Dark Ages

gertjan68

Ohmy, my dark ages were late 70's very early 80's...

back in 1998 when i was in Bosnia i bought some sets at our PX-shop (where i also worked as a volunteer) Just a little while though, was more busy with other things.....

About half a year ago i got back most of my old lego from my mom, induced by the fact my oldest son is about to get the LEGO-age..... Some classic sets are incomplete, others are complete. Love them still :) Even my son likes them and plays occasionally with them, of course under my supervision;)

So now i woke up from hibernation and with two boys we're going to have great times, also with getting bulk lots at ebay :)

bluelion3

What's the term for the period before the dark ages?
Anyway, mine was 1977-1985 or so, or ages 8-14. Most of my classic space sets said they were recommended for ages 8-14 or something like that, so I thought something was wrong with me for playing with them when I was 16. Soon I started driving a car, going to summer jobs, and later going to college. These things made me forget about LEGO for a while. After the Star Wars sets appeared, my mother bought me an occasional LEGO set every other year or so. I also received the 8375 Ferrari F1 Pit set when I started watching Formula 1 a few years ago. My parents had kept all of my old LEGO in some large boxes and brought them to me to get them out of their house. They stayed in those boxes through a move cross country and back.
My dark ages really ended when my wife and I were at our local mall a year ago and saw a sign that said, "LEGO store opening September 2010". Wow! I started looking at www.lego.com, and I soon found Brickset and some other websites. There were so many new elements that did not exist before! So many themes that had come and gone! I dug out my old sets to check if I really had some of the sets I remembered. My brickset inventory jumps from 1985 to 1992 (6075 Wolfpack Tower from eBay) to 1999 (7101 Lightsaber Duel). Then there are sporadic SW sets up to 2010 when I came totally out of the dark ages. Now I am busy finding the sweet spot where I can buy just enough LEGO without making my wife wonder if I am spending too much.

AETerry

no, dark ages is when a person gets away from collecting LEGO. Usually do to family, work, school or even just financial reasons. I guess some people do have their stuff stored then, but that is the technical definition.

With that definition of a Dark Age, I had one during the tail end of 2008 up to April 2010 when I was going through a Divorce and the "restraining orders" from the Court while a Divorce is in process. (The idea with the Court issuing "Restraining Orders" with Finances on buying and selling - is to get people to move the Divorce Proceedings along faster and prevent one side or another from selling off assets/property. furthering debt problems, ect.)

I've slowed down at various points on the LEGO buying if there weren't any sets I wanted, already had the ones I wanted (and just waiting for new sets to come out) or have had financial hold ups. I'm not sure how many other "Dark Ages" would be classified from that.

If a person moves and has to put stuff (LEGO) into Storage, I wouldn't really count that as a Dark Age, and I have had several times in my life moving, but never stopped my love of LEGO.

dimefield

Just reviewing my sets on Brickset and its easy to see my dark age from 1980 til 1994. Pretty much from high school graduation til my first child was born. One or two sets a year from 73 til 80 then about 10 to 15 a year once i had kids and now 2011 stat says ive purchased 40! Six are accounted for by minifigures but still quite a jump!

Duchessa

I'm not sure if I've had a dark age, since I never lost my interest in Lego. But other stuff that's been going on in my life (aka marriage, divorce, buying/selling house, having the collection in storage) meant that I didn't buy much between 2005 and 2011. A few sets every year, that's it.

Since my collection has always been focused on Star Wars, classic castle and pirates, I've bought lots of stuff online. That means that you can't trace my "dark age" in my Lego setlist. Right now, I'm selling of some odd items in my collection so that I can afford to buy some other stuff that I've wanted to buy for several years.

Silber334

My dark ages was from '92 to May of this year (2011!). So that's nearly 2 decades living in the cave of Legolessness. I did collect some unusual collaboration sets that came out with every bottle of Coke back in 02. Other than that, I didn't have anything else. Welcome to the renaissance folks.

