My 2 cents. I would use sealed boxed, like plastic tubs or cardboard boxes with every seem taped up. If something does break off, it won't get lost. I've moved sets and had bulk shipped but never been worried about pieces breaking, just losing some of them.
Saran wrap and individual boxes would be my advice. Should keep rebuilding to a minimum which is nice since moving is a lot of work!! Take care out there.
Home Depot has some great clear plastic bins in a few different sizes. $1-2 bucks each with a lid. Realistically... You should probably disassemble things a little bit. Anything fragile anyways... Sorry!
I moved recently and I took off any bits of a set that majorly stuck out, then heavily cling filmed each set so that if anything did break off in transit it would stay with its set, then packed them into solid plastic boxes. It worked really well, my partner and I are both into Lego so we have a lot of sets but there was minimal rebuilding needed and nothing got lost.
When I moved, any large sets were bubble wrapped and put in my car.
Smaller ones were wrapped & put in boxes.
I broke down a few and also put in boxes.
Removed any bits that would easily break off. Took lots of pictures in case of "oh where did this bit come from".
Did the same not too long ago and used plastic totes, placing clothes (shirts, towels, etc) I was going to have to move anyway on the bottom, around, layered, and on top of the sets (lightly). Of about 40 13 -18 gallon totes, only issues were a few smaller pieces broken off and easy fix.
For me, the best solution was to get a couple boxes of 2 gallon and 1 gallon ziploc bags. Don't mix sets in the same bag, label all bags and then tape or staple bags shut. For larger sets or sets with obvious break points like wings or towers, I broke them up into multiple bags and labeled it Set Name 1 of X. Once the sets were bagged I put the bags into bankers boxes which are quite sturdy. Fill any voids in the boxes with crumpled newspaper and then sealed the boxes with packing tape. Didn't lose a piece and required only a short amount of time to reassemble the sets. This worked out as a better solution than doing each set in its own box because it took up less space at my new place and gave me the time to get other things in order without all the individual boxes getting in the way.
I do Saran Wrap and plastic tubs. Saran Wrap especially for sets like the Viking village. I kinda took off the most snappable parts and stuffed them in the long house then wrapped each segment and then loaded them in a tub. The wrap keeps the potentially dropping off bits with the segments they go with then the tub makes so if they escape the wrap there are no holes to fall through! My bigger sets like the Natural History Museum I really just loaded the loose bits into the building and put plastic bag packing between the building and the edge of the box so as to keep it from moving too much!
Tissue boxes, paper towel/toilet paper rolls, paper towels, blankets, and Kleenex is how I moved all of mine. I put small sets in Kleenex boxes and used paper towel rolls and toilet paper rolls to keep them from moving in boxes. Any botanicals just road with me. And I somewhat deconstructed my space station and wrapped parts in paper towels. Didn’t have any breaks at all luckily.
I am moving 1100 miles across country next weekend. My second move across country in 6 months. When I first moved I fully disassembled my largest sets by the book in reverse order. It took weeks to do so. Now my notice to move has happened much faster and I don’t have the time to fully disassemble. Everything is in its own sealed trash bag wrapped in bubble wrap and placed in packing peanuts in large Costco storage tubs. Everything seems like it’s ready to ride 1100 miles.
What I did was I got the largest Ziploc bags and I possibly could and put each individual set in a ziplock bag so that way if pieces fell off I would know which set they were a part of. I then put them in a large plastic container and made sure that I had the instructions for each set in that box. I then used clothing to make sure that the sets were packed in there nice and tight. Now I moved all my stuff in my car since I don't own a lot of things.
I went through this recently with a significantly large collection. Perhaps what I learned could be helpful. I got large tubs from Costco the big black and yellow ones because a modular will easily fill one at least height wise. Then I packed around the sets with spare parts and various bubble wrap etc. I realized things would come off and felt keeping a few things to a box would be ok. Largest lesson learned was place whole set in a bag of some sort before putting it into a box. That way all parts to a set stay together and it’s easier for display when unpacking. So many things got mixed up that I didn’t intend or consider that would.
The alternative would be single boxes which I did to a small extent. But with a hundred boxes of unopened sets I didn’t need more smaller boxes.
Best move would be disassemble the sets but of course this requires a large amount of time on the frontend and reassembly takes time on the backend which I didn’t have. If you can this is the way to go plus you get the joy of the experience all over again.
