The first Lego sets designed in a competition anyone could enter.
If you consider yourself a diehard fan of adult-grade Lego, you might want to be hovering over these buy buttons on Wednesday, February 7th, at 11AM ET. That’s when Lego will begin selling five limited-edition sets that are literally a fan dream come true: fans entered a BrickLink Designer Program contest to create these Lego sets all by themselves, and they’ll get 5 percent of the proceeds!
They’re also just really cool builds. I’m definitely eying the $380 Mountain Fortress that looks like an excellent counterpart to my Lion Knight’s Castle, the $50 Snack Shack that reminds me of a shrimp truck I loved in Hawaii, and the $320 Parisian Street with its timeless Haussmann architecture and charming storefronts.
I’ll tell you more about the contest below. For now, here are the sets!
a:hover]:shadow-highlight-franklin dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-highlight-franklin [&>a]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-white”>Parisian Street, $319.99
a:hover]:shadow-highlight-franklin dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-highlight-franklin [&>a]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-white”>Mountain Fortress, $379.99
a:hover]:shadow-highlight-franklin dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-highlight-franklin [&>a]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-white”>Snack Shack, $49.99
a:hover]:shadow-highlight-franklin dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-highlight-franklin [&>a]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-white”>General Store, $159.99
a:hover]:shadow-highlight-franklin dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-highlight-franklin [&>a]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-white”>Old Train Engine Shed, $229.99
Lego believes the sets should ship in July 2024, but “actual dates and shipping times may vary.”
These aren’t the first fan-designed sets Lego has put on sale, of course, but there are important differences this time around. While fan ideas have previously either been adapted by The Lego Group (read my feature story about how Lego Ideas works!) or were crowdfunded from previous Lego Ideas submissions, the Lego BrickLink Designer Program Series 1 is the first time that anyone’s been able to design a Lego set that Lego will simply produce.
Lego will also be making more of these fan-designed sets than ever before. While previous fan creations were limited to 10,000 copies or fewer, and Lego originally announced it would be making up to 20,000 of this batch, the company now says the limit is 30,000. That means these sets may not be as valuable for collectors as previous batches, most of which have already doubled in value, but hopefully, that means fewer scalpers!
It also means the fan designers of the biggest sets could earn royalties of around half a million dollars. Imagine that.
