How do you Star Wars Lego (non-investing)

[eliminator]

With the insanity that is the Lego Star Wars line, I'm curious to hear what you guys keep for your personal build/display collections. Last night I boxed up much of my UCS ship collection to make display space for other Lego sets (modular buildings, creator expert cars, etc) and it got me thinking of reducing and focusing my SW sets.

Moreover, with my kids now coming of age where they can actually "play" with Lego sets, I'm finding myself looking more at the various play-sets and battle set groupings that just UCS "display only" options. 

So, how do you Star Wars Lego? Only UCS? Only UCS with caveats? Only OT? Minifig scale? Clone wars? Battle/diorama set ups? Do you buy multiples of sets to re-create movie scenes? Do you collect just the minifigs? Only mini sets and advent calendars? Build-able figs? Or do you just ad hoc collect the sets you like, with no pressure to be a completionist.

 

[thoroakenfelder]

I buy a lot of bulk lots that have minifigure scale sets in them. A lot of times if I get a duplicate minifigure, I sell it, even if it completes a set I am keeping. Sometimes I keep duplicates with their sets if it's a playset demanding to be displayed with their figures. I like some of the playsets, more and more I find myself enjoying the $25 sets. I don't really get the UCS sets because I feel like they're a bit too expensive. My display is a haphazard mish mash of sets, because I have never really organized them, Although I do have some environments that I cobbled together. I get a bunch of army builders when I can find them fairly cheap. I would like to buy multiples of certain sets to create battle scenes, but I generally don't because of space and money constraints. My wife would like to see me hang some of the ships from the ceiling of my room. If I do have multiples of a specific set, I generally modify it to be different like the Anakin Jedi Starfighters that I color swapped or the 9493 that I built up from parts and then color swapped the blue to red.

I don't go out of my way to get Clone Wars era stuff, but I usually find them in the bulk. With new sets, I get bored sometimes and have to get what's out there. Sometimes I buy immediately and sometimes I wait for sale. I didn't get the quadjumper, Rex's AT-TE or Rathtar Escape until clearance. I'm not generally going to pay over retail for any set regardless of if it is retired, unless I have a strategy to flip it immediately. Sets that I would like to have that fall higher than retail, I'll try to build them from what I have on hand and see if I can get the rest of the parts for less than retail or just do without it. I am not the customer for most on this site. 

Would I like to have certain UCS sets? Sometimes. But then I think of the cost and the space and go back to my smaller, cheaper sets. I collect minifigures to flesh out a scene, not just to have minifigures, except Obi-Wan and Luke which I try to have an extra one of each.

[MusiKyle]

Interesting thread... I began recollecting Legos about 2 years ago after getting my childhood legos back from my folks and a Lego Christmas present from my now wife, and that's all it took. I focused primarily on City stuff at the time, particularly wanting to build an airport. I always been a fan of Star Wars but didn't get into the Lego scene until Summer 2017 clearance round 2 where I got a U-Wing for $35 or so. Then the Tie Striker for $35, then an X-wing and now I think I have about 8 or 9 large craft (Kylo's shuttle and 75105 Falcon the largest), 4 or 5 small craft (Luke's Landspeeder, Rey's Speeder, A-wing), and a 2 or 3 small scenes. My desk is full I have no room for more, so I find myself asking how to consolidate, what to keep or eliminate. At first I was pretty OCD about keeping the figures and vehicles that came in each box together, now I'm thinking of having figureless iconic vehicles in one area and groups/scenes of minifigures in another. I don't have a HUGE collection but about 85+ minifigures. Kind of want to build my own customer Star Wars themed minifigure stand or diorama. I don't like those displays that each figure has a fixed amount of volume to occupy like prison, I like to think they can be displayed with a little of my creativity as well. As for the future of my Star Wars collecting... can't afford UCS stuff, I will still buy iconic vehicles from previous movies, and will buy smaller sets for the figures and if I think there are interesting extra pieces. If the figure can be had on the aftermarket for a fraction of the set cost I may consider that on a case-by-case basis. Depending on where Disney takes Star Wars I may not be buying too much from new movies and focus on newly designed sets for earlier episodes. May the force be with you.

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[eliminator]

For me, following selling off a considerable amount of personnel sets my build/display collection is left with:

-UCS (including debatable UCS status sets like R2-D2 and BB-8)
-Promotional items and minifigs: May the Fourth, Force Friday, etc
-Battle of Hoth related sets
-Endor related sets
-Tatooine event sets
-Some Rogue One/Scarif battle related sets
-Advent Calanders

 

[Val-E]

Isn´t there a verb missing from the question?

[thoroakenfelder]

31 minutes ago, Val-E said:

Isn´t there a verb missing from the question?

I think he made Lego a verb.

