Brick Update

I stopped by Target the other day, and found lots of sale stickers, with really meager discounts. What was most surprising to me was that there was so much merchandise from “older” sets. Nothing was really that old, but there was still a big presence for Alien Conquest, Harry Potter, etc – themes that are on their way out, and not as prominent at other stores.

I was surprised to see these at a small independent toy store the other day: Brick Stix stickers for LEGO bricks. They are supposed to be easy to reuse. They had a variety of sets available. Interesting to see a secondary market rise out around LEGO, I know there is a huge one with things like BrickArms, but I haven’t ever seen those in stores.

I didn’t think this one aligned with the LEGO branding:

In the past few weeks, LEGO has offered some free promo polybags when you spend a certain amount of money. The Star Wars TC-14 minifig was available for a couple days around May 4th. Hulk is available for the latter part of May. I got both, but haven’t opened them yet. A nice promotion from LEGO, especially when they are “exclusive” figs. I’ve heard there are some quality control issues with Hulk. I’ll find out when I open him up…

I stopped by my local LEGO Store to get the Hulk minifig promo and check out some of the newer sets.

A surprise to everyone, the Kingdoms Chess set appeared on the shelves last week. At $50, you get more than 30 minifigs, an incredible deal for a theme we thought was dead.

LEGO Lord of the Rings hits the shelves. They didn’t have the biggest set, but all others were represented. While many adult fans are thrilled with this lineup, I can’t help but fear that they won’t be big sellers. But… with two Hobbit movies in the works, that may be the momentum needed to drive sales with kids.

LEGO Death Star… this set just won’t go away. Not that I am complaining!

R2D2 really grabs your attention:

Technic:

New Ninjago on the shelves:

Monster Fighters on display. I was wondering where they would place this in the store. Between Architecture and City I suppose makes as much sense as anything else:

Modulars and exclusives:

City with the new mining themes sets:

LEGO Friends:

The new Beach House set:

They had the monthly mini-build for sale for about $7. I don’t remember them doing this before.

Fire fighter minifigs:

My trip to Toys R Us today turned up stocked shelves with the new LEGO Lord of the Rings, Monster Fighters, Ninjago, and City sets. A tour:

Exactly a year ago, I posted a photo of my three LEGO Death Stars. Today, I can share a photo of the fourth. How can I justify all of these? Well, according to Wookieepedia, there were at least 4 death stars in existence at one point or another.

So maybe the answer of how many LEGO Death Stars is too many is: one more than I have at the moment.
🙂

I managed to pick up 5 more LEGO Shadow ARF Troopers to add to my collection. I considered grabbing more, but somehow, this seemed a “reasonable” number to buy.

New arrivals: I had placed this order before the Toys R Us deal I bumped into this week. I have an excessive amount of battle packs now!

I finally picked up LEGO Fairytale and Historic Minifigure Set #9349, 20% off at Amazon. Something about this set seems really unique, and at around $2 per minifig, a great deal. I’ll likely keep it boxed for now, so no full review:

I made a quick stop into the Rockefeller Center LEGO Store this week to check to see how their stock of Marvel Avengers sets was faring. Here is what I found:

The main entrance to the store:

The large windows that look out on Rockefeller Center:

Rockefeller Center:

It was very crowded:

Tons of people:

Technic sets:

Lots of Star Wars and Cars:

Still a sliver of Pirates of the Caribbean sets:

I am always amazed that they offer three huge Star Wars sets for sale at once. That Death Star has been around forever, and still very popular:

The new Marvel Super Heroes Avengers sets. Still a bunch in stock:

Ninjago, with plenty of red boxes:

City:

More City, with a lone Alien Conquest set on the bottom right:

“Other” LEGO stuff:

Some interesting pieces on the pick a brick wall, including dark tan tiles:

Very useful dark gray pieces:

Black tiles:

More dark gray:

Trans clear cheese slopes:

Dark gray 1×1 bricks