BTW, I just walked a step into the renaissance by compulsively grabbing a Pharaoh's Quest set off the shelf rack yesterday. Yay.

Bumblepants

Thought it would be interesting to hear what pulled other AFOLs back into Legoland. (forgive me if there is a previous thread, I didn't find one). For me it was finding the 8877 Vladek's Dark Fortress for $25 clearance at Target. Grabbed it on a whim and a few glorious building hours later the fire was rekindled.

LegoFanTexas

For me, it was Yellow Cargo Train...

Christmas 2010, I was at the mall to go to the Apple store to check out what this "iPad" thing was all about... Right across from the Apple store is the Lego store.

I didn't even know they HAD Lego stores, much less ALL THAT! I was just amazed, I loved Lego when I was a kid, had buckets of basic bricks, a few baseplates, etc. when I was a kid in the 80s, but heck, what was ALL THIS AMAZING STUFF?!?!?

My son was 5 years old, I saw the trains, he was really into Thomas the Tank Engine at the time, and I thought, remote control, Lego trains, that looks cool, so I picked it up...

Tens of thousands of dollars later, two rooms of our house taken over... I am completely and totally addicted...

Building Lego has become our "family thing", everyone builds, but it all started with Yellow Cargo Train...

brickmatic

For me it was #7019-1 Viking Fortress against the Fafnir Dragon, along with a generic tub and a green baseplate. Got them for parts for a special project. I never actually built the fortress, but the Viking set got me interested in that product line. I ended up getting all of the sets in the collection.

mathew

Not so much a set but a bag of old Lego bricks that my son was playing with at his Grandma's house over Thanksgiving 2011. We brought the bricks home and even though they were chewed and discolored I began building little houses. I became interested in architecture and started researching Lego sets. Early 2012 I bought the Farnsworth House Architecture set and a few small City sets for my son. From there it quickly escalated...

What's weird is how addictive the hobby is. I mean we're just talking about plastic bricks but somehow it has taken over so much of my daily life. I almost liken it to a drug like cigarettes where I need a consistent fix every hour or so.

LegobrandonCP

No dark age yet. Hopefully I won't be in it while I'm in University or something. ;)

rolvtd

Recent dark age graduate here, so for me it was 9495 Gold Leader's Y-Wing.

Ever since X-Wing on PC back in 1993, I have always loved the Y-Wing for some reason. I guess I am a bomber at heart.

Missing_Pieces_15

With out questions.... Fantasy Era Castle Giant Chess Set . I grew up loving Pirates, Castle and City. Then grew into sports and video games. Once I graduated college and met the love of my life who was way into Lego she bought me this set and the rest is history. A bricklink store later we have a lot of LEGO. Good times and good memories.

nkx1

I think I provided this answer in another thread, but might as well post it here too. I saw the Black Pearl while shopping at Costco one night last November. Thought an all black ship was really cool, so I bought one. Like many, I was soon totally addicted, both to buying sets for myself and buying for investment. Thousands of dollars later, I now have a closet full of Legos to sell later, and two shelving units full of built sets (not as bad as some people, I know).

My wife had purchased some winter village sets in 2010, but I didn't really think much of it. Little did I know what would happen a year later!

In general, I really don't have any regrets about the Lego addiction. There are much worse things to be addicted to. Plus, I could sell most of the EOL sets and make back what I paid or more. And it's another hobby to keep my brain active.

Dmsmith

I think it was Darth Vaders Tie Fighter. Didn't get crazy till this year though. Back then We bought a couple Star Wars sets. Then a few Indy sets. Well all I could find here.
Bought the Prince of Persia sets after seeing the movie.
Then this Year I picked up the new Super heroes Batman Sets and On my B-day the new X-wing and Now a month later We have 50+ star Wars sets and Counting.
Can't wait till the summer Lego sets come out here.
Also planning on getting the LOTR stuff and marvel Super hero sets.

woony2

I had thought about getting all the lego from my childhood out of my mum's loft for ages and sorting it all out, then when the first Star Wars sets came out in 1999 my sister bought me the first snowspeeder 7130 and landspeeder 7110 as she had decided to buy adults fun presents for there birthdays from now on and not 'stuff for their houses or socks'. This opened the flood gates and made me sort all the stuff out and since then I've gone mad and got loads of the new stuff and gone back and bought a lot of the things I always wanted as a kid.

