Review: 10251 Brick Bank

[JackJonespaw]

- A Review -

Subtitled: “Left-Hand”

Mountains again...I find them calming, of course, as they are what I have always found Lego blocks to be - constant, durable...long-lasting, and always there for me to look at, whenever I need to. Does that make sense to you? I doubt it, it doesn’t make sense to me, and I’m fairly certain that it’s not true, but I keep having to think of mountain-y ways to start reviews. There’s just something about Lego and mountains that fits in a weird way. Regardless, my children, today I will be reviewing a little (it’s not little) set called the “Brick Bank”. Now, for your pleasure, I will put that down below in bold letters in a list so that it seems more official than just putting it in quotes. English syntax is odd.

Name: Brick Bank. I switched the first letters of the words around, but you can’t tell.

Social Security Number: 10251

Theme: Creator!

Year: 2016

Little Guys: 5

Pieces: So many. So so many. (2380)

Price: £119.99 / $169.99 / 149.99€

More Information Inside Here!

Welcome to the main picture! As you see before your eyes, this is the Lego set Brick Bank, so I assure you that I wasn’t lying to you. Put your pitchforks down, please, and let us move backwards in tiiiiimmmmeeee…..

- Brick Bank Review -

Chapter 1

Sleep Deprivation

It’s a Tuesday. Or was it a Monday? I think it was a Monday, actually. Point is, I got this set, glistening in that shiny Lego cardboard in the early dawn sunlight (it was actually mid-afternoon). Now, the box is truly something marvelous. The first thing that became apparent was just how heavy the bloody thing was. It weighed a good...a lot, really. A lot of grams, or kilograms, I don’t know. The second thing I noticed what how large it was. Down here in JackJonespaw Town, we don’t get a lot of larger Lego sets, so it came as quite a surprise to little old me. If you’re interested in getting this set, be warned, my friends. You’re in for a workout! Now, about the box, we get an absolutely gorgeous picture of the bank was the main image. I couldn’t take a picture that looks nearly this good. The most exciting thing was that little Expert thing in the top right corner. You know what that means? It means we’re in for some advanced stuff here, folks.

The back of the box, eh? Yea, it is. Not sure why I typed out a question there. I need to start assuming that you readers have some intelligence. Now, Mr. Back-of-the-Lego-Box-Designer is quite clever with the main image on the back here. See the way that it not only shows the Brick Bank, but also two others sets? Advertising there, folks. Now that I’ve actually build the set, it’s very...lonely. I feel like I need more of these modular buildings in my collection to build a nice little town square. Aside from that large picture, there are also 16, yea, 16 other pictures, showing off different locations and features of the set. You got a bowl of...some kind of food ready? Because we’ve got a long review ahead of us. That’s right - you’re going to see each and every corner of every feature of this set. And in a creative way so it doesn’t get boring. But you don’t get to do that yet, we have other business to attend to first.

Box sides, box sides, sox bides! One side - minifigures and things that they can hold! Wow! Next...uh, next side - picture and words! Okay...next side! Pretty much the same thing, really. Last side, literally every piece in the set. Good lord, that’s a lot of pieces. Oh boy God sweet Christ Lord. And every single piece is going to be in my greasy hands at one point. That’s 2380 pieces that won’t be the same.

Now, shall we take a peek at our instruction manual? What’s that, you think we should? Brilliant, I completely agree. The thing is quite hefty, but it’s quite expected, as it seems that each page can only hold a single step on it, thus there are almost as many pages here as there are steps! Which, trust me, that’s a lot of pages. Otherwise, same picture on this thing as on the box.

On the back we get a little graphic of WIN-man, super-human and coffee drinker. I wonder - has anyone here actually ever entered that? Because if...no one has...then that’s a larger chance for me to win!

So, pop this baby open to Page 41 (my favorite number, coincidentally), and you get to see what I stared at for the 1942 hours I spent building this thing - instructions! A proper blue background, providing a decent contrast with the set. The colors, as they have been for the past many years, are quite clear and there’s little confusion over which color the piece is.

