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The worst thing you've done...

ShpadoinkleShpadoinkle Member Posts: 420
in Collecting
I'm in the middle of easily the worst thing I've had to do for my Lego collection. I bought a lot a couple weeks back and am slowly sorting it. However, this lot contains about 10% non-lego bricks from every off brand you can imagine. Big pieces, little pieces, everything. So every single brick has to be examined closely and every stud checked for the proper logo (there were even some with another logo which I couldn't make out!)

Not trying to be a downer, in fact it's funny in a ludicrous way that I spend my evenings with my reading glasses trying to read these little logos! I figured it would alleviate the pain to commiseate with everyone here and ask:

"What is the worst or most tedious thing you've had to do for your Lego collection?"
icey11791stlegotrooper

Comments

  • carlqcarlq Member Posts: 792
    At the age of 10, it took me untold hours to build the yellow Castle I received one Christmas....and further hours to rebuild it when first my mother, then my sister, decided it was taking up too much room and broke the whole thing apart again (well, "not enough room" was my mother's excuse; my sister did it - twice! - because she was the spawn of Beelzebub, and liked toying with the sanity of her little brother and making him cry.....:-/ ).
    JessyDooDah
  • CapnRex101CapnRex101 Administrator Posts: 2,364
    The worst thing for me would have to be moving #10188 Death Star. The central lift dropped straight out of the bottom, crashed onto the floor, thereby making me jump, and I dropped the whole thing...

    Equally bad though would have to be writing my review of #9516 last year, having written some 4000 words of it I promptly knocked the plug out of the wall socket and lost the whole lot.
    andhe91stlegotrooperRedbullgivesuwind
  • rancorbaitrancorbait Member Posts: 1,842
    Last year I bought #6211 from a guy for $70, I was so excited! I went home and built it then set it on my desk. Later I come into my room to find my little brother sitting on the floor in a scattered pile of what was once a star destroyer. It took me hours to find all the pieces, one was even broken!
    Fernlagoon
  • NellyNelly Member Posts: 77
    I similarly bought a decent lot in a large bin at a garage sale recently. I knew there were non-Lego parts included but the deal was great, so I was prepared for the long process of analyzing and sorting.

    On the way home I stopped for a Chipotle burrito bowl, extra saucy. I placed the bag in the bin on my front seat. Somehow on the drive home the burrito bowl tipped over, and the contents spilled into the bin. My lunch was all over the Lego, on top and in the bottom of pieces. The smothering of salsa on everything highlighted hundreds of cat hairs I had not noticed before. So I slowly filtered through every dirty, sticky piece, creating a "to wash" Lego pile and a "to discard" non-Lego pile (maybe 10%). And to top it off, I had to do it all on an empty stomach.
    jimmyp1982
  • carlqcarlq Member Posts: 792
    ^ you did that too? Wow, that's one unlucky parent.....
    Kevtee
  • BrickDancerBrickDancer Member Posts: 3,639
    Fresh out of my dark ages, I was compiling a nice and steady growing collection of sets. As it grew bigger and bigger, I wanted to save space so tossed all the boxes and put the sets in ZipLocs in a giant 60 gallon Sterilite. Only to decide a few months later that I need all the boxes for long term collection. Thus started the buying back of many, many boxes. To this day, I'm still missing a couple that I tossed =(
  • dsdg88dsdg88 Member Posts: 133
    We're preparing to move and the kids and I have been breaking down, bagging and boxing all the sets that have been on display. It was hopeless to make the sets complete first since the minifigs and accessories are all mixed together (aka played with).
    I did manage to find all the pieces and minifigs for the Holiday Train--one of the passengers had to put down a sword and gun that he'd picked up somewhere before he was allowed to join the others, however.
    Also Slave-1 was not designed for easy disassembly. A couple of "Technic, Axle 3 with Stud" were used to pin it together and there was no way to push them out.
    I think we've filled about six boxes so far.
  • CoyotelilyCoyotelily Member Posts: 661
    An elderly chap we know loves to build the modulars, large technics, etc but once he has built them we buy them off him to fund his next set, I was delighted when he said he had made the tower bridge set - we carefully removed the sides and strapped it into the back seat of the car to travel the 40 miles home, very excited to put it on display. When we arrived home I went to carefully get it out of the car and as I did so caught a corner of it on the edge of the car door only for it to disintegrate in my hands - I was left holding part of the two main towers in each hand and the rest of the lego was all over the drive, car, flower bed etc and I just stood there in disbelief! It took about an hour to round up all the pieces- moral of the story, next time take a bigger box !!!!
    andhe
  • BoiseStateBoiseState Member Posts: 804
    Sold a large pile of Hogwarts, Destinys Bounty, etc.. for 50% of their retail value because I was moving.
    FollowsClosely
  • TheOneVeyronianTheOneVeyronian Member Posts: 1,372
    Worst thing I've ever done?