CCC

For me it was duplo.

My son got some for Christmas one year (basic bricks box) and I was playing with it with him, and then wanted some extra pieces and found bricklink, and then (re)found "proper" Lego and started MOC'ing from there. It took me over two years to actually buy a real set, rather than just parts on bricklink.

stagus

Erm, technically it was the tiny barbeque stand that my wife bought me as a gift following on from my anouncement that I wanted to build a Lego City.

400 sets later I also have SW, SH, etc. No sign of it stopping!

The set that really blew me away was GG, it was the final nail in my wallets coffin!

Bandit

The second the original SW line came out in 1999, I went to TRU and bought every single set. Along with every single SW set released since then, here I am.

mkolandian

4500 Rebel Snowspeeder. At that time my wife was expecting our first daughter and I stopped my hobby that is (well was...) model kit building in order not to expose her and the child to nasty solvents and glues. I went to a toy shop to buy a birthday present for my nephew and I saw the Rebel Snowspeeder on sale (a rare event for Lego here in Italy). I bought it and since then (it was 2005) I bought a few and selected set from the Star Wars theme, only OT.

BOBJACK_JACKBOB

At the beginning of 2010 I met my girlfriend. She worked in a newsagents and brought home a couple of free sets (I think they were from the daily mail?). A couple of weeks later we went on our first holiday together. On the way home she bought me a tiny green wizard set and a small fireman set. we had fun building them on the train and when we got home we put them on a shelf as ornaments. Later that year she got some more free promo sets from her work. But that christmas she bought me the 7639 Camper. That was the set that done it! There and then I said that for my birthday in February all I wanted was lego. Now all my family get me lego for presents and nothing else!

So she is responsible for my addiction, just another reason I love her so much! We are getting married next month, with a lego bride & groom on our cake of course!

kempo81

It's only in the last few years I have re-discovered my love for LEGO, thanks to a good friend and fellow AFOL that helped jog my memory (thanks @atkinsar!). My main interest is LEGO SW, and in particular OT sets. It was actually a visit to LEGO Steam in Swindon that helped me out of my dark ages - although a purchase of set 8017 Darth Vader's Tie Fighter at the show helped me along too... ;o) I also have a number of other sets including Super Heroes/Indiana Jones/CM/Toy Story/Cars/POTC and a few others. And as a huge Ferrari fan, the little jewel in my collection is a MISB, LEGO 8389 M Schumacher & R Barrichello!

Brickarmor

Life on Mars Aero Tube Hangar. For my son's 6th birthday I started looking for Legos. Since he is keenly interested in astronomy, the Mars themes were the natural choice. Until I saw this set I had no idea about the variety Lego offered. Favorite purchase so far has been the Space Shuttle Discovery from 2003. Greatly looking forward to our first 2000+ piece build. Someday.

malleable

The Creator Beach House 4996 pulled me out of a 10-year dark ages. I primarily build city and town, so the Town Jr sets of the late 90s-early 2000s naturally repulsed me, and I was in high school and college anyways, so I was busy with other pursuits. Then I got 4996 for my birthday, and then was able to get King's Castle Siege for $30 at Walmart. That did it for me; I was (and still am) hooked.

