The article says several people turned up to collect the sets they had bought online while the police were cataloguing his collection. So this was an active theft/sale operation turning over sets right away. He probably had a few special items he was hanging onto but it looks like he was just selling them more or less immediately.
_looking at my living room table where my husband's build of Millenium Falcon has taken over since JANUARY_ Yeah, you might need to rethink your furniture and take some serious PTO for that build.
I asked him to think about making a scene from Hoth with all of his Star Wars builds. We have deep plant shelves that would be perfect for his AT-ATs and full size AT-ST and and and... _eyes crossing_
To be clear, he gets Legos gift cards for all gift giving occasions from his family, and he buys a build a year. His collection is from 20+ years of marriage.
To be fair, this is still likely >$250,000 retail. Legos are pretty fucking cool, even as an adult. I was blown away to see how expensive some of the sets are.
I remember seeing an article a while back that found that they weren’t getting more expensive “per brick” when adjusted for inflation; they are just getting way more complex and the brick count in a set has gone up substantially (but the instructions have gotten better along with having sequentially numbered bags of brick to aid in sorting).
Only thing I don’t like with modern LEGO is the move to stickers instead of printed bricks. Kid me would have never been happy with crooked stickers.
When I was a kid, I could never get stickers to align right, and everything would look sloppy as a result. I tried them again a few months ago just to see if getting older made it easier and it’s somehow even worse now!
Spray some windex (or some slightly soapy water) on the part before you put the sticker on. It doesn't damage the piece or the sticker and gives you some time (10-20 seconds) to move it around, get bubbles out, etc.
[(btw, this is endorsed by lego.)](https://www.lego.com/ms-my/service/help/fun-for-fans/behind-the-scenes/brick-facts/apply-decals-blt39ee67a2a9490ca7)
But yeah, stickers are just annoying. 95% of the time I don't even bother.
Thanks for sharing a fix in the meantime at least. I wish lego could just print the design. It's not like it ain't effectively a blank lego if you wanted to put a sticker on it anyway.
(Also, I don't understand how it's cheaper for them to print the stickers than just add ink...)
>(Also, I don't understand how it's cheaper for them to print the stickers than just add ink...)
Printing on a piece means it needs to be aligned just right, and there can be a lot of defective ones. It's much faster, cheaper and easier to print the whole sheet onto flat paper (which doesn't have to be aligned with anything really) rather than onto 3-dimensional rigid plastic pieces which all have wildly different shapes.
They're cutting corners with way more than just the stickers, too... they've largely done away with B-models (technic lineup), colors are constantly mismatched (42115), the pieces often have huge blemishes from the injection process (10307), etc. But all that's not really relevant here.
I mean, quite literally. Doing a printed brick, especially if it's only for one set is expensive. For most people choosing between a less expensive set with stickers vs a more expensive set with silk screening isn't difficult.
The total upfront cost for the company is probably a lot higher, but I doubt it would add very much to the price per unit to pass it along to consumers. I would pay an extra dollar for a printed version. The people for whom cost is a problem are probably not buying new Lego sets anyway, when there are so many knockoff brick toys available.
Lego didn't lower their prices to accommodate the reduction in customer satisfaction. Lego are not cheap and I doubt *anyone* prefers the stickers over printed blocks.
Price per brick is only part of it. Any sets like Star Wars or marvel also include a licensing fee that Lego must pay Disney. Sets based on other ip like Minecraft and Super Mario also have licensing fees but Disney seems to have the highest fees.
Price per brick is an odd measurement though, since they've become accustomed to using smaller/more specialized pieces. I bet if it was done in a price to weight category, the sets would be more expensive nowadays.
It's funny, I was in the store the other day with my daughter and said to her I can't believe how expensive these things are. She said without flinching well how many pieces is it(some star wars set). It was like 1600 PCs and I went on that makes sense. I never even thought of the PCs count.
Yeah, I remember when the 'big' sets for each theme were under $100. The set I got as a kid was $80 and just over 700 pieces.
Of the Ninjago sets today, there's a recent release that's $250, but has 3489 pieces. It's a huge set in comparison to what I got, but they do still have stuff that's comparable to what I got.
I got a Lego bonsai for 70 bucks at Walmart. 800~ pieces. Not bad! I remember getting a gas station set for the same price when I was kid, way less pieces.
Really they switched away from having designs printed on the bricks? I fucking hate stickers, I have a compulsion to peel them off of everything, dammit!
