Strange bags...

[KlodsBrik]

I know there is a topic about "where does this piece belong / come from". I just couldn't find it. Moderators feel free to move this to that topic if nessecary. :)

( EDIT: OOOps. And then I just found it on the first page. Sorry. Please move it mods. )  ... :( 

I found this bag at a shop today. Bought it for what is approximately 10$ which was a bargain. 

The thing is, does anyone know where it belongs to, or is it just a random collection of bricks. It has some werid combination of bricks in it, yet lovely bricks.
The bag have no printing on it at all.

It weighs 532grams. 

One side of the bag.

 

 

 

Other side of the bag:

It holds some 20-30 of those weird brown/tan/red arches.
Some 20-30 of those tan wall pieces.
At least 30 round cornered tan plates.
Some 10-15 2x6 orange car front pieces ( Have no clue as what to call them ? )

An insane amount of orange cheese slopes.

20-30 inverted 1x3 yellow slopes.

4 black round wall pieces.

1 big red piece that I also have no clue as what to call.

 

 

I really dont feel like opening it till I know the story behind it. I hope someone can help me out. 

 

Thank's in advance. 

KlodsBrik

Edited October 27, 2016 by KlodsBrik

[zux]

This is not form a set. I was thinking about couple of reasons, but then I found you are from Denmark. Well, there could be multiple ways of getting similar bags.

[davee123]

I don't know formally, but this matches the style of a lot of the "bonus" bags that appear to be made from excess elements at LEGO.

The contents are typically a bunch of repeated elements-- a bunch of blue 2x2 45 degree slopes (for instance), but no 1x2 or 2x4 45 degree slopes.  Hundreds of left wings, but no matching right wings, etc.  Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, we would see large boxes filled with similar breakdowns, which LEGO provided at events, or as rewards/incentives for various initiatives.  They would occasionally give these out for free (or low cost) to events that were looking to incorporate LEGO in some way.  My college (for instance) received about 6 cases of these back in the early 1990s, just because they asked.  Early BrickFest events would get similar boxes of these through the Potomic Mills store for free-build brick.  Internally, I've heard this kind of thing referred to as "play table brick".

The guess is that this comes from the "end" of the packing cycles at LEGO.  When a bunch of molded elements are extra, and won't fit in their bins, or if a bin is very close to running out (or even simply being retired), they dump them into big bins.  They could throw them out (and it's likely that they used to do this quite a lot, given what I've heard), but instead, they just put them in big "random LEGO parts" boxes so that they can give them out.  I believe that some of these elements are now making it into these small, sealed baggies like the one you have.  I've received a bunch of these baggies, as well as large "extra brick" boxes (although it was never for me personally in those cases).

Depending on how they were obtained, it's questionable that you were able to purchase the bag.  For any such extra brick that I've received, it's come with very explicit instructions NOT to sell them.  If these were given to an AFOL who sold them, they may have violated LEGO's conditions by selling it.  However, as noted, you're in Denmark, where anything's possible.  Sometimes, LEGO doesn't explicitly state such conditions, and it could be that the conditions were made clear, or have other reason to be ignored.

DaveE

[KlodsBrik]

2 hours ago, davee123 said:

The guess is that this comes from the "end" of the packing cycles at LEGO.  When a bunch of molded elements are extra, and won't fit in their bins, or if a bin is very close to running out (or even simply being retired), they dump them into big bins.  They could throw them out (and it's likely that they used to do this quite a lot, given what I've heard), but instead, they just put them in big "random LEGO parts" boxes so that they can give them out.  I believe that some of these elements are now making it into these small, sealed baggies like the one you have.  I've received a bunch of these baggies, as well as large "extra brick" boxes (although it was never for me personally in those cases).

DaveE

Thank's for the reply.
This does make a lot of sense.

I bought it from a shop that works to help Indian kids in need.

They had quite a lot of other bags. Those were however numbered and were from random sets.
I asked the woman how they got it and if they were to get more, after she told me everything they had in the shop were donations from people, ( as I first suspected it was a donation from LEGO ).

However she told me if wasn't, and that they weren't to get any more LEGO from this person. So the original origin of this bag is still unknown, but they had had a few similar bags with the same content that had been sold she told me.

