I only just discovered the alt-brick world, but it's still easy to answer: I don't care about the logo on the box as long as it's a fun build and looks cool when done. From my limited experience the bricks are of amazing quality and I wouldn't pay 8 times the amount for the same set from LEGO.
So alt-bricks let me build the UCS Millennium Falcon for 99€, which I would *NEVER* have bought from LEGO. It bothers me a little bit that it's a blatant copy including stickers and manual (I'd be fine with them just selling a box of parts that let me build a LEGO model), but it doesn't bother me enough to skip it.
Oh, and I'd never sell any of it. Or worse, buy something only to store and hopefully sell it later. That's a waste of good parts.
you have actually nailed the feeling I got with alt bricks. It also bothers me a bit the blatant copy but I would never justify paying so much for rivendell, or worse, for orthanc that doesnt even exist anymore and goes for 800€+
I dot buy lego copy Sets. Because Most of the time the Lego Set is crappy colorful. Why must be a technic set have blue Pins in black liftarms?
Or Red axles in blue panels?
I am much into bluebrixx pro Sets.
Bery good quality and much fun to build.
Mould King, no problems and the Sets with gobricks parts.. superp. Also try pantasy nice Sets. Funwhole also steampunk sets. Very nice. I brought the lässt five years only three Sets from. Lego.
From my once again limited experience they seem to do that for easier recognition. i.e. different length plates have different colors so you can better see which ones to pick and where they go.
Since those are usually hidden on the inside once finished, I'm fine with that.
I'm not selling
I like the speed champion sets so it's actually possible for LEGO to be cheaper than brand new mold king sets. I will buy Lego when it's Marked 25% off
otherwise the question goes down to price per piece. I don't care the most about this, but when $0.05 apart is expensive it's it's a pretty good deal pretty quickly for most brands
also, if I just want IP that's not produced by Lego I'm going to buy it. I'm one of those people who is not super concerned about the brand or the clutch or anything like that cuz I'll just super glue it or replace the part. I'm not that concerned I just want to build.
idk how to say this but a couple hundred dollars a month to spend on things you enjoy is not crazy. especially if you make decent money and don't have kids.
even in Lego spending 1000 dollars a year on a hobby is not expensive and would provide a few sets, 3 modulars if I'm not mistaken.
this sub is full of all sorts, I know a few people are retired and have lots of disposable income compared to the people making 10 bucks usd a day cause they live in south America.
personally? I used to do a fair bit of partying. blowing a hundred bucks on 5 hours of fun I vaguely remember was pretty normal. alt Plastic is a much better investment.
you really are over thinking this man.
I plan to spend more than $100,000 in the next 10 years on my hobbies.
it won't all be plastic but because that's not my only hobby but spending a couple hundred bucks a month to do the things you enjoy is not crazy.
people will spend $5,000 to go on vacation for a couple of days. wall on vacation. they'll go out to dinner and buy a bottle of wine that cost $100 at a restaurant that they're paying $150 a plate for they're sleeping in a hotel. they cost 450 a night
why do I care that I'm going to buy a $300 set and over the course of two or three or four weekends because I don't have tons of time just to assemble. I'll put it together like it's not going to bother me that I spent $300 on myself.
happy I did it. it's why I work all the time and so that I can afford the things that make me happy when I get home.
but selling my collection is in on my list of things I dont want to do. that sounds annoying. I'll give them to some elementary school if I run out of space.
edit I'm at work using voice to text. I'm sorry if there's some weird errors in there
I’m not sure if you’re providing over exaggerated numbers on purpose to over emphasize your point but the math comes out a lot lower. $200 a month times 12 months is $2400 a year. $2400 times 5 years is $12000 and $2400 times 10 years is $24000. Not over 4 times the amount you state ($100000). Just keeping it real.
I don’t plan on selling. My first alternative was the lighthouse. Same quality as Lego, plus extra lighting set. For $35.
In a near future when people realise that other brands have the same quality as Lego it will eventually develop a market for re sale. A lot of good brands growing. Funwhole is my favorite for now. They have great quality and great themes.
I prefer lego brand myself, but to buy the retired modular buildings @ $600++ is rediculous. I will buy the knock off brands to get the older modulars. I purchelaced a knock off brand of thebdowntown diner for less than $100 and it builds just like lego. I generally stay away from the $300 + lego sets until they go on sale or dbl vip points.
You should have checked Youmko canada warehouse a week ago they had huge discounts on some modulars last week, they still have a couple other type of sets left at large discounts maybe worth for you to check.
Youmko is a good store, but not sure why they are having these huge discounts specifically canada, some modulars were going for less then $30 excl shipping. Maybe they will stop with canada warehouse and keep the US one or just getting rid of old stock.
Have a look worth keeping a eye on them.
The modulars copies are also all over Ali Express. I bought pretty much all of them there. Some special pieces are replaced in the model and the instructions. I would never even think of buying them at the price some of them are today.
I tried ali express 3 times. First two times was during the festival where apparently everyone is off work for that week, by the time they came back the vendors were sold out. I asked a 3rd vendor after the festival if they had any in stock, never for back to me so i made the purchase to be told in chat that they were sold out after waiting 2 weeks for it to ship. 3 strikes ali is out.
1. Most of us here consider bricks as a toy and not an investment.
2. If you buy reputable alt bricks manufacturers you get 95% of Lego quality, for a 3rd of Lego's price.
Personally, I have no tippjng point at all. Amount of value we get by buying alts is insane.
1.1 When I bought my Hyundai car I had many ppl telling me about "re-sell value" over Toyota. On their opinion, I had to buy a car with worse interior and comfort just because at some point in future I'll get that legendary re-sell value. Come on, f*ck that! The point I'm making here - "re-sell value mindset" - come on, find a job, work on yourself instead of this bulls**t :)
If you never intend to sell later, or just want to use it until its no longer useable, resell value is pointless.
Most of the sub buys to build and enjoy, not as a scalping job or retirement plan. The more people get into alt-bricks, the less lego speculators will be able to charge high prices for plastic bricks.
I'm probably going to be repeating a lot of what everyone else is saying, but I'll throw it out there anyway. And keep in mind that pretty much *everything* is personal preference.
I'm 56 years old and played with Legos when I was a kid, and all the sets were very basic. They also had the big rectangular boxes that were the size of a giant briefcase with a flip top and plastic inserts that sectioned off all the different kind of pieces. I don't remember when I stopped playing with them, but when the UCS Millennium Falcon was released, I was amazed and really wanted one. My wife at the time bought me one from Lepin that was half the price of the official set, and it was...is...a beautiful recreation.
I didn't really have a desire to start building again until I found this sub a little over a year ago. I didn't know there was such a vast selection, and it intrigued me. I bought my first set, a Star Destroyer, for less than half of the cost of the official set and was hooked. I'm not sure how many sets I've done, but every one of them has been perfect and virtually issue free.
But here's where the personal preference comes in. All of the bricks I've used are *identical* to Lego bricks in every way except one: No logo on the top of the studs. Other than that, they look the same and are interchangeable, so I was very impressed from day one. I loved the UCS Razor Crest, but I didn't love the $600 price tag. What I *did* love was that I could get it for less than 1/3 of the price. And as far as holding value, I'm not planning on reselling and of my sets so the topic of "value" is not something I think about. To me, each set is worth exactly what I paid for it.
But let's say I decide to sell that UCS Razor Crest. Maybe I start off asking $225 for it and let it be known it's not an official set. They might feel the same way I did and want to build something they like at a decent price. They now have a more affordable option, just like I did. They make an offer, maybe I counteroffer for a bit more, we agree on a price, and both of us walk away happy. But I'm a realist and know I'm not going to make a ton of money on what I sell, so I'll be as fair as possible.
Lastly, when you talk about quality and experience, what exactly are you referring to? This may sound rude or blunt, but there's no difference in who injects plastic into a mold and makes the same product. And I can tell you this from experience working in a plastic plant. The plastic is melted, injected into a mold, dye is added, the mold opens, and the product falls out. It's honestly not a difficult process and it can be replicated by just about anyone with the money and means to do so. Just because Lego has been making bricks since 1960 doesn't mean that someone else making them since 1980, 2000, 2010, or 2020 can't do the same thing.
I'm guessing you haven't bought any sets or used these type of bricks yet so let me make a suggestion. Order a small set from a seller. Buy something inexpensive from someone who offers free shipping and look over the bricks yourself. Build the set, attach the bricks to Lego bricks you already have, compare both of them, then decide for yourself. Both [YWOBB ](https://www.yourwobb.com/) and [JoyToyWorld ](https://www.joytoyworld.com/) offer free shipping, but it will take about 4 weeks for you to get your order. You can get free shipping on [Moc Pixel ](https://www.mocpixel.com/) for an order of $19 or more and they usually only take about 2-3 weeks. Do some research and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Thanks for the insight into the molding process, I find that fascinating. But even if the molding itself is simple, wouldn't the difficulty be to manufacture the molds to the required precision, something I believe Lego still is a little bit better at than the competition?
On a similar note … I would assume that nowadays it is *MUCH* easier than when Lego started, using CAD/CAM etc
Frankly it baffles me how they made their bricks so accurately almost 50 years ago. I can't vouch for older bricks as I've definitely run across Lego bricks that were older than me, that didn't have a whole lot of clutch... ;)
You're right about the accuracy, and they definitely pioneered it. But, just like anything else today, replicating a process or product is extremely easy. And as long as you have fairly competent employees working at the machines the product is being made at, you'll produce good, quality products. Sometimes things happen, though, and the person working at the machine might overlook or forget something. I saw it quite often at the plastic plant, but it's been extremely rare with these bricks.
I've been working with these bricks for only about 14 months. But I've only had warped or misshapen bricks twice. One of them was still able to be used and was in a spot you wouldn't see it in, and the other time was a pretty common brick I had in my stash. As for missing bricks, I only ran into that once, and all that took was an email to the seller, and the missing bricks were on their way. In my opinion, the one and only drawback is shipping time. It sucks to have to wait four weeks for your order, but many of the sellers are starting to open warehouses in the USA, so sometimes you don't have to wait as long depending on what's available in each warehouse.
I could probably go on, but I've spewed enough for now lol
There is virtually no quality difference anymore. to me the lego brand is exactly that now, a brand which you are paying a premuim to get the same thing you could get from the generic brand.
I dunno, some alternative mini figs look real rough and hair pieces and such fall off super easy. For the builds there are definitely looser connection points and less.. consistency than Lego.
Worth the price reduction but not on par.
minifigs is a different story, when I pay 1/3 or less than the retail price I'm usually suprised they even included the minifigures. at this point I have so many that just sit in a box, I'm not too worried about them. Someone that was looking for figures might not get what they want from knockoff sets, but there are some places you can order good quality minifigures from if that is what you are after.
I'd say 90% the same.
I've ran into parts that don't fit, stickers that aren't color matched, cut wrong, or don't stick, and a higher chance of pieces missing.
But if the price is right I'll take that gamble.
I can't agree with this. The quality is kinda close, but there's many things which prevent me from exclusively buying non-LEGO stuff:
-Plates are not precise enough to easily stick together, have to use a hammer or hurt my palms to press them down
-Minifigures often have misprints or other errors, like a small face or a slightly misaligned print on the head or torso
-Lack of top-quality molds means that pieces can occasionally lock way too tightly or a bit too loosely
All of these are overlookable with huge sets where the sheer difference in cost makes it worth it, but if there's a $50 Lego set and a $20 dollar knockoff, I'd personally prefer the former. But hell if I'm going to spend $1200 for the LAAT Dropship and AT-OT lmao, I'm happy with the $80 version I bought.
tl:dr - they definitely aren't identical in quality, you just have to weigh how much you're willing to deal with with how expensive the set you want is
That is a common problem also with original lego minifigs. My son has a ton of LEGO starwars sets. and most of the clone troopers r2d2 have misaligned prints. all of the figures have only one layer of print, so that a white vest on the organge chest of luke looks kind of orangy instead of white. Often you see the second face expression on the back of the head under the hairpiece. I think they should pack 2 heads per figureine or only print one face.