AvengerDr

My girlfriend gifted me a TIE Defender for my birthday two years ago and if that wasn't enough, an X-Wing (the previous version) for my PhD graduation last year. Then I moved to England from Italy, walked inside the Lego store in Liverpool and realized how much I ignored about Lego while I lived in Southern Italy... Now my house is becoming full of Lego and I have a (still small) bricklink store :)

Now that we are speaking of.. I have a box full of the new wave of Summer SW sets to bring home.. :D

vwong19

For me it was 7667 SW Imperial Dropship while my wife and I were nesting for our first newborn at Target back in 2008. I thought the 3 little Storm Troopers were cool, although I really wasn't a huge Star Wars fan. That led to a few more SW sets and each year since, it has been an exponential increase... I had a few castle sets when I was a child.

soundczar

Like many here, I collected classic town, space and castle as a kid in the late '70's and early '80's. I got interested in other things in my teens, though my grandmother always included a small Lego set for me at Christmastime (God Bless her!). I was in a TRU in '89, looking for Nerf balls and wandered into the Lego aisle. They had the small Wolfpack Renegades cart and few other small Castle sets that looked interesting, so I bought them to decorate the shelves of my new office. In '94, after getting married, I was developing an interest in model railroading. I joked with my wife that they had Lego trains. She bought me one for my birthday and I set it up on the living room floor. I retrieved my old town sets from my parents' attic, and built a small town to go with my new train. As the sets from the mid-90's were sort-of lame, I spent my money buying sets I wished I had when I was younger from auction sites online. Eighteen years later, I have a whole house filled with Lego and a wife who realizes she made a bg mistake!

hoyatables

Cafe Corner brought me back. Had picked up an occasional Star Wars set but Cafe Corner . . . man, it was just SO amazing at the time. It was the set I would have killed for as a kid. Town Plan certainly helped.

And you know, Brickset here certainly hasn't hurt :).

jimmyp1982

I was brought out by the Star Wars advent calender (bought for me by the missus!) last December, I then recieved 10220 & 10197 for Christmas. I am now well and truly hooked again and have been spending far too much trying to aquire some of the amazing sets that I have missed out on!

Coolsplash

Darn I missed commenting on the forums. Missed you all my brethren.

Well I came out of my Dark ages 4 years back when I stumbled onto the Fantasy Era theme locally. It was a crazy day :) I rushed home, got online, checked prices on Lego.com as back then I didn't had a clue about Bricklink or Brickset. Then rushed back to that toy store, offered my vendor friend 30% off, he did not agree, then rushed back home, rechecked prices on Ebay, then again went to my vendor friend, and did not leave his store till he agreed on my price :D Bought $300 worth of Lego from his store, some City, some Fantasy Era, some Star wars. Got the items at 40% off.

And since then, my wallet does not like me :P and the wife rolls her eyes, but my kid loves me to be the Coolest dad in the world :)

tvih

Long post incoming :) I literally came out of my dark age just recently... roughly two weeks ago or so.

Basically, I played with Legos from a wee kid to probably about age 14 or something, but eventually I had so many other hobbies that it fell to the wayside. It didn't help that I had relatively few sets, not that many to display or anything. Our family was always tight on money, so the collection wasn't big. Now I'm 28, and in the years in between I haven't done much with Legos. I did build a few of my sets partially some years ago to try and preserve them. But after '99 or so I hadn't really kept track of new sets and such, because at that point it seemed there weren't really many interesting sets around anyway - the Castle stuff (my favorite theme) was a bit meh, and the initial Star Wars sets didn't seem all that awesome... and so forth.

As it turned out now that I came out of my dark age, I should've done the preservation thing much earlier. As we were emptying our things from our childhood home - mother was moving away from there - I wanted to of course take the Legos, which had been by far my favorite childhood toys. But as I finally found them and started assembling them, so many of the sets have missing or broken parts because of my youngest brother's destructive ways. And of course from heavy use by me as well as my brothers, in general the parts are very worn, discolored, teeth marks, etc etc.

But on the positive side, I did discover that building the sets aside from the missing and broken parts was just as fun as back when I was a kid. So I got the irresistable urge to get new sets, for a new building experience, and to collect my favorite themes again - things worthy of display and not worn down by age.