    It's gotta be selling much of my Monster Fighters off, including HH and Zombies, all for £120. Man I miss that HH set so much, I bet the guy who bought it off me is still dancing on cloud nine

    Now since I am a student, I don't have enough money left to re-purchase HH at the moment, but I was really stretched for cash when I sold it. Maybe come Halloween I'll buy it again and relive the magic.

    Lesson learnt, though, I'm not going to make the same mistake with my Orthanc, the most expensive set I've ever purchased! That one will stay firmly in it's place in my room no matter what!
  • licowboy74licowboy74 Member Posts: 12
    A while ago I took apart many of my sets and piled them into one large bin with no seperation into sets at all, I recently seperated them into individual colors, and with the help of my son began gathering the instructions and sorting through to get them back into sets. We put 2-3 sets in their own individual bin with the set number and instructions in there. tedious and finding missing some pieces, how I have no idea, so have list of pieces need to get to complete the sets pain in the butt. but my own fault
  • AdeelZubairAdeelZubair Member Posts: 2,704
    I wanted #8635 so badly in 2008, Christmas came and I saw it for £35 in my local toy store and didn't tell my parents to get it thinking they would say no.

    After Christmas I went into Smyths asking for #8635 they said no and I told my mum I saw this for £35 at Christmas and she said she would have got it.

    From this day tell them about every Lego sale and every set I want. I still regret it till this day.
  • sjerakatsjerakat Member Posts: 27
    Fresh out of my dark ages I discovered that the pieces to my UCS Snowspeeder were among 1000's of other pieces of lego that had been placed in a bin and left outside for several years. Sifting through the pieces I noticed that rain water had collected in the bottom, there were leaves, dirt and grime on almost every little Lego piece. Having seen what the going prices for the UCS Snowspeeder were and considering I still had the box and instructions I was determined to put it back together. With enough pieces to cover my entire dining room table I spent 4 evenings sorting and cleaning the pieces while simultaneously putting the Snowspeeder together. I was able to complete the Snowspeeder with only a few pieces missing but a lot of the white plates were yellowed or dirty or bent. I bought replacement parts and now my Snowspeeder is as good as new and has quickly become one of my gems because I had to reasurect it from nothingness
  • RennyRenny Member Posts: 1,145
    I'd have to say setting unrealistic goals. I got back into Lego in late 2011 thanks to the UCS Imperial Shuttle. Really enjoyed it and with my new found excitement for the hobby decided I would retroactively collect all retail Star Wars sets released from 1999 to present.

    I ended up with almost 80% of them all when I read the news that the license had been renewed for another 10 years. It was at that point I realized it was going to be a collection that never ended and immediately stopped. Needless to say, a lot of those sets did not come cheap as I bought all of them sealed and well past retirement. I immediately shifted focus and started selling them all off (except for a very select few).

    Lesson learned, now I just collect what I like.
    augenindigoboxLegoboymargotTheLoneTensorSirKevbags
  • wagnerml2wagnerml2 Member Posts: 1,376
    I dropped a 50quart sterilite box full of 50 pounds of lego down 2 flights of stairs hitting every single stair on the way down. A colossal mess that results in certain bits still being vacuumed up to this day.
  • icey117icey117 Member Posts: 510
    Mistake: Leaving my childhood LEGO collection at home. When my son arrived it took me around 14 days to get out of my dark-age only to discover that my dad had tossed my entire collection when they a few years earlier had moved from villa to appartment. Seeing my disappointment he offered me £100 to buy new. Kind - but he obviously have no clue what that collection was worth.

    Once in a while I have considered ebaying them - but it's just not the same - so lost is lost!
  • peterlinddkpeterlinddk Member Posts: 170
    edited August 2013
    I bought about 20kg of very dirty LEGO from the 1980's, that had been stored in a damp cellar. It was interessting parts, but in really, really bad shape, and smelly as heck. I tried to negotiate price with the seller, but he was unbendable, and I had driven quite a long way to fetch them.
    So I took the lot home, took everything apart, and washed every single brick - removed a lot of hairs (human and animal) from the wheels, and got them quite clean. Then I started sorting, and immediately got headaches, probably because of all the fungi still in the bricks - so once again they got cleaned, soaked in vinegar, and left outside for two days ...

    Oh, and the instructions - don't get me started - I am still in the process of treating them in dry baths of catsand with active carbon - just to remove the smell, and make it possible to actually read them, without getting sick.

