Lost and found...

[Quichybo]

Greetings, fellow AFOLs!

Some nights ago I had hell of a search for a specific brown 1x1 tile which gave me the idea of starting this topic.

I was building my just opened Winter Toy Shop (which will be a tinker's workshop) and wanted to transfer it to a green grass plate. During this process one tiny brown tile flipped away (i think into my lap) and I didn't recognise it. I stood up, walked through my room, the flat... after that I realised that it was missing. One could say "Well, it's just a brown tile that isn't even visible on the finished set, so what?". But i thought "It is a brand new brick, I don't want to lose it by now!".

So I figured out where it might be... I thought that it may have fallen into my lap, and when I stood up it may have fallen onto the ground / under my desk... and there was nothing but my waste basket. It could have fallen in there... yay.

But hey, that bin needed to be emptied anyway... so I investigated the content of the bin for maybe 20 minutes and was already embarrassed about being that obsessive. My thoughts were "You have gone through all of this garbage, now you HAVE to find it or your efforts would have been worthless.". And I thought about logic, that it would only be possible to proof that the was tile actually in the garbage (by finding it) and impossible to proof that it was not there (because it might hide somewhere i didn't investigate carefully enough). Of course I found nothing but my self-confidence being torn apart.

So what had I done after having risen from my chair? I went through my room. The first thing to search would have been the pile of clothes on the ground. If the tile had fallen in there it would be logical that i didn't hear it falling. There I actually found it, lying on an old sock. All in all that that great, but at least I finally found it. And I emptied my trash bin. And assorted my clothes. So it was not completely futile, was it? *cough*

There have been other cases where I lost something, e.g. an assassin's claw from Prince of Persia, which was really nasty but with a less "spectacular" search (and a happy ending).

Of course, there are not only losses but also unexpected discoveries! Those may be in the washing machine or in a slipper - but the more exciting ones are those outside! I found a 1x1 round grey brick at the central station of the town i live in, a black 1x6 tile / bar on a sidewalk of a main street and a transparent window on a sidewalk of a smaller street. The most curious discovery was actually a whole bunch of a few different bricks (with a 8 x 16 green base plate) that someone had dumped with the bulky waste. Thinking about the reasons for doing that get a bit creepy... Why would someone actually throw away LEGO-bricks? They didn't smell funny, so I guess "The owner used them for adult games!" wouldn't match.

Maybe the child that was the former owner of those bricks died and the relatives wanted to get rid of the toys as quickly as possible... anyway, as I already mentioned: CREEPY!

Those were my two cents... what are yours?

What bricks have you already lost, what have you done to recover them (e.g. searched the vacuum cleaner bag)? Where have you found bricks unexpectedly (e.g. in your shoes)? What did you think at those moments?

I am looking forward to read your stories...

P.S. Please excuse my English, especially the tenses.

Edited June 21, 2011 by Quichybo

[ManitobaMoe]

I work at a recycling plant and we get good lego coming through every week. I was amazed a how many base plates get tossed.

[Nightshroud99]

I work at a recycling plant and we get good lego coming through every week. I was amazed a how many base plates get tossed.

(Off Topic) Do you get to take those home??

[ZO6]

I haven't lost any pieces for a good ten years, but sometimes pieces manage to get into places that are a pain to try and retrieve. All the floor vents in my house have an amazing ability to lure Lego parts into them. It doesn't matter where I am, if I happen to drop a piece it will take all these crazy bounces and go down a vent! As I said, I get them back, but it's still annoying.

One of my greatest loses happened a long time ago. At my old house I was doing some major swooshing of one of the rockets from the Ice Planet theme. The rocket somehow ended up behind a bed frame and at the time I didn't feel like re-arranging the room to get it back. Years passed, and while I never forgot about the rocket, I just never got around to retrieving it. About 10 years ago I moved into the house in which I currently reside. Unfortunately one part of selling my old house was that we leave some of the bed frames and appliances for the new owners. The rocket was never recovered and I fear that it's still trapped in that other house, or if it was ever found it was probably thrown out.

[Tamamono]

Why would someone actually throw away LEGO-bricks? They didn't smell funny, so I guess "The owner used them for adult games!" wouldn't match.

Maybe the child that was the former owner of those bricks died and the relatives wanted to get rid of the toys as quickly as possible...

What an active imagination you have.

All the floor vents in my house have an amazing ability to lure Lego parts into them. It doesn't matter where I am, if I happen to drop a piece it will take all these crazy bounces and go down a vent! As I said, I get them back, but it's still annoying.

Really? I have the exact opposite thing always happen to me; no matter how close I am to the floor vent when I drop a piece, it always finds a way to not fall into it.

