Bricklink questions

[Clone OPatra]

Can you pay for lego on Bricklink with a money order? Or does it depend on who you're purchasing from?

It depends. Every seller designates which forms of payment they accept, though plenty of them do accept money orders. I have sent money orders for Bricklink purchases many a time.

[autobrick]

Hello all, this is more of a customs question than a Bricklink question, but I posted here because it is relevant. Anyways, onto my question...

A couple of weeks ago I made my first purchase on Bricklink (10185 Green Grocer MISB) from a Bricklink seller in the US (I live in Canada). However, when I got the package, I noticed that seals on the sides were very loose (likely open and replaced) and I can see the residue from where the seals where originally.

Am I right in assuming that Canadian customs had opened these to inspect for contraband? I have ordered things online (internationally as well), but have never had this problem. I don't want to unfairly blame the Bricklink seller, nor do I want to give them a 'free pass', if they had indeed sold me a not-so-MISB set. Do you guys think that it was customs that had broken the sacred seals?

(Fortunately the Green Grocer review here lists the number of bags, so I can verify the contents when I have the time).

Sidenote: Still, including taxes, S&H and a middleman, I saved roughly 24% than if I had bought from Lego S@H. More proof Canadian MSRPs are set way too high!

[Clone OPatra]

Do you guys think that it was customs that had broken the sacred seals?

I think, as you yourself pointed out, that you need to verify all of the contents in order to decide. If everything is sealed, all of the instructions are there, etc. then there is nothing to worry about, and the set truly is mint (even if the box is not so sealed).

If there are some things missing, or the bags seem re-sealed, etc. then it is likely the Bricklink seller's fault.

[fred67]

I think, as you yourself pointed out, that you need to verify all of the contents in order to decide. If everything is sealed, all of the instructions are there, etc. then there is nothing to worry about, and the set truly is mint (even if the box is not so sealed).

If there are some things missing, or the bags seem re-sealed, etc. then it is likely the Bricklink seller's fault.

Agreed... I'd like to add that "stuff" happens... handling, heat (or cold) can affect stuff.

If the BL seller has high positives, I'd give it the benefit of the doubt. If you are building, and the inside bags are sealed and it's complete, I wouldn't throw it back on the BL seller.

[DarthSion]

So lets say I want a UCS MF, everywhere I have seen here is $1000+ Aussie plus, I know you can get instructions, but how do you get the parts, is there an easy way other than just searching for each part one by one.

[fred67]

So lets say I want a UCS MF, everywhere I have seen here is $1000+ Aussie plus, I know you can get instructions, but how do you get the parts, is there an easy way other than just searching for each part one by one.

Find the set in the catalog: .

In the lower section near the center of the screen you can "part out" the set to your wanted list.

This is what I did for the Holiday Train... part it out to a wanted list; I took an empty container that I had handy to put the parts in, and I went through the wanted list and put in the container the pieces I already had, removing them from the wanted list as I went along. What I was left with was a list of pieces I needed to complete the train.

Then you search for items on your wanted list by store and generally work it out. It's not easy, especially with a lot of parts, and the wanted list search doesn't sort by best prices or anything really useful... it won't go through your list and get the best overall price for the largest number of parts, and honestly most stores will not have more than a handful of the many parts you'll need to complete the UCS Falcon, so you will have to optimize based not just on parts, but on minimizing shipping.

Lastly, I need to make this perfectly clear: sometimes, especially for certain pieces in quantity(*), LEGO Shop@Home P.A.B. actually has better prices. If you order enough you can probably get free shipping, and you're also guaranteed the parts are new and in decent shape (although they are packed loose and can jostle around and scratch each other... but you get that from anywhere).

(*) Let's say you need 50 of something... there may be a number of sellers selling more cheaply than S@H, but if none of them have more than 20, you're making three orders = 3 times the shipping and handling. Trust me on this... it's impossible for me to steer you wrong by simply mentioning to check S@H; either the pieces are cheaper or they're not, in which case nothing lost.

EDIT: I want to throw some things on my BL resume of doing what I just described: The Holiday Train was the latest, but I have three of the five Sante Fe cars built, and the pieces to build another one (just haven't gotten around to it); I managed to save a bunch because I accepted a black roof instead of gray... no big deal, IMO, but I had a gray alternative that worked OK, too... so it's good to be able to accept alternative pieces. I've built a number of Star Wars A-Wings and Snow Speeders, too, and even a handful of minis that I didn't feel like spending full price on for a new one. It's not always worth it, though; the reason someone can charge $1000AUS for something is because they know it will likely cost you at least close to that amount trying to do it yourself.