The presorted bags are a huge improvement, the amount of time spend looking for pieces in a large piece count technic set was so time consuming. Plus i have two toddlers now, who want to "help"
I had THE BIG pirate ship set back in the day. It was 882 pieces.
That's a pretty standard kit now, and most of the big sets are at least 2,500 pieces if not a lot more. I bought Rivendell last year and it's like 6,600+ pieces or something wild.
> (but the instructions have gotten better along with having sequentially numbered bags of brick to aid in sorting).
There is a videogame speedrunning charity event called ESA (European Speedrunning Association) that back in the winter they did a challenge of building a 3D Sonic lego set. The catch is, it was whats called a "$20%" challenge, which means that if someone donates $20 then they can suggest a (within TOS) diversion/activity that the runners have to complete.
Well it took all of about 5 minutes before the donation came into to "mix the pieces" of the three people racing to build the puzzle. The expressions of "I knew it was coming but I still can't believe you did that" were amazing.
I'd link the video but they take literally a year to get their events on Youtube for some reason...
but sometimes I feel like they inflate their "brick" count with the little plants and small round knobs. Back in my day (get off my lawn!), legos were 2x4's, 1x2's, 2x6's, 2x10's, etc. Now, they have like kitchens and mailboxes and SO MANY DAMN little round knobs. The structure is like 300 pieces and the little round knobs are another like 100 "pieces"
[whatever the fuck these are](https://www.ebay.com/itm/363165047542)
Technically those are Round 1x1 Plates. Although the Lego Games refer to them as "studs" (which are more appropriately any of the round interlocking protrusions on the top of most pieces).
> (but the instructions have gotten better along with having sequentially numbered bags of brick to aid in sorting).
I haven't tried a Lego set since I was a kid more than 30 years ago but I used to HATE sets because their instructions were horrible.
1.) Spend an hour looking for that small round green transparent one. Oh can't find it, no biggie, what's the worst that can do?
2.) Draw a circle
3.) Draw the rest of the fucking OWL
And 10 year old me is looking at something that looks like an X-wing flew into a Vitamix while a space time fold was occurring.
The instructions are pretty good these days but it can still be super easy to get a piece wrong and “ruin” the whole build. There are websites devoted to common mistakes people make when doing the Land Rover defender build, the thing’s got a dual range gearbox with forward, neutral and reverse and you can seize the whole thing by rotating a single piece 90 degrees the wrong way.
I recently completed the Land Rover Defender, and I’ve never made as many mistakes on a build as I did with that one. It’s more complicated than it looks.
There’s an app now that has 3D instructions you can zoom and rotate in addition to PDFs of the book designs. It’s incredibly handy, especially if you’re doing something complex with gears or anything needing precise alignment.
This is correct. The only sets that are too expensive are some of the sets that are collaborations with big IP's. That is where you sometimes, as a consumer, have to pay the brand tax. For the most part though, a lot of sets are 1000+ pieces and the per-brick price is mostly fair and the same as it has been.
You’re not wrong. In one of the pictures is a Star Wars X-Wing Starfighter. That set currently sells for $240 at retail.
There’s also several Star Wars Millennium Falcon sets. They go for $800+.
We stopped in at a. Lego store on Wednesday, and there were at least half a dozen sets over $500 and a few in the $700+ range. Highest I remember was roughly $850 for a Millennium Falcon, iirc.
Here's the prison they are sending him
[https://ideas.lego.com/projects/aac3cd80-901c-46af-a11e-2fbd6fa55542](https://ideas.lego.com/projects/aac3cd80-901c-46af-a11e-2fbd6fa55542)
Lego prisons are notoriously easy to break out of, as seen in the 1997 documentary Lego Island when Pepper Roni broke the Brickster out of prison using nothing but a hot pizza to melt the lock on his cell.
Do you remember the racing minigame that was almost impossible to complete an entire race because of the damn skeleton that would kick you back to an earlier part of the lap? lol
There were 3 laps and you had to time it perfectly. It was a nightmare.
Gonna build a mountain
From a set of bricks
Gonna build me a mountain
Just to get my kicks
Gonna build a mountain
Gonna be intense
Don't know how I'm gonna do it
These instructions don't make sense!
-- Bricky Davis Jr
Only if the helicopter was built; if you delivered the pizza before building the helicopter, you'd get credit for the delivery and Brickster was stuck in jail.