[ManitobaMoe]

(Off Topic) Do you get to take those home??

yup, and i donate all the mega blocks to a local thrift store. This year i have found 3 green plates and 2 road plate (32x32) plus a couple hundred other pieces, some which are very specialized and would make it impossible to build the set it comes from

[brickmack]

A long time ago I lost my sig-fig, and had no idea at all where it might have gotten to. A few days later I decided to look for it, and figured it might have fallen into my part box (before I started sorting my parts) so I emptied the box (about 30000 parts) and searched for 3 hours of and on. Ten I systematically checked every room in the house, and all my pants and the washer and dryer. After not finding it there, I checked in all the bushes and grass in a 5 foot radius of my house, but still didn't find it. I gave up after that, but ended up finding it by chance at TRU behind some sets I had been looking at. Still no idea how it got there, but at least I found it.

One of my greatest loses happened a long time ago. At my old house I was doing some major swooshing of one of the rockets from the Ice Planet theme. The rocket somehow ended up behind a bed frame and at the time I didn't feel like re-arranging the room to get it back. Years passed, and while I never forgot about the rocket, I just never got around to retrieving it. About 10 years ago I moved into the house in which I currently reside. Unfortunately one part of selling my old house was that we leave some of the bed frames and appliances for the new owners. The rocket was never recovered and I fear that it's still trapped in that other house, or if it was ever found it was probably thrown out.

That's kinda sad. But why didn't you just slide the bed a bit and grab it???

[meyerc13]

I have two little kids (3 & 5), and the LEGO daddy builds is for them to play with. My daughter loves to take off hats/hair. To this day, I don't know where some of the helmets have disappeared to. I have two theories, first is that it has somehow fallen into a small crack in the hardwood floor or between the floor and wall. The other theory is that either she or one of our animals (3 dogs, 2 cats) have eaten them. One of these days I'm going to have to put together an order for construction, police, fireman hats and hair.

When building sets, I've dropped plenty of pieces. Sometimes I swear they grow legs and run off once they are out of your sight. Sometimes you see a piece go flying and think it landed 4-5 feet away only to find it right on the floor next to you. Other times you'd swear it just fell off the edge of the table and should be right next to you on the floor, only to find it on the other side of the room.

Just yesterday my son was moving a Kingdoms set and thought he heard a piece fall down the vent. A search turned up a single LEGO piece, but not a piece from that set. Not sure if that is the one that fell or whether that piece was there from a previous instance.

The worst thing is this... why is it always the rare or unusual piece that goes missing? Why can't it ever be a basic brick in a common color?

[Hrw-Amen]

Well, I did loose two round 1X1 dark grey bricks about four months ago in my living room. At the time I spent about an hour looking for them, then gave up. As I needed them to finish something I just added some to my next bricklink order. Then last week they turned up when I was pulling some weeds out on the patio? I have no idea how they got there as it was still winter when they went missing and the back door was not open. Maybe the cat took them, I just do not know? Perhaps they are not even the same two and it is just a chance happening?

[ZO6]

That's kinda sad. But why didn't you just slide the bed a bit and grab it???

Unfortunately it was a very small room and the bed was partially attached to one of the walls. It was a spare bedroom in the house and became kind of a storage room, so it was packed to the point of making it hard to get in the doorway. It would've been a weekend project just to move the bed. Looking back however, I regret not doing the work to retrieve the rocket.

[Jareth]

I can't find the cypress tree from a set I had when I was a kid. I know I've lost other small pieces over the years but a large tree!?!?!

I work in a store next to a target so my coworkers occasionally find a piece and give it to me. I found a string net from one of the indiana jones sets a while back.

Also when I was working for a camp One of my coworkers found a few pieces for me.

[KotZ]

I've never lost a piece, but whenever I need a piece from one of my bins (I still haven't sorted them) I can never find it, but I'll find it when I don't need it.

My proudest moment of finding an unexpected LEGO piece was a few years ago. I was walking back from a friend's house in the middle of the road. I looked to my left, just glancing at my mail box for no reason. Somehow, my gaze just went down and I saw a curious rock on the ground at the curb. I go over, and pick it up. Lo and behold, it is no pebble, but a Bionicle Krana (or Krana-Kal, I still haven't figured it out). I never owned that piece, and I never took my Bionicles outside, and it had been a few years since the Bohrok were released. I never cleaned it, I thought it looked cool with the dirt on it, or it may not have been dirt, I never was sure.

I also found a minfigure at my old school once. It was a Classic Pirate Redcoat (who for some reason decided to sport a Knight helmet). I didn't find it, my classmate who did gave it to me after I nearly bored him to death with talking about CP sets.

