Downtown Disney Lego Store Haul

[Saberwing40k]

Well, I went on vacation with my family, to the Disney World resort in Florida. Naturally, we made a stop at Downtown Disney, and so for me that meant a trip to the Lego store. While there, I noticed that there were a large amount of Technic parts at the build tables scattered throughout the store. I started picking them up and putting them in one of those large pick a brick buckets, and shockingly enough, the store employees let me do this.

This is the result, all 439(!) parts, all for only 15 USD. To put that in perspective, the cheapest Technic sets available had less than half that number of parts, and cost five dollars more. So I made out like a bandit, although I think the parts also made me sick , so I washed them when I got home.

However, this haul leaves me with a couple of questions:

1.)Where did all these parts come from? I assume that these parts came from display sets, but that seems kind of screwy, because there was already one 9398 on display, and some of these parts came from sets that weren't ever, or are too new, to have been on display.

2.)Where did the rest of the parts go? I knew that there was at least one 9398 and one 8043, and maybe one 8110 that had been parted out, but where did the motors, LAs, etc. go? I think that they might have been picked up by employees, but that seems kind of unlikely. In any event, I thought it was no harm in asking if they had the motors from 9398, but they did not. In any event, why would they have parted out the display sets instead of giving them to employees whole?

3.)Why hasn't this happened before? I go to that Lego store pretty much every year, and I've never seen anything like this, or at any other Lego store, nor have I heard any other reports of this happening. I'm seriously hoping that this isn't a freak occurrence.

So, what do you think? In any event, I got lots of parts at a low price, so I'm a happy camper.

[Kierna]

Count your blessings, you should probably buy a lottery ticket.

Have you commited any deeds for the greater good of mankind lately?

[dhc6twinotter]

They probably had some damaged sets come in, and they parted them out. Usually the LEGO stores break up the damaged sets and part out the pieces in grab bags, which I was fortunate enough to find a couple times. My guess is most of the other parts were sold in grab bags, and the LEGO store left those extra bits laying around for people to play with.

[DarkShadow73]

Why would the yellow fairings have the stickers already applied then if they were parted from damaged sets? Those yellow fairings are definitely from the 8043 Excavator and had to have been built by a store employee or whomever builds display models for Lego stores...maybe somebody was playing with it and dropped it or something? But then you would see a lot more parts from that model...that is unless other AFOL's like us grabbed some of those pieces, but a lot of those pieces don't even belong to the 8043, but those fairings with the stickers already applied definitely do...I have 2 Lego stores 'sort of' nearby, about 150 miles each direction, so never been to one...

On another note, did you see any new sets besides the 4 small ones already released, like maybe the motorcycle or excavator w/ the grab attachment? I'm guessing even if they had them being so close to Christmas they were pretty well sold out of everything like most stores...

[dhc6twinotter]

Why would the yellow fairings have the stickers already applied then if they were parted from damaged sets? Those yellow fairings are definitely from the 8043 Excavator and had to have been built by a store employee or whomever builds display models for Lego stores...maybe somebody was playing with it and dropped it or something? But then you would see a lot more parts from that model...that is unless other AFOL's like us grabbed some of those pieces, but a lot of those pieces don't even belong to the 8043, but those fairings with the stickers already applied definitely do...I have 2 Lego stores 'sort of' nearby, about 150 miles each direction, so never been to one...

Good point. The excavator parts must have been a returned item. Or, maybe the store had a built excavator on display, and they dissassembled it to make room for the crawler or some other set. I dunno...just speculation.

[natesroom]

Thats so weird, They're not for the PAB cups. I have seen them tell people not to do that before.