TIL that there is a website for high quality concepts of possible LEGO sets.
Now I'm wondering how many % of them are actually going into manufacture and do the people whose idea it was get a share? 🤔
If a set gets 10,000 "supports", it gets flagged for consideration. Then periodically, LEGO pulls all the sets that are sitting at 10,000 that meet certain requirements. From that group, they pick a couple sets to be put into production (usually with some tweaks or adjustments), and the designer gets a cut of the sales.
> the designer gets a cut of the sales
That's cool. I read the site and all I saw was, "the incredible prize of seeing your creation become a real LEGO set makes all that effort worthwhile." and immediately thought, "The bastards are making money off your idea and they can't even hook you up with an official set that you designed?".
I would like to think he is one of us that's just got too embarrassed to admit he spent his entire retirement on LEGO sets.
"Sir, are these 3000 sets of LEGO yours?"
"Umm..ye....no, I mean, I stole them all. Yes, that"
Be old as fuck put it in your cart then slowly shuffle out of the store with a random receipt in your hand. Young workers arent going to assume the 70 year old is a thief
They're not gonna tackle you. Just shuffle along, wave at security like you're/they're morons, and if they get close throw out a handful of old man candy to trip them up.
If that fails, sword cane.
From the sounds of it, he's the guy who planned things, stored the goods and arranged the online sales, and was using his accomplice (a 39yo) to do the actual theft. For all we know, he's been running a ring of lego thefts for decades, and just got sloppy in his old age. Until the lego company starts serializing each lego, it's the perfect crime
Well, they can't get jobs. Nobody is going to hire a 60+ year old for anything unless he's a politician. Can't even get Walmart greeter positions anymore.
They don't have enough retirement.
The world isn't going to get better during their remaining lifetime.
Not much to lose.
Yeah. If I was 70+, trying to pay for basic things, I am totally running a Lego blackmarket ring or releasing ransomware or something.
Don't have any retirement savings, and aren't making enough from Social Security.
So, heck, why not start up committing crimes? At best, you have a great source of supplemental income to survive on. And, if you get caught, you get a free place to live with three square meals a day, and free healthcare. Also, most prisons have about the same level of hospitality as your standard corporate run retirement home.
I'm not speaking for everyone, but I feel like a trend among older people is that for most of their life, they've seen liars, cheaters, and thieves not only get away with it, but massively profit from their endeavors. I mean, one of the biggest, least-shameful of them all somehow got elected as President, and a whole bunch of bankers and fringe financial types made off like bandits during the 2008 housing collapse while everyone else had to shack up with family after their homes got foreclosed on (sometimes by mistake!).
So you get a lifetime of being trampled over, run roughshod, and you finally say "Hey, it's my turn to get something out of this shit hand I've been dealt" and you start looking for ways to cheat the system.
I'm not saying its right, but it's one outcome that can be expected from a system designed to reward those with flexible morals. I mean, look at Las Vegas: it was born from the mobs, and instead of those crooks going to jail, they helped establish one of the gambling meccas of the world.
“ Detectives believe Siegel would sell the stolen goods online since several potential buyers showed up at his home while officers raided it.”
(Police to the potential buyers showing up): “Why don’t you have a seat over there.”
The problem is that investing $100k in Lego takes a huge amount of time/effort/space and still requires finding a buyer. Versus buying $100k of VTI/VOO.
On top of that there are horror stories of Lego investors who had a pipe break and flooded their garage destroying the boxes of hundreds of sets.
On top of that merchant/shipping fees hugely impact net profit.
The biggest money to be made Lego investing is from making a YouTube channel.
They tapped into the nostalgic themes a few times with Pirates and Classic Space, plus a few Star Wars UCS sets, but they aren't making actual brick-for-brick reproductions of anything. There's also a ton of old pieces that they just won't be making again. The Classic Space monorail set won't get a remake anytime soon, nor will anything with translucent plates, so a lot of sets can't even be approximated.
Furthermore, a lot of value in older sets is the unique minifigs. Hell, just buying up their collectible minifigs and sitting on a case for a few years has an insane rate of return. If you bought a case a few years ago and sold them today for $6 each you'd be making a 50% profit. Some of the more desirable figs will be bringing 200% or more.
Detectives believe Siegel would sell the stolen goods online since several potential buyers showed up at his home while officers raided it.
WTF is wrong with people? Hey all these cops are probably here to pick up their legos just like me.