[Gregorovich]

I lose parts all the time. Most of the times, I'm very lucky and manage to find it sometime or other. Other times, not so much. One time I remember losing a part was when my younger brother had a friend over. They were both about 5 or something, so they weren't very good with LEGO. At that time, I didn't have a lock on my door, so I just told them not to go into my room while I was out, and they promised they wouldn't. When I came back, the room was covered in broken MOC's and parts. I managed to find most of the parts and rebuild the models. However, one hairpiece (Vernon Dursley's, to be exact), was missing. I was quite upset, as it was one of the only ginger-ish hairpieces I had. I still to this day have not found that piece.

I definetely agree with the people who said about the bricks running away. My door is at the opposite end of the room from the desk where I usually build. If I drop a piece, I usually finish what I was doing then go to retrieve the piece. A lot of the time, however, I find that the part is not by my desk, but beside my door. I have absolutely no idea how this happens, but it's pretty annoying.

[Brickdoctor]

I definetely agree with the people who said about the bricks running away.

I agree as well. I've done everything to prevent this from placing my building area on carpet to covering the table with layers of bed sheets to using a table only 1.5 feet off the ground in an effort to minimize bounces, and yet...

[Zeya]

I have found some lost pieces in my back yard from the previous occupants. One is a red 2x2 brick that is faded on one side and a bit chewed up. I also found two old light gray pieces; I'm not sure what they're called - it's like two-wide plate bent at 90 degrees so you can have studs hanging off the side. It's an older mold that I haven't seen in the sets I've bought since my dark age.

I haven't really lost any parts yet. Whenever I drop something I fetch it immediately. Don't want my pet dogs picking it up or something.

I have two little kids (3 & 5), and the LEGO daddy builds is for them to play with. My daughter loves to take off hats/hair. To this day, I don't know where some of the helmets have disappeared to. I have two theories, first is that it has somehow fallen into a small crack in the hardwood floor or between the floor and wall. The other theory is that either she or one of our animals (3 dogs, 2 cats) have eaten them. One of these days I'm going to have to put together an order for construction, police, fireman hats and hair.

I was rummaging through the build-a-mini bin at a Lego store once, and this little girl picked up a minifigure head and paused for a moment... before popping it in her mouth and swallowing! It was pretty funny.

[Legofan4ever88]

90 degree piece sounds like a bracket. It's commonly seen as the bumper piece on little lego racer kits.

[Fallenangel]

While I don't have any specific anecdotes, I can tell you that my LEGO parts inventory magically shrinks every time I decide to move... over the years it has dwindled to a single box (outside of sets from after my Dark Ages - I mostly keep those assembled, so they don't get lost as easily).

[Pingles]

I enjoyed that story!

[legolijntje]

I don't know if this is the same sort of story as the others here, but I just tell it you:

3 years ago we moved to a new house. In the street of the new house, there was a large container for the waste of everyone. I went to the container to trow some waste in it, when I saw a lego piece. I thought

But then I saw another one, and another one, and another one.....

At the end I had an enormous pile of lego, including hundreds of old 9v rails and it was still working. Also many old train accessories, like lights, train parts, wheels...

But I also found at least 15 old roadplates, and many, many other bricks and minifigures. I thought this: ....

Edited June 22, 2011 by legolijntje

[KartoffelViking]

Just wanted to say that I've really enjoyed reading everyone's stories so far

Great topic, Quichybo!

[Rook]

I found a 1wide x2long x3 tall light gray slope in my Golf bag this week. I was cleaning up the sports equipment in my basement (where my Lego used to be about 12-18 months ago). It must have got in there when a dropped a MOC of when a tower of storage containers fell over. ...Reunited and it fells so good...

[Lego Otaku]

One of my cat has a favorite play thing, and where she got it I have no idea. She loved to play with blue chest with yellow H emblem from Hero Factory. I never had any HF, been living in the same house for almost 20 years so it can't be previous owner, no little kids in the house for over a decade, and nearest neighbor is about 1/4 miles away.

So where she found that piece will remain a mystery forever. I let her keep it because I don't like HF anyway.

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=92201 in blue with yellow H badge

[architrains]

My only lost piece was a minifigure that decided to wander...

I got the Cargo Train at Thanksgiving last year when Lego had their online Black Friday sale. Around February, the brakeman/switchman figure in the orange vest from the locomotive went missing. I looked all over the living room, my room, everywhere the train had been. None of my roommates had seen it. I checked my studio space, wondering if it had followed me to campus. Nothing.

Then, in late April, I was helping my girlfriend do her laundry at her apartment. I pulled some towels out of the bottom of her laundry bin, and did a double take. There was the brakeman laying on top of the last towel in the bottom, still clutching his walkie-talkie! I can only assume that he got knocked off the handrail on the side of the engine while I was moving it between my room and the living room, and fell into her laundry bin when we were doing laundry at my place sometime in February!

I should give him a three-cornered hat and a spyglass instead, and call him "Lewis" or "Clark."