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Japanbuilder

Best packs for collecting diverse hair pieces

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First, my apologies if I am posting in the wrong section of the forums.

However, I do need some advice on starting a population explosion for my lego sets. As I begin this project I have noticed some challenges surrounding hair specially.

The first complete theme I have fallen into is the 2015 Lego Swamp Police theme. I have all but 2 of the sets in my collection and have noticed that my display is full of triplets and twins and I would like to spice up the variety of faces (for the crooks in particular) by at the very least having different hair pieces.

I have tried Amazon but most of the decent vendors with assorted parts do not ship to Japan. The domestic Amazon also does not sell local assorted sets of hair bits and head accessories. Brick link seems ok but with stores all over the world and being in Japan the shipping costs will soon outpace the actual value of the pieces.

What sets (starter sets/smaller sets) have you found ideal to start getting a diverse looking population going for your MOCs?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

宜しくお願いします! (_ _)

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visit your local lego store and build your own minifigures. i think it's the cheapest way after BL

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The city or creator themes are probably the worst for variety in both hairpieces and torsos. Quickest and cheapest option is probably bricklink, but if you want whole figures, then cmf and as Hepitos said - the build a minifig tubs in lego stores which mostly use pieces from older cmf lines.

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Thanks for the advice everyone. I will look into it. Sadly, the build your own here in Japan varies widely. I would have to trek to Tokyo (which is far from me) to even hope to get matching services as anywhere else. But I shall try!

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The two best options are both online stores.

The first is Bricklink.com. There are a few challenges: you need to make an account, the interface is awkward for newcomers, and you need to pay for shipping which can be expensive, and you need to wait for the parts to arrive, which can take weeks.

The second is Lego's Brick's and Pieces service. Normally, it is found at this site. Unfortunately, the legal buying option is offline for at least a little bit longer, and using the current replacement options to get new parts would be unethical. Some people are saying it will come back online tomorrow, others are saying it will be offline for another month, but when it comes back, it's the best option. Most of the parts here are very cheap, and there's an incredible variety of hairpieces. Like bricklink.com, you will need to pay shipping and wait for them to arrive, but the parts are so cheap that it's worth it.

The Build-a-Figure option is not good because you only get three hairpieces for $10, (I have no idea how much Japan charges). Some stores will let you buy nothing but hairpieces, but not all stores do. Plus, you don't know which pieces they have until you arrive, so it's rarely worth the journey. I recommend that you do not do this option.

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Ouch, only 7 BL stores in Japan? Is international shipping any cheaper between other countries in Asia, rather than, say, the US?

I know I tend to stick to US stores when I can, so I can totally understand why BL doesn't look as plausible to you. That sucks :/

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Thanks N_Cat I think I will wait for the Lego option and see how much it turns out after shipping.

I tried looking into Bricklink but taking into account the cheapest dealers plus shipping the cost turned out to be substantially more than when just shipping via Amazon (which is still astronomically expensive for sets that never came here).

In the mean time I looked at some starter sets from the past few years that won't cost me over 80 USD for about 3 or 4 of them to get a decent variety of hair pieces and useful other minifig accessories. I think until Lego restores its service options this will be the "cheapest" route for me domestically.

and yes JaseTJ shipping between asian countries is still expensive because the region features similar set limits as Japan. So ordering from even Taiwan would entail them passing on the import cost for them plus the shipping cost all to me. (@.@) it can be very sad to collect in Japan sometimes.

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The Build-a-Figure option is not good because you only get three hairpieces for $10, (I have no idea how much Japan charges). Some stores will let you buy nothing but hairpieces, but not all stores do. Plus, you don't know which pieces they have until you arrive, so it's rarely worth the journey. I recommend that you do not do this option.

The last time I was in Japan, they didn't have LEGO stores. They did have an independent chain that specialises in LEGO called clickbrick. Here's the one in Inagi-shi, Tokyo:

clickbrick_inagi.jpg

They have some kind of contract with TLG, but their stores aren't the same as TLG's in Europe or the US. They don't have BAF as we know it in the west, but the branch pictured above did have a broad equivalent. If memory serves, types of pieces were priced individually, e.g. all headgear was priced the same, and you could get as many as you liked. If you speak Japanese, you could call them up and ask them what hairpieces they had. I doubt they could tell you what part numbers or official colours they were, but they could probably give you a description of each. Japanese customer services makes most US and European customer service look pretty poor. But as the OP said, he can't get to a clickbrick store, so that isn't an option.

If you're not a purist, there are third party vendors that do various hair pieces. Their international postage rates to Europe aren't too bad, so they're possibly reasonable to Japan. To be honest, I've never tried ordering from them from Japan.

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clickbrick_inagi.jpg

Thank you for the reply. I have tried the service options at Clickbrick and their services are pretty good but they face the same restrictions on sets as the rest of the region. So often times if the part is in a set that never came to Japan there is not much they can do. For general catalog sets they are good though, however, I am not sure how they stay in business. Most sets they sell are far cheaper on domestic Amazon than at the store itself.

I have actually found a cheap work around to my woes from other sets in the city line. Going to get a few of those and strip them for parts. Altogether the sum is more than reasonable to actually importing specific pieces.

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