Wanted to pimp my new on-line store - That Special Brick!

My wife and I have started up a company that sells individual LEGO pieces and mini-figures, as well as LEGO jewelry and other items (that's my wife's specialty).  So if you or someone you know might be interested, please pass along the following website:

http://www.thatspecialbrick.com/

On that site are links to our etsy store (for LEGO jewelry) and to Bricklink for the LEGO pieces/mini-figures.

If you have any questions (especially on Bricklink, it can be hard to figure out how to use the first time you see it), just let me know by posting here or PMing me.

On the website is my picture too (in the "About" section), in case you want to see what I look like :)

Thanks for looking!

Chris

Looks cool.  I've heard of bricklink before, but never bought from there.  I've only used it to compare against craigslist prices.  We've bought a fair amount of LEGO recently, but mostly kits.  Should I be buying my LEGO from you instead of amazon?  Or is it mostly people who are designing their own structures & have very specific needs?

Ozyman wrote:

Looks cool.  I've heard of bricklink before, but never bought from there.  I've only used it to compare against craigslist prices.  We've bought a fair amount of LEGO recently, but mostly kits.  Should I be buying my LEGO from you instead of amazon?  Or is it mostly people who are designing their own structures & have very specific needs?

 

Right now, we don't sell kits, just the individual pieces/figures on Bricklink.

So, if you have a piece that you lost and want to replace it, or if you are building something new and need specific pieces, or you want that latest Jedi Knight mini-figure but don't want to buy the expensive kit it is in, then you would come to someone like us.

I've bought off of Bricklink a few times.  Will certainly check your store out first next time -

One of my hobbies is to by collections off of e-bay and try to recreate all their sets.  Locating the missing pieces is where I go to bricklink for.

>One of my hobbies is to by collections off of e-bay and try to recreate all their sets.

> Locating the missing pieces is where I go to bricklink for.

Ah - so you're buying used sets for cheaper, then when the inevitable missing piece shows up you get it from bricklink.  Seems like a good idea...  Except I wouldn't notice the piece is missing until I need it, and then I'd have to wait a couple days to get it.   I'm not sure I'm that patient.

Right now I have about 20 sets that i know are missing pieces.  I have a spreadsheet listing what the pieces are and I order a bunch at once.

I prefer collections with mostly '80's sets since those pieces are more generic and I am more likely to just have extras.  Trying to replace pieces (and mini-figs) from Star Wars sets is a pain.

interesting.  We just do LEGO sets as a family, which includes 1 5-year old, so it can take a while to do one set.  We've been working on Bilbo's house for about a month.

Cona Chris - also a question for you.  How do you make money doing this?  I mean obviously you must be buying these pieces for less and then selling them for more, but where do you get them to sell?

Ozyman wrote:

Cona Chris - also a question for you.  How do you make money doing this?  I mean obviously you must be buying these pieces for less and then selling them for more, but where do you get them to sell?

Yeah, taking a kit/set and selling the pieces individually gets you more money than the set costs, so that's where we make our money on this.  

Some sets get you a little over cost back, some a lot more.  We research which sets are best to get (also keeping in mind we need a wide variety of LEGO pieces to attract the most people to our site) and are on the lookout for sales/clearances a lot too.  Now of course, that's not an instant swap - we don't buy a set, part it out and then get all the pieces to sell the next day, it could be months/years before all the pieces sell (if you watch Storage Wars, this is what Darryl would always say "Yeah, I bought a locker for $400 and got this great item worth $1,000 but I gotta sell it first before getting that $1,000".

So far, we only sell them on Bricklink.  

I also have the fringe benefit of, as I am putting pieces away of going... "Wow, that piece is really cool, I sure wish I had some" and then miraculously, some of those pieces "appear" in my collection :)

I have an eight-year old daughter and five-year old son, and both into LEGOs.  It's always funny when their friends come over and they see me working in "The LEGO room" and their jaws hit the floor when they see all the pieces and sets waiting to be parted out.

Cona Chris wrote:

Ozyman wrote:

Cona Chris - also a question for you.  How do you make money doing this?  I mean obviously you must be buying these pieces for less and then selling them for more, but where do you get them to sell?

Yeah, taking a kit/set and selling the pieces individually gets you more money than the set costs, so that's where we make our money on this.  

Some sets get you a little over cost back, some a lot more.  We research which sets are best to get (also keeping in mind we need a wide variety of LEGO pieces to attract the most people to our site) and are on the lookout for sales/clearances a lot too.  Now of course, that's not an instant swap - we don't buy a set, part it out and then get all the pieces to sell the next day, it could be months/years before all the pieces sell (if you watch Storage Wars, this is what Darryl would always say "Yeah, I bought a locker for $400 and got this great item worth $1,000 but I gotta sell it first before getting that $1,000".

So far, we only sell them on Bricklink.  

I also have the fringe benefit of, as I am putting pieces away of going... "Wow, that piece is really cool, I sure wish I had some" and then miraculously, some of those pieces "appear" in my collection :)

I have an eight-year old daughter and five-year old son, and both into LEGOs.  It's always funny when their friends come over and they see me working in "The LEGO room" and their jaws hit the floor when they see all the pieces and sets waiting to be parted out.

Old bump but can we see a picture of the lego room?

Andernut wrote:

Old bump but can we see a picture of the lego room?

+1

Apologies for the camera and large pics - I'm not all that good with manipulating files and my phone is a Crackberry (it's all my work allows us to have!).

We currently have just south of 150,000 pieces sorted and on-line for sale, but as you can see, I have a lot of work ahead of me still :)

Wow. That's Crazy. 

I've not seen a bundle of routers like that in a loong time! 

And you sell all the pieces individually? 

Yes, we sell the pieces individually.  We are (shameless plug) at thatspecialbrick.com and on that site on the left are links to our Brickowl store (and Bricklink, but most people prefer Brickowl's interface).  

Cool.  I was picturing something like lego-land or the lego movie with a bunch of built models etc haha.  

Cona Chris wrote:

as well as LEGO jewelry and other items (that's my wife's specialty).  

Can you imagine getting punched by somewhere wearing a Lego ring??? Stepping on them hurt bad enough! What about accidentally sleeping with the necklace on, ouch!!!

Cool pics and idea!

Cona Chris - seems like you should be ranked #1 on the Hoarding LEGO board.  

http://www.wargear.net/boards/view/Hoarding+LEGO

Ozyman wrote:

Cona Chris - seems like you should be ranked #1 on the Hoarding LEGO board.  

http://www.wargear.net/boards/view/Hoarding+LEGO

 

Ha!  I should be, yes. :)

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Andernut wrote:

Cool.  I was picturing something like lego-land or the lego movie with a bunch of built models etc haha.  

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The rest of the basement has built models and such, but they are spread out all over and kinda mixed up with other parts (as the kids play with them).

Cool stuff. Let me know when you're hiring. ;)