The only other bag I got in the lot that wasnt numbered was this one ( well three of this one ), however it has the usual choking warning printed on it over and over again:

 

 

Thank's for the reply once again. Glad to have become wiser as to why it was packed with this weird combination of bricks.

 

KlodsBrik 

[Vorkosigan]

I couldn't find any sets with the green sea grass and the yellowish-green bricks. So it might be another surplus brick pack. 

[davee123]

That second bag is from 3851 Atlantis Treasure. Inventory here:

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemInv.asp?G=3851

DaveE

[paul_delahaye]

Thinking about it, when they ended the board game division, I guess they had lots of games left over in the warehouse, maybe they splitt these up and sold of the contents?  

I wonder if the first bag could have been related to a board game that was in development, but got cancelled when the theme was stopped? hence we don't have a bricklink inventory?  I seem to recall a topic years ago showing some of the last board games that never made it to production.

Edited October 29, 2016 by paul_delahaye

[zux]

3 hours ago, paul_delahaye said:

Thinking about it, when they ended the board game division, I guess they had lots of games left over in the warehouse, maybe they splitt these up and sold of the contents?  

I wonder if the first bag could have been related to a board game that was in development, but got cancelled when the theme was stopped? hence we don't have a bricklink inventory?  I seem to recall a topic years ago showing some of the last board games that never made it to production.

These bags have random number of pieces. Even if you find two alike their content is going to be different.

Most common sources I'm aware of are LUG support and various charities for kids.

[davee123]

On 10/29/2016 at 8:23 AM, paul_delahaye said:

Thinking about it, when they ended the board game division, I guess they had lots of games left over in the warehouse, maybe they splitt these up and sold of the contents?  

I wonder if the first bag could have been related to a board game that was in development, but got cancelled when the theme was stopped? hence we don't have a bricklink inventory?

Eh, I'd doubt it.

If a game was in development, but then got cancelled, it never would have gotten as far as having elements molded for it.  They'll only do runs on the parts once they know that it's going to be slated for production.

Also, there are additional hints that the 1st bag was never intended for production, since it has a mix of both large and small elements (the small 1x2 cheese elements).  Usually bags will have roughly similar sized elements, which I believe is due to their weighing methods.  Bags with lots of small parts need more precise scales, and thus get weighed together in baggies, as opposed to larger elements that don't need such fine granularity.  The pictured bag has some small parts and large parts, which is indicative of being a non-production bag.  There's also a lot of repeated elements that seem... large.  1x8x2 arches, corner panel walls, and those orange 2x6 SNOT doodads.

My guess is the two bags don't have anything to do with each other.  The 1st bag seems to be roughly circa 2012 or so, given when the elements were in production.  The 2x6 modified plates are 2012 or afterwards, and almost everything seems to have been in production in 2011 or 2012, except for the 4x4 round plate corners, which were in 2010.  The 2nd bag has to be 2010, since that's when the set came out, which is probably about 2 years prior to the 1st bag.

DaveE

[KlodsBrik]

I went back and bought 3.2 kilos of LEGO from bags they had opened and put into their window display.
A back similar to the one on top was definately part of this, and from the count I've done, they are definately random and not related.
Some similar bags must have been opened as well, as once again, I  got a lot of random and weird pieces ( and a lot of them ) . Will add a picture at some point once I have it all sorted.

 

However I did open the bag above, and sorted it.
Will count them along with the new lot once I get bored with building.  

However I did take a picture.

 

[Cwetqo]

These elements come in what is called "play brick boxes". Those are big cardboard boxes packed with about 10 kg of random LEGO polybags coming from various sets and randomly packed leftover bricks in plastic bags.

Boxes are packed by LEGO Foundation (most likely by volunteers) for use with charity work and for supporting various LUG Activities through LEGO LUG and Event Support programs. Sometimes event organizer can offer those boxes for purchase to event exhibitors as incentive (like in Skaerbaek), but further reselling is still forbidden (parts swaping is of course allowed).

In any case, all of those sources get boxes with strong notion that resseling is forbidden, so please don't enourage that by buying them.