Let me break something to you - on average, each step for this set uses around 15 bricks, which can range anywhere from, like, 2, to, like a billion, in the case of little 1x1 tiles. As such, things get an awful lot confusing. Luckily, Herr Lego highlights those bricks that are added in each step, which, by the case around Bag 3, where you’re adding miniscule little details in and around the pre-existing structure, is very helpful. On the right side of this picture, you see the other helpful thing here - the metallic-type pieces, like pearl gold, or pearl silver, those kinds of pieces, are shown in the instructions here with a little glint. It’s very helpful, because that dark metallic grey looks exactly like the normal dark grey in the instructions.

Shall we begin the build? Now, as I’ve stated multiple times, and as my now-present grey hairs will attest to, this set takes a lot out of you, and is very very strenous to build. Like, marathon strenous. You’re gonna want some bread and some water, if you ask me. Or something a bit more...fancy? You want food, and you want drink. Around Bag 3, you may substitute water for whiskey, if you so desire. You’ll need it. So, the build starts with this innocently large 32 x 32 plate. Each picture represents about 30 or so minutes of building, so I’ll be keeping a nice little timer in the corner of the pictures.

I know, I know, you’re thinking “wow, that doesn’t seem like 30 minutes worth of work”. But you’re wrong, it was. There are a good 200 tiles in this picture alone. Keep in mind that a 32 x 32 plate has a grand total of 1,024 studs on it. And about 9/10 of those are covered in tiles, or about 922 studs. Just keep that in mind when you scoff me for my time-keeping.

We’re a full hour in at this point, and we’ve built a few nice little walls here, added some flowers, you know, the works. It’s simple structural stuff before we add the little details.

We add a little more here, bulk up the walls, add some stairs, lose a bit more hair, and start the second podcast I listened to that night. I hope you all are beginning to notice the drop in picture quality as I slowly began to decrease in mental awareness of where exactly I was.

This wraps up Bag 1 for us, at a grand total of two hours. If you were me, your back, eyes, and head would be hurting severely at this point, but you’d realize that you’re only one fourth of the way in. We must soldier through, boys!

Here is Bag 2. When I opened the first bag (being Bag 1), I had a little bit of structure. You know, sifting out the bricks, organizing a little bit. Thus I had a pretty large spread on my “studio” (more like...sh*tudio) and I refrained from taking a picture, because, you know, lack of white space, you could see the gaps in my “studio”, etc. Not so in Bag 2. Very subtle black spots were beginning to dance around my vision, so I just dumped it all out, snapped a picture, and kept on building. And you, my dear reader/transcriber for the blind, you will keep on reading. ‘Tis naught a simple request, but a plead.

Look at that, right? A definite increase in bulk here. We now have all four walls, with some insanely intricate design. I believe there were 42 little pieces in a single step - 6 of those little rectangles per pillar, times 7 pillars. Whoo.

Speaking of intricacy, may I present you with the stained glass windows! Sorry, I tried to spice that up and make it sound exciting, but it was just a bunch of translucent 1x1 plates stacked on top of each other. Still, it looks nice.

In a nice little change of pace, I got to put (let it collapse from my now-trembling fingers) the set down and build this tiny little washer. I love this thing. I’ll go into it later, but it has so many little features in this one structure. It was very fun to build, I will say that.

Thus, we wrap up Bag 2, and about 95% of the first floor. There’s just that missing gap in the wall you see there, but, hey, maybe that’s just supposed to be there, eh? Who are you to judge?

Bag 3. You see individual pieces, I saw something a bit more like this -

Yea, I know, sleep deprivation. Let me set up a time frame for you. First, I’d been out of the house for about 12 hours, I came home, swallowed a bit of supper, then worked on this set. If each build picture is roughly 30 minutes, that means I’d been building for around 4 hours at this point. I.E. very late. I believe in layman’s terms this is known as an “unhealthy relationship” that I have with Lego.

Now we see a little bit of the floor plan for this second story. As fancy as the ground floor is, the first floor just falls a bit flat, in my opinion, focusing more on the outside design than on the design of the inside. Which is disappointing after the extremely numerous play-features in the ground floor.