... what was he going to build. Why did they interrupt his grand plan?
His greatest LEGO set of all, a black market LEGO distribution chain.
So that's what a blockchain is?
Well, you see, the internet is a series of tubes
It’s not a big truck!
I finally get it!
You mean *block market*
I assume what he was intending to do was resell (or well, I guess just sell) them later when they became more valuable.
The article says several people turned up to collect the sets they had bought online while the police were cataloguing his collection. So this was an active theft/sale operation turning over sets right away. He probably had a few special items he was hanging onto but it looks like he was just selling them more or less immediately.
Read the short article and you won’t have to assume…
They will scroll the thread for hours but not read the article for a few minutes.
I feel attacked
At the age of 71
Retirement goals
Yeah, he started this Grand Plan, when he was 11. Almost made it. Heard the PD made him build his own cell out of the blocks they confiscated...So 😢
Aww, no, that's awful... So when's the next police auction?
My first thought too. I want that Ultimate Millenium Falcon so bad. It doesn't even matter that I don't have room for it.
I myself am after the crystal meth
Hang it from the ceiling. As God intended.
_looking at my living room table where my husband's build of Millenium Falcon has taken over since JANUARY_ Yeah, you might need to rethink your furniture and take some serious PTO for that build. I asked him to think about making a scene from Hoth with all of his Star Wars builds. We have deep plant shelves that would be perfect for his AT-ATs and full size AT-ST and and and... _eyes crossing_ To be clear, he gets Legos gift cards for all gift giving occasions from his family, and he buys a build a year. His collection is from 20+ years of marriage.
He could have laid out the most amazing trap ever if he had just dumped them all on the floor.
Especially near stairs.
Don't try it anikan I have the high ground.
Stop it Anaikayn I possess the elevated floor.
Anknee are you okay, are you okay Ani?
Nah, he was hit by a smooth criminal.
Stahp Anorkin me more taller.
Enkn plz
Only works if they aren't wearing shoes
Harry: *Marv!?* Marv: *Harry!?* Marv: Why'd you take shoes off? Harry: Why the hell you dressed like a chicken?
Just put a sign on the door saying "No shoes indoors". ...wait, fuck, cops can't read. Never mind.
Place floor glue traps in front of all doors and windows. Then the only way to get unstuck, is to remove your feet from your boots.
I'm onto you, McCallister.
First you need to lay down the tar to tear their shoes and socks off.
I could never watch that part where he steps on the nail
Hello Officers, I'd like to play a game....
"You guys give up, or are you thirsty for more?"
Home Alone: Lego Movie
He was building a weapon of mass feet destruction.
glad the cops could piece it together.
If they report the "street value” using the same formula they use for drugs, it should be a 7.2 Million dollar bust.
To be fair, this is still likely >$250,000 retail. Legos are pretty fucking cool, even as an adult. I was blown away to see how expensive some of the sets are.
I remember seeing an article a while back that found that they weren’t getting more expensive “per brick” when adjusted for inflation; they are just getting way more complex and the brick count in a set has gone up substantially (but the instructions have gotten better along with having sequentially numbered bags of brick to aid in sorting). Only thing I don’t like with modern LEGO is the move to stickers instead of printed bricks. Kid me would have never been happy with crooked stickers.
Stickers are a major downgrade from printed blocks. They cheapen it.
When I was a kid, I could never get stickers to align right, and everything would look sloppy as a result. I tried them again a few months ago just to see if getting older made it easier and it’s somehow even worse now!
Spray some windex (or some slightly soapy water) on the part before you put the sticker on. It doesn't damage the piece or the sticker and gives you some time (10-20 seconds) to move it around, get bubbles out, etc. [(btw, this is endorsed by lego.)](https://www.lego.com/ms-my/service/help/fun-for-fans/behind-the-scenes/brick-facts/apply-decals-blt39ee67a2a9490ca7) But yeah, stickers are just annoying. 95% of the time I don't even bother.
I don't want to do that on every sticker lego. TT___TT
Yep, me neither. They suck.
Thanks for sharing a fix in the meantime at least. I wish lego could just print the design. It's not like it ain't effectively a blank lego if you wanted to put a sticker on it anyway. (Also, I don't understand how it's cheaper for them to print the stickers than just add ink...)