[Val-E]

6 minutes ago, thoroakenfelder said:

I think he made Lego a verb.

I thought he made Star Wars into a verb, but then George Lucas would come looking for royalties.

Edited January 1, 2018 by Val-E

[Graphicski]

Im a massive star wars and lego fan. Got a fair few of the old original releases from the first waves when i was a kid, then in recent years moving in with another lego fan we collect modular, creator fairground, ucs star wars, marvel and anything else that catches our eye/can afford. Very irritated by the current onslaught of expensive D2C sets and never going to be able to have all of them.

Although (IMO) disney ruining star wars for me with the latest film (especially luke) means i dont want any new lines from the new film.

[TheRebel]

Same I also collect loads of Lego Star Wars sets. I get mine at Christmas, Easter and birthdays but I don't spend any of my own money on anything over £25.00 (I'm quite young ) in my UCS collection I currently have 8: Millennium falcon(new), snowspeeder(new), tie fighter(new), slave one, sandcrawler, super star destroyer, Death Star, BB-8 (I think this a UCS set because it has the stand and previous sets have not had the correct label and still been UCS, so...)

 

 

And I also think  Disney kind of made rip-offs of the old movies and sort of recked it a bit!!!

Edited January 1, 2018 by TheRebel

[Fenix_2k1]

When I came out of my dark ages I was buying just about every star wars set available. I've now pared it back to UCS and UCS like sets including MOCs and a collection of the Microfighters. I'll. Occasionally buy a set if minifig part out makes it free. Under those circumstances i build it for fun and then break down and add to my inventory for Moc's.

I also collect the Modular buildings, Ideas sets and Creator Cars.

[amrandazz]

I buy just about everything at 45%+ off unless its a completely miserable set (recent examples - FO Snowspeeder, FO Walker, FO AT-ST) except UCS which I will buy at ~10-20% off or big LEGO promotion at retail. I figure at rougly 50% off, I won't lose any money even if its built when I decide to sell them. I'll buy polys at retail because its $5 and pinching those pennies aren't really that value-added.

As I run out of space, I will probably scale back like @Fenix_2k1. I only collect SW and buy my son seasonals/DUPLO/some Juniors, but I anticipate as I cut back on SW and the franchise devalues, I will expand my scope of interest to other sets (and as kids get older).

[firstofminifigs]

Lego Star Wars has always been about the minifigures in my opinion and because of that I love to collect and MOC minifigure scale sets. I usually only buy out of scale sets if I am going to modify it to minifigure(ish) scale.

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[Alpinemaps]

If it's on sale, and it's a ship, and my son and I both think it will be fun to build, then we buy it.

There are a couple of things that, for nostalgia's sake, I will consider - like the Atch-u set with Old Luke - I really want Old Luke.  And the Bounty Hunters battle pack from 2017.  

[HandyHand]

I came out of my LEGO Dark Ages late 2015, which was right before The Force Awakens arrived in the cinema, with all the accompanying Lego sets. So my first Lego Star Wars sets were from that movie: Poe's X-Wing, FO Tie Fighter, Rey's Speeder, 75105 MF... 

From there I gradually expanded the collection with sets I both like and could buy at a good discount: Imperial Shuttle Tydirium, Slave-1 UCS, AT-ST (Rogue 1), Y-Wing (Rogue 1). 

This year I got the BB-8 set and loved it so much I really wanted to get the matching UCS R2-D2 set as well, so I sold off a MISB Red 5 X-Wing to justify for myself getting a MISB R2-D2 which I finally built over the Christmas Holidays.  

[Cheese]

Like a lot of others, I came out of my dark ages around the time of the release of the Force Awakens when my wife bought me a red 5 for Xmas. It then just snowballed from there. Knowing space would quickly become an issue I restricted myself just to UCS sets and UCS size MOCs. Having searched high and low over the past 2 years, I only have a few UCS sets to track down. They are now displayed in my man cave. I also have all of the modulars but with the exception of the earlier ones such as cafe corner, green grocer and fire brigade the rest have still to be built because of space. These will probably be kept on storage until the kids are hold enough to appreciate and then we can outvote my wife with regards to taking over another room. Occasionally a one off set will come along which I must have, such as Helicarrier, GBHQ, Saturn V, Ninjago City and the off SW constraction figures. Expect this to continue. Whenever my wife complains, I always say she was the catalyst for all of this and it’s a lot cheaper than a Ferrari!

[Huskers1236]

Now that my son has already moved on from Lego, I have cut my buying of system sets down to virtually none. I buy UCS for myself to display but if I want figures for my collection I just Bricklink them.  No sense in buying a $80 set for the 2 $8 figures I want.  The constant remakes have also made buying a set not as noteworthy as you know there will be another one soon if it's even halfway iconic.