[Darkdragon]

5 hours ago, Cwetqo said:

In any case, all of those sources get boxes with strong notion that resseling is forbidden, so please don't enourage that by buying them.

Well he did say he purchased from a charity shop an the parts were donated to them by an individual, not TLG themselves. The shop would have no reason or liability to not sell, there would be no point in them having the parts if not to sell for their cause.

[davee123]

On 11/3/2016 at 10:45 AM, Darkdragon said:

The shop would have no reason or liability to not sell, there would be no point in them having the parts if not to sell for their cause.

Well, there's no legal problem as far as I'm aware, but there's similarly no legal problem with me selling my Event Support brick per se.  But it DOES put my LUG's status as an RLUG in jeopardy, and if enough clubs do it, may make the entire program incur more restrictions or less benefit.

If you're allowed to give free brick to someone else who can then sell them, then I don't think there's anything to prevent me from "giving" my free brick to someone else with free brick (who then gives theirs to me), and then we can both re-sell.  It's certainly more forgivable if one or both of us are charitable organizations, but it's still muddy water.

Basically, I'd try and refrain from it as much as possible.  If you're going to give away your LEGO to a charity, the idea should be to give it to a charity who will use the bricks themselves rather than sell them for their cause.  Or at least, such would be my stance unless I hear differently from the LEGO Company.  If this type of thing happens here-and-there, it's probably fine.  But the more it surfaces, the more at risk these programs get.

However, in THIS case, we still don't really know how the elements got to the donator.  It could be that they work for LEGO, and weren't any obligation not to sell them, or that they received the bags without any such restrictions.  We don't really know.

DaveE

[sorenbruun]

Hello,

Is there anybody that has an idea about these bags with LEGO? They came in a lot new LEGO I have bought online (not from LEGO themselves). The bags are different from "normal" bags from a box of LEGO, in that they are normal plastic bags and they contain between 600-800 grams of LEGO each. They don't seem to contain any official set (or part of one) and there are no minifigs. They seem to be officially packed by TLG though, as they are marked with the LEGO logo. Any idea who uses LEGO packed like this or what they are for?

Each bag is sort of themed (Harry Potter, Friends or Belville perhaps and so on).

I could think that maybe they are for stores and their children's play corner, perhaps TLG events - or something similar?

 

Edited January 9, 2017 by sorenbruun

[CL4RKE]

Hello!

Perhaps they are just leftover pieces from the factory when the sets were discontinued. 

They are very interesting colours, it looks like you can make some fun things out of them!

 

Edited January 9, 2017 by CL4RKE

[ReplicaOfLife]

6 hours ago, sorenbruun said:

They seem to be officially packed by TLG though, as they are marked with the LEGO logo. Any idea who uses LEGO packed like this or what they are for?

Doesn't necessarily mean they are officially packed by Lego. I've had Bricklink orderswhere the seller reused (carefully opened) bags from sets and re-heatsealed them. This is what I would speculate for these bags aswell, especially as the leftover bit of plastic 'above' the heat seal seems to be alot larger than I know it from official Lego sets, or online PAB.

[zux]

Question about these bags has been explained here.

[sorenbruun]

Thank you very much, Zux :-)

[splatman]

When I sold LEGO bricks on Bricklink, I reused the baggies from LEGO sets, and sealed them with a bag sealer from Uline.

The "strange bags" are most likely the same as those in the thread Zux linked.

[KlodsBrik]

I went back to that shop and bought another 3.2 kilo´s as a lot. That were pieces from similar bags opened and spread in their window to make som sort of display.
The pieces in the thread I made are quite similar to those in this. So I second that they are most likely from the same kind of bags. 

[zux]

7 hours ago, KlodsBrik said:

I went back to that shop and bought another 3.2 kilo´s as a lot. 

I wonder what price did this shop asked for the parts?

[KlodsBrik]

Honestly I got the parts insanely cheap considering which parts it included. However its a shop I pass every day on my way to work and have made some woodwork for them to sell, in order for their purpose.

Price were around 70,- Dkr per 700 gram of LEGO, equals to 10-11,- $

Cheap danish prices considered.