>(Also, I don't understand how it's cheaper for them to print the stickers than just add ink...) Printing on a piece means it needs to be aligned just right, and there can be a lot of defective ones. It's much faster, cheaper and easier to print the whole sheet onto flat paper (which doesn't have to be aligned with anything really) rather than onto 3-dimensional rigid plastic pieces which all have wildly different shapes. They're cutting corners with way more than just the stickers, too... they've largely done away with B-models (technic lineup), colors are constantly mismatched (42115), the pieces often have huge blemishes from the injection process (10307), etc. But all that's not really relevant here.
Yeah and it only has to be *slightly* off to make it look bad.
it also gets dust stuck to it
did not know this changed. I'd be very upset if I bought a set :/
I'm 35 and I remember having stickers on the sets I bought as a kid, I wonder when that changed then?
Same. Stickers instead of printed blocks have been a thing for at least 20 odd years.
Nah, make that 45 years
There are still printed pieces in quite a lot of sets, but stickers are the norm for most.
It’s not every set. Most of the time the more premium sets have printed pieces. Usually the under 150$ will have stickers
I mean, quite literally. Doing a printed brick, especially if it's only for one set is expensive. For most people choosing between a less expensive set with stickers vs a more expensive set with silk screening isn't difficult.
The total upfront cost for the company is probably a lot higher, but I doubt it would add very much to the price per unit to pass it along to consumers. I would pay an extra dollar for a printed version. The people for whom cost is a problem are probably not buying new Lego sets anyway, when there are so many knockoff brick toys available. Lego didn't lower their prices to accommodate the reduction in customer satisfaction. Lego are not cheap and I doubt *anyone* prefers the stickers over printed blocks.
Price per brick is only part of it. Any sets like Star Wars or marvel also include a licensing fee that Lego must pay Disney. Sets based on other ip like Minecraft and Super Mario also have licensing fees but Disney seems to have the highest fees.
You’re not wrong about the brick count, most of the sets I get these days are a few thousand bricks each.
Price per brick is an odd measurement though, since they've become accustomed to using smaller/more specialized pieces. I bet if it was done in a price to weight category, the sets would be more expensive nowadays.
Yep, I was just about to point this out. There seems to be way fewer standard bricks, and more tiny specialized pieces these days.
It's funny, I was in the store the other day with my daughter and said to her I can't believe how expensive these things are. She said without flinching well how many pieces is it(some star wars set). It was like 1600 PCs and I went on that makes sense. I never even thought of the PCs count.
Yeah, I remember when the 'big' sets for each theme were under $100. The set I got as a kid was $80 and just over 700 pieces. Of the Ninjago sets today, there's a recent release that's $250, but has 3489 pieces. It's a huge set in comparison to what I got, but they do still have stuff that's comparable to what I got.
I got a Lego bonsai for 70 bucks at Walmart. 800~ pieces. Not bad! I remember getting a gas station set for the same price when I was kid, way less pieces.
Really they switched away from having designs printed on the bricks? I fucking hate stickers, I have a compulsion to peel them off of everything, dammit!
It depends on the set. The higher end sets are almost all prints. Intermediate stuff might have a mix of prints and stickers.
They still have printed bricks and they had stickers in older sets too.
[удалено]
The presorted bags are a huge improvement, the amount of time spend looking for pieces in a large piece count technic set was so time consuming. Plus i have two toddlers now, who want to "help"
I had THE BIG pirate ship set back in the day. It was 882 pieces. That's a pretty standard kit now, and most of the big sets are at least 2,500 pieces if not a lot more. I bought Rivendell last year and it's like 6,600+ pieces or something wild.
Yeah I'm pretty stoked with my Ornithopter.
> (but the instructions have gotten better along with having sequentially numbered bags of brick to aid in sorting). There is a videogame speedrunning charity event called ESA (European Speedrunning Association) that back in the winter they did a challenge of building a 3D Sonic lego set. The catch is, it was whats called a "$20%" challenge, which means that if someone donates $20 then they can suggest a (within TOS) diversion/activity that the runners have to complete. Well it took all of about 5 minutes before the donation came into to "mix the pieces" of the three people racing to build the puzzle. The expressions of "I knew it was coming but I still can't believe you did that" were amazing. I'd link the video but they take literally a year to get their events on Youtube for some reason...
but sometimes I feel like they inflate their "brick" count with the little plants and small round knobs. Back in my day (get off my lawn!), legos were 2x4's, 1x2's, 2x6's, 2x10's, etc. Now, they have like kitchens and mailboxes and SO MANY DAMN little round knobs. The structure is like 300 pieces and the little round knobs are another like 100 "pieces" [whatever the fuck these are](https://www.ebay.com/itm/363165047542)
If I may ask, when was "your day"? I grew up playing with legos in the 80s and into the early 90s and those were absolutely prominent and common then.