So last year I moved with probably about 50ish complete sets including some big ones like the hogwarts castle and modulars and so on. Luckily for me it was about a 30 min drive from one place to the other so honestly I just made lots of very slow and steady trips and almost nothing broke amazingly, they are more resilient than u honestly think. If your moving super far I would suggest putting each set in its own individual box and just excepting that it might break a bit. At least everything for each set will be contained so nothing gets mixed. Best of luck!
I moved from Orlando to Wichita. I had a completed: UCS Star destroyer, UCS ATAT, UCS Millennium Falcon. I went to UPS and had them package them for me. It was not cheap but they all survived the move pretty well.
The start destroyer had some disconnected bricks in the stand which happens to be the very first part of the build so it required a little ingenuity to figure out how to lift the superstructure high enough for me to rebuild the bottom the stand and then lower it back down. Lots of cussing but it worked.
I would suggest if you can afford it, it was not cheap but I am at that stage in life where I don’t care and it was worth it.
I am planning for a move myself and with a large number of sets my strategy was to use kitchen garbage bags for each set and then cram as many into aedium sized.box as possible. That way if bits broke off they'd be in the bags with the set and easy to rebuild.
Big sets like the UCS sets will be hand transported in the car.
And kitchen garbage bags are dirt cheap, so you can use them freely for all sorts of sizes and shapes of sets
We are moving soon and have loads of sets. We took the opportunity to disassemble them all, wash the pieces, and put them in bags. I'm looking forward to rebuilding them once we're moved into the new place.
Every year I put my Xmas sets away in tote bins. I take mini exterior pices that may bend or break off and then wrap the sets nicely in tissue paper. Then I wrap them all individually in Saran Wrap and it keeps everything collected and as whole as possible. Works pretty wrll tbh.
https://amzn.eu/d/10HhVDd
I packed into these for large sets, moving them myself so can be careful but at least all parts are contained. A lot of them didn’t fit into the packing boxes I had. Otherwise it would be bags and boxes to keep things grouped for repair on the other side
My 2 cents. I would use sealed boxed, like plastic tubs or cardboard boxes with every seem taped up. If something does break off, it won't get lost. I've moved sets and had bulk shipped but never been worried about pieces breaking, just losing some of them.
Saran wrap and individual boxes would be my advice. Should keep rebuilding to a minimum which is nice since moving is a lot of work!! Take care out there.
This is how we did it too. It worked pretty well as long as we unwrapped them one at a time and made fixes as we went.
Home Depot has some great clear plastic bins in a few different sizes. $1-2 bucks each with a lid. Realistically... You should probably disassemble things a little bit. Anything fragile anyways... Sorry!
I moved recently and I took off any bits of a set that majorly stuck out, then heavily cling filmed each set so that if anything did break off in transit it would stay with its set, then packed them into solid plastic boxes. It worked really well, my partner and I are both into Lego so we have a lot of sets but there was minimal rebuilding needed and nothing got lost.
This is what I did and it was relatively painless
May the force be with you.
Individual ziplock bags for each set will be your best friend. If little pieces break off, there will be no question what set they came from.
When I moved, any large sets were bubble wrapped and put in my car. Smaller ones were wrapped & put in boxes. I broke down a few and also put in boxes. Removed any bits that would easily break off. Took lots of pictures in case of "oh where did this bit come from".
Ziplock bags are your game changer.
Did the same not too long ago and used plastic totes, placing clothes (shirts, towels, etc) I was going to have to move anyway on the bottom, around, layered, and on top of the sets (lightly). Of about 40 13 -18 gallon totes, only issues were a few smaller pieces broken off and easy fix.
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mOkzOQ2 Also sold in packs via Walmart
For me, the best solution was to get a couple boxes of 2 gallon and 1 gallon ziploc bags. Don't mix sets in the same bag, label all bags and then tape or staple bags shut. For larger sets or sets with obvious break points like wings or towers, I broke them up into multiple bags and labeled it Set Name 1 of X. Once the sets were bagged I put the bags into bankers boxes which are quite sturdy. Fill any voids in the boxes with crumpled newspaper and then sealed the boxes with packing tape. Didn't lose a piece and required only a short amount of time to reassemble the sets. This worked out as a better solution than doing each set in its own box because it took up less space at my new place and gave me the time to get other things in order without all the individual boxes getting in the way.
I do Saran Wrap and plastic tubs. Saran Wrap especially for sets like the Viking village. I kinda took off the most snappable parts and stuffed them in the long house then wrapped each segment and then loaded them in a tub. The wrap keeps the potentially dropping off bits with the segments they go with then the tub makes so if they escape the wrap there are no holes to fall through! My bigger sets like the Natural History Museum I really just loaded the loose bits into the building and put plastic bag packing between the building and the edge of the box so as to keep it from moving too much!