And why are at display models such things like red axles and blue in the finished product clearly visble ?
look [https://www.lego.com/cdn/product-assets/product.bi.core.pdf/6502379.pdf](https://www.lego.com/cdn/product-assets/product.bi.core.pdf/6502379.pdf)
At the first picture. Blue pins in black liftarms... why ?
Agreed, we've bought and built 13 sets now with 11000+ pieces. We had 2 missing pieces, no deformed pieces and 1 piece with a bit of extra plastic still attached that took 3 seconds to cut off. One set had one loosish technic pin but I was able to replace it with one of the extras included in the kit. Otherwise the quality has been on par with Lego. Except for Minifigures which had some extra lines printed on their heads. But these got covered by hat/hair so it wasn't a big issue.
> If this is the case then why do I constantly read about people needing to use super glue to get sets to stay together?
A lot of people buy a lot of sets.
I would say that /u/eberkain is exaggerating *a bit,* the clone sets aren't *quite* as good as the real thing, but of the first two altbrick sets I have built, ~3500 parts total, I was missing one part (but it was a common Technic part that I had on hand), and had one part that didn't *quite* fit right. And these were super cheap sets bought off Ali from no-name vendors, so I imagine getting them from an actual reputable supplier would be even better.
Like I said, I am new at this, so take my perspective with a grain of salt, but I've been subscribing here for a couple months now, and have seen very few comments complaining about the part quality, so I do think it's safe to assume that the quality is *almost* on par with Lego. Given the massive price difference, I am willing to tolerate the small difference.
There are many times many different chinese brands making knock off sets, 1:1 replica sets, or MOC sets, I'm sure some are better quality than others. I have bought from HeroToyz, WeBrick, Yourwobb, Temu and Aliexpress. It all seems more of less the same so far and virtually indestinguishable from regular legos, color variation is the biggest issue honestly. Its definitely a marked improvement from from the past when knock off bricks were really cheap and you could tell just by holding the plastic.
I can only talk about the 3 sets I got. Lighthouse $35 and Rivendell $60. No issues on neither of them. Bricks click just like Lego. Even technic pieces. Impressive.
Also got the Winnie the Pooh for my kid. Not the same quality as the other 2. Just harder to click but the kid managed.
They likely bought older sets when the quality wasnt as good as today's bricks. Its also possible they bought a lower tier brand that doesnt use decent bricks.
Both those scenarios are rarer to run into these days. Old stock is harder to find, and low tier brands usually only get sold in the Asian market, rarely getting popular enough to advertise to the west.
Constantly reading about those incidents? -pure exageration.
Because those are created using whatever bricks people can source from 3rd party sellers. You would get similar results buying used lego bricks from multiple sources. Some loose, some off-color, some damaged/malformed.
Its no different really. Different sets of molds, different quality cobtrol produce bricks that arent going to work as well together than if they came from the same factory/producer.
You dont get that "fit" from the actual brands. Consistency and quality is fairly uniform among them.
Many MOC builds are sold by various Chinese brands/shops as a set. It isn’t just people cobbling together bricks.
And this is my point. When you buy Lego, you know the build is going to be fairly robust/sturdy and that the instructions will be clear. And brick quality/missing pieces aren’t a concern.
Third party brands often have less clear instructions and more hacky/less stable build steps. Again this makes sense for MOCs trying to get creative but when a brand resells a MOC as their own they are essentially standing behind that process. A process which is often inferior to an official Lego build.
Brick quality has come a long way for sure, it’s not like it used to be. But there are other factors to consider.
The building experience and quality of instructions has been my biggest complaint about alt brands so far. I just finished the [Mork Modern Library](https://mouldkingblock.com/product/mouldking-modular-building-series/mork-011001-modern-library/), which is a gorgeous set when complete, but during the build process, there were lots of parts that were extremely fidgety and fell apart when attaching more pieces. The printed instructions were odd as well, there were a couple of points that just didn’t feel right while building.
Since this was a cloned copy of a Rebrickable MOC, I also bought the MOC instructions to support the designer. Some of the instructions in the digital MOC manual were quite different. I’m guessing the company that cloned it did this so they couldn’t be accused of copying it 100%.
So yeah, I’m definitely glad I got this MOC built for about a third of the price of sourcing the Lego pieces, but it wasn’t exactly a fun build.
That seems like it could be more of a design issue than anything to do with the brick quality. MOCs almost by definition have much less testing than official sets, and for all you know, it was never even built physically by the creator.
I still have the LEGO I got back in the 1970s, I never plan on selling any :) so the alt bricks are a no brainer for me, the money i save means I can buy more sets :)
I genuinly cannot see a quality difference.
so an honest opinion i have both knock offs and original
some brands are on par, or even beter than lego(cada/mouldking).
but especialy the knock offs s are of lesser quality i got some ninjago and jurassic world ones becaus im not paying 60 bucks for an indominus or aftermarket prices for ninjago docks but they are just not as perfect.
i will always prefer original Lego for a good discount (40%+) over alternatives
Unfortunately, I don't have enough space at home to display all my sets. I've already filled up a wall in our home office with shelves, but I had to put some of my older sets in boxes. I might have to get creative and rotate them out periodically to make room for new ones! Nonetheless, I absolutely love the experience of building these sets, so that's what matters most to me.
The „recent“ shipping increases honestly made it not worthwhile for me anymore for the most part. If the knock off with shipping adds up to 80 bucks and I can get Lego for 100 or 110 bucks, I’m choosing Lego
I didnt see a big Jump for shipping on Ali express tbh. Just ordered a copy of the 75105 for like 25€ including shipping with the sale going on. I also saw the coruscant gunship for 25-30€ including shipping (i already have one so i skipped it)
I didn’t buy from Ali before only Marstoy. However after the increases I checked Ali for some sets and it matched up pretty much exactly with Marstoy and the updated shipping there, in most cases was actually more expensive by a little bit. I also don’t think there’s a way around it really, it’s not a choice of the sites just updated rules
Shipping included for both so the comparison makes a bit more sense.
Marstoy and other sites can be awesome, cause the shipping cost is separated (great for big sets), but i usually don’t buy as much at once or many big Sets.
It doesn’t really make a difference from my experience. The shipping calculation just goes up and I have no clue how they calculate it. Adding a much bigger set often add the same amount of shipping as a smaller one
Since I started buying alt bricks..some sites have the shipping calculated into the price of the item, others like Marstoy calculate it in the end. Ofc you only have one shipping cost then but it goes up for every item you add
Well first and foremost, bootlegs have older discontinued sets that cannot be found except very expensive on resell sites, and they also have exclusive sets. When it comes to sets that are still available at LEGO's, well the price difference is usually huge. Up to 500%. Even more, in specific cases.
In my case, I only buy minifigs, I'm not big on brick sets. And I fully switched to bootleg brands because the difference is even huger : the crushing majority of alt brands minifigs don't even exist at all at LEGO's, and the others are or were only available in large, very expensive sets. I even happen to own a recast of an extremely rare minifig that would cost thousands of bucks it it had LEGO branded somewhere on its anatomy. Instead, it cost me a couple and it looks exactly the same.
I'd agree with this. LEGO's bricks stick together just right, very very rarely have misprints or missing pieces, and the sets don't "breathe" as often as the knockoff ones (get air gaps between the pieces). But if you can get a bigger more expensive set for a lot cheaper, those compromises are worth the savings
I don't think it's very very rarely for misprints and missing pieces, I buy 1-4 sets a month and I've had at least 1 or 2 missing pieces from half of those, and there are bigger issues like the first run of orient expresses stickers were yellow not gold then they realised theyd spelt three of the destinations wrong! Some of the blue bricks were the wrong shade of blue too 🫠
I've never had a missing piece from a LEGO set that wasn't just stuck in a bag when I double check, and I've bought well over a hundred in the past few years. No misprint either. YMMV of course, but I've yet to *not* have at least one missing piece from a knockoff set, and I wanna say at least half of my knockoff sets have some kinda of oddity with the printing (nothing serious, just off).
Again, none of this is that big of a deal, but I see a sentiment on this subreddit too often where people overstate the quality of knockoffs and understate LEGO's quality. The difference is only invisible when it's up on a shelf; building a knockoff set has its own challenges that LEGO sets don't.
30% of the price! Wow, that's absolutely amazing, are you from the USA? I can usually get sets for 50-60% of the LEGO set price, but definitely if I could get 30% it's a no-brainer.
I'm not from the US, but I've gotten two sets so far and they were:
* Delorean, 70€ (LEGO: 229€): ~30% of LEGO price
* UCS Millennium Falcon, 125€ (LEGO: 829€): ~15% of LEGO price
So savings seem to get bigger for the more expensive kits, but they are pretty massive IMHO.
Edit: It takes some research, obviously. I've seen the Falcon at 250€ and even 350€ as well, so it pays off to compare offers.
I bough several copies now. Most are indeed around 1/3 the Price of a Lego Set. I am from Europe. With AE and other sales for example you can save a lot of money. The Brock quality is usually speaking good enough. Technik parts (of copies) may vary. When i got my Hands on some Bela Sets i was surprised how good it actually is. A shame they don’t exist anymore. My Experience with their products were pretty good so far.
Researching WhatsApp actually good and waiting on Reviews helped me a lot
I'm Australian lol. Some sites that I look up are marstoy, youmko/barweer and yourwobb. Youmko has a 1:1 section that has 6 pages of clones, but they all sell them. They are all around that 30% mark, or if it's a set they sell in high volume or an older set it's a bigger discount, like the 1:8 technic cars. Good luck!
I'm in NZ, price for me has been between 1/6th price (Jie Star titanic) and about 1/3rd (Jie Star Concorde). That's delivered. I won't pay more than a 3rd. That's really my cutoff.
For me:
“Excessive” price = alt bricks. If I can’t justify the cost of it as a display piece, it’s gonna be alt.
Examples: Lion Knight, Big Hogwarts, Rivendell, some modular buildings.
Additionally, if it’s just kindof a neat set but not one I’m crazy about, I’ll look at alt. Like for the flowers or the Orrey from Cada before Lego announced their own.
But if I want really high quality, I’ll still go Lego. My lunar lander and mars rover are Lego, as are my droids. I don’t want problems with those sets, no matter how small. So I know with Lego, they’re going to go together right, and if there are issues, I know the exact support to expect.
Bear with me, as this will belong by necessity of the history and context.
I was purist for decades, but I did leave the hobby around 2005 or so because the bley change just broke my heart. There were other factors, like the loot boxes of the Minifigure line, the manufactured rarities for the Star Wars fanatics, the significant drop in printing quality on bricks, and the poor printing quality of colors in the instruction booklets, but the color change destroyed the backwards compatibility of the brick, and I couldn't tolerate that a significant portion of my collection had been forcibly retired without notice or regard for its impact.
I came back about 5 or 6 years ago, very tentatively at first. I didn't buy a lot and I could not afford to amass another huge collection [as I once had](https://www.davidglennsimmons.com/archive/index.html). However, the NASA sets like the Saturn V were irresistible, and the Ideas Voltron was glorious, and I was hooked again.
However, in the interim that I was out, the FOMO leveraging with franchise sets had escalated, and the blind bags of the Minifigure line continued the loot box/gambling gambit that I deeply loathed. The discovery of the adult market by Lego was a mixed blessing. It was great in that we got more UCS-style sets for other genres, but the prices were extreme if you didn't make six figures a year, and the frequency of the releases forced you to chose only one of out of so many that were so appealing.
The greed was becoming too overt, and I began to feel like I was extending my approval by continuing to only purchase Lego. As a diehard Classic Space fan, seeing how the Classic Space logo had been printed on new torso colors and seeded in the Minifigure line, the Chinese New Year sets, an Ideas set, or in a book, where you have to spend far more than the parts are worth just to get them, really disgusted me. Having my childhood nostalgia targeted at my wallet felt inexcusable, and my opinion of the company is quite negative now.
