Need some advice on brick linking a set.

mattynicklin

I really want the town hall set 10224, and I was thinking of brick linking it. However I was wondering what the best to go about doing it. I have all the parts in my wanted list so that is the first stage done. I was thinking of buying it in stages maybe a certain amount a month as I can't really afford the £400 ish it's going for. My question is what's the best way to go about buying it stages, also being from the UK I feel shipping is going to be a huge cost. Also what are the rarer pieces to look for?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

AllBrick

I have a feeling that after you have your parts, the price will be close to the price of a complete set especially if you factor in multiple postage charges over a period of time. As for rare parts, I have no idea.

thedoctor46

From what I've learnt I can't disagree with the above, you don't bricklink to save money necessarily but you could treat it as a hobby. Set a monthly budget and search for the pieces you fancy first. 

CCC

Save up and buy a set, unless you want to substitute out the expensive parts.

mattynicklin

AllBrick said:

I have a feeling that after you have your parts, the price will be close to the price of a complete set especially if you factor in multiple postage charges over a period of time. As for rare parts, I have no idea.

I was assuming that was the case but I figured doing it over time would be better than all at once, however every time I think about the total price all at once, or doing to gradually it kind of puts me off doing it which is a shame I guess.

Pitfall69

Yes, I would buy one used and then you will get all the minifigures and instructions as well. Now, with sets like Cafe Corner, Green Grocer and...ahem...Market Street; Bricklinking would be the way to go, but not for Town Hall.

masterX244

when buying in stages be careful, theres a bricklink bug waiting in ther "apply order" feature. if for some reason you have a part appearing as 2 lots over there only the first gets applied to the wanted list.. when not noticing early it might cause a bunch of spares (last time it had bitten me i got 30 2x16 plates more than needed and a bunch of other parts, too)

koshka

Having bricklinked Cafe Corner, Green Grocer and Market Street over about 3 years there is a risk factor that the rare parts will just get rarer and go up in price. With hindsight I should have bought the rarest parts early on (or even just the set  in the case of GG). It's worth checking what other sets the rare parts belong to in case that's a cheaper way of getting them e.g. the LBG doors from MS and CC were in a Spongebob set and I've almost recouped the cost by selling the remaining parts.

Don't forget to check both PAB and Bricks and Pieces on the Lego website as some parts could be more expensive on Bricklink. 

Postage from overseas isn't always that bad. I think that I got good deals from the Czech Republic and Hungary.

The experience of doing these three (and the Taj Mahal) put me off of trying the Town Hall. I got lucky last year and picked a new one up in Sweden for £250 (slightly bashed box). I say lucky but when it was £150 in the stores both my wife and I agreed we didn't think it was worth it. Once we had the rest of the modulars we changed our minds and I enjoyed building it.

CCC

koshka said:

Having bricklinked Cafe Corner, Green Grocer and Market Street over about 3 years there is a risk factor that the rare parts will just get rarer and go up in price.

If it is out of production and replaced by a similar but different part, then this is likely to happen. Yet the opposite can also happen.

Anyone bricklinking the 2003 Snowspeeder ought not to buy the orange windscreens now (BL price for new £40 each).  The new set #70914 has six of them, so the price should tumble. Or they could wait and buy the new UCS version as there are still some pretty hefty price parts in the 2003 version.

prevere

^The snowspeeder is a disaster for rare parts. There are multiple ones that are often completely unavailable on BL.

legomental

I bought a brand new town hall for £220 in the UK.  I put an advert of preloved and got one offered for £240 but I offered to collect in person to save PayPal and postage hassles and they took 220

Paperballpark

I agree with the above. I BL'd the Greengrocer back in 2013, and from memory that cost about £300 for the parts and £50 in total for shipping. Not cheap, but worth it for that set, and I only made one substitution (1×8 sand green bricks replaced with a mix of 1x2, 1x4 and 1x6 bricks).

Goodness knows what it'd cost these days - some of the parts are much rarer now.