05/13/2026
I started this business with an idea..... "Affordable Legos for the community and Free legos for Teachers, therapists, and special needs individuals, etc".. to keep the hobby affordable for everyone and provide much needed STEM items to the community. Simple right?
Since it's inception, Building Blocks Of Nashville has helped houndeds, if not thousands, of people obtain either free or low cost legos and STEM supplies.
This post isn't intended to toot my own horn, but rather; bring to light the state of the Lego community as it stands now, and how we got here.
( I apologize for a very long post in advance )
Most likely if you're reading this, you're either invested in the logo community, or my company. In that case you already know how difficult Affordable Legos are to source.
I've always been transparent about every aspect of my company including sourcing..
If you didn't know already, I source my inventory from flea markets, yard sales, and probably 99% online marketplaces like Facebook marketplace, Craigslist, offer up, and nextdoor..
The state of the Lego community...
Here in the southern region over 26 "Bricks And Figs" affiliated stores opened in the 4th quarter of 2025 along side countless other non affiliated lego stores, hobby stores, and vintage booths like mine... not to mention already established brick and mortar stores. Mentioably McKays book store which has a store in every major city in the south..
On top of online only resellers and countless new Bricklink.com retailers.
The reason I bring this up goes back to sourcing. Any major lego collection is being brought in and negotiated in person to these established stores and not online. So the collections being posted online; are people who either don't know, live to far away, or want a better deal than what was offered in person.
Getting into pricing and why you're seeing inflated prices at these stores may be baffling to the outsider but It comes down to 4 things:
Items generally have 3 values depending on who's buying.... and then you have the "convenience fee".
1. Market value ( Lego has Bricklink.com now owned by Lego ) to set the price based on past and current sales.
2. Nostalgic value. ( this is what people believe their item is worth)
3. Intrinsic value ( this is what other perceive your item to be worth or "what it will be worth")
Unfortunately with Legos, you get all 3 and the brick and mortars capitalize on that understanding....
Here's the known forlmula for pricing:
On-line: Market value + tax + shipping = total value
Brick and mortar: ( also depends on who's buying going back to the 3 values above )
Market value + ( what it would cost you to ship to compete with online pricing ) + overhead "convenience fee"+ tax.
Now you can see where the prices become inflated for seemingly no reason at all....
This is what I've been trying to combat since inception.
My pricing is: Market value + tax( not by choice ).
Now going back to sourcing....
In tandem with all the new stores, resellers, and online retailers. You have the scrapers. Now this crowd is not new. They've been doing it with anything with any sort of value whatsoever, but in previous years they stayed in their wheelhouse and legos weren't on their radar...
This is where the online race begins and ends. These guys generally flip large ticket items like used vehicles and large lots, jewelry, etc....
They have developed bots and apps to scalp the deals before anyone ever knew they existed...
On top of that they're offering over what the items are being listed at in a sort of "gambling" style in the hopes that rare legos are in the bins.....
So as you might imagine sourcing has been, and will continue to be an issue... my search region is from South Carolina in the east to Memphis in the west and from south of Nashville to Southern Ohio ( around a 600 mile radius ) and still, there's very few collections worth picking up...
Anyway, that's the reason I haven't had any new content lately and why the booth seems empty at times...
Last year I was adding 1 new lot a week.. fast forward to this year.. I'm add 1 new lot a quarter.... so that's the reason.
I know most collectors are frustrated with the state of the hobby, but anytime there's money on the table, the monsters come out to play.....
So I'm gonna keep moving forward. I do apologize if it seems pretty Grimm, but who knows what the future holds.
Don't get burned on pricing... it's always important to check online first, as a "pre-owned" completed set is almost always 50% of the original price ( there's other factors like inflation etc.. etc.. ) but hopefully with this knowledge you can make an informed decision on your next Lego purchase...
( the brick and mortars will have you believe its "new in open box" when in reality you can get the same item in the same state online for half the pirce)
We do still have plenty of 2022+ Starwars Sets available and I'm always adding new items... albeit quarterly now....
My search continues....