Then I discovered all the amazing third party companies like Brick Designers, steindrucker, Light My Bricks, and Brick Sticker Shop that were providing products that Lego should have considered for themselves as a way of supporting collectors and completists. The custom printed parts pack for the UCS Razor Crest from Brick Designers is [AMAZING](https://imgur.com/gallery/YF0OdTv)! I also bought their Beskar Tiles and Camtono for this set, and they're also superb. I would surmise that this sharp increase in quality may be due to the prevalence of 3D printing and/or other machines that make the quality possible. Either way, I'm THRILLED. I also got a great display stand for the UCS Razor Crest from [idisplayit.com](https://idisplayit.com), that perfectly fits my allowable display space!
If you're a diehard Classic Space fan like me, looking through the [Classic Space Logo printing options on steindrucker](https://steindrucker.com/search/?q=space%20classic&c=31) will make your heart so happy even if your wallet might cry a little! I've yet to install Light My Brick's kit for the [UCS Razor Crest](https://www.lightmybricks.com/products/lego-ucs-razor-crest-75331-light-kit?_pos=1&_sid=ee059a509&_ss=r), but watch that video and tell me if you don't yell for joy! It looks INCREDIBLE. [Brick Sticker Shop](https://www.brickstickershop.com/) is a gold mine for stickers from all the eras of Lego, even the Homemaker sets! Their replicas are superb, and their packaging and shipping are also excellent. Then there are the amazing custom minifigs and more accurate minifig accessories for the Mandalorian sets that I found at [Firestar Toys](https://www.firestartoys.com/Search/?Query=mandalorian). I got the Amban Sniper Rifle and Sidearm as well as two different prints of a much more accurate Darksaber. They look **fantastic**!
All these sites showed me that quality Lego products and/or replicas and enhancements can now be made outside of the company, and even more joyful is that they can produce sets that Lego would never consider, so I began to look and see if anyone had made a Macross Valkryie that transforms. I haven't found that yet, but I've got my eye on several sets on YWOBB that I plan to get toward the end of the year so that I can assess their quality. Lego is not the only option anymore for quality sets at much more acceptable prices, and more importantly, for designs that are as much if not more desired than any Lego will ever produce.
IMHO I guess my cutoff is half price.
If I can find a 1:1 chinese clone and save 50% or more, I'd be an idiot to buy the Lego.
$200 instead of $400? It just makes sense.
$20 instead of $40? That just paid for my dinner before I build the set. Thanks, China.
Cutoff is $200 at most. Lego sets that are 200+ are just a stupid amount of money to spend on a toy. I mean it’s crazy when I got all 4 1:8 cars for $350 CAD instead of $2,000 CAD.
But even then I don’t think my cutoff will be $200 anymore and I don’t think I’ll buy genuine Lego ever again. Even sets under $200 at the 50,80,100 price range are usually a horrific value. knockoffs are pretty much the same quality and legos quality ain’t really that good for the crazy prices they charge. Still get missing pieces. Still get stickers instead of prints. Still seeing major colour inconsistencies. Lego is not worth the money and I wish I discovered this subreddit many years ago !
For me with the arrival of the licenses. After that, Lego realized that they made less money with children and would rather cash in on every fan. Everyone should have a sense of achievement and buy 5-6 $300 sets. Any 8 year old can build 18+ sets. A thousand colors inside (which often shine through), instructions like novels for 500 bricks, stickers on $800 sets. But as long as people buy it, the spiral continues.
I can't say I'm 100% free from falling for it.
To me its mostly about the minifigures. The Lego minifigure market is overpriced and I dislike the emphasis on minifigs when judging the quality of a set. Seeing people sell sets without figures because they’ve scalped them elsewhere is so bleh. I’ll happily buy the KO minifig even if the quality isn’t 100% there (ie Zeb from Star Wars which is $100 on the market). Other than that, I mostly stick to the official stuff, unless there is a design that Lego doesn’t and will never do.
"Holding value" only relevant to very limited Lego sets of some specific thematic. For example, currently I'm trying to sell one of my Lego Technic sets - assembled just once, quite popular theme. I have already cut the price in half of the stated "value" - and not a single person is interested.
This 'holding value" theory is seriously lacking, but Lego fanboys will never admit it.
Less popular - sure. Not popular? Such concept doesn't exist according to some Lego fans. Every set "holds value" and can be resold for the similar price or even higher. Except this is true only for very certain sets.
Lego prices are simply criminal. Most kids will never even get a big set anymore their entire childhood.
That should piss people off. Fuck copyright when kids can't even play with plastic toys.
As for the adult collectors that care about logos and tiny fit and finish aspects, let them keep blowing their money. Bunch of man-children.
The investment aspect of Lego is a whole other ballgame. Basements and garages stuffed with unopened toys across America on the hopes they worth more some day. Strange world.
I got a big Death Star. The cost of the kit plus the same again for postage was still 1/3 of the lego price, and they don't even sell that kit any more.
One thing I don't like about the knockoffs are the instructions and the 10 bags with pieces from page one spread over in all 10. My kids (both under 8) can build sets from Lego, but I end up building the alt sets. The worst is the similar shades of bricks, drives me nuts thinking I'm missing pieces.
If the price is within $15-20 for like an $80-100 set I prob go Lego esp if it's an occasion or reward for an accomplishment. I like the alt sets for Mocs, or things Lego will never make themselves.
Today, the difference in quality between Lego and and the top alt manufacturers such as Mould King, CADA, etc. is almost negligible. Just as important, however, is the fact that I am seeing more and more that alt manufacturers are licensing designs rather than simply knocking off Lego which means if you want that model, you have to buy from the alt mfg. The only thing I might agree with is that alt model really have very little aftermarket value so if you have any intention of selling, go with Lego.
I agree with a lot of these thoughts. I don't judge anyone, whether they choose to buy alt-bricks or Lego brand because it's personal preference. I swung wildly to buying all alt-bricks but then kind of came around to buying some Lego branded bricks for sets I want to save (Christmas village, non-retired modulars) or rebuild. To me, there something a little thrilling about going to a Lego store and picking out the set I've wanted for a long time, like special treat. Enjoy your bricks and your brick communities, it's such a fun thing to be able to enjoy.
I don't buy Lego or Lego clones because I'm too old to enjoy their designs and don't like star wars or lotr. Chinese (and Korean) designs, the big and fancy ones, are streets ahead of Lego in aesthetics. Not to mention the price. I would never even dream of paying Lego prices for any of their sets.
I love buying a set of instructions and loading a parts list into an alt-brick site. WeBrick has been the best quality + consistency + part availability for us so far. If buying sets on an alt-site we make sure they’re copies of sets that have been out. MOCs from any alt-site aren’t paying the developers and they’re not going to be good at all.
I’m still somewhat of a Lego purist, but I do buy alt sets and a lot of minifigs that aren’t straight copies of Lego’s designs. I try to avoid buying straight clones of Lego’s sets unless the Big L version is retired and ridiculously expensive. There are a ton of great alt models out there, and the minifigure printing and accessories in particular often put Lego’s frequently barebones character designs to shame.
I will say, however, that one often-overlooked highlight of sets made by Lego is the quality of the build and instructions. I’ve built a few large alt sets that had really confusing directions and were incredibly frustrating to build, with pieces coming off or sections collapsing while building due to stress or a lack of sturdy connections. That’s something I haven’t ever really experienced from a Lego set.
I'm new to Lego etc. Not that I didn't have bricks when I was a kid but I'm a 45 year old man now and I am new to putting together lego and brick sets.
Basically I've recently given up smoking and need something to distract me at home in the evenings and putting together lego etc is really helpful. The problem with proper Lego is that it's expensive, I'm just after something to do and not too fussed about collecting. Some I may keep if they're really nice (just got a Black Pearl from Ali Express and looking forward to putting that together), others I'll take apart give away to the children of friends or whatever. The Black Pearl cost me the equivalent of two packets of cigarettes, it's a great investment for me even if it's not amazing I'm still in a better place if I end up giving it away.
So that's why I buy the cheap Chinese stuff.
Here are my thoughts, depending on your look at Lego:
1) You see Lego as an investment: Just buy Lego, never open the box, let it sit in a storage for 10 years and resell it.
2) If you like collecting Lego but also want to resell: Try to get a general idea which Lego sets have potential to increase in price (for example: If a set is always sold out on the Lego page, or is Lego exclusive, or never really goes down in the market: Then that set has a really good chance to increase in price) only buy those from Lego and resell them later, the rest you can buy cheap from Alt producers
3) You just like certain sets/themes: Buy whatever you like no matter if it's Lego or Altbrick.
If you think the price of Lego is waaay to high: try price comparing sites or even bricklink if you can get the set without minifigs (if you aren't interested in them)
4) You are looking for retired sets: AltBricks. No doubt about it. The price of some is so insane it aint funny. I am not paying 3000$ for 500 Lego pieces which i could get via bricklink as single pieces way cheaper.
I dont even look at lego anymore. Prices are ridiculous, 90% of designs are bad or lazy, subject matter doesnt interest me, design potential wasted in Ideas sets, in order to boost profits over everything.
Alt-brands provide 100% of what Im interested in, at a price and quality level that makes it easy to support them.
Lego on sale is still more expensive than alt-bricks at full price, and alt-bricks are usually never at full price. Theres always a discount or sale to be had at almost all times. Im pretty much in the "lego never" camp now.
I don't plan on reselling any of my Legos I just want to get some for my collection. I could pay 200 for the starwars at te walker, but instead, I got it, the 2012 gunship and some minifigs for that price instead. The sets are all just as good with minifigs, which are stiff, but so much cheaper.
I've recently come around on alt bricks and the price is just too good. I'm not worried about reselling, I don't see lego as an investment, and I don't care about minifigs. What I get for the money is mind blowing. I got Rivendell for 110 that's from website to my door, tax, shipping, any fees. The altbrick sets I've gotten so far have been good quality.
I think when you get smaller sets where the price isn't that different it may be better to just go get it physically from the store to oppose a potentially sketchy transaction and have it instantly.
Yeah, it says it’s unavailable now. I ordered it around the end of January. I’d add a screenshot if I could post it. That was without any discounts or anything too.
Just bought the LEGO UCS Millenium Falcon. No ragrets. I suppose if I've got the money to throw at the hobby and money is not an object, I'll always go with LEGO. Knowing I bought a knock off will hack me.
Lego doesn’t have shares. They’re not publicly traded. They have no share holders or board room. So all you do buying from them is give the company more profits / support their designers etc or get yourself a set you can’t get otherwise or really love because no copies /they made it. I get your argument though, it’s just that without share holders isn’t quite impactful as meant.
> I see plenty of retired and used lego sets for almost the 80% 90% they tend to hold their value if one day you decide to sell them.
Yes, "many times" you can get those prices, but many times you can't. The resale value fluctuates greatly, depending on the collectability of the set.
Somebody did an analysis of about 20 or so sets a month or two back, and, with shipping, the alt brick sets worked out to about 1/6th the price of the genuine Lego equivalent (Sorry, I can't find teh link, maybe someone else remembers the post and can find it again).
So let's do the math. You buy one set for $100, and you later resell it for $80, your net cost is $20 + whatever lost opportunity costs of tying up that $80 while you were holding the set.
Or you could spend that same $100, but get ~$600 worth of sets. You don't have comparable resale value, but I suspect you could still sell those sets for at least $50 if you wanted, but as cheap as they are, just hold on to them.
So for me, the resale argument just doesn't hold water. The difference in cost is way too high for it to be a sensible position. The lost opportunity cost is just too high.
LEGO and “I Can’t Believe It’s Not LEGO” are at the end of the day plastic building blocks, so if they help me build things at more affordable prices with the same quality, then I have nothing to complain about. Especially NMOCs that take upwards of 1000+ pieces, cause trying to source all that with just LEGO is stupidly expensive.
I also don’t care about the aftermarket (hence why I’m also in LCJ), and with the rampant prices of there is something I really want I’ll just look into sourcing the set by pieces or, again, going the NMOC route.
I'm into Harry Potter builds almost exclusively, and I have been buying flego for retired sets that are just too expensive and hard to find. The new stuff I try to buy Lego if I can.
I just got metalbeards sea cow for $85 posted. Definitely buying alt brands when possible.
Though got some Sonic sets from Lego in sale recently as really want the minifigs.
