"The Dark Ages" - How long were you away from Lego?

[Flying Ace]

Mine lasted from around 1980 until last year, so that's about 32 years. Although I had been buying LEGO for my kids for several years, I did not "take the plunge" back in myself until I bought the Blue Roadster set at LEGOLAND FL. This was soon followed by the Sopwith Camel re-release (which, due to its expense, effectively ended my 2012 LEGO purchases).

I think part of my problem with System sets was that I couldn't build what I envisioned with the parts available. If SNOT had been invented before 1980 it would have made a big difference. I liked the Expert Builder sets (AKA Technic) and had several, but they have limited playability compared to sets with minifigs. The introduction of video/electronic games was another factor.

Space/sci-fi is my favorite theme, but I haven't seen a Space theme that really appealed to me until Galaxy Squad. Alien Conquest was close but I was a little late for it. I think the only theme I really regret missing is Indiana Jones.

I like having my own sets that I can invite my three kids to play with as well (but not allow to be destroyed/have pieces lost). Despite my kids having numerous sets and over 15K pieces among them, I now have the "coolest LEGO." I think the secret is that I picked one theme and collected several sets that go together. I also like the GS sets because they work both as models and as playsets.

[Gryphon Ink]

1979-ish to 2010. Things were very, very different when my Dark Age began!

[LEGO Historian]

Wow Gryphon Ink and Flying Ace... you guys were in your Dark Ages for almost as long as I've been back out... 1979-present... (my Dark Ages were 1970-79).

Which is why I think of myself as AFOL #1....

Edited May 9, 2013 by LEGO Historian

[BrickG]

I might be entering a new dark age.

Long story short, my business investment paid off. I went from having just over $10 in my bank account and being poor to now having... a heck of a lot more. Pay day came. I have more spending money than I ever have to put it lightly. But something odd has happened. I had spending plans. Nothing huge or unrealistic. Buy a bunch of Lego. Buy other things. Blablabla... But suddenly I've got this sense of financial responsibility having more money (by far) than I've ever had before. And I'm doing some major hesitations on spending much of it. I've looked at Lego sales but haven't pulled the trigger. Suddenly Lego seems less important.

It's odd because when poor I could throw my money away easily. I didn't have much of it so why bother saving? If I saved it would only go to stupid things like food :P and I could starve a bit for a Lego set. Now that I'm no longer poor I've gone into horde mode or something. I'm not a millionaire or anything but I can't seem to get myself to pull the trigger on material things. Maybe it's temporary. Maybe it's not. Suddenly my financial future has opened up and I'm not sure lego sets are a priority anymore. Instead it might buying a house or something.

I've been racking my brain for a few weeks with this. Want to buy, but don't want to buy. Can buy all the sets I ever wanted! But shouldn't... The frustrations of not being poor anymore... First world problems.

Edited May 9, 2013 by BrickG

[naf]

I might be entering a new dark age.

....

I've been racking my brain for a few weeks with this. Want to buy, but don't want to buy. Can buy all the sets I ever wanted! But shouldn't... The frustrations of not being poor anymore... First world problems.

I think a common trap afol's fall into when coming out of their dark age is spending a lot in a very short amount of time. The combination of discovering new sets that interest you, as well as wanting to buy older sets that you missed out on can become costly. I admit I splurged a bit when I rediscovered Lego, but now I only purchase Lego out of my "hobby" budget. Set yourself up with a Lego budget, keep to it, and enjoy building again

[The Black Falcon]

I was a Lego loving kid until like others I was 14 (1987) and then I was drawn away by books and roleplaying games also computer games. I had almost every Castle set you could own in the 80s (luckily still do, although on the other side if the planet :/). It was only when my father died and I needed to find a 'happy place' I pulled out my old Lego. This was 18 years later in 2005. Then I was back in for a while. Then I moved overseas in 2009 and left my Lego back in Australia. :( So I started from scratch collecting Castle and Star Wars plus Brickmania WW2 vehicles in Sweden from 2010 until now.

[Redhead1982]

My dark ages were from around 1996 to 2010, so around 14 years. I don't remember exactly why and when I stopped playing with LEGO, but it was sometime in primary school. I guess as I started playing my favourite sport, I had less time for building. However, my slightly younger sister kept building until mid high school, and no one was allowed to disassemble her builds, so there was also lack of bricks, that probably helped moving in the dark ages.