Edited November 11, 2010 by fred67

[Zeya]

I assume this is an ongoing thread where people can ask questions, right...?

1. Can anyone share an experience buying a used set on BL? Any nightmares or sad stories? Basically, I came out of my dark age too late for Pirates and I would really like to buy (for building) at least Brickbeard's Bounty, if not the other two larger sets. I don't really care if the bricks are sealed, as long as they're not all chewed up and ruined, or more importantly, I don't want any missing pieces. What can I expect buying a large used set on BL?

2. With the series 3 collectible minifigures... I need 4 specific ones. I'm inclined to just buy them on BL but I'd like them sealed. Has anyone had any problems with buying those off BL (i.e. wrong figure gets shipped)? I'm thinking about the whole dimple-and-feeling-and-confusion system they have for series 3.

3. How do you more experienced people decide which BL "store"/vendor to buy from? The one time I did it, I just looked for the cheapest price on what I was buying and found one reasonable close to me in the interest of keeping shipping costs low. Do you have any tips?

4. Do you have any other miscellaneous tips for a BL newbie?

Thanks.

Edited January 3, 2011 by Zeya

[fred67]

I assume this is an ongoing thread where people can ask questions, right...?

1. Can anyone share an experience buying a used set on BL? Any nightmares or sad stories?

I don't normally buy sets on BL, but I have on occasion and haven't had any problems. Read the complete description, the seller should note if there are any missing or replaced pieces, and you can always ask the seller before buying.

2. With the series 3 collectible minifigures... I need 4 specific ones. I'm inclined to just buy them on BL but I'd like them sealed.

I think most sellers are unwilling to tell you a sealed series 3 is a specific one because there's a lot more error than than the barcode method. I haven't bought any yet (I try to get what I want from S@H and at the store first, and then use BL to fill out what I've missed; since they're just released, I'm at least a month away from resorting to BL), but what I've seen is that they've just opened the packs to verify what they were... if you're going to use them (not save them), I don't see why that would be a problem. I've gotten opened series 1 and 2 and they were fine.

3. How do you more experienced people decide which BL "store"/vendor to buy from?

That's a hard question... I make good use of my wanted list, so that even if I'm looking for a single specific part I can flesh out my orders with what's on my wanted list, so I'll often look for sellers that have the most things I want... but there's a lot more than that, as the ones with most of the parts I want are often the most expensive vendors. I also read the feedback. Even if there's only 1 negative in 1000 feedbacks, I read what the person wrote and I consider how recent it was. After a successful transaction, if you really liked how it all went, you can add the store to your favorites list. You can also add any bad stores you dealt with to your least favorites, and filter them out of searches. (*)

4. Do you have any other miscellaneous tips for a BL newbie?

It took me some time to get a handle on my wanted lists, but I think that's a great feature to explore and it can help find shops that have the most of the things you want, as you can sort stores in searches by how many wanted list matches you have. It also lists stores you have coupons with first, which is nice. Read the forums... sellers announce sales all the time (there's a specific forum for it).

While rip offs and scammers are far fewer on BL than Ebay (IMO), you still need to be careful. The old saying is accurate - if it seems too good to be true, it probably is, but out of around 70 buys I've only ever had one really bad one that I had to leave negative feedback for.

Also keep in mind these people are generally hobbyists, most are not full time sellers, so if you don't expect too much then you won't be disappointed.

(*) While I've only left one negative, I have a good list of least favorite stores (although my most favorite list is definitely larger); when you buy "used" you have to assume the bricks are... you know... used. But good sellers will tell you they are discolored or might be dusty or something; I've had to wash and retrobright many a piece purchased from bricklink.

Edited January 4, 2011 by fred67

[MarcoB]

4. Do you have any other miscellaneous tips for a BL newbie?

Try to buy even numbers of items, keep the lots/total sum rate sensible. I.e. sellers do not like to collect long list of: One 1x1 red plate, two 2x2 blue brick, one 1x2 tile, 4x 1x3 black plate and get few dollars for the job ... Better to buy 10x, 10x, 10x, 10x of those. Especially with items that has no significant value when buying just few of them.

One seller stop-listed me when I made my first BL shoppings years ago buying like that. But it has been removed later :)

Also, Bricklink's forum is a very good place to ask help. I can almost for certain say, that those sellers who are active there, you can count on that you will get good service on their shop.

Edit: And one more important tip. If you have problems, talk about it with the seller. I have had all kind of problems, but all are solved (exept one) peacefully.