I should've done this at least two years back. Because now Kingdoms, the best Castle line so far, is hard to get - I've managed to get started in it fairly well now though - at least in terms of amount of soldiers! What's more though is the Star Wars line that has seen many improvements over the initial stuff. Vader's black-and-gray ship is out of production, same with A-Wing and Snowspeeder.. and it's hard to get stormtroopers now too what with Imperial Dropship also being out of production :( And I'd need a bunch of them. At the same time I don't like the idea of buying used - and usually overpriced. Also a Star Destroyer would've been nice. I have a great craving for the Super Star Destroyer now, and hope I can manage getting it before it's out of production too. So far the only SW set I've secured is the TIE Defender. From current sets aside from the SSD I also want the TIE Fighter and possibly the Endor battle pack to at least get a second stormtrooper. Death Star and R2-D2 would be great too, but I don't think that's possible with my financial means :( Fury fits into that category too - it looks nice, despite not being familiar with the ship. In any case I've got dioramas planned for both Star Wars and Kingdoms, once I can get all the necessary things.

Long story short, I'm back in the "game" and craving for more to build. If only my wallet was happy about it.

tvih

Oh, and speaking of things going out of production. Is there usually any notification ahead of time before UCS stuff like the SSD or Death Star are discontinued? So that you could grab it while you still can? Because the SSD has been sold for nearly a year now, and the Death Star actually four years now apparently. Many normal sets don't seem to last even for that year, it seems, let alone four. Basically wondering that if I wanted both, would it be more prudent to get the DS first, or if it is considering more proven and thus likely to stay longer than the SSD... hmm :|

kks

Lego suckered me in when I got a catalog mail last fall and thought there were some really cool sets. The first set I bought was Grand Emporium and now built all modulars (except cafe corner and market street), tower bridge, taj mahal, eiffel tower, IS, IF, QAR, MMV and many, many smaller sets and my want list keeps growing.

MorkMan

My Dark Ages began around 1985 and ended in 2011. 26 years, folks. 68% of my life was sans Lego. But then...
Eleven months ago (July, 2011) was a very tough time for me at work... Irrational boss(es), HR involvement, soul-searching on my part, and very very long and intense weeks. My wife told me, and I remember it vividly: "get a hobby or get a new job."
My lack of time and decisiveness made me think back to my childhood and remember what it had been to smile, laugh, and be happy. LEGO used to do that for me.
So the next time we were in Target, I picked up the little packaged Creator Mini Plane. From that point on, I was hooked. I found (sadly) Brickset only after spending wayy too much on eBay, making rookie mistakes on prices I paid. Then I began to (obsessively) read Brickset and buy more and more from the Lego Store. Until very recently, I had been saying that everything was for my 2 sons (2 and 4), but now all my relatives and friends know that is not the truth.
Thankfully, Lego has kept me sane and stopped me from making a bad work situation worse.

Legofanatic2414

Funny story, I came out of my dark ages because of my son! You see, we were in Toys R Us and he wanted a toy, so I sent him out to pick one. He came back with 3827, the first Spongebob set. I was amused, and when we both built it together, my interest exploded. I then took my son to the attic, where we then spent the next 3 weeks rebuilding most of my original collection of sets. From then on, LEGO has been a household name......Such wonderful memories...

Bosstone100

@tvih - trry your local Barnes & Noble. The two I've gone to (Fort Lauderdale and Clearwater) both had plenty of Kingdoms stuff... last time I went. Could be worth a trip.

paul_merton

One little trick I have realised is to start collecting something less appealing than Lego. Then when you do start collecting Lego instead, the other half suddenly welcomes it with open arms!

nerick906

Let me share my story !

Middle of 2010, My friend which was working with me wanted to buy a present for his son, we went to the Entertainer and we choose a nice creator truck for him. There was a Brickbeard's bounty on the shelf which brought me the memories back! I always wanted a pirate ship, but my parents couldn't afford that kind of big set. Later on we had quiet a lot to drink, few bottles of Vodka finished. Next day I woke up, I can see my account down by 88.00 spent on ebay. I bought the Barracuda ! Few months later I could not stop, I started buying few smaller sets etc. then the IF, QAR, death star... now superheroes come up... so I need them all...
I'm still trying to convince my girlfriend that that's for reselling ;D
and I love the minifigs. all series present.

ringleheim

I owe my Lego rennaisance to a single set: SSD. I discovered it quite by accident shortly after it was released last September. I'm not sure I was fully aware that Lego made huge sets for adults with thousands of pieces and hefty price tags.