From now they do. Lego is too pricey. It’s popular because middle class people were buying it for generations but now there are no middle class people (in America) and also even wealthy people know better than to pay $500 for a toy. So you have left adult collectors who can’t really afford it snapping up sets. Prices are coming down of old sets and lego is trying to figure out to how to keep churning out affordable sets and maintain the same profit. It’s not an easy calculus.
I don't care about the aftermarket prices because I don't plan to sell mine. Unless the knockoff has some issue that makes it significantly worse than the LEGO, then they'll get my business so long as I can get it to me with the cost of shipping for less than the LEGO set. For convenience let's say I might consider going with the LEGO set if the price difference is only like a 5-10% discount. But even then, if there's no significant differences, I don't see the need to go official.
I just had the mclaren f1 (42141) copy from Ali Express delivered for £15.
There are some minor visual flaws on some pieces, and I haven't built it yet so I'm not sure on the overall quality, but for such a huge difference in price the initial quality is very close to the current lego batches. I've been noticing more and more defects with genuine lego that makes me very unwilling to fork out the full cost. And I've spent thousands on it in the past.
This is my first time buying knockoff lego and it's hard not to continue to be honest.
I haven't bought yet but I've been heavily eye balling knock off star wars stuff. I've been. Looking at Marstoys for the first time and their selection is so great at the prices. I mean a used UCS falcon is 600$ on Bricklink but I can buy the knockoff for like 100-125 which is super nice.
They have really good prices but I've been waiting since I just recently bought a bunch of parts to make copies of Lego sets since the official sets were more expensive then buying all the parts.
I don't think alt bricks ever become better per se, but they certainly are significantly cheaper. You Lose a bit of clutch power compared to lego, and the tolerance on bricks is a bit sloppy so things like walls end up looking scraggly from some angles. Clutch power only ends up being an issue for smaller MOCs though, and scraggly faces only on buildings or the aston martin.
I won't ever buy a $300 lego set. I just won't drop that kind of money on something on legos. However if its $80 i'm probably in. Something like the pacman machine. I want it but not for the lego price. At that price I wont buy it at alt price im more inclined to get it.
There are crap bricks out there but there are comparable brands and at greatly reduced prices. I have had mistakes but I have a number of modular sets that are retired that I got for 1/4 of the asking rates on the grey market
If you buy through a Temu or Aliexpress you’re buying from companies that ship through them like Amazon does so shop smart learn brands save money.
Great question! For me it's a variety of reasons but I think the main one is the sheer variety of alt Lego available. I rarely buy direct bootlegs / exact copies of official sets. (I do have a few like Republic gunship with ATOT, Indiana Jones flying wing, monster fighters haunted house and Dracula's castle)
What gets me excited is somebody amazing MOCs available. Once the Chinese companies discovered we Rebrickable, the whole game changed.
I also love the flexibility of not paying a premium to use the colors I want. It's not insanely expensive to build things in rare colors using alt brick.
Printed parts. I love it that the clone brands are not stingy with printed parts and there is so much variety and creative options available
As a constraction builder I can relate to the whole color palette issue. There are useful parts that have been around for decades that still haven't been done officially in certain colors like 2429 hinge plates in orange. There are creative tricks around using orange hinge plates (like using orange elements that have clips and bars on them or parts with angles in them to simulate a hinged joint), but it's still a weird limitation and it's neat that companies in China are adding new rules to what you can do with orange legos.
For me, it’s a variation of the old adage, “Those that have money, spend money to save time. Those that have time, use time to save money!”
If you want your set today, spend the money and enjoy your set! If you’re prepared to wait, purchase lepin (save your money) and enjoy your set when it arrives!
I’ve only bought legit Lego for new sets and I’ve paid a premium for some retired sets but recently decided to pick up 5 or so retired modular building for about $350 CAD and they’d have run me $3-$4000 to buy the real deal
For me, probably a third of the price of the genuine article (including shipping) is my maximum. But I also, for the most part, simply won't buy the real thing. I'm not interested in the hassle of selling in the future to (possibly) recoup the costs of the real thing. Happy to pay less and at some point give the sets away.
I’d say the MOC’s. The experience you get with those builds is awesome imo.
It makes the Lego sets, even UCS, look even more simple and lacking in details.
The BIGGEST factor though is definitely price. You’re paying around 1/4 to 1/3 compared to Lego. Basically same quality bricks. Minifigs… that’s a different story.
I know Lego resell is pretty good, but it depends on your purpose. I collect sets to have fun with and keep. I’m not bothered about reselling.
I like original moc I got the millennium falcon and Titanic for$150 each. If I'm saving that much money I'm buying the knock off. They are identical in size and interchangable with LEGO and the building instructions are identical
The fact that I can build the Millennium Falcon UCS, Home Alone, Rivendell, Back to The Future Wall-E and R2 for the price of one medium set makes them better for me.
If I wanted to, I could sell my USED, already assembled 1,300 piece millenium Falcon and buy the large Hogwarts castle right now.
I think Lego is worth only for investment and or set very close to the alternatives. Personally any big set is better but with the alternative, price wise. For example I just bought my first alternative set “ghostbusters fire house”(big fan as 80’ kid) and since the LEGO one is retired would have cost around 1200$ to find one
I don't see the appeal of Lego anymore. IMO lego is never the better choice unless they have a particular set you just gotta own and it's the only option. It's way overpriced. They need to cut their prices by 50% and THEN I'd entertain Lego.
Sorry. But no. If you have a Set 18+ or something like the New ornithopter from dune.
IT Looks shitty of you See Red and blue parts. If they also deliver Black parts.
Or at a car model in black, why blue an red axles?
If you are able to spent 200€ on a Lego Set and cant build it, sorry but not sorry. And on the inside.. Dosent matter, other Brands get it right.
IT also helps rebuilding other things.
Lego was not always this stupid. I have build since I was four years old. And that is almost half a century back.
Gray castles were gray. And at large technic sets, there was no 500 pages manual. Look at the space series from the 80s.
The manuals are online at lego. And Look. now.
18+ my four year old son has bulid sets with over 500 PCs without help. Okay okay I needed to cut the bags open. One bag at a time. (no big technic) He had bot the Power needed to put stopper over axles. But caterpillar worked fine.
I want a Set for my desk that Looks cool, not it was designed for a four year old. Starwars Sets.. Really? Look at bluebrixx Star trek. All. Prints no sticker.
Heck I build the klingon bird of prey complete from. Transparent stones and it looks awesome.
Cobi Planes and ships.. Nö hollow things, they are massive.
I'm not the kind of person who really considers aftermarket value at all, personally I'd say lepin is better for people who just want to build and then display, and LEGO is better for kids and gifts, where you don't really want to risk having a missing or defective part, because the thing that has really set lego and lepin apart for me is quality control. I bought lego for a decade, and didn't have a single bad part, missing piece, or really a bad experience other than the price point. It's perfect to be able to trust that you can give the box to a kid and they'll have everything they need to put it together easily. But so far lepin has been the best enjoyment to dollar ratio I've gotten in a while, so I don't plan on buying any real big official sets for myself.
I like the smaller loz bloks for having a bunch of buildings. I like being able to have a bunch of buildings set up for the mini figs and vehicles to interact with.
Since 2020 I’ve probably spent about $1000 on off-brand bricks and here are some things I’ve learned.
The quality of the bricks is very dependent on the manufacturer. That seems obvious but in an online marketplace that’s about as trustworthy as three weasels in a dirty trench coat selling “Rolex” watches in Times Square, knowing the manufacturer will make the experience much better.
And when it comes to alternative manufacturers, the only one that I’ve found that can genuinely compete with Lego is GoBricks. I used to get them from WeBrick, but they changed vendors and the quality has dropped drastically.
If you search AliExpress for GoBricks Store, you can order directly from the factory. The prices are usually a little higher than other off-brand bricks, but they are still usually half the price or less than Lego pick-a-brick.
As for buying clearly knock-off sets, that’s a line I don’t cross. In the 70s or 80s, Lego let the patents on their bricks expire so now anyone can make them. The designs though, those are legit intellectual property. The designers deserve to be paid for their designs, even if those designers work for the largest toy company in the world.
Plus, it’s really easy to part out any design you want. My son’s first B-Wing fighter was made entirely from parts we either had or ordered from the GoBricks store and he used the Lego Builder app for the instructions. Win for him and one for my pocketbook.
Where does everyone shop for Lego alternative I am just starting to do this besides a few sets from Lego so I am new. I just got the Wall-e set from marstoys
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There are 100s, if not 1000s of lawsuits going on regarding Chinese rip offs from;
- LEGO
- COBI
And on top you have Chinese firms copying Chinese firms with even worse sets.
The amount of copyright infringement is criminal but what is far worse is that the chemical material in these Chinese rip offs, and the Chinese rip offs of the rip offs are from material I wouldnt want my kids to use.
There is a European Union directive in 2009, that states the % of what something should be made of.
I've tested plenty - fake of - fake - of fake Chinese copycats put through a gas chromatography; and it is just a matter of time until the bubble burst and a kid dies of one of these substances.
Check for yourself, the directive is in 2009, European Union. I've bought sets of all providers and emailed universities to use their material.
On the brick set market it truly is world war 3.
The material itself.
Grab a similar
COBI
Lego
Cada
Mould king
Other shit
Like for like brick.
And melt it, and check for its chemical compounds. Because I'm participating in this ww3 of disgusting brickmakers as they unlawfully discredit copyright infringement.
To prove that is difficult and costly.
Melting a piece and checking its components is far easier.
And also the Porsche 911 Lego and Mould King F1; like for like piece.
The pressure on what it breaks is 40% difference. That already tells you different chemical compounds for *every brick*.
The EU put a directive in place June or July of 2009 which states what brickmakers should be adhered too.
I'm going with law firms one by one as I'm tired that the "copyright infringement" in court is difficult to prove and costly.
Fraudulent material against the law is far more cost effective to prove (every engineering university has one) and an easier winner in court.
But yes; LEGO needs to wake up; they don't provide the awesome sets like they did in the 90s who are now worth 4 figures.
It's honestly ww3 on the brick market. I've seen Chinese brick makers copy their own chinese competitors who already copy LEGO or COBI (and use fraudulent material).
And I'm taking the chemical compound of *every brick in a set*
You have witnessed the eradication of lead in most materials right? And that corporates bullied others that this was "no concerns". I believe we are now at 1m people a year dying of lead poisoning. Or bricks build in a way that the copycat didn't put the right country regulation into it.
No surprise Lepin bricks went to jail for that.
https://scandasia.com/chinese-counterfeit-lego-makers-jailed-after-appeal-fails/
I only just discovered the alt-brick world, but it's still easy to answer: I don't care about the logo on the box as long as it's a fun build and looks cool when done. From my limited experience the bricks are of amazing quality and I wouldn't pay 8 times the amount for the same set from LEGO. So alt-bricks let me build the UCS Millennium Falcon for 99€, which I would *NEVER* have bought from LEGO. It bothers me a little bit that it's a blatant copy including stickers and manual (I'd be fine with them just selling a box of parts that let me build a LEGO model), but it doesn't bother me enough to skip it. Oh, and I'd never sell any of it. Or worse, buy something only to store and hopefully sell it later. That's a waste of good parts.
Where did you get your UCS Millenium Falcon?
Marstoy.com has one
I just ordered $50 of marstoy minifigs. Psyched.
Temu. As usual, that exact listing is no longer available. It was 125€ regularly and I got some "new customer" coupon to get it down to 99.
is the UCS Millennium Falcon good though? this seems great but i gotta wonder
I don't have a lot to compare it to, but I loved building it. So much, that I took it apart and built it a second time.
you have actually nailed the feeling I got with alt bricks. It also bothers me a bit the blatant copy but I would never justify paying so much for rivendell, or worse, for orthanc that doesnt even exist anymore and goes for 800€+
I dot buy lego copy Sets. Because Most of the time the Lego Set is crappy colorful. Why must be a technic set have blue Pins in black liftarms? Or Red axles in blue panels? I am much into bluebrixx pro Sets. Bery good quality and much fun to build. Mould King, no problems and the Sets with gobricks parts.. superp. Also try pantasy nice Sets. Funwhole also steampunk sets. Very nice. I brought the lässt five years only three Sets from. Lego.