    I still have more broken, bitten, bent, extremely dirty, and sun-damaged LEGO-bricks from that collection, than any other I have bought or seen. But I got quite a few nice 80's sets out of it ... but man, what a lot of work ... never again.
  • khmellymelkhmellymel Member Posts: 1,313
    edited August 2013
    ^ Mine is similar. I left my childhood Lego in the storage of the apartment I shared with an ex-boyfriend when I moved out (that's actually not such a big deal, we are on friendly terms). Now I've moved halfway across the world, and my ex got married... so I'm not very hopeful for the Lego!
  • AFFOL_Shellz_BellzAFFOL_Shellz_Bellz Member Posts: 1,263
    Worst thing - actually it was hubby, not me - built a ship using MB instructions and Lego bricks.
  • LusiferSamLusiferSam Member Posts: 574
    The worst and most tedious thing I've done is sorted early PAT PEND from late PAT PEND and void bricks. 18 hours in total. I keep telling myself never again, but I got another set of bricks I need to check.
    caperberry
  • prof1515prof1515 Member Posts: 1,550
    edited August 2013
    That's pretty timid for someone calling himself Lusifer. ;-P

    I expected far more.
    JessyDooDahFurrysaurus91stlegotroopercaperberry
  • 91stlegotrooper91stlegotrooper Member Posts: 92
    Worst thing that ever happen, me and a friend spent 26 hours straight building a massive Lego layout of the battle of Endor. We used half of our collections building this layout and included several of every Endor set to date at that time. After we finished, my friend went to get his camera but slipped on a few spare bricks and crushed the entire thing. It took about a month to sort through the 10,000+ brick to figure what was his, what was mine, and what belong to a set.
    Lesson learned- never combine Lego collections.
  • mathewmathew Member Posts: 2,099
    Five years ago, telling my mom that the box of Lego she found while cleaning out the basement could go to Goodwill.

    Dumbest thing was last year when I returned a QAR to Target that I had found on clearance a few weeks earlier for $68. I was going through a mini-dark age and depressed with all of the money I had spent on buying Lego.
  • davee123davee123 Member Posts: 854
    I bought sets containing new grays. Most. Tedious. Ever.

    DaveE
    FollowsClosely
  • piratemania7piratemania7 Member Posts: 2,146
    Off the bat the worst thing I can think of really would be when I was maybe 14 and just about to enter my deep dark ages when I essentially sold off my collection, except for a set or two, for basically next to nothing. I think about it from time to time since I came out of the deep dark ages about 3 years ago even to this day! Over 15 years later.
    Fernlagoon
  • madforLEGOmadforLEGO Member Posts: 10,789
    Pick a part lot to put back into sets.. any of them...
    One I literally had caked dust/dirt on my hands after sorting.. and then sorting through lots that had, what I hope was, old chocolate or dirt.
    Buying a LEGO XXL Crane but waiting a year to try to inventory it only to find it was completely glued together.
    Getting a lot and finding out that it looks like one bin of parts is missing
    Having to CLR a ton of old 12v rails to clean them of rust.
  • oldtodd33oldtodd33 Member Posts: 2,696
    ^ what I hope was, old chocolate or dirt.

    Yeah, I've kept telling myself that too.

    Buying a LEGO XXL Crane but waiting a year to try to inventory it only to find it was completely glued together.

    This is when I knew I was buying too much. If I don't have the time soon, I shouldn't buy it now. Maybe later when I have more time.

    Having to CLR a ton of old 12v rails to clean them of rust.

    I hate doing this on 12v rails because when you clean them in any type of liquid, the underside rusts and you have to take the metal off of the plastic base to make sure the rust doesn't bleed onto the plastic.
    Furrysaurus
  • caperberrycaperberry Member Posts: 2,226
    Well there was this donkey show in Tijuana one time...oh wait, you mean Lego?
    carlqOldfan
  • Big_Blue_WinkyBig_Blue_Winky Member Posts: 181
    Packing all my childhood lego sets into boxes for storage so I could go out and have my midlife crisis and buy a load of sports cars, couldn't afford the two at the time to be honest, this went on from my late teens and is still ongoing in my mid twenties (those who know me I'm secretly middle aged trapped in a youths body) although having now got back into Lego I see I've missed out on so many awesome sets from the City range in particular and now having to spend considerably more than I would have to catch up on them, very sad indeed.
  • maniacmaniac Member Posts: 865
    Not getting #10179 when it was actually available at [email protected]
  • LegoMom1LegoMom1 Member Posts: 651
    edited August 2013
    @piratemania7 said: ...just about to enter my deep dark ages when I essentially sold off my collection, except for a set or two, for basically next to nothing.

    Haven't most of us made that same mistake to one degree or another. I do feel your pain, but try to look at it in a karma type light. Your action probably gave much joy to someone else, as well as possibly inspiring the receiver of your 'loss' to have become a fellow AFOL.
  • tamamahmtamamahm Member Posts: 1,987
    I sorted through and organized all the lose Lego last year, and put them into a system of drawers. We have a basked for flats, bricks, specials, tinies, wheels/greenery, technic.

    This took a while. It has been about a year since I did that. The play area is a bit of a mess and needs to be sorted through to get some bricks back in the bin, but overall the system has worked well. I can now tell the kids to sort the bricks. ;-)

  • madforLEGOmadforLEGO Member Posts: 10,789
    I do not lament lost opportunities when buying sets, or I would not have enough time to list them all, Starting with the mid/late 90's LEGO cargo trains when I had the money to buy them (my dark ages).
    Furrysaurus
  • KevteeKevtee Member Posts: 10
    Genius lol
    caperberry said:

    Well there was this donkey show in Tijuana one time...oh wait, you mean Lego?

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