Add some walls, put up that old fireplace, try to find some Red Bull or something - more progress!

And then we throw up pillars and some brown and, like the wings of a magical unicorn, which, I know what you’re thinking - don’t I just mean a pegasus? The answer is no. Here’s why: I found out that there’s some way to grow a human ear on a mouse, and after I knew that my faith in the world and biology in general was kind of shaken. If that’s possible, what isn’t? Why couldn’t we grow a horn onto a horse? And why stop there? Once we’ve genetically engineered that mythical creature, we could somehow grow bird’s wings onto our original horse-turned-unicorn. But, as those wings are just, you know, placeholders, like how the mouse-ear doesn’t actually hear for the mouse, the unicorn with wings actually isn’t a pegasus, it’s just...well...a unicorn with wings. Or, I suppose, a horse with a horn and wings. Up to you. Now, where was I...Lego?

Oh yea, there’s also this cute lil’ clock in the final pieces of the Bag. It’s pretty cool, I guess. Not much to say. That unicorn spiel took it out of me.

Bag the Fourth! I couldn’t see so well at this point, and I’m pretty sure I saw more black dots than...not black dots. From now on I will just be shouting out what’s in each build.

White! Chandelier! A bit of black on the corner there, do you see it?!

Um….more...white! Some green?! Weird structure on the right with black and dark brown! I don’t get it!

Oh wait we’re done. That was quite speedy when I don’t have to think of unicorn-y jokes to write. (Get it?! I really did laugh at that one, I promise.) The roof (pronounced ruf) has a lot of decoration and stuff. Curved window thingy in the middle, see it? I see it. At the time, I couldn’t see much, though.

And also extra pieces. I will not be counting out how many of these there are. There are a bloody damn lot.

- Brick Bank Review -

Chapter 2

Weightless

Aye, here is our completed structure, all three floor placed on top of one each other to make...well...heh...the Brick Bank! This is a seriously impressive structure, all kidding aside. It’s nice and tall, bulky, but not overly so, and with the right amount of details and flat parts to make it seem like a pretty realistic building. It’s really just like all the modular buildings, which I can sum up with one word - impressive. I know I already used that word in this paragraph, and you never want to use the same adjective in one description, but, hey, let’s make an exception just this one time, eh, lads?

So if you turn the set around 180o (that’s Celsius, not Fahrenheit), the set gets a lot less...impressive. I gotta stop using that word. Anyway, I’m not so sure if the back of these sets are really supposed to be shown off, since it’s just a collection of different colored rectangles. My guess is that these walls aren’t meant to be present, since you’re supposed to connected this set with another Modular BuildingTM. Which...I’m poor, so that’s not really going to work out. Maybe I can just hide these back walls with a sheet or something.

Oh, yea, you’re probably wondering why I titled this Chapter “Weightless”, right? Well, I was going to weigh this set and compare it to a goose egg, as I oft do, as we all do, I’m sure. Point is - I wanted to. So I bought the set to the scale, and I’d figure it’d weigh a nice hefty bit, being as big as it is, maybe like 1.5 kg. Not enough to do bicep curls with, but more than the empty shell of a goose egg. And...it didn’t show any change from the 0.0 displayed. So, I guess it’s just weightless and I’m really weak in my arms for thinking that it has weight.

Here, see the roof. It’s actually pretty empty, which, I guess make sense in terms of how roofs actually are, but it’s still a tad disappointing. It seems to me like they put most of the effort into making the ground floor look as fantastically detailed as possible, and use up about 4/5th of their total parts quota for the set. If you’re looking at the entire set, though, the baldness of the roof isn’t so noticeable.

The first floor has some nice windows here - which. of course, you’re going to see if you actually look at the set. I’m not quite sure why I’m typing out these circular statements, but it must have something to do with...something, I guess. Point is, there is some green windows, some glass panels, and a bunch of white bricks, which of course, in my setup, come off slightly yellowed. That’s the price you pay, folks. Cruel realities.