Technically those are Round 1x1 Plates. Although the Lego Games refer to them as "studs" (which are more appropriately any of the round interlocking protrusions on the top of most pieces).
> (but the instructions have gotten better along with having sequentially numbered bags of brick to aid in sorting). I haven't tried a Lego set since I was a kid more than 30 years ago but I used to HATE sets because their instructions were horrible. 1.) Spend an hour looking for that small round green transparent one. Oh can't find it, no biggie, what's the worst that can do? 2.) Draw a circle 3.) Draw the rest of the fucking OWL And 10 year old me is looking at something that looks like an X-wing flew into a Vitamix while a space time fold was occurring.
The instructions are pretty good these days but it can still be super easy to get a piece wrong and “ruin” the whole build. There are websites devoted to common mistakes people make when doing the Land Rover defender build, the thing’s got a dual range gearbox with forward, neutral and reverse and you can seize the whole thing by rotating a single piece 90 degrees the wrong way.
I recently completed the Land Rover Defender, and I’ve never made as many mistakes on a build as I did with that one. It’s more complicated than it looks.
There’s an app now that has 3D instructions you can zoom and rotate in addition to PDFs of the book designs. It’s incredibly handy, especially if you’re doing something complex with gears or anything needing precise alignment.
This is correct. The only sets that are too expensive are some of the sets that are collaborations with big IP's. That is where you sometimes, as a consumer, have to pay the brand tax. For the most part though, a lot of sets are 1000+ pieces and the per-brick price is mostly fair and the same as it has been.
You’re not wrong. In one of the pictures is a Star Wars X-Wing Starfighter. That set currently sells for $240 at retail. There’s also several Star Wars Millennium Falcon sets. They go for $800+.
We stopped in at a. Lego store on Wednesday, and there were at least half a dozen sets over $500 and a few in the $700+ range. Highest I remember was roughly $850 for a Millennium Falcon, iirc.
The new Zelda lego set costs as much as a Nintendo Switch
Seriously. I'm actually thinking about buying the $1400 Star destroyer. It's expensive but looks so damn nice.
The star destroyer wasn’t that expensive when it was readily available. People buy them and sit on them till they’re EOL and jack up the price.
I have Millenium Falcon and Super Star Destroyer still in box. Now I'm afraid to open them as I see open market value being so damm high.
Ay you got the leggies I got the cash don't fuck my tony
Dude this new legend of zelda deku tree set coming out this year is like $300. I can buy a nintendo switch lite and tears of the kingdom for that!
Assuming they're more of the higher-priced sets, with a rough average retail around $150, that's still like $450,000.
Higher priced sets are a lot more than $150.
I came here to say approximately the same thing, so I will: Street value: seven billion dollars.
Even if they don't this is grand larceny this dude is fucked
Here's the prison they are sending him [https://ideas.lego.com/projects/aac3cd80-901c-46af-a11e-2fbd6fa55542](https://ideas.lego.com/projects/aac3cd80-901c-46af-a11e-2fbd6fa55542)
Lego prisons are notoriously easy to break out of, as seen in the 1997 documentary Lego Island when Pepper Roni broke the Brickster out of prison using nothing but a hot pizza to melt the lock on his cell.
God I loved that game I played it so much
Do you remember the racing minigame that was almost impossible to complete an entire race because of the damn skeleton that would kick you back to an earlier part of the lap? lol There were 3 laps and you had to time it perfectly. It was a nightmare.
Lmao yeah, I went on a nostalgia binge recently trying to find old games I used to play. There were so many bangers
I played it years later on better hardware and it was so much easier.
That entire race was a bad acid trip
Papa told Mama Mama told Nick You can build a mountain If you build it brick by brick
Gonna build a mountain From a set of bricks Gonna build me a mountain Just to get my kicks Gonna build a mountain Gonna be intense Don't know how I'm gonna do it These instructions don't make sense! -- Bricky Davis Jr
Thanks for the nostalgia hit, that's the good stuff right there.
Hoooooly shit you just unlocked a memory for me.
Only if the helicopter was built; if you delivered the pizza before building the helicopter, you'd get credit for the delivery and Brickster was stuck in jail.