Edited January 4, 2011 by MarcoB

[SilentMode]

1. Can anyone share an experience buying a used set on BL?

I mostly buy parts from BL, but I've bought two smallish sets, of which one is in the post. So far I haven't had any issues, touch wood: the description accompanying the set listing in the shop was accurate. It's quite uncommon for used sets to include their original boxes, although you might be able to get them separately.

3. How do you more experienced people decide which BL "store"/vendor to buy from?

I usually decide by the number of items in my Wanted List(s) that the store has in stock, and the collective price of those items - or if I'm looking for a specific part I'd look for the best price for its condition. I would also look for a shop in the UK before considering one abroad, but usually the prices in shops abroad are lower.

Also important are shipping costs, and whether the shop adds anything to the grand total. Gotta watch out for those extras, particularly when using Pain-in-the-ayPal.

4. Do you have any other miscellaneous tips for a BL newbie?

Always keep in mind how much you'd be willing to pay for a set/part. Also keep an eye on the forum for posts about sales and offers of coupons.

[Zeya]

Wow thanks for the responses! I'll have to try out the wanted lists feature a bit more, although right now there are only about 5 items I would really want to buy anyway as I'm short on cash. (Just got in a fender bender yesterday so money is hurting even more now. )

Edit: Just checked out the wanted lists. That feature is so awesome. It makes it much easier to see which stores may be the best to buy multiple things from. I love it!

I have another question. I'm looking at getting a recently discontinued set (Brickbeard's Bounty, LINK). In this example, the first half of the page are sellers outside my country (USA). They're asking for 85 to 90 dollars. When you scroll down, you start seeing sellers in my country/hemisphere selling at around 100 or 120 dollars. Now, many of these sellers in Europe will ship to the US. But my question is, would that be generally worth it to buy from a seller that far away? I'm thinking it would just end up costing about 20 bucks more in shipping costs to hop the big pond. I could just do a couple of invoices here and there to get shipping quotes, but I thought I'd ask some of you veterans what to keep an eye out for here.

Edited January 4, 2011 by Zeya

[fred67]

Sellers are almost always willing to answer questions... contact the stores and ask how much it would be to ship.

I generally (but not always) restrict my searches to North America, but depending on what you're buying it could definitely be worth buying from overseas. You can also ask if they'll repack the set into a smaller box, which often saves money, if the box doesn't mean anything to you (it generally doesn't to me).

[charlieboy]

When using a new store I always enquire as to the cost of postage before comitting to buying parts. It can sometimes work out cheaper buying from foreign shores. Im Uk based but use a chap in Oregon, his service is awesome as are his prices and ive saved cash doing it that way. As has been said I always check my own country first however, I have a couple of stores I use regularly and they have always delivered with no issues. Its good when you find a reliable store, its even better when they have what you're looking for!

[Daedalus304]

Hello! I'd like to ask some advice from you members who are more familiar with Bricklink. I just submitted my first few orders a week ago. One of the sellers did not reply with an invoice and so three days later I messaged them and asked about it, and I got the invoice shortly after with a message saying that they would pull and ship the order as soon as they received payment. I sent the payment immediately, and now four days later I still haven't heard a peep (Although paypal said they accepted the money).

I'm not sure if I should send them another message or not, because I don't want to be a pest. However it's going significantly slower than my other orders and looking through their feedback I've found many complaints about having to wait two or more weeks for an order (I'm moving in two weeks or so and can't really afford to wait that long). It's likely just me being a overly cautious because I'm new to this, but how long is acceptable to wait, and would it be too pesty of me to send another reminder?

[SilentMode]

Hello! I'd like to ask some advice from you members who are more familiar with Bricklink. I just submitted my first few orders a week ago. One of the sellers did not reply with an invoice and so three days later I messaged them and asked about it, and I got the invoice shortly after with a message saying that they would pull and ship the order as soon as they received payment. I sent the payment immediately, and now four days later I still haven't heard a peep (Although paypal said they accepted the money).

I'm not sure if I should send them another message or not, because I don't want to be a pest. However it's going significantly slower than my other orders and looking through their feedback I've found many complaints about having to wait two or more weeks for an order (I'm moving in two weeks or so and can't really afford to wait that long). It's likely just me being a overly cautious because I'm new to this, but how long is acceptable to wait, and would it be too pesty of me to send another reminder?

Hello Daedalus,

Unfortunately some sellers are very slow to deliver, but many of them are very quick to invoice. Anyway: first check their store's splash page and terms for any information on delivery times, as some sellers leave notices there. If there is a problem on their end it should be their responsibility to communicate.