There are a total of two buildings in this one...building. Or at least two businesses. The first, main one being, of course, the Brick Bank itself. But off to the side is a tiny lil’ laundromat, called Soap ‘n’ Suds. A nice name for a nice place. It’s a very quaint space, and there’s not much there, but the window has some nice printing. I don’t think I mentioned this, but there isn’t a single sticker in this whole set. Every piece with a design on it is printed. Which, thankfully, is very good. There are a lot of pieces here that would require stickers otherwise, like that window on the left. There are four of those suckers on this set, and there’s no way I could align a sticker just right four times.

Now, there are three different pieces, or floors, to this set - and they’re held together by these. A grand total of six studs, two on each back corner, and two in the front middle. It’s not really as secure as you’d think, especially if you want to hang the Brick Bank upside down from your ceiling, or attach it to the ceiling fan and see if it will fall and hit your cat.

Aside from printed parts, Brick Bank has some very nice features - good parts usage in all of these designs, except, really, the frog piece, since it’s just put on top of one stud. Not sure why I included it in this picture, but there it is, folks.

Other nice features include this shield on the roof, which can be pulled off for easy access if a medieval army invades the bank and you’re in a pinch, as well as this little man statue and the wings, which could be, and I don’t want to predict too much, but I feel like this has something to do with the unicorn-with-wings I talked about earlier.

And from both doorways of the building, you can see their interiors. Beautiful, ain’t it? Hm? Oh, the set, yea. I was looking out my window - it just started raining gently, and it’s sunset, so there’s a nice cool orange in the sky. That’s really what I was talking about more than whatever this is. Which, I suppose, is alright.

And here are our little figures! We get five of them in this set, each one with a happy, plastic-y Lego face. First up we have...suit guy and vest guy. Mostly these guys are nice because of their multiple uses throughout whatever you may need in your future building. They’re more like addons to the set than vice versa, which is a happy change after seeing so many Star Wars sets have that...disease.

And here are the other three figures - blonde, brunette, and ginger. Good pieces here, not good usage for any jokes that I can think of.

The set also comes with...accessories! Woo! I’m talkin’ ladder, I’m talkin’ broom, I’m talkin’...rope? And check? Oh. By the way, the check is for 500 studs. Now, that would make sense to be 500 bills, whatever currency that translates to, right? But, think about it...there are Lego bills, the 1x2 green printed tiles. Those aren’t studs. Studs are more like the 1x1 round plates that populate the Lego games. Which, if each 1x2 tile is equal to $1, basing this off American culture, then each stud would be a 100th of that, or 1 cent, right? That’s what would make sense to me. Which, in this case, would mean that the check is for a grand total of $5. Really incredible check there.

Now, as I’ve been saying, there are a lot of play features in this set. And just taking pictures and trying to make jokes about them is getting a bit tired, so I think I’ll switch it up a bit.

- Brick Bank Review -

Chapter 3

Washing Machines

Lean back, ladies and gentlemen, and let the classic black-and-white of old Noir films take you back. Maybe even turn on some music… I present to you….Washing Machines.

1935, New York City, America. At the corner of Sixth Avenue and Main Street, the Bank, Upstairs Room - The Office of Thomas Sawyer, coincidentally, my office, as I am Thomas Sawyer. The following account is what I wrote following the famous 1935 Bank/Washing Machine Incident of 1935, in which I was serendipitously and religiously involved in.

Henry walked into the office, looking, as usual, flustered, but, if I were a more clever man, I would say he was looking more flustered than usual. Was that sentence contradictory? Possibly, but backspace doesn’t exist in 1935, and I’m writing this with a typewriter, which did exist back then...I mean, back...now. As I was saying - Henry. He came in. He sat down on the chair opposite my desk - a chair I always reserved for the clients, not Henry. Henry knew that his place was far from my office, as he was known to be a bit gaseous. Indeed, as he sat down, my eyes began to water as loud flatulence filled the room. I cursed in my stereotypical 1935 New Yorker accent, then looked at Henry. “What do you want, Henry?” Henry let off another flatulent, and then looked at me. “The dame downstairs in the bank...she’s saying money’s getting stolen.”

