Online Lego: Affordable Ways To Enhance Your Child's Lego Collection 3
The Internet is an amazing place, particularly so for small niche interests that have a big following, much like Lego
. There are literally thousands of sites on Lego online, from pure fan-made gallery sites to share photos and animation to highly technical sites authored by adults interested in robotic science.
However for parents there are a few sites worth mentioning if you wish to encourage your child's interest in Lego without spending hundreds of dollars on the latest set. The first one to not is the official Lego site. As part of their rather exemplary customer service (which includes sending replacement parts if some are lost out of the box) is an online library of their instructions in PDF.
Basically by going to their website you can download just about any instructions to any set including just released Star Wars or Harry Potter sets. You download and save on your computer and then print it out. Now chances are if your child has been collecting for a year or two they will have approximately 75% of the pieces, if not in the same color.
Some kids will be happy with the instructions by themselves and will make do with what they have to create something that resembles the set. Others will pine for the missing pieces and that is where Bricklink comes in. At the back of an instruction booklet there is a list of pieces required to make the set.
By entering these piece numbers into Bricklink you can get these individual pieces delivered to you, at a fraction of the price of the entire set. In most cases you can buy more than one required piece from the same seller to save on postage and packaging
Peeron is also a useful site for gaining information on set pieces. This site breaks down sets to their individual units and then links to each piece on bricklink. It is very useful but not all sets are represented so the itemised list in instruction books is a great backup.
Combining these two websites allows your child to choose sets they would like to make from the latest Lego releases without the high price tag.
Online Lego: Affordable Ways To Enhance Your Child's Lego Collection 3