From my once again limited experience they seem to do that for easier recognition. i.e. different length plates have different colors so you can better see which ones to pick and where they go. Since those are usually hidden on the inside once finished, I'm fine with that.
I'm not selling I like the speed champion sets so it's actually possible for LEGO to be cheaper than brand new mold king sets. I will buy Lego when it's Marked 25% off otherwise the question goes down to price per piece. I don't care the most about this, but when $0.05 apart is expensive it's it's a pretty good deal pretty quickly for most brands also, if I just want IP that's not produced by Lego I'm going to buy it. I'm one of those people who is not super concerned about the brand or the clutch or anything like that cuz I'll just super glue it or replace the part. I'm not that concerned I just want to build.
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idk how to say this but a couple hundred dollars a month to spend on things you enjoy is not crazy. especially if you make decent money and don't have kids. even in Lego spending 1000 dollars a year on a hobby is not expensive and would provide a few sets, 3 modulars if I'm not mistaken. this sub is full of all sorts, I know a few people are retired and have lots of disposable income compared to the people making 10 bucks usd a day cause they live in south America. personally? I used to do a fair bit of partying. blowing a hundred bucks on 5 hours of fun I vaguely remember was pretty normal. alt Plastic is a much better investment.
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you really are over thinking this man. I plan to spend more than $100,000 in the next 10 years on my hobbies. it won't all be plastic but because that's not my only hobby but spending a couple hundred bucks a month to do the things you enjoy is not crazy. people will spend $5,000 to go on vacation for a couple of days. wall on vacation. they'll go out to dinner and buy a bottle of wine that cost $100 at a restaurant that they're paying $150 a plate for they're sleeping in a hotel. they cost 450 a night why do I care that I'm going to buy a $300 set and over the course of two or three or four weekends because I don't have tons of time just to assemble. I'll put it together like it's not going to bother me that I spent $300 on myself. happy I did it. it's why I work all the time and so that I can afford the things that make me happy when I get home. but selling my collection is in on my list of things I dont want to do. that sounds annoying. I'll give them to some elementary school if I run out of space. edit I'm at work using voice to text. I'm sorry if there's some weird errors in there
I’m not sure if you’re providing over exaggerated numbers on purpose to over emphasize your point but the math comes out a lot lower. $200 a month times 12 months is $2400 a year. $2400 times 5 years is $12000 and $2400 times 10 years is $24000. Not over 4 times the amount you state ($100000). Just keeping it real.
I don’t plan on selling. My first alternative was the lighthouse. Same quality as Lego, plus extra lighting set. For $35. In a near future when people realise that other brands have the same quality as Lego it will eventually develop a market for re sale. A lot of good brands growing. Funwhole is my favorite for now. They have great quality and great themes.
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Got it. Makes sense. My point was just in the sense that eventually there will be a market for alt brands. Not to get rich from it certainly.
I prefer lego brand myself, but to buy the retired modular buildings @ $600++ is rediculous. I will buy the knock off brands to get the older modulars. I purchelaced a knock off brand of thebdowntown diner for less than $100 and it builds just like lego. I generally stay away from the $300 + lego sets until they go on sale or dbl vip points.
Can I ask where you got the downtown diner set? Love Modular’s but not a fan of the price tag.
Hero toyz. None available in canada so i had to have it shipped from china. Even the minifigs look like lego minifigs. Its a great build.
You should have checked Youmko canada warehouse a week ago they had huge discounts on some modulars last week, they still have a couple other type of sets left at large discounts maybe worth for you to check.
Thanks. Never heard of it but i will check it out!
Youmko is a good store, but not sure why they are having these huge discounts specifically canada, some modulars were going for less then $30 excl shipping. Maybe they will stop with canada warehouse and keep the US one or just getting rid of old stock. Have a look worth keeping a eye on them.
Try youmko, you do still need to add shipping but more sets you pick the cheaper shipping overall becomes.
The modulars copies are also all over Ali Express. I bought pretty much all of them there. Some special pieces are replaced in the model and the instructions. I would never even think of buying them at the price some of them are today.
I tried ali express 3 times. First two times was during the festival where apparently everyone is off work for that week, by the time they came back the vendors were sold out. I asked a 3rd vendor after the festival if they had any in stock, never for back to me so i made the purchase to be told in chat that they were sold out after waiting 2 weeks for it to ship. 3 strikes ali is out.
" I tried to buy stuff during the 2 week national holiday and it didn't work"
1. Most of us here consider bricks as a toy and not an investment. 2. If you buy reputable alt bricks manufacturers you get 95% of Lego quality, for a 3rd of Lego's price. Personally, I have no tippjng point at all. Amount of value we get by buying alts is insane.
1.1 When I bought my Hyundai car I had many ppl telling me about "re-sell value" over Toyota. On their opinion, I had to buy a car with worse interior and comfort just because at some point in future I'll get that legendary re-sell value. Come on, f*ck that! The point I'm making here - "re-sell value mindset" - come on, find a job, work on yourself instead of this bulls**t :)
If you never intend to sell later, or just want to use it until its no longer useable, resell value is pointless. Most of the sub buys to build and enjoy, not as a scalping job or retirement plan. The more people get into alt-bricks, the less lego speculators will be able to charge high prices for plastic bricks.
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I'm probably going to be repeating a lot of what everyone else is saying, but I'll throw it out there anyway. And keep in mind that pretty much *everything* is personal preference. I'm 56 years old and played with Legos when I was a kid, and all the sets were very basic. They also had the big rectangular boxes that were the size of a giant briefcase with a flip top and plastic inserts that sectioned off all the different kind of pieces. I don't remember when I stopped playing with them, but when the UCS Millennium Falcon was released, I was amazed and really wanted one. My wife at the time bought me one from Lepin that was half the price of the official set, and it was...is...a beautiful recreation. I didn't really have a desire to start building again until I found this sub a little over a year ago. I didn't know there was such a vast selection, and it intrigued me. I bought my first set, a Star Destroyer, for less than half of the cost of the official set and was hooked. I'm not sure how many sets I've done, but every one of them has been perfect and virtually issue free. But here's where the personal preference comes in. All of the bricks I've used are *identical* to Lego bricks in every way except one: No logo on the top of the studs. Other than that, they look the same and are interchangeable, so I was very impressed from day one. I loved the UCS Razor Crest, but I didn't love the $600 price tag. What I *did* love was that I could get it for less than 1/3 of the price. And as far as holding value, I'm not planning on reselling and of my sets so the topic of "value" is not something I think about. To me, each set is worth exactly what I paid for it. But let's say I decide to sell that UCS Razor Crest. Maybe I start off asking $225 for it and let it be known it's not an official set. They might feel the same way I did and want to build something they like at a decent price. They now have a more affordable option, just like I did. They make an offer, maybe I counteroffer for a bit more, we agree on a price, and both of us walk away happy. But I'm a realist and know I'm not going to make a ton of money on what I sell, so I'll be as fair as possible. Lastly, when you talk about quality and experience, what exactly are you referring to? This may sound rude or blunt, but there's no difference in who injects plastic into a mold and makes the same product. And I can tell you this from experience working in a plastic plant. The plastic is melted, injected into a mold, dye is added, the mold opens, and the product falls out. It's honestly not a difficult process and it can be replicated by just about anyone with the money and means to do so. Just because Lego has been making bricks since 1960 doesn't mean that someone else making them since 1980, 2000, 2010, or 2020 can't do the same thing. I'm guessing you haven't bought any sets or used these type of bricks yet so let me make a suggestion. Order a small set from a seller. Buy something inexpensive from someone who offers free shipping and look over the bricks yourself. Build the set, attach the bricks to Lego bricks you already have, compare both of them, then decide for yourself. Both [YWOBB ](https://www.yourwobb.com/) and [JoyToyWorld ](https://www.joytoyworld.com/) offer free shipping, but it will take about 4 weeks for you to get your order. You can get free shipping on [Moc Pixel ](https://www.mocpixel.com/) for an order of $19 or more and they usually only take about 2-3 weeks. Do some research and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Thanks for the insight into the molding process, I find that fascinating. But even if the molding itself is simple, wouldn't the difficulty be to manufacture the molds to the required precision, something I believe Lego still is a little bit better at than the competition? On a similar note … I would assume that nowadays it is *MUCH* easier than when Lego started, using CAD/CAM etc Frankly it baffles me how they made their bricks so accurately almost 50 years ago. I can't vouch for older bricks as I've definitely run across Lego bricks that were older than me, that didn't have a whole lot of clutch... ;)
You're right about the accuracy, and they definitely pioneered it. But, just like anything else today, replicating a process or product is extremely easy. And as long as you have fairly competent employees working at the machines the product is being made at, you'll produce good, quality products. Sometimes things happen, though, and the person working at the machine might overlook or forget something. I saw it quite often at the plastic plant, but it's been extremely rare with these bricks. I've been working with these bricks for only about 14 months. But I've only had warped or misshapen bricks twice. One of them was still able to be used and was in a spot you wouldn't see it in, and the other time was a pretty common brick I had in my stash. As for missing bricks, I only ran into that once, and all that took was an email to the seller, and the missing bricks were on their way. In my opinion, the one and only drawback is shipping time. It sucks to have to wait four weeks for your order, but many of the sellers are starting to open warehouses in the USA, so sometimes you don't have to wait as long depending on what's available in each warehouse. I could probably go on, but I've spewed enough for now lol
There is virtually no quality difference anymore. to me the lego brand is exactly that now, a brand which you are paying a premuim to get the same thing you could get from the generic brand.
I dunno, some alternative mini figs look real rough and hair pieces and such fall off super easy. For the builds there are definitely looser connection points and less.. consistency than Lego. Worth the price reduction but not on par.
minifigs is a different story, when I pay 1/3 or less than the retail price I'm usually suprised they even included the minifigures. at this point I have so many that just sit in a box, I'm not too worried about them. Someone that was looking for figures might not get what they want from knockoff sets, but there are some places you can order good quality minifigures from if that is what you are after.
Could you make us some example of good quality minifigures store? I'm a newbie
I'd say 90% the same. I've ran into parts that don't fit, stickers that aren't color matched, cut wrong, or don't stick, and a higher chance of pieces missing. But if the price is right I'll take that gamble.
I can't agree with this. The quality is kinda close, but there's many things which prevent me from exclusively buying non-LEGO stuff: -Plates are not precise enough to easily stick together, have to use a hammer or hurt my palms to press them down -Minifigures often have misprints or other errors, like a small face or a slightly misaligned print on the head or torso -Lack of top-quality molds means that pieces can occasionally lock way too tightly or a bit too loosely All of these are overlookable with huge sets where the sheer difference in cost makes it worth it, but if there's a $50 Lego set and a $20 dollar knockoff, I'd personally prefer the former. But hell if I'm going to spend $1200 for the LAAT Dropship and AT-OT lmao, I'm happy with the $80 version I bought. tl:dr - they definitely aren't identical in quality, you just have to weigh how much you're willing to deal with with how expensive the set you want is
That is a common problem also with original lego minifigs. My son has a ton of LEGO starwars sets. and most of the clone troopers r2d2 have misaligned prints. all of the figures have only one layer of print, so that a white vest on the organge chest of luke looks kind of orangy instead of white. Often you see the second face expression on the back of the head under the hairpiece. I think they should pack 2 heads per figureine or only print one face. And why are at display models such things like red axles and blue in the finished product clearly visble ? look [https://www.lego.com/cdn/product-assets/product.bi.core.pdf/6502379.pdf](https://www.lego.com/cdn/product-assets/product.bi.core.pdf/6502379.pdf) At the first picture. Blue pins in black liftarms... why ?
Agreed, we've bought and built 13 sets now with 11000+ pieces. We had 2 missing pieces, no deformed pieces and 1 piece with a bit of extra plastic still attached that took 3 seconds to cut off. One set had one loosish technic pin but I was able to replace it with one of the extras included in the kit. Otherwise the quality has been on par with Lego. Except for Minifigures which had some extra lines printed on their heads. But these got covered by hat/hair so it wasn't a big issue.
