badchriss

What got you into collecting Lego as an Adult?

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Well,i couldn`t find a similar Thread for this Topic so i opened on by myself.

If there`s already one similar Topic buried deep in the Bowels of this Forum,then please forgive me and move this Topic to the existing Tread.

So,where to start.

As many other AFOL`s,i started my Love for Lego bck in the 80s when i was a Kid.Still remember many Details of the little Town i owned.

As always,the Dark Ages were coming on me and i totally forgot about Lego and my Dad sold all the Stuff for the Renovation of my Room.

Few Years ago i got my first Contact with Lego.A fellow Member of a Toycar collecting Forum showed Pictures of the newly introduced Minifig Series.

I tried to resisut it only stayed that Way for a limited Time. I always enjoyed looking at the recent Lego Sets and the cool Details on the Minifig Sets but still avoided buying anything Lego related.I already spend enough Money for my other Collection so buying Lego was a No Go for me.

Fast Forward to this Year.

Lego tried everything to get my Attention and finally did it when releasing the Simpsons Minifig Sets.I`m a Simpsons Fan since the beginning and so i just couldn`t resist buying the Minifigs.

Having a new Job is cool,even if it is something like working at a Charity Shop.One Day a Box full of old Toys and stuffed Animals was donated.Me and a fellow Workmate were sorting through the Stuff when a small Paperbag dropped on the Floor.

Inside the Bag wwere the Remains of a small Lego Spaceship.I kinda felt sorry for the Pile of Bricks and took it Home.Luckily the old Instruction was included and after a few Minutes of building i noticed that one Part was missing and another one broken.

Then i remembered we have a tiny Shop in my Hometown that buys and sells old Lego and Playmobil Stuff.Always peeked through the Window of the Shop but never actually went into it.So i took a deep Breath and walked in.The Owner is a nice Lady and within two Seconds she got the right Parts to complete my tiny Spaceship (6887 Allied Avenger).

Totally fascinated by the Shop i bought the Spare Parts and two Star Wars Speeder Bikes.

And now,two Month later i have a small Collection of Star Wars Sets, late 80s Space, the Western Wild Waters Village, one Ultra Agents Set ans Series 1+2 Simpsons Minifigs and Series 14 Minifigs.

And now i am fully infected by the Lego Virus,super exited for the upcomingReleases and always on the Hunt for a good Catch.

That`s my Story,what`s yours?

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Nice to hear AFOL stories from others. Would be interesting to work in charity shop.. even if it is for a short while. Imagine all the interesting things you can find there. That Allied Avenger must have sparked off something nostalgic.

I got back into LEGO early this year. Was in a monoshop and saw CMF13. It looked so alluring because of Galaxy Trooper. Tried my hands on feeling for it, and got what I wanted. He had 2 guns and that cool armour.. everything the young me wanted in a minifig. Not to mention the clips on the back to hold the guns. I could attach some of my old dragon wings on it. Thank goodness my parents did not throw out my old toys.

Then I became obsessed with finding the hot dog man. I ran to multiple 7-11's for 2 weeks until I finally got him in 1 near my house. At that time I had godlike feeling skills from lots of practice. I only took 1 hot dog from the full new box, 1 unicorn and 1 king. Unicorn for my young sis, hot dog and king for me. Made me so happy to finally find the hot dog. I even built a shrine out of my old sets for him and the trooper.

That day, I went home and sorted all my old LEGO by type and colour, placed them in neat boxes.

Then it began. LEGO was never about minifigs for me, they were the icing. The cake was the builds. Looked up many current sets, was turned off by the extremely high prices of licensed sets. Wanted something simpler and more elegant. I remember I had lots of big burps when I was younger, as well as bigger odd shaped pieces. It was hard to build from them. Then I saw Toy and Grocery Shop. Viewing the promotional video from the official website, the small boy in the spaceman shirt was running around, then mum was manning the counter. Short legs. Bananas. Big transparent window piece. All these were new to me. Green, white, grey. Beautiful combination. 3 builds in 1. More value for money. Great price point relative to other sets. I watched the video on repeat many times over. I was hooked. A week later I went to a local store, thought long and hard and got it. The young AFOL in me didn't want to carry it in public, so I stuffed the whole set in my bag. Had to squash a corner. The shopkeeper looked surprised. I smiled and left a happy man.

Went home, Mum was appalled at me downing 55 bucks. Dad was shocked, but he smiled. I am an AFOL, just like my dad was before me.