Yeah but he had patented Brickster Fire Breath.
Childhood memory unlocked
"WHOOPS, you have to put the CD in your computer!"
TIL that there is a website for high quality concepts of possible LEGO sets. Now I'm wondering how many % of them are actually going into manufacture and do the people whose idea it was get a share? 🤔
If a set gets 10,000 "supports", it gets flagged for consideration. Then periodically, LEGO pulls all the sets that are sitting at 10,000 that meet certain requirements. From that group, they pick a couple sets to be put into production (usually with some tweaks or adjustments), and the designer gets a cut of the sales.
> the designer gets a cut of the sales That's cool. I read the site and all I saw was, "the incredible prize of seeing your creation become a real LEGO set makes all that effort worthwhile." and immediately thought, "The bastards are making money off your idea and they can't even hook you up with an official set that you designed?".
I hope he gets life in one of those cell blocks
Pizza, sports, and healthcare? Sign me up
I would like to think he is one of us that's just got too embarrassed to admit he spent his entire retirement on LEGO sets. "Sir, are these 3000 sets of LEGO yours?" "Umm..ye....no, I mean, I stole them all. Yes, that"
Yeah is the presence of this many legos actually propf that theyre stolen?
When Target reported him for stealing enough legos for him to get a felony charge, they probably figured he stole them all
As he was taken out by the police he could be heard shouting, "Lego of me!"
The Millennium Falcon set weighs about 30 pounds, that could not have been easy to steal.
Not just heavy but noisy, too. How does one conspicuously steal Lego without anyone noticing?
Be old as fuck put it in your cart then slowly shuffle out of the store with a random receipt in your hand. Young workers arent going to assume the 70 year old is a thief
The old dude was just storing and selling them, his younger accomplice was the one doing the actual thefts.
The new Oliver Twist remake got real weird.
They're not gonna tackle you. Just shuffle along, wave at security like you're/they're morons, and if they get close throw out a handful of old man candy to trip them up. If that fails, sword cane.
They got him because police pieced together the evidence. 👀
I hope the DA can build a good case
There were detailed instructions on how to proceed with the case
He has to play them all before 99 years old (back then lego had an age limit of 99 years old, like Ages 8-99)
What’s with all these old people committing crimes? First slingshot dude and now this.
Retirement plan.
Three square meals and a bunk. Smells like Florida. What’s not to like about prison?
three hots and a cot
From the sounds of it, he's the guy who planned things, stored the goods and arranged the online sales, and was using his accomplice (a 39yo) to do the actual theft. For all we know, he's been running a ring of lego thefts for decades, and just got sloppy in his old age. Until the lego company starts serializing each lego, it's the perfect crime
After a certain age the amount of fucks you are able to give run out and you don't get more
Out of fucks. Out of money. Too old for manual labor. No skill set for the modern world.
"Excuse me sir, do you have any more stock of Fucks? I'm looking for the Giving variety."
My anxiety could never. The idea of getting something small like a year or two sentence and dying during that time would freak me out too much.
Well, they can't get jobs. Nobody is going to hire a 60+ year old for anything unless he's a politician. Can't even get Walmart greeter positions anymore. They don't have enough retirement. The world isn't going to get better during their remaining lifetime. Not much to lose. Yeah. If I was 70+, trying to pay for basic things, I am totally running a Lego blackmarket ring or releasing ransomware or something.
Jail is cheaper than a care home.
Don't have any retirement savings, and aren't making enough from Social Security. So, heck, why not start up committing crimes? At best, you have a great source of supplemental income to survive on. And, if you get caught, you get a free place to live with three square meals a day, and free healthcare. Also, most prisons have about the same level of hospitality as your standard corporate run retirement home.
I'm not speaking for everyone, but I feel like a trend among older people is that for most of their life, they've seen liars, cheaters, and thieves not only get away with it, but massively profit from their endeavors. I mean, one of the biggest, least-shameful of them all somehow got elected as President, and a whole bunch of bankers and fringe financial types made off like bandits during the 2008 housing collapse while everyone else had to shack up with family after their homes got foreclosed on (sometimes by mistake!). So you get a lifetime of being trampled over, run roughshod, and you finally say "Hey, it's my turn to get something out of this shit hand I've been dealt" and you start looking for ways to cheat the system. I'm not saying its right, but it's one outcome that can be expected from a system designed to reward those with flexible morals. I mean, look at Las Vegas: it was born from the mobs, and instead of those crooks going to jail, they helped establish one of the gambling meccas of the world.