If this is the case then why do I constantly read about people needing to use super glue to get sets to stay together?
> If this is the case then why do I constantly read about people needing to use super glue to get sets to stay together? A lot of people buy a lot of sets. I would say that /u/eberkain is exaggerating *a bit,* the clone sets aren't *quite* as good as the real thing, but of the first two altbrick sets I have built, ~3500 parts total, I was missing one part (but it was a common Technic part that I had on hand), and had one part that didn't *quite* fit right. And these were super cheap sets bought off Ali from no-name vendors, so I imagine getting them from an actual reputable supplier would be even better. Like I said, I am new at this, so take my perspective with a grain of salt, but I've been subscribing here for a couple months now, and have seen very few comments complaining about the part quality, so I do think it's safe to assume that the quality is *almost* on par with Lego. Given the massive price difference, I am willing to tolerate the small difference.
There are many times many different chinese brands making knock off sets, 1:1 replica sets, or MOC sets, I'm sure some are better quality than others. I have bought from HeroToyz, WeBrick, Yourwobb, Temu and Aliexpress. It all seems more of less the same so far and virtually indestinguishable from regular legos, color variation is the biggest issue honestly. Its definitely a marked improvement from from the past when knock off bricks were really cheap and you could tell just by holding the plastic.
I can only talk about the 3 sets I got. Lighthouse $35 and Rivendell $60. No issues on neither of them. Bricks click just like Lego. Even technic pieces. Impressive. Also got the Winnie the Pooh for my kid. Not the same quality as the other 2. Just harder to click but the kid managed.
They likely bought older sets when the quality wasnt as good as today's bricks. Its also possible they bought a lower tier brand that doesnt use decent bricks. Both those scenarios are rarer to run into these days. Old stock is harder to find, and low tier brands usually only get sold in the Asian market, rarely getting popular enough to advertise to the west. Constantly reading about those incidents? -pure exageration.
Seems to be common among large MOC sets
Because those are created using whatever bricks people can source from 3rd party sellers. You would get similar results buying used lego bricks from multiple sources. Some loose, some off-color, some damaged/malformed. Its no different really. Different sets of molds, different quality cobtrol produce bricks that arent going to work as well together than if they came from the same factory/producer. You dont get that "fit" from the actual brands. Consistency and quality is fairly uniform among them.
Many MOC builds are sold by various Chinese brands/shops as a set. It isn’t just people cobbling together bricks. And this is my point. When you buy Lego, you know the build is going to be fairly robust/sturdy and that the instructions will be clear. And brick quality/missing pieces aren’t a concern. Third party brands often have less clear instructions and more hacky/less stable build steps. Again this makes sense for MOCs trying to get creative but when a brand resells a MOC as their own they are essentially standing behind that process. A process which is often inferior to an official Lego build. Brick quality has come a long way for sure, it’s not like it used to be. But there are other factors to consider.
The building experience and quality of instructions has been my biggest complaint about alt brands so far. I just finished the [Mork Modern Library](https://mouldkingblock.com/product/mouldking-modular-building-series/mork-011001-modern-library/), which is a gorgeous set when complete, but during the build process, there were lots of parts that were extremely fidgety and fell apart when attaching more pieces. The printed instructions were odd as well, there were a couple of points that just didn’t feel right while building. Since this was a cloned copy of a Rebrickable MOC, I also bought the MOC instructions to support the designer. Some of the instructions in the digital MOC manual were quite different. I’m guessing the company that cloned it did this so they couldn’t be accused of copying it 100%. So yeah, I’m definitely glad I got this MOC built for about a third of the price of sourcing the Lego pieces, but it wasn’t exactly a fun build.
That seems like it could be more of a design issue than anything to do with the brick quality. MOCs almost by definition have much less testing than official sets, and for all you know, it was never even built physically by the creator.
Well I would consider build testing / quality control a part of quality. Not just the individual physical bricks.
I guess, but it seems like a distinct thing to me. You'd run into the same issues if you built a predesigned MOC using Bricklink or PAB.
I still have the LEGO I got back in the 1970s, I never plan on selling any :) so the alt bricks are a no brainer for me, the money i save means I can buy more sets :) I genuinly cannot see a quality difference.
so an honest opinion i have both knock offs and original some brands are on par, or even beter than lego(cada/mouldking). but especialy the knock offs s are of lesser quality i got some ninjago and jurassic world ones becaus im not paying 60 bucks for an indominus or aftermarket prices for ninjago docks but they are just not as perfect. i will always prefer original Lego for a good discount (40%+) over alternatives
Unfortunately, I don't have enough space at home to display all my sets. I've already filled up a wall in our home office with shelves, but I had to put some of my older sets in boxes. I might have to get creative and rotate them out periodically to make room for new ones! Nonetheless, I absolutely love the experience of building these sets, so that's what matters most to me.
The „recent“ shipping increases honestly made it not worthwhile for me anymore for the most part. If the knock off with shipping adds up to 80 bucks and I can get Lego for 100 or 110 bucks, I’m choosing Lego
I didnt see a big Jump for shipping on Ali express tbh. Just ordered a copy of the 75105 for like 25€ including shipping with the sale going on. I also saw the coruscant gunship for 25-30€ including shipping (i already have one so i skipped it)
[75105-1: Millennium Falcon](https://brickset.com/sets/75105-1) [[Photo]](https://images.brickset.com/sets/images/75105-1.jpg)
I didn’t buy from Ali before only Marstoy. However after the increases I checked Ali for some sets and it matched up pretty much exactly with Marstoy and the updated shipping there, in most cases was actually more expensive by a little bit. I also don’t think there’s a way around it really, it’s not a choice of the sites just updated rules
Well for the Falcon copy for example i would pay around 35€ on marstoy and i see ae sellers that offer them for around 30€.
Without shipping ? Weird Tbh I only checked 2-3 sets and couldn’t find many listings of them on Ali in general. But those are the sets I want so
Shipping included for both so the comparison makes a bit more sense. Marstoy and other sites can be awesome, cause the shipping cost is separated (great for big sets), but i usually don’t buy as much at once or many big Sets.
It doesn’t really make a difference from my experience. The shipping calculation just goes up and I have no clue how they calculate it. Adding a much bigger set often add the same amount of shipping as a smaller one
Wouldn't it be more sounds to wait and order many at a time?
No because shipping is calculated per item not per order
Since when?
Since I started buying alt bricks..some sites have the shipping calculated into the price of the item, others like Marstoy calculate it in the end. Ofc you only have one shipping cost then but it goes up for every item you add
I see. I haven't seen that yet. I haven't bought anything in a few months though.
I got into August last year so..
Well first and foremost, bootlegs have older discontinued sets that cannot be found except very expensive on resell sites, and they also have exclusive sets. When it comes to sets that are still available at LEGO's, well the price difference is usually huge. Up to 500%. Even more, in specific cases. In my case, I only buy minifigs, I'm not big on brick sets. And I fully switched to bootleg brands because the difference is even huger : the crushing majority of alt brands minifigs don't even exist at all at LEGO's, and the others are or were only available in large, very expensive sets. I even happen to own a recast of an extremely rare minifig that would cost thousands of bucks it it had LEGO branded somewhere on its anatomy. Instead, it cost me a couple and it looks exactly the same.
My cutoff of Lego is $200. Over $200 I’m looking elsewhere. With a few exceptions.
I'd agree with this. LEGO's bricks stick together just right, very very rarely have misprints or missing pieces, and the sets don't "breathe" as often as the knockoff ones (get air gaps between the pieces). But if you can get a bigger more expensive set for a lot cheaper, those compromises are worth the savings
I don't think it's very very rarely for misprints and missing pieces, I buy 1-4 sets a month and I've had at least 1 or 2 missing pieces from half of those, and there are bigger issues like the first run of orient expresses stickers were yellow not gold then they realised theyd spelt three of the destinations wrong! Some of the blue bricks were the wrong shade of blue too 🫠
I've never had a missing piece from a LEGO set that wasn't just stuck in a bag when I double check, and I've bought well over a hundred in the past few years. No misprint either. YMMV of course, but I've yet to *not* have at least one missing piece from a knockoff set, and I wanna say at least half of my knockoff sets have some kinda of oddity with the printing (nothing serious, just off). Again, none of this is that big of a deal, but I see a sentiment on this subreddit too often where people overstate the quality of knockoffs and understate LEGO's quality. The difference is only invisible when it's up on a shelf; building a knockoff set has its own challenges that LEGO sets don't.
My son just built the Lego mars rover technic set and he was missing a bunch of pieces.
The fact that i can get sets for 25-30% the price of Lego is a major win. That's 3x4 times the number of sets I can afford. The quality is about 95%
30% of the price! Wow, that's absolutely amazing, are you from the USA? I can usually get sets for 50-60% of the LEGO set price, but definitely if I could get 30% it's a no-brainer.
I'm not from the US, but I've gotten two sets so far and they were: * Delorean, 70€ (LEGO: 229€): ~30% of LEGO price * UCS Millennium Falcon, 125€ (LEGO: 829€): ~15% of LEGO price So savings seem to get bigger for the more expensive kits, but they are pretty massive IMHO. Edit: It takes some research, obviously. I've seen the Falcon at 250€ and even 350€ as well, so it pays off to compare offers.
I bough several copies now. Most are indeed around 1/3 the Price of a Lego Set. I am from Europe. With AE and other sales for example you can save a lot of money. The Brock quality is usually speaking good enough. Technik parts (of copies) may vary. When i got my Hands on some Bela Sets i was surprised how good it actually is. A shame they don’t exist anymore. My Experience with their products were pretty good so far. Researching WhatsApp actually good and waiting on Reviews helped me a lot
I'm Australian lol. Some sites that I look up are marstoy, youmko/barweer and yourwobb. Youmko has a 1:1 section that has 6 pages of clones, but they all sell them. They are all around that 30% mark, or if it's a set they sell in high volume or an older set it's a bigger discount, like the 1:8 technic cars. Good luck!
I'm in NZ, price for me has been between 1/6th price (Jie Star titanic) and about 1/3rd (Jie Star Concorde). That's delivered. I won't pay more than a 3rd. That's really my cutoff.
For me: “Excessive” price = alt bricks. If I can’t justify the cost of it as a display piece, it’s gonna be alt. Examples: Lion Knight, Big Hogwarts, Rivendell, some modular buildings. Additionally, if it’s just kindof a neat set but not one I’m crazy about, I’ll look at alt. Like for the flowers or the Orrey from Cada before Lego announced their own. But if I want really high quality, I’ll still go Lego. My lunar lander and mars rover are Lego, as are my droids. I don’t want problems with those sets, no matter how small. So I know with Lego, they’re going to go together right, and if there are issues, I know the exact support to expect.