Our childhood collection was small and it was inherited from my older sister. There were just various bricks, and I never had ''a set'' as such. The childhood collection stayed with our parents, and my nephews are playing with those when visiting (althouh they already find out that I have more bricks at my place).

[Wodanis]

My dark age was similar to many. I started playing with Lego when I was just 3 and was a complete fanatic. Had my first space set bought for me by my father one day in a Shoppers Drug Mart. I had my original yellow lego castle built for the last 30 years! Only recently have I been cleaning them up and putting them into proper storage.

Around the age of 14 I stopped collecting Lego from 1990-1999. Bought the odd small set when I had 5 dollars or so but most of the time I could only look at them. Got really into collecting again when they brought out the star wars sets and I had money. So I have most of the sets from 1999-2003. Then went to university so I couldn't afford to and had other things happening.

I discovered the Lego store back in 2011 and bought the Gladiator minifigure from Series 5. Once that happened I had to collect them and all. I was hooked from then on. It was rather weird I never collected Lego City or Town sets always, Space, Lego Castle and Star Wars. I dunno why I didn't buy them before because I love them now! :) It is hard though to keep up with Star Wars...

[Alcarin]

I stopped using LEGO (playing, building) around 2000 when those Western and Indian sets came out and I came back 4th quarter of last year.

[Gremer]

I drift in and out of dark ages. I'll like LEGO than it's other things for a few months, than back to LEGO. About 1/4 of my life was a dark age.

[deanorth]

I stopped playing lego back late 80ish. I discovered it back 7 months ago, while I had my Achilles tendon break, and was forced to stay sitting for 2 months. While searching for what I could do while sitting for days, I stumble across internet with a vision of the UCS Falcon, and got a "hint" poping out in my mind.

May brickling order later, and 10 days later I began building it, and since then, I'm in love with what you can do nowdays, though, it's not for playing anymore, it's a very different fun factor.

[___]

I fell into "Dark Ages" probably sometimes in mid 90-ties in my early 20's being musician, later being profi webdesigner/programmer/IT for another like 15+ years...and few weeks (1 moth?) back I walk into the LEGO-light again rebuilding all my long time forgatten (well, not realy ) SPACE CLASSIC sets (cca. 6 bigger ones, and a few smaler...see my actual signature icture below): I even washed all bricks - what I want is buy/collect somewhere all SPACE sets from the past I remember I want as a child/adolescent but never had option to realise it (I lived in socialistic state - ex-Czechoslovakia - and to obtain LEGO there was like meet live Freddie Mercury walking back from kitchen ).

What I do now is I found LDD - one absolute ubelievable option for all of us "old LEGO-ists" giving us option having all our loved LEGO sets again, even those we never actualy had but wanted to, so I re-explored the excitment of not only building original LEGO sets, but more to developing my own ones (in my young ages I always do that more than playing with the original designs ) - to this date after cca. 1 month of using LDD I have like 8 own sets developed

[jfbat]

My "dark ages" started somewhere around the time I got into playing guitar - big time. I must have been around 17-18. I got back into Lego when I bought the first version of the Sopwith Camel - the brown one. It was so unbelievably cheap when I spotted it in a toy store that I just couldn't not buy it. When I came home at night, I built it in record time and was hooked again... That was when I was 28. So my dark ages lasted about 10 years.

[LegoKenobi]

Approximately ten years. Ages 20-30 or so..

[Legoman of War]

I had legos when I was 8 or 9 (77-78) and lost interest. I didn't pick it up again until I had kids which was 2004-05. Now I can't stop. I build with/for them but I also like to build myself. Unfortunately I have so many other things going on that I rarely get time for myself and build with them, which is fine.

LMW

[szmmate]

It's been only a few months since I became a Lego fan again. Between the age of 13 and 18 I was completely Lego-less until I suddenly saw the Modular Houses at a local toy shop and I bacame immediately addicted. Firstly, I bought the Pet Shop, then the brand new Palace cinema and I'm just about to buy the Town Hall, too. I think this obsession of mine will remain with me for quite a long time as I see myself now. :D

[Ingo Althoefer]

My span without Lego was 30+ years.

Born in 1961, I got my first Lego set (red and white bricks) in a rainy holliday in

1965. (My sister, one year younger got the "same" set with yellow and blue bricks.)