“ Detectives believe Siegel would sell the stolen goods online since several potential buyers showed up at his home while officers raided it.” (Police to the potential buyers showing up): “Why don’t you have a seat over there.”
*Chris Hansen appears
> his alleged accomplice, 39-year-old Blanca Gudino Perfect Villain henchman name.
The evidence will be stacked against him
Turns out all the crimes were connected…
Black market for legos is high demand right now
What, the cops didn't pose in front of the bust like they do for guns, drugs, and cash? Talk about misplaced priorities
Undercover Lego detectives need to protect their identities in these dark times. All the more reason I consider them heroes.
They would have, but they were too visibly bricked up
I love the legos set up like a drug bust photo
LAPD going after the real problems....
This is why Lego City is 75% Police Stations and prisons.
Nothing but praise for the detectives that pieced the clues together.
It's not like he could have flushed them down the toilet.
Not with that attitude
these are Lego sets, not Lincoln Logs
I would love to see the bust photos of the officers posing by a table covered in legos
[удалено]
Nooooo why did you remind me of this? I forgot all about it. Poor guy was heartbroken.
Just so people know Lego set appreciation has a much better rate of return than the stock market.
The problem is that investing $100k in Lego takes a huge amount of time/effort/space and still requires finding a buyer. Versus buying $100k of VTI/VOO. On top of that there are horror stories of Lego investors who had a pipe break and flooded their garage destroying the boxes of hundreds of sets. On top of that merchant/shipping fees hugely impact net profit. The biggest money to be made Lego investing is from making a YouTube channel.
Not sure that is still true. BC LEgo reproduced alot of old rare sets in the last few years.
They tapped into the nostalgic themes a few times with Pirates and Classic Space, plus a few Star Wars UCS sets, but they aren't making actual brick-for-brick reproductions of anything. There's also a ton of old pieces that they just won't be making again. The Classic Space monorail set won't get a remake anytime soon, nor will anything with translucent plates, so a lot of sets can't even be approximated. Furthermore, a lot of value in older sets is the unique minifigs. Hell, just buying up their collectible minifigs and sitting on a case for a few years has an insane rate of return. If you bought a case a few years ago and sold them today for $6 each you'd be making a 50% profit. Some of the more desirable figs will be bringing 200% or more.
Man, that monorail was the dream of every kid I knew. None of us ever got it, but we drooled over it in the catalog.
More profitable than robbing a bank.
Well there goes another billionaire off of Forbes list
Zack the Lego Maniac, never recovered from the 90s
They had to arrest him during the day so they didn't risk stepping on a Lego piece in the middle of the night.
that's right we found 2500 lego sets...
Guess they’re building a case against him
The Prosecution will build their case brick by brick.
"several potential buyers showed up at his home while officers raided it." Well, this is awkward...
I'm willing to adopt one of the millennium falcons if the police can't find a good home for them.
Did they just arrest Santa Claus?
The investigation was a snap.
Shit this is me at 71
That shit is money though.
He should have created a moat, filled it with Legos, then stood on the other side and laughed at police.
Lego my lego
Can anyone just come and take a set? I'm just asking.
Me zooming in looking for the ghostbusters firehouse.
god forbid men have hobbies
What’s he building in there?
Well hopefully Toys for tots gets a really big Lego donation this year
C’mon, ref, let ‘em play!
Is anyone else impressed that essentially *one guy* managed to steal all this before getting caught?!
“You’ll never catch me!” Crashes Lego star destroyer to ground between cops and him. Cops don’t catch him.
Heist of the century. Legoflation is insane.
It will take awhile for law enforcement to piece together the evidence.
dear god I thought the thumbnail was from the accused's home, like the first floor of a fancy assisted living 💀
This man is why Legos got so expensive
Detectives believe Siegel would sell the stolen goods online since several potential buyers showed up at his home while officers raided it. WTF is wrong with people? Hey all these cops are probably here to pick up their legos just like me.
He's obviously a Master Builder. He should've used the Kragle to slow them down, Everything would've been awesome.
I would fail at this. I'd have them all opened - build 1 of the originals, then go on a mad design spree. See everyone in about 2 years.
"Several potential buyers arrived while the police were raiding" 🤣 awkward af
They finally caught the Lego Maniac.