Fast forward 9 months. Still a diehard Creator fan. When I started I never thought I'll spend so much as 250+ on a set. One set. When I bought an advent calendar (I like minibuilds of toys, since I got Toy and Grocery Shop) from a local seller, he asked if I wanted his MMV for 290. I said no thanks, I'm not going to spend so much on a toy. Happier that way. Fast forward 2 months, went to Japan and bought PR. Did things change.

Built the PR with my mum, she enjoyed it quite a bit too. Looks like another member of the household has been convinced.

Left the conscript, and was working part time for some dough (LEGO). Did the craziest thing ever. I downed 1k+ on the full set of Winter Village (First 3 were used, cottage, market and santa's workshop was MISB). You can understand why, judging from my username. I still regret that decision. I should never chase EOL sets no matter how good they look. Foolish decision by a LEGO addict. I could use that money for so many new sets.

Now I attend local LUG gatherings, browse various LEGO fansites and forums, and am more into it than ever. I'm also a happier person now. Just hope I don't burn out, or go into dark ages because of work.

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Pretty much the usual story for me. Entered my dark ages in high school and stayed away from Lego for a long time. Had no interest for me whatsoever. Then my then girlfriend (and now lovely wife) bought me a castle set knowing I like fantasy and medieval history as well as building things with my hands so Lego seemed logical. I was immediately hooked and haven't looked back since, though she might have regretted getting me started ;).

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I just didn't stop... went straight from KFOL to TFOL to AFOL.

Same here. All it took for me to become an AFOL was for me to turn 18. :)

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I had been involved with LEGO in some form or the other since about 1982 when we started getting LEGO for our son. In 1993 my wife started getting me LEGO mostly as a gag, because she referred to me as a big kid (was then, still am now).

A couple of years later I lost interest, then in 2008 I discovered Mindstorms. My wife got me a NXT set for Christmas, I was hooked! For the next almost 2 years I built NXT and Technic models.

Then I discovered the Cafe Corner... It reminded me of a cafe in Marcilles where we my wife and I had coffee while on a cruise. I had to have it! I thought that the Cafe Corner would be it, then back to Technic. Was I ever wrong...

With modular buildings you can't have just one, soon it was the Green Grocer and every other modular I could find. Then Winter Village... Technic was forgotten, I sold several unopened sets and a couple that I had assembled, Technic was a memory.

Now 5 years later back to Technic. Now I plan to balance my LEGO... Technic, modular buildings and Winter Village and some sets such as Monster Fighters that I can use for Halloween.

My LEGO life is now in balance... I hope!

Andy D

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Well, the first time I interested in Lego is in 2010. At that time I accidentally found the Lego website and clicked in. I interested in Hero Factory at that time and start my lego hobby. After 2012, I was busy with my homework and this cause me to leave my favourite hobby. With the introduction of Hero Factory IFB sets, I once again intersted in Lego and continue my Lego collecting hobby until now. At 2010, I'm a TFOL, but now I'm a AFOL.

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I got back into it in 2009/10 thanks to Jamie Berard creating Emerald Night & falling in love with it & also seeing the modulars.

My now wife bought me a tub of bricks for Christmas in 2009 & it spiralled from then!

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60020.

Big-ish truck. Looks properly sized, next to four-wide cars. Modular build, the cab and container and chassis come apart nicely, which just begs for modifications. It's just a well designed vehicle.

The twelve-year-old in me was all, hell yeah! this is exactly what I wanted in those dark days of ridiculous four-wide semi trucks. I changed the cab around a little, made the chassis into a twin-steer and that was that, I was readdicted.

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There were some things that didn't get me back into LEGO during my dark age, but might have done...

One was buying a little set as a promotion in an Esso garage, just because I wanted it, it was a little city cop in a little car. I had fun building it and played with it, but I slowly lost all the lego bits (still have the minifigure though).

Another time I went to visit my parents and instead of chocolate on my pillow (yep I always gets chocolate on my pillow, like a hotel, but better) I got a CMF minifigure packet. It was series 11, I got the yeti, I liked it but I was a bit disappointed it wasn't a more classic looking figure. It wasn't enough to make me buy lego... (income may also have been a factor at this point, I would not have had money to "waste" at that point).

What actually got me back was reading this blog post where some guy went and took a load of cool photos with a minfigure avatar in each photo, holding a camera. Then shortly after reading that I went traveling with an AFOL and his girlfriend and I saw some CMF packets and I decided we all needed avatars for the road trip. First I bought the first Simpsons series, but I was disappointed with the contents, but in a different shop I found some series 10 minifigs and bought us all one for the road, after that I was hooked on collecting CMF and slowly I have expanded to other things, mainly pirates, castle, creator sets, but I have favourite sub themes within these.