Then a lot of activities for almost ten years. Highlight was my personal version

of the Apollo moon rocket Saturn V around 1972. It was almost one meter high;

in its third stage was hidden the Lunar Landing module (with many red

roof bricks) You could draw it out and unfold the yellow landing legs. IIRC, I

stopped in the winter 1974/75. Then came long periods with tournament chess,

mathematics, experiments in human+computer chess (3-Hirn), game design.

In 2005 or 2006 I bought ten big boxes with Lego bricks in the hope to use

them as pieces for game prototypes - but that happened only a very few times.

Then I returned "fully" to Lego early in 2011, when my mother asked what to do with

the boxes and barrels with Lego bricks in the attic: "If you do not have plans

I will send it to Nirvana." So it started again:

http://www.3-hirn-verlag.de/lego-rails/good-old-lego-rails.html

Ingo(dt).

[Laservampire]

Adding all my old sets to Brickset today I realized exactly why my dark ages started around 1998-2000... there were no sets worth buying!

Edited June 17, 2013 by Laservampire

[Aanchir]

Adding all my old sets to Brickset today I realized exactly why my dark ages started around 1998-2000... there were no sets worth buying!

Yep, the late 90s and early naughts were not the best time for set design. At the same time, the sets then were not entirely without merit. Despite a tendency to rely on large, specialized elements, themes like Adventurers, Ninja, Insectoids, Rock Raiders, and Alpha Team tend to be remembered very well for their originality. This time period also was the birth of licensed themes, the birth of action figure themes, and the birth of LEGO Mindstorms, three categories which each now have a passionate following.

[ISDAvenger]

Mine was from 1994 to 2008, so 14 years. Due to space and cost I only collect O/T Star Wars and a few TOR sets. That does not include the MOC's I build, which are Star Wars related. It is a great hobby, expensive at times, but great. My wife is very supportative aside from the eye rolling haha.

[nayrsllim]

i went through a dark age of about two years. i missed a lot of good buys but at the time i didnt have any money. so it didnt matter. im full at 100% right now and will be forever and ever

[Ragnar_Deerslayer]

I've been away for over twenty years. I loved LEGO, but got out of it around junior high, I think because of the expense of the pieces and shifting to other creative hobbies (computer programming and tabletop role-playing games).

As I’ve grown up, I’ve never lost touch with LEGO. When I got my job as a college professor (English composition/literature) I kept my bucket of bricks in my office to let off steam during final exam week. When I got married, we had a LEGO wedding cake topper. Whenever I go to a department store, I always make it a point to look through the LEGO aisle. Over the last year, however, I’ve found myself really captivated by the LEGO Lord of the Rings series (my favorite book as a teenager).

Finally, for my 36^th birthday this past May, I asked my wife to throw me a LEGO party. My friends got me a bunch of great sets – Gandalf Arrives, Riddles for the Ring, Shelob Attacks, Batman/Two-Face car chase, TIE fighter, and a couple of others – and I was amazed at how much the quality had improved over the last 20+ years. I found Eurobricks and some other sites, and realized I had been bitten by the LEGO bug again.

Thanks

Ragnar

[dutchlegofan50]

My story is almost about the same as Ingo Althoefer's. Also born in 1961, I got my first motorized Lego train for my 7th birthday (set number 116). I played with Lego until I was about 14/15. Then I thought I was too old to play with it anymore and decided to shift my focus to 'how to get myself into kissing a girl', like everybody else in my class. ;-)

I still remember the day I said goodbye to Lego and the pain it caused.

It took 35 years (until November 2011) before I rediscovered Lego as a way to relax after a long day of work. Now I have over 70,000 bricks and spend most of my free time with Lego: building sets and MOC's.

There's something I would like to mention because maybe there are more people with the same history. In 2011 I was diagnosed as having the Asperger Syndrome. For me this explains why I'm so happy being alone and building my fantasies in Lego, but this is another topic....

(BTW: This is my first post to the Eurobricks forum.)

[Simon8MR]

2002 - 2006ish when TLG released the 7991 Refuse Truck, that bought me back into Lego big time, spent way too much money intially!

[NPimenta]

My first dark age start around 1998, when i wats twelve.

I return from the dark age in 2008 when i buy one 8654, but in 2011 i return To another dark age, and now in 2013 e return the the LEGO, and my central objective is collecting all modular buildings.