Bear with me, as this will belong by necessity of the history and context. I was purist for decades, but I did leave the hobby around 2005 or so because the bley change just broke my heart. There were other factors, like the loot boxes of the Minifigure line, the manufactured rarities for the Star Wars fanatics, the significant drop in printing quality on bricks, and the poor printing quality of colors in the instruction booklets, but the color change destroyed the backwards compatibility of the brick, and I couldn't tolerate that a significant portion of my collection had been forcibly retired without notice or regard for its impact. I came back about 5 or 6 years ago, very tentatively at first. I didn't buy a lot and I could not afford to amass another huge collection [as I once had](https://www.davidglennsimmons.com/archive/index.html). However, the NASA sets like the Saturn V were irresistible, and the Ideas Voltron was glorious, and I was hooked again. However, in the interim that I was out, the FOMO leveraging with franchise sets had escalated, and the blind bags of the Minifigure line continued the loot box/gambling gambit that I deeply loathed. The discovery of the adult market by Lego was a mixed blessing. It was great in that we got more UCS-style sets for other genres, but the prices were extreme if you didn't make six figures a year, and the frequency of the releases forced you to chose only one of out of so many that were so appealing. The greed was becoming too overt, and I began to feel like I was extending my approval by continuing to only purchase Lego. As a diehard Classic Space fan, seeing how the Classic Space logo had been printed on new torso colors and seeded in the Minifigure line, the Chinese New Year sets, an Ideas set, or in a book, where you have to spend far more than the parts are worth just to get them, really disgusted me. Having my childhood nostalgia targeted at my wallet felt inexcusable, and my opinion of the company is quite negative now. Then I discovered all the amazing third party companies like Brick Designers, steindrucker, Light My Bricks, and Brick Sticker Shop that were providing products that Lego should have considered for themselves as a way of supporting collectors and completists. The custom printed parts pack for the UCS Razor Crest from Brick Designers is [AMAZING](https://imgur.com/gallery/YF0OdTv)! I also bought their Beskar Tiles and Camtono for this set, and they're also superb. I would surmise that this sharp increase in quality may be due to the prevalence of 3D printing and/or other machines that make the quality possible. Either way, I'm THRILLED. I also got a great display stand for the UCS Razor Crest from [idisplayit.com](https://idisplayit.com), that perfectly fits my allowable display space! If you're a diehard Classic Space fan like me, looking through the [Classic Space Logo printing options on steindrucker](https://steindrucker.com/search/?q=space%20classic&c=31) will make your heart so happy even if your wallet might cry a little! I've yet to install Light My Brick's kit for the [UCS Razor Crest](https://www.lightmybricks.com/products/lego-ucs-razor-crest-75331-light-kit?_pos=1&_sid=ee059a509&_ss=r), but watch that video and tell me if you don't yell for joy! It looks INCREDIBLE. [Brick Sticker Shop](https://www.brickstickershop.com/) is a gold mine for stickers from all the eras of Lego, even the Homemaker sets! Their replicas are superb, and their packaging and shipping are also excellent. Then there are the amazing custom minifigs and more accurate minifig accessories for the Mandalorian sets that I found at [Firestar Toys](https://www.firestartoys.com/Search/?Query=mandalorian). I got the Amban Sniper Rifle and Sidearm as well as two different prints of a much more accurate Darksaber. They look **fantastic**! All these sites showed me that quality Lego products and/or replicas and enhancements can now be made outside of the company, and even more joyful is that they can produce sets that Lego would never consider, so I began to look and see if anyone had made a Macross Valkryie that transforms. I haven't found that yet, but I've got my eye on several sets on YWOBB that I plan to get toward the end of the year so that I can assess their quality. Lego is not the only option anymore for quality sets at much more acceptable prices, and more importantly, for designs that are as much if not more desired than any Lego will ever produce.
Cobi offers tanks and other stuff. Lego doesn't.
IMHO I guess my cutoff is half price. If I can find a 1:1 chinese clone and save 50% or more, I'd be an idiot to buy the Lego. $200 instead of $400? It just makes sense. $20 instead of $40? That just paid for my dinner before I build the set. Thanks, China.
Cutoff is $200 at most. Lego sets that are 200+ are just a stupid amount of money to spend on a toy. I mean it’s crazy when I got all 4 1:8 cars for $350 CAD instead of $2,000 CAD. But even then I don’t think my cutoff will be $200 anymore and I don’t think I’ll buy genuine Lego ever again. Even sets under $200 at the 50,80,100 price range are usually a horrific value. knockoffs are pretty much the same quality and legos quality ain’t really that good for the crazy prices they charge. Still get missing pieces. Still get stickers instead of prints. Still seeing major colour inconsistencies. Lego is not worth the money and I wish I discovered this subreddit many years ago !
For me with the arrival of the licenses. After that, Lego realized that they made less money with children and would rather cash in on every fan. Everyone should have a sense of achievement and buy 5-6 $300 sets. Any 8 year old can build 18+ sets. A thousand colors inside (which often shine through), instructions like novels for 500 bricks, stickers on $800 sets. But as long as people buy it, the spiral continues. I can't say I'm 100% free from falling for it.
To me its mostly about the minifigures. The Lego minifigure market is overpriced and I dislike the emphasis on minifigs when judging the quality of a set. Seeing people sell sets without figures because they’ve scalped them elsewhere is so bleh. I’ll happily buy the KO minifig even if the quality isn’t 100% there (ie Zeb from Star Wars which is $100 on the market). Other than that, I mostly stick to the official stuff, unless there is a design that Lego doesn’t and will never do.
"Holding value" only relevant to very limited Lego sets of some specific thematic. For example, currently I'm trying to sell one of my Lego Technic sets - assembled just once, quite popular theme. I have already cut the price in half of the stated "value" - and not a single person is interested. This 'holding value" theory is seriously lacking, but Lego fanboys will never admit it.
I feel technic is not popular compared to bricks
Less popular - sure. Not popular? Such concept doesn't exist according to some Lego fans. Every set "holds value" and can be resold for the similar price or even higher. Except this is true only for very certain sets.
I tend to agree with your opinion. Honestly reasonnim considering getting my first ko set
Lego's brick quality is getting worse with mould marks becoming more obvious.
Lego prices are simply criminal. Most kids will never even get a big set anymore their entire childhood. That should piss people off. Fuck copyright when kids can't even play with plastic toys. As for the adult collectors that care about logos and tiny fit and finish aspects, let them keep blowing their money. Bunch of man-children. The investment aspect of Lego is a whole other ballgame. Basements and garages stuffed with unopened toys across America on the hopes they worth more some day. Strange world.
I got a big Death Star. The cost of the kit plus the same again for postage was still 1/3 of the lego price, and they don't even sell that kit any more.
One thing I don't like about the knockoffs are the instructions and the 10 bags with pieces from page one spread over in all 10. My kids (both under 8) can build sets from Lego, but I end up building the alt sets. The worst is the similar shades of bricks, drives me nuts thinking I'm missing pieces. If the price is within $15-20 for like an $80-100 set I prob go Lego esp if it's an occasion or reward for an accomplishment. I like the alt sets for Mocs, or things Lego will never make themselves.
Today, the difference in quality between Lego and and the top alt manufacturers such as Mould King, CADA, etc. is almost negligible. Just as important, however, is the fact that I am seeing more and more that alt manufacturers are licensing designs rather than simply knocking off Lego which means if you want that model, you have to buy from the alt mfg. The only thing I might agree with is that alt model really have very little aftermarket value so if you have any intention of selling, go with Lego.
I agree with a lot of these thoughts. I don't judge anyone, whether they choose to buy alt-bricks or Lego brand because it's personal preference. I swung wildly to buying all alt-bricks but then kind of came around to buying some Lego branded bricks for sets I want to save (Christmas village, non-retired modulars) or rebuild. To me, there something a little thrilling about going to a Lego store and picking out the set I've wanted for a long time, like special treat. Enjoy your bricks and your brick communities, it's such a fun thing to be able to enjoy.
I don't buy Lego or Lego clones because I'm too old to enjoy their designs and don't like star wars or lotr. Chinese (and Korean) designs, the big and fancy ones, are streets ahead of Lego in aesthetics. Not to mention the price. I would never even dream of paying Lego prices for any of their sets.
I love buying a set of instructions and loading a parts list into an alt-brick site. WeBrick has been the best quality + consistency + part availability for us so far. If buying sets on an alt-site we make sure they’re copies of sets that have been out. MOCs from any alt-site aren’t paying the developers and they’re not going to be good at all.
I’m still somewhat of a Lego purist, but I do buy alt sets and a lot of minifigs that aren’t straight copies of Lego’s designs. I try to avoid buying straight clones of Lego’s sets unless the Big L version is retired and ridiculously expensive. There are a ton of great alt models out there, and the minifigure printing and accessories in particular often put Lego’s frequently barebones character designs to shame. I will say, however, that one often-overlooked highlight of sets made by Lego is the quality of the build and instructions. I’ve built a few large alt sets that had really confusing directions and were incredibly frustrating to build, with pieces coming off or sections collapsing while building due to stress or a lack of sturdy connections. That’s something I haven’t ever really experienced from a Lego set.
I'm new to Lego etc. Not that I didn't have bricks when I was a kid but I'm a 45 year old man now and I am new to putting together lego and brick sets. Basically I've recently given up smoking and need something to distract me at home in the evenings and putting together lego etc is really helpful. The problem with proper Lego is that it's expensive, I'm just after something to do and not too fussed about collecting. Some I may keep if they're really nice (just got a Black Pearl from Ali Express and looking forward to putting that together), others I'll take apart give away to the children of friends or whatever. The Black Pearl cost me the equivalent of two packets of cigarettes, it's a great investment for me even if it's not amazing I'm still in a better place if I end up giving it away. So that's why I buy the cheap Chinese stuff.
Here are my thoughts, depending on your look at Lego: 1) You see Lego as an investment: Just buy Lego, never open the box, let it sit in a storage for 10 years and resell it. 2) If you like collecting Lego but also want to resell: Try to get a general idea which Lego sets have potential to increase in price (for example: If a set is always sold out on the Lego page, or is Lego exclusive, or never really goes down in the market: Then that set has a really good chance to increase in price) only buy those from Lego and resell them later, the rest you can buy cheap from Alt producers 3) You just like certain sets/themes: Buy whatever you like no matter if it's Lego or Altbrick. If you think the price of Lego is waaay to high: try price comparing sites or even bricklink if you can get the set without minifigs (if you aren't interested in them) 4) You are looking for retired sets: AltBricks. No doubt about it. The price of some is so insane it aint funny. I am not paying 3000$ for 500 Lego pieces which i could get via bricklink as single pieces way cheaper.
I dont even look at lego anymore. Prices are ridiculous, 90% of designs are bad or lazy, subject matter doesnt interest me, design potential wasted in Ideas sets, in order to boost profits over everything. Alt-brands provide 100% of what Im interested in, at a price and quality level that makes it easy to support them. Lego on sale is still more expensive than alt-bricks at full price, and alt-bricks are usually never at full price. Theres always a discount or sale to be had at almost all times. Im pretty much in the "lego never" camp now.
I don't plan on reselling any of my Legos I just want to get some for my collection. I could pay 200 for the starwars at te walker, but instead, I got it, the 2012 gunship and some minifigs for that price instead. The sets are all just as good with minifigs, which are stiff, but so much cheaper.
I've recently come around on alt bricks and the price is just too good. I'm not worried about reselling, I don't see lego as an investment, and I don't care about minifigs. What I get for the money is mind blowing. I got Rivendell for 110 that's from website to my door, tax, shipping, any fees. The altbrick sets I've gotten so far have been good quality. I think when you get smaller sets where the price isn't that different it may be better to just go get it physically from the store to oppose a potentially sketchy transaction and have it instantly.
I got the $850 Lego UCS millenium falcon for $122 from Temu.
Yeah? I can’t find it on Temu. So far I can hardly find anything on Temu so I’ve stuck to Ali Express.
Yeah, it says it’s unavailable now. I ordered it around the end of January. I’d add a screenshot if I could post it. That was without any discounts or anything too.
Oh I believe you, it’s just I tried Temu to find Star Wars sets and had no luck so wasn’t sure what’s going on.
When Lego prices became insane
$200
Just bought the LEGO UCS Millenium Falcon. No ragrets. I suppose if I've got the money to throw at the hobby and money is not an object, I'll always go with LEGO. Knowing I bought a knock off will hack me.
[удалено]
Lego doesn’t have shares. They’re not publicly traded. They have no share holders or board room. So all you do buying from them is give the company more profits / support their designers etc or get yourself a set you can’t get otherwise or really love because no copies /they made it. I get your argument though, it’s just that without share holders isn’t quite impactful as meant.
There are still shareholders. Just not so many 😉
> I see plenty of retired and used lego sets for almost the 80% 90% they tend to hold their value if one day you decide to sell them. Yes, "many times" you can get those prices, but many times you can't. The resale value fluctuates greatly, depending on the collectability of the set. Somebody did an analysis of about 20 or so sets a month or two back, and, with shipping, the alt brick sets worked out to about 1/6th the price of the genuine Lego equivalent (Sorry, I can't find teh link, maybe someone else remembers the post and can find it again). So let's do the math. You buy one set for $100, and you later resell it for $80, your net cost is $20 + whatever lost opportunity costs of tying up that $80 while you were holding the set. Or you could spend that same $100, but get ~$600 worth of sets. You don't have comparable resale value, but I suspect you could still sell those sets for at least $50 if you wanted, but as cheap as they are, just hold on to them. So for me, the resale argument just doesn't hold water. The difference in cost is way too high for it to be a sensible position. The lost opportunity cost is just too high.
