got guns, missiles, sharp sticks - what've you got?

A... Death Star... I forgot about that. Might have to rethink these odds.

Anyways, MOC only here, it's all a pile of parts.

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Hey! Collectors have a mech! If you count exoforce, they have more than one!

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I'm also of the 'on the fence' variety. In one thought, I think the people who buy just to stuff in a closet goes against what LEGO is, and, a bit of the greedy side when it comes to money. Without a doubt any set will sell second hand even if opened, so the need to not open is a bit of a waste.

I'm the collector who opens and builds per the instructions(I swear I've never watched any Octan TV shows, I think for myself!) and, for the most part, keep set pieces with that particular set. The only things that gets mixed are the figs from the City theme, since I have a tabletop set up, Superheroes, HP, Star Wars(to an extent- clone army, keeps Jedi in bag), LotR/Hobbit figs get separation anxiety. Otherwise, sets that don't get displayed get bagged & tagged into plastic containers.

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I have never understood collectors. My wife nearly fainted when she bought me a still boxed Angel Muppet (Buffy) and I ripped open the box to play! I never keep things in boxes. They were designed to be held, played with, built. Set the Lego free!!!

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Hey! Collectors have a mech! If you count exoforce, they have more than one!

Yup! Tons of pristine bricks from the past several decades waiting in their boxes ready to be used.... some day. Collectors also have a near infinite amount of cash with said MISB sets. Some of them have gone up in price pretty dramatically. So they have tons of cash flow and a huge surplus of new bricks. Seems like collectors might not go down so easy, huh? :laugh:

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I have few sets left completely unscathed in my collection. Everything else has been modified or MOC'd.

Even if I don't plan to make something new out of a set, I build it anyways. To have it sit in the box feels like a crime.

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Personally I don't have the cash to just let a set sit around unless its for resale; I want the pieces! So I'm definitely not a MISB collector, but I don't think it's so awful to be one - I mean, I would never do that myself, but if someone else wants to, well, that's their deal. What difference does it make to me if they let it sit in a vault or give it to some kid who's just going to lose all the pieces?

Maybe it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but if they get their thrill from a bunch of unopened boxes, why should I criticize them just because I have more fun with a pile of loose bricks?

And of course there are two sides to the coin when it comes to those who buy for resale (which I hardly ever do anyways, don't have the patience!). If it weren't for them, it would be a ton harder to get a MISB set after its shelf life. On the other hand, if it weren't for builders/collectors, they might have trouble selling!

Call it greedy, maybe (though everyone has to live), but they might end up doing you a favor!

Besides, if you're not a collector, just get the set in a good used condition and then replace any scratched/bitten/discolored pieces. Or better yet, decide that it simply wasn't for you! :grin:

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Personally I don't have the cash to just let a set sit around unless its for resale; I want the pieces! So I'm definitely not a MISB collector, but I don't think it's so awful to be one - I mean, I would never do that myself, but if someone else wants to, well, that's their deal. What difference does it make to me if they let it sit in a vault or give it to some kid who's just going to lose all the pieces?

Maybe it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but if they get their thrill from a bunch of unopened boxes, why should I criticize them just because I have more fun with a pile of loose bricks?

And of course there are two sides to the coin when it comes to those who buy for resale (which I hardly ever do anyways, don't have the patience!). If it weren't for them, it would be a ton harder to get a MISB set after its shelf life. On the other hand, if it weren't for builders/collectors, they might have trouble selling!

Call it greedy, maybe (though everyone has to live), but they might end up doing you a favor!

Besides, if you're not a collector, just get the set in a good used condition and then replace any scratched/bitten/discolored pieces. Or better yet, decide that it simply wasn't for you! :grin:

I'm with you. I'd never do it, but have at it. And yes, the secondary market wouldn't be what it is iffy weren't for them. I talked to a guy at a LEGO store who has bought two copies of every Star Wars sets since its beginning. One to open, and to keep. That is an especially large lump of cash, but he has a nicer lump of cash sitting in a closet somewhere.

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There is fun in collecting. It doesn't have to be a big expensive sets. I have a few old small sets sealed in the box. It is kind of nice to hold the box, look at the old school pictures, shake and sniff the box. :laugh: I think there is a difference in collecting for the joy of it versus hoarding sets for speculation purposes.

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If collecting means it has to stay in the set, then I still don't know what I am, as most sets have been opened and displayed.

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