I hemmed and hawed and finally got it in December of last year, after realizing I HAD to have a 4 foot long Lego depiction of such a cool ship.

While at the Lego store to purchase it, I noticed a built Pet Shop in the store window. I would never have thought I would be interested in a Lego "doll house" but after leaving the store, I could not get Pet Shop out of my mind. It was so polished, so sophisticated. It looked nothing like the Legos from my childhood and after about 24 hours of pondering, I ordered it from shop at home.

That was all last December. Now barely 7 months later, I think I have nearly $3,000 sunk into Legos and am fully addicted.

My Lego history is almost identical to the original poster's. I still have all my childhood Lego from the '70s and early '80s in my mom's attic. I know I have all the parts to build "yellow castle" and "Galaxy Explorer" up there. When I was a kid, the only Lego stuff I really cared about was "Space" and "Castle".

I vaguely recall the introduction of the Pirate system, which came out just as I was getting old enough to forget about Legos. I remember being frustrated by the launch of the dedicated ship parts just as I was getting out of Lego, as I had tried for years before that to make a good looking pirate ship with little success!

As a kid, the sets I had lasted about 24 hours in built form. They were always quickly dismantled, thrown into the giant pile of pieces, and really, the only Lego world I ever knew was that of MOCing.

I recall making a not bad looking ORCA ship from the movie "Jaws", an off-shore oil drilling rig, and countless other stuff.

I also recall trying to build a Mil Mi-24 gunship, probably around 1980 or so!

Big_Blue_Winky

Just realised today that it's been roughly 12 months since I got back into Lego with the set #4202 mining truck, it somehow appealed to my obsession with over the top engineering both in size and power which inspired me to buy it, that then built momentum into me spending a vast fortune building up a collection of always wanted in my youth.
I feel the anniversary of my return to Lego as quite a big thing, back to doing something I love and really wanted to do, build a massive city from plastic bricks.
Who else saw their Lego return as a momentous occasion? Who can remember their first set or even the set that bought about their return?

monkeyhanger

So what set did you buy for your anniversary?

Big_Blue_Winky

It was actually Friday and I didn't realise it at the time, I did buy myself a Lego Movie mini Fig and buy set 60054 and take my GF to see the Lego movie, managed to disguise it as a romantic gesture for Valentines day by taking her out for a meal before hand as well. A successful celebration I'd say, of the anniversary that is, don't much care for valentines day but then I'm a bloke so I wouldn't.

Bluefairy_56

My first ever Lego set I bought at the beginning of this month, I got Harry Potter Dumbledore's Office. I never had Lego as a kid, and when my children were little I was only able to buy basic bricks, and small sets. Now I have grandchildren, I have bought them some bigger ones.

So I am a total newbie in more ways than one...

ajm390

Collected lego avidly as a boy then stopped round about 1982. Lego was put in the loft, and stayed there till I moved house when it went into the shed together with the train set. Started building again in 2010 to amuse some kids we were looking after, then I came out of the Dark Ages when I went to Bluewater Lego store and saw the 10197 Fire Station. Started to collect again and now enjoy each new build. It also helps relive more innocent days when my dad was still alive (he died in 2009).

Bluefairy_56

Ghee I feel deprived...none of us kids had an Lego when we were growing up in the 1950's to 1960's. My brothers had cowboys and Indians, forts and matchbox cars, which I loved playing with.

My very first introduction to Lego came when my son was about 4 in 1986. I helped him build houses, cars and trucks, etc. The Lego collection was added to with each of my four children, so now I have a 60litre crate of basic Lego. This is now being used by my grandchildren when they visit.

I started collecting my very first set at the beginning of February, I'm a late bloomer I suppose...lol