If you've waited a week or longer between replies with no response, I would file an NRS (non-responding seller) issue against them via the Problems page.

[Bricktrain]

Hello! I'd like to ask some advice from you members who are more familiar with Bricklink. I just submitted my first few orders a week ago. One of the sellers did not reply with an invoice and so three days later I messaged them and asked about it, and I got the invoice shortly after with a message saying that they would pull and ship the order as soon as they received payment. I sent the payment immediately, and now four days later I still haven't heard a peep (Although paypal said they accepted the money).

I'm not sure if I should send them another message or not, because I don't want to be a pest. However it's going significantly slower than my other orders and looking through their feedback I've found many complaints about having to wait two or more weeks for an order (I'm moving in two weeks or so and can't really afford to wait that long). It's likely just me being a overly cautious because I'm new to this, but how long is acceptable to wait, and would it be too pesty of me to send another reminder?

Unfortunately due to low feedback you may find some sellers will want payment before pulling the order, however that is not how bricklink is supposed to work and I now reply to invoices that I will pay when the order is marked ready, as it doesnt show on your my BL page as awaiting payment until that status is set. Of course you have no way of checking that the order is actually ready but hopefully the seller is honest enough to correctly set the status and since you have made another contact with them are probably a bit more at ease than expecting you to be another NPB non paying buyer. After 7 days you may stsrt an NSS, non shipping seller, but may be worth contacting the store again, let them know you are moving and ask them if they can ship your order or would they prefer to cancel.

[Daedalus304]

Thanks to both of you for the advice. I did send him a message and that seems to have got things moving. Most of my parts got here (oddly enough I was sent extras of several of them), but he forgot to ship some train buffers until a day or so later. All in all I guess it's worked out though.

Overall though, Bricklink is much simpler to work with that I'd originally thought. I am going to have to be careful so I don't end up spending all my money there!

Thanks again for the help.

[Tearloch33]

I am working on a wanted list on BrickLink for some modifications I am making to my BNSF GP-38. I found some 2x4 plates from a seller (one particular one, but I saw it from others as well) that had 2 listings for the same part. One of them listed the acronym EBP after the part. Example: Orange Plate 2 x 4 EBP instead of just Orange Plate 2 x 4.

Does anyone know what that means?

Shameless plug: I have recently returned to Lego after years of being "too old". I absolutely love the concept and execution of BrickLink. Being able to search for parts worldwide is great, but being able to make a wanted list, and then search for just that list against the worldwide market, including identifying which stores have the most unique parts that I am looking for is just incredible. LOVE IT!

P.S. Hoping to get my Maersk set for father's day, but probably will have to wait for Christmas :(

[jaster]

Try sending the seller a message, asking what it means.

[badgrdanc]

One of them listed the acronym EBP after the part. Example: Orange Plate 2 x 4 EBP instead of just Orange Plate 2 x 4.

Does anyone know what that means?

the answer from the seller himself

http://www.bricklink.com/message.asp?ID=531986

d

[LEGO Guy Bri]

Just a side note: I have personally ordered from 'Dads AFOL' with great success. They ship in a very timely manor and provide very friendly service. I was very pleased

[Tearloch33]

Thanks for pointing out the explanation. Still fairly new to BrickLink. Much thanks.

Thanks for the endorsement of Dads. Off US sellers, he has the most number of parts I am looking for. I will probably use him for this project.

[L@go]

Just a side note: I have personally ordered from 'Dads AFOL' with great success.

So have I - and let me tell you about today's most bizarre coincidence:

Just as I was reading this very thread earlier I was sorting my way through an order that arrived in the mail today... from Dad's AFOL Supplies :D

[Drock]

I have a follow up to fred's wanted list discussion. Let's say I part out a large set to my wanted list and buy some of those parts from a store. Is there a way to automatically remove from my wanted list those parts which I just bought? Or do I have to do it all manually?

[fred67]

I have a follow up to fred's wanted list discussion. Let's say I part out a large set to my wanted list and buy some of those parts from a store. Is there a way to automatically remove from my wanted list those parts which I just bought? Or do I have to do it all manually?

You have to pay close attention and read the screens. After you make the order, it will bring you to a screen still on the sellers pages, and there will be a link to any items on your wanted list that you just ordered... I don't remember the exact wording, something like "show items from this order on your wanted list". AFAIK, this is the only change you have to do this. The link takes you to a subset of your wanted list containing items from that order, and you can edit them just like you can normally edit your list.