My eyes lit up. Not only was Miss Helen from downstairs beautiful and single, and Henry was handing me an opportunity to help her and, hopefully, make her fall for me, but the whole reason I had even created an office above a bank was to stop bank robberies. It had taken four years, but this was finally my chance. I rushed downstairs, along with Henry, who mostly just stumbled down, and, pushing past nobodies who I don’t even remember at this point, I found myself looking into the eyes of Miss Helen. Her eyes were very similar to my own, and Henry. I figured it must be something about the buildings around here that made everyone’s eyes look similar, but I could figure that out later.

Miss Helen...who, now, writing this later, I realize I should have made some connection with Helen of Troy, but, like I said, no backspace button on my legitimate typewriter keyboard, so I’ll just leave that in...she said that she had gone inside the vault earlier this morning and noticed that - alas! - precious jewels were missing. Along with all the money, and the gold, and the silver. She listed each thing off, and I made sure to pretend to write it all down so I seemed like a good detective.

I turned to Henry. “We’ve got ourselves a mystery, Henry!” Henry nodded, “I know, I’ve been right next to you this whole time.” I smacked his head angrily and told him to pipe down, and then headed upstairs to Henry’s “office”, which was really not more than a desk in a corner, but it made him feel important, so I let him keep it. I turned to my man-servant Henry and we talked it over - whoever this robber was, they had to be good...they successfully made it past me! And Henry, I suppose. What we needed was a way to catch them...and I think I had a perfect plan.

We ran back downstairs and outside onto the street, where we stopped on a bench and at lunch. It’s not relevant to the story, but I had to show off the features of the set.

As I ate my lunch, I pointed at the clock and dared Henry to change the time. He did it. What silly detective fun we have!

Henry fell off the ladder and some blood splurted out of him, so I cleaned it up while he laid down.

After our lunch-time adventures, we stopped in at the laundromat. I poked around while Henry distracted everyone by taking his shirt off and dancing around. I found that, for some reason, the rightmost washing machines were connected to the bank vault. I saw absolutely no benefit to this at all, because if anyone put in clothes they would end up inside the bank vault. I chalked it up to the Irish Potato Famine and we left, a new plan rapidly forming in my mind.

Outside, I stopped a girl I had seen while Henry had laid on the floor bleeding. She had won a check, and a photographer was taking her picture. I pulled the two of them aside and asked for the check, telling her she would be more than compensated for it later. The silly girl agreed, and Henry and I headed towards the vault.

Using my brilliant detective skills, I tied a rope to the check and strung it through the washing machine. That way, if the rope was tugged later by someone touching it, if Henry and I were in the laundromat, we would know. I told Helen of Troy to not touch the check, and she graciously agreed. I almost touched her hand reassuringly! I was so excited.

I had a few more hours before the bank closed, so I went back to my office, and Henry to his, and I stared at the diamond chandelier that hung in front of my office.

I also went on the roof and looked out over the city as the sunset, so that the frame could take in the little pulley system on the bottom of the picture, and the ceiling window thing that I was standing by.

- Later that Night -

Henry and I, in full sleuthing gear, i.e. our same clothes, stayed in the laundromat through the night. Eventually, around midnight, the rope was pulled, and Henry and I jumped up with a start and rushed out of there.

Silently, but still with a bit of flatulence, we made our way up to the roof and waited. We could see a rope tied to the roof leading down the chimney...which would lead, through my office and...into the vault!

ckr

We stayed silent as we could hear someone slowly making their way back up the chimney. The moment their head popped out, I grabbed them and pulled them up. They were wearing a mask and a weird hat...who was it!

Meanwhile, Henry had fallen down the chimney...through the fireplace...and into the vault! Features, wow!

I took off the hat and mask, and it turned out that it was...the photographer from before! Wow! In total there were only about five of us, so I guess it was either her or the girl with the check, so it made sense in the end.