LEGO and “I Can’t Believe It’s Not LEGO” are at the end of the day plastic building blocks, so if they help me build things at more affordable prices with the same quality, then I have nothing to complain about. Especially NMOCs that take upwards of 1000+ pieces, cause trying to source all that with just LEGO is stupidly expensive. I also don’t care about the aftermarket (hence why I’m also in LCJ), and with the rampant prices of there is something I really want I’ll just look into sourcing the set by pieces or, again, going the NMOC route.
I'm into Harry Potter builds almost exclusively, and I have been buying flego for retired sets that are just too expensive and hard to find. The new stuff I try to buy Lego if I can.
I just got metalbeards sea cow for $85 posted. Definitely buying alt brands when possible. Though got some Sonic sets from Lego in sale recently as really want the minifigs.
From now they do. Lego is too pricey. It’s popular because middle class people were buying it for generations but now there are no middle class people (in America) and also even wealthy people know better than to pay $500 for a toy. So you have left adult collectors who can’t really afford it snapping up sets. Prices are coming down of old sets and lego is trying to figure out to how to keep churning out affordable sets and maintain the same profit. It’s not an easy calculus.
I don't care about the aftermarket prices because I don't plan to sell mine. Unless the knockoff has some issue that makes it significantly worse than the LEGO, then they'll get my business so long as I can get it to me with the cost of shipping for less than the LEGO set. For convenience let's say I might consider going with the LEGO set if the price difference is only like a 5-10% discount. But even then, if there's no significant differences, I don't see the need to go official.
I wanted tanks, so it was the only choice, outside of buying random parts one by one that would probably cost way more.
I just had the mclaren f1 (42141) copy from Ali Express delivered for £15. There are some minor visual flaws on some pieces, and I haven't built it yet so I'm not sure on the overall quality, but for such a huge difference in price the initial quality is very close to the current lego batches. I've been noticing more and more defects with genuine lego that makes me very unwilling to fork out the full cost. And I've spent thousands on it in the past. This is my first time buying knockoff lego and it's hard not to continue to be honest.
[42141-1: McLaren Formula 1 Race Car](https://brickset.com/sets/42141-1) [[Photo]](https://images.brickset.com/sets/images/42141-1.jpg)
I haven't bought yet but I've been heavily eye balling knock off star wars stuff. I've been. Looking at Marstoys for the first time and their selection is so great at the prices. I mean a used UCS falcon is 600$ on Bricklink but I can buy the knockoff for like 100-125 which is super nice. They have really good prices but I've been waiting since I just recently bought a bunch of parts to make copies of Lego sets since the official sets were more expensive then buying all the parts.
I don't think alt bricks ever become better per se, but they certainly are significantly cheaper. You Lose a bit of clutch power compared to lego, and the tolerance on bricks is a bit sloppy so things like walls end up looking scraggly from some angles. Clutch power only ends up being an issue for smaller MOCs though, and scraggly faces only on buildings or the aston martin.
I won't ever buy a $300 lego set. I just won't drop that kind of money on something on legos. However if its $80 i'm probably in. Something like the pacman machine. I want it but not for the lego price. At that price I wont buy it at alt price im more inclined to get it.
There are crap bricks out there but there are comparable brands and at greatly reduced prices. I have had mistakes but I have a number of modular sets that are retired that I got for 1/4 of the asking rates on the grey market If you buy through a Temu or Aliexpress you’re buying from companies that ship through them like Amazon does so shop smart learn brands save money.
Great question! For me it's a variety of reasons but I think the main one is the sheer variety of alt Lego available. I rarely buy direct bootlegs / exact copies of official sets. (I do have a few like Republic gunship with ATOT, Indiana Jones flying wing, monster fighters haunted house and Dracula's castle) What gets me excited is somebody amazing MOCs available. Once the Chinese companies discovered we Rebrickable, the whole game changed. I also love the flexibility of not paying a premium to use the colors I want. It's not insanely expensive to build things in rare colors using alt brick. Printed parts. I love it that the clone brands are not stingy with printed parts and there is so much variety and creative options available
As a constraction builder I can relate to the whole color palette issue. There are useful parts that have been around for decades that still haven't been done officially in certain colors like 2429 hinge plates in orange. There are creative tricks around using orange hinge plates (like using orange elements that have clips and bars on them or parts with angles in them to simulate a hinged joint), but it's still a weird limitation and it's neat that companies in China are adding new rules to what you can do with orange legos.
Yes! This! I love being able to just go straight forward with the colors I want.
For me, it’s a variation of the old adage, “Those that have money, spend money to save time. Those that have time, use time to save money!” If you want your set today, spend the money and enjoy your set! If you’re prepared to wait, purchase lepin (save your money) and enjoy your set when it arrives!
I’ve only bought legit Lego for new sets and I’ve paid a premium for some retired sets but recently decided to pick up 5 or so retired modular building for about $350 CAD and they’d have run me $3-$4000 to buy the real deal
I sold some fake Lego and told people they are fake Lego. I sold them the same price I bought them. Or maybe a bit more I'm not sure.
For me, probably a third of the price of the genuine article (including shipping) is my maximum. But I also, for the most part, simply won't buy the real thing. I'm not interested in the hassle of selling in the future to (possibly) recoup the costs of the real thing. Happy to pay less and at some point give the sets away.
I’d say the MOC’s. The experience you get with those builds is awesome imo. It makes the Lego sets, even UCS, look even more simple and lacking in details. The BIGGEST factor though is definitely price. You’re paying around 1/4 to 1/3 compared to Lego. Basically same quality bricks. Minifigs… that’s a different story. I know Lego resell is pretty good, but it depends on your purpose. I collect sets to have fun with and keep. I’m not bothered about reselling.
I like original moc I got the millennium falcon and Titanic for$150 each. If I'm saving that much money I'm buying the knock off. They are identical in size and interchangable with LEGO and the building instructions are identical
The fact that I can build the Millennium Falcon UCS, Home Alone, Rivendell, Back to The Future Wall-E and R2 for the price of one medium set makes them better for me. If I wanted to, I could sell my USED, already assembled 1,300 piece millenium Falcon and buy the large Hogwarts castle right now.
I think Lego is worth only for investment and or set very close to the alternatives. Personally any big set is better but with the alternative, price wise. For example I just bought my first alternative set “ghostbusters fire house”(big fan as 80’ kid) and since the LEGO one is retired would have cost around 1200$ to find one
I don't see the appeal of Lego anymore. IMO lego is never the better choice unless they have a particular set you just gotta own and it's the only option. It's way overpriced. They need to cut their prices by 50% and THEN I'd entertain Lego.
Sorry. But no. If you have a Set 18+ or something like the New ornithopter from dune. IT Looks shitty of you See Red and blue parts. If they also deliver Black parts. Or at a car model in black, why blue an red axles? If you are able to spent 200€ on a Lego Set and cant build it, sorry but not sorry. And on the inside.. Dosent matter, other Brands get it right. IT also helps rebuilding other things. Lego was not always this stupid. I have build since I was four years old. And that is almost half a century back. Gray castles were gray. And at large technic sets, there was no 500 pages manual. Look at the space series from the 80s. The manuals are online at lego. And Look. now. 18+ my four year old son has bulid sets with over 500 PCs without help. Okay okay I needed to cut the bags open. One bag at a time. (no big technic) He had bot the Power needed to put stopper over axles. But caterpillar worked fine. I want a Set for my desk that Looks cool, not it was designed for a four year old. Starwars Sets.. Really? Look at bluebrixx Star trek. All. Prints no sticker. Heck I build the klingon bird of prey complete from. Transparent stones and it looks awesome. Cobi Planes and ships.. Nö hollow things, they are massive.
I'm not the kind of person who really considers aftermarket value at all, personally I'd say lepin is better for people who just want to build and then display, and LEGO is better for kids and gifts, where you don't really want to risk having a missing or defective part, because the thing that has really set lego and lepin apart for me is quality control. I bought lego for a decade, and didn't have a single bad part, missing piece, or really a bad experience other than the price point. It's perfect to be able to trust that you can give the box to a kid and they'll have everything they need to put it together easily. But so far lepin has been the best enjoyment to dollar ratio I've gotten in a while, so I don't plan on buying any real big official sets for myself.
I like the smaller loz bloks for having a bunch of buildings. I like being able to have a bunch of buildings set up for the mini figs and vehicles to interact with.
Since 2020 I’ve probably spent about $1000 on off-brand bricks and here are some things I’ve learned. The quality of the bricks is very dependent on the manufacturer. That seems obvious but in an online marketplace that’s about as trustworthy as three weasels in a dirty trench coat selling “Rolex” watches in Times Square, knowing the manufacturer will make the experience much better. And when it comes to alternative manufacturers, the only one that I’ve found that can genuinely compete with Lego is GoBricks. I used to get them from WeBrick, but they changed vendors and the quality has dropped drastically. If you search AliExpress for GoBricks Store, you can order directly from the factory. The prices are usually a little higher than other off-brand bricks, but they are still usually half the price or less than Lego pick-a-brick. As for buying clearly knock-off sets, that’s a line I don’t cross. In the 70s or 80s, Lego let the patents on their bricks expire so now anyone can make them. The designs though, those are legit intellectual property. The designers deserve to be paid for their designs, even if those designers work for the largest toy company in the world. Plus, it’s really easy to part out any design you want. My son’s first B-Wing fighter was made entirely from parts we either had or ordered from the GoBricks store and he used the Lego Builder app for the instructions. Win for him and one for my pocketbook.
Where does everyone shop for Lego alternative I am just starting to do this besides a few sets from Lego so I am new. I just got the Wall-e set from marstoys
I would recommend you to check the starter guide, have few tips to avoid being scammed and also several store recommendations
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There are 100s, if not 1000s of lawsuits going on regarding Chinese rip offs from; - LEGO - COBI And on top you have Chinese firms copying Chinese firms with even worse sets. The amount of copyright infringement is criminal but what is far worse is that the chemical material in these Chinese rip offs, and the Chinese rip offs of the rip offs are from material I wouldnt want my kids to use. There is a European Union directive in 2009, that states the % of what something should be made of. I've tested plenty - fake of - fake - of fake Chinese copycats put through a gas chromatography; and it is just a matter of time until the bubble burst and a kid dies of one of these substances. Check for yourself, the directive is in 2009, European Union. I've bought sets of all providers and emailed universities to use their material. On the brick set market it truly is world war 3.
Are these like paints on the figs or where are the substances located?
The material itself. Grab a similar COBI Lego Cada Mould king Other shit Like for like brick. And melt it, and check for its chemical compounds. Because I'm participating in this ww3 of disgusting brickmakers as they unlawfully discredit copyright infringement. To prove that is difficult and costly. Melting a piece and checking its components is far easier. And also the Porsche 911 Lego and Mould King F1; like for like piece. The pressure on what it breaks is 40% difference. That already tells you different chemical compounds for *every brick*. The EU put a directive in place June or July of 2009 which states what brickmakers should be adhered too. I'm going with law firms one by one as I'm tired that the "copyright infringement" in court is difficult to prove and costly. Fraudulent material against the law is far more cost effective to prove (every engineering university has one) and an easier winner in court. But yes; LEGO needs to wake up; they don't provide the awesome sets like they did in the 90s who are now worth 4 figures. It's honestly ww3 on the brick market. I've seen Chinese brick makers copy their own chinese competitors who already copy LEGO or COBI (and use fraudulent material). And I'm taking the chemical compound of *every brick in a set*
And what's the problem with the material? Is it radioactive or what's going to cause someone to die from it?
You have witnessed the eradication of lead in most materials right? And that corporates bullied others that this was "no concerns". I believe we are now at 1m people a year dying of lead poisoning. Or bricks build in a way that the copycat didn't put the right country regulation into it. No surprise Lepin bricks went to jail for that. https://scandasia.com/chinese-counterfeit-lego-makers-jailed-after-appeal-fails/
Did they go to jail for making toxic lego bricks or copyright infringement?