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Technically I never stopped being fan, I only stopped getting LEGO from early 90s till mid 2000 because I didn't have the money or the space.

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Nothing did. People kept telling me to stop as a teen, but they just didn't understand. They still don't. Hopefully the Temple of Airjitzu will change that lol.

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I by myself wanted to try something new in my "old days". I had a lot of Legos back in the sixties, but in the seventies it was all over. Now I'm building Lego Technic things and I like it.

Btw. I will be 60 next year. :laugh:

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It's all my partners fault! They're the one who kept suggesting that I buy Lego instead of action figures or other collectibles.

Even when I did purchase my first Lego set (the Creator Toy and Grocery Store), they convinced me to return it and buy the Palace Cinema instead. I'd collected Lego as a child, but I had no idea how awesome and detailed the builds had become, especially the Modular and some of the other Creator sets.

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I by myself wanted to try something new in my "old days". I had a lot of Legos back in the sixties, but in the seventies it was all over. Now I'm building Lego Technic things and I like it.

Btw. I will be 60 next year. :laugh:

Welcome Old Timer!

Somebody get this guy an "Old Timer's" badge (Please and thank you)

Andy D

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When I was a kid my parents had no money to buy even a brick to me. And now i grow up and use my earned money to buy legos because I can now play lego whatever I want. But my parents blame me on wasting money on children's play thing. What the........... :sceptic:

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One day I realised through external circumstances that "Dammit, I'm an Adult now aren't I?" There is no escaping it...

I never stopped being addicted to the brick, so it just rolled on.

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Parisian Restaurant

I never stopped being a fan of Lego but I needed money in my teens and never bought back in because of price. My wife insisted that we buy the PR despite my warnings. That was about 3-months ago. Now we have (at least) one of each modular except MS, which is currently arriving in phases via BrickLink, a UCS Imperial Shuttle, most of the Winter Village, a few other sets like Ferris Wheel and Emerald Night, storage for the spare pieces, and four tables to house everything...

Edited by Pedilego

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At the end of 2013 I was in Sydney for a business trip. I've always been fascinated by the Sydney Opera House so it was a must see on my itinerary. In the gift shop, they had the Creator Export model and I was absolutely blown away by it. I'd been away from LEGO since the early 80s, so I had no that sets like this existed. At the time I couldn't afford to buy it but over the next 12 months I kept itching to get one. Eventually I decided to treat myself to it as a Christmas present. I will not tell a lie that as I unboxed it on December 25th I felt a pang of excitement I've not felt on a Christmas morning since childhood.

Since then I've been hooked, spending all my spare cash on this highly sophisticated interlocking brick system. I cry a little when I work out how much this new hobby is costing me. I think I can moderate my spending but then they go and release LEGO Dimensions with Doctor Who and Portal 2! Sometimes it's like they design these sets specifically for me.

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In 2000, I was in Target getting Christmas presents for some relatives and sitting on a shelf right before my eyes were two of these. I immediately bought two of these with perfect boxes and was yelled at by my wife. I could not stop myself. The boxes on this set was beautiful.

7191-1.jpg?199910241113

The last set I had built before this was an Expert Builder Series set that I received in 1978 or 1979 as a kid. - Set Number 956

956-1.jpg

Edited by Shawn

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I too never really lost complete interest in LEGO but, basically getting the sets I missed out on due to them being released a couple years before I started collecting as a child and ebay brought me back. As well as, the never dead dream of having a large layout of a town. LEGO just happened to be the medium, as opposed to model trains :classic:

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As a child, I was into space and nautic themes (Ice Planet 2002, Aquazone, respectively). I ventured into other themes like Technic as well.

In my teens, It was all about Star Wars. I completed the first wave of the OT (1999), but lost interest for 1 or 2 years. Bought once in a while some sets that appealed to me.

Being an adult, I could spent more on Star Wars and the quality of LEGO sets was also becoming better. And before I knew It, I was into MOC'ing and Lord of the Rings.

Now these days, I get sets and parts from all kind of themes and rather build MOCs.

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I don't get it though. Sure, some of the people here lost contact with their Lego, but if you liked it then how was interest lost? Someone can force you to do something, but they can't make you like it. It's impossible. Were there other things to do? Or was it that they forcefully pushed themselves to leave it?

I'm sorry if this is coming out the wrong way, and I sound like a jerk, but I was really interested to know. All around me, people dropped Lego like a hot potato and kept telling me to do too. I didn't get why and I still don't. I've heard of the dark ages, but that specific part of it never got answered. Could I get some insight on this? Thank you for reading.

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