Does this ending seem rushed? Well, I cannot say if it was or not, because it actually really happened in real life in 1935. And so, the famous 1935 Bank/Washing Machine Incident of 1935 ended, and barely anyone remembered...forever…

- Brick Bank Review -

Chapter 4

Graduation

Man, that was some story, huh? Somehow I managed to have less pictures in this review than I had in the much smaller Takodana review. Which I guess I could just chalk up to working on it for a full month, versus building, shooting, and writing this review in just a week. Eh, who knows.

Welp, let’s close this baby out, and get some final ratings, which as everyone should know by now, is my favorite part of the review.

Overall, this set brought me two things - exhaustion of building, which actually wasn’t its fault, and enjoyment. Seriously, I really like building this thing. All of the features are very well implemented, everything fits together real nice, and the detail is absolutely astounding.

A few marks off for the seeming decrease in detail in the later bags, especially the roof portion, but I suppose that would only raise the price and pieces too much. Still, put together, looking at it from a front-view, it looks really impressive, and I will gladly display this until it gathers a bunch of dust in 1-2 weeks, in which case I’ll probably attempt to dust it off before giving up and letting the dust win.

So, in representation of everything I stand for, I award this set a 37/100, which, as I’ve stated multiple times, really has no hold on this review at all. If you like it, go out and grab it. If you don’t, don’t. The end.

Thanks to TLG for providing this set for me! I love their products, so this is a great opportunity!

Really, the end. Go to bed.

[Mutant Orc]

Hah! Another great review, I especially liked the Famous 1935 Bank/Washing Machine Incident of 1935 (and the fact that you linked music to go with it!)

One thing I did notice though was that your baseplate seemed unfortunately warped D: but it seems to have flattened once everything else went on .

Here's hoping you make another review soon!

(and now i really need to get to bed what's wrong with me it's super late!)

[mediumsnowman]

Another great review for a great set. The story at the end was very enjoyable, though -plot twist- Helen could have been the thief all along! Consider that! Back to the Bank, I keep meaning to buy it, I really do. I just haven't gotten around to it. Maybe later.

Though you seem to be missing a poll option- "I love this set even more than I love JackJonespaw"

[alenvprekrsku]

Bow down to the king of review!

[AFOLguy1970]

Excellent review for a fun build! It was kind of funny that the kid wins the contest and gets the 500 stud check, only for mom to rob the bank later I guess greed has no bounds?

[npgcole]

Guess she did that when she found out her check was only for $5

[Jern92]

Haha, this has to be the most entertaining review I've read in a long time

[legonerd54321]

This is like the Deadpool of reviews. I love it!

[rollermonkey]

A unicorn / Pegasus hybrid is called an alicorn. I don't know why though.

[alex54]

Thanks for taking your time to bring us this nice and funny reveiw!

I don't have this modular right now, but it will be mine soon!

Nice pictures, nice steps of building, nice humour, and nice moment of read! Good job!

[Boromir]

Ah yes. The famous Bank/Washing machine incident of 1935

I'm looking forward to picking this set up. Although I really would love even bigger modulars, and wouldn't mind paying more for one.

[GunwitchUK]

A unicorn / Pegasus hybrid is called an alicorn. I don't know why though.

ALICORN celebration (or so my two daughters tell me )

A stonking review of a great build. Thanks for the giggles

[FishHead]

I gotta say, your review just sold the set for me.

[Starmort]

Brilliant! Just brilliant!

I read it with the video attached and it really works.

Mine in a year or so

[Steph 104th]

Fantastic review. I still need to pick this up.

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

Magic set and fantasic review!

[tafkatb]

Can you please do all of the reviews from now on?

[JackJonespaw]

Can you please do all of the reviews from now on?

I'll try my best, buddy. I'm not sure if my wallet can take it, though.

[TheLegGodt]

I appreciate the effort the reviewer has made but I think the intended humour is too forceful and the tone rather arrogant and belittleling to the readers. The set itself loooks good. Certainly not the best but a nice and interesting addition all the same.

[Angeli]

is there a picture of just the bags? I would like to see how many there are and how they look