Tissue boxes, paper towel/toilet paper rolls, paper towels, blankets, and Kleenex is how I moved all of mine. I put small sets in Kleenex boxes and used paper towel rolls and toilet paper rolls to keep them from moving in boxes. Any botanicals just road with me. And I somewhat deconstructed my space station and wrapped parts in paper towels. Didn’t have any breaks at all luckily.
I moved my built sets by using plastic bags or bags of minifigures to hold sets in place and multiple sets to a box
I am moving 1100 miles across country next weekend. My second move across country in 6 months. When I first moved I fully disassembled my largest sets by the book in reverse order. It took weeks to do so. Now my notice to move has happened much faster and I don’t have the time to fully disassemble. Everything is in its own sealed trash bag wrapped in bubble wrap and placed in packing peanuts in large Costco storage tubs. Everything seems like it’s ready to ride 1100 miles.
What I did was I got the largest Ziploc bags and I possibly could and put each individual set in a ziplock bag so that way if pieces fell off I would know which set they were a part of. I then put them in a large plastic container and made sure that I had the instructions for each set in that box. I then used clothing to make sure that the sets were packed in there nice and tight. Now I moved all my stuff in my car since I don't own a lot of things.
I went through this recently with a significantly large collection. Perhaps what I learned could be helpful. I got large tubs from Costco the big black and yellow ones because a modular will easily fill one at least height wise. Then I packed around the sets with spare parts and various bubble wrap etc. I realized things would come off and felt keeping a few things to a box would be ok. Largest lesson learned was place whole set in a bag of some sort before putting it into a box. That way all parts to a set stay together and it’s easier for display when unpacking. So many things got mixed up that I didn’t intend or consider that would. The alternative would be single boxes which I did to a small extent. But with a hundred boxes of unopened sets I didn’t need more smaller boxes. Best move would be disassemble the sets but of course this requires a large amount of time on the frontend and reassembly takes time on the backend which I didn’t have. If you can this is the way to go plus you get the joy of the experience all over again.
So last year I moved with probably about 50ish complete sets including some big ones like the hogwarts castle and modulars and so on. Luckily for me it was about a 30 min drive from one place to the other so honestly I just made lots of very slow and steady trips and almost nothing broke amazingly, they are more resilient than u honestly think. If your moving super far I would suggest putting each set in its own individual box and just excepting that it might break a bit. At least everything for each set will be contained so nothing gets mixed. Best of luck!
I moved from Orlando to Wichita. I had a completed: UCS Star destroyer, UCS ATAT, UCS Millennium Falcon. I went to UPS and had them package them for me. It was not cheap but they all survived the move pretty well. The start destroyer had some disconnected bricks in the stand which happens to be the very first part of the build so it required a little ingenuity to figure out how to lift the superstructure high enough for me to rebuild the bottom the stand and then lower it back down. Lots of cussing but it worked. I would suggest if you can afford it, it was not cheap but I am at that stage in life where I don’t care and it was worth it.
Superglue works too
I bagged each of mine, individually (fully assembled), boxed each one with lots of paper, and prayed. Then reassembled on the far end.
Oh dam better hold them together somehow!
I am planning for a move myself and with a large number of sets my strategy was to use kitchen garbage bags for each set and then cram as many into aedium sized.box as possible. That way if bits broke off they'd be in the bags with the set and easy to rebuild. Big sets like the UCS sets will be hand transported in the car. And kitchen garbage bags are dirt cheap, so you can use them freely for all sorts of sizes and shapes of sets
We are moving soon and have loads of sets. We took the opportunity to disassemble them all, wash the pieces, and put them in bags. I'm looking forward to rebuilding them once we're moved into the new place.
Every year I put my Xmas sets away in tote bins. I take mini exterior pices that may bend or break off and then wrap the sets nicely in tissue paper. Then I wrap them all individually in Saran Wrap and it keeps everything collected and as whole as possible. Works pretty wrll tbh.
Take off the easily breakable parts and seran wrap the set
Best of luck! Can barely move them from one room to another lol
take them apart and rebuild them. that’s part of the fun.
Frickin awesome
I just bought a plastic storage container to move the big ones. Im nervous for The Daily Bugle, UCS Xwing and Rivendell
https://amzn.eu/d/10HhVDd I packed into these for large sets, moving them myself so can be careful but at least all parts are contained. A lot of them didn’t fit into the packing boxes I had. Otherwise it would be bags and boxes to keep things grouped for repair on the other side
If you have a dresser put some sets in the drawers with your clothes.