wanting to build the Eiffel Tower with Pick-a-Brick - Good idea or not?

[vipul.toprani]

Hi all, 

 

Needed a little bit of ideas on the said topic. I really like the Eiffel Tower, and given I missed it and the current lot goes for about 550

[h311m4n]

Hi Vipul,

 

It will mainly depend on 3 things:

 

1. The amount of parts you already have in your inventory

2. The rareness of the parts you do not own but that you need to build it (this will influence your budget)

3. The shipping costs

 

I took this route to build myself a 10179 falcon. I had a bit over 1500 pieces from my own LEGO from when I was a kid. It took my about 2-3 months to gather the rest of the bricks. Total cost, not incluing shipping was somewhere around 600-700 Euros so well worth it. I don't know how much the Eiffel tower is worth, but make sure you do your research before you go the BL route, it might be cheaper to buy a used Eiffel Tower rather than buying the pieces you need to build it!

 

When I talk about rareness, if we take the 10179 falcon, there were 2 pieces that on Brickling cost over 100

[Dinorider2600]

Hi it's a good idea I want to add 10018 darth maul to my collection but this set is very expensive and rare here in Australia. I noticed the parts are common and it will be cheaper to out source the parts from bricklink brand new and I'll end up paying half the price and it's a fun project too.

[MartinP]

I think it would be a good idea to Bricklink the pieces you need to build the set. From brickset.com, most of the pieces are not that rare, so they will be cheap. On the downside, you have to order a lot of the same pieces. One of them, you need 200+ times to build the Eiffel Tower.

[Huskers1236]

Without doing a bunch of research, I would think that Bricklinking or Pick-a-Bricking the Eiffel Tower would be pretty easy.  I'm assuming that there aren't any super rare parts since the whole this is grey, but sometimes a part in a certain color is discontinued. 

 

I have done this with 2 sets, Cafe Corner and UCS Millennium Falcon.   The Cafe Corner cost me about $400 to complete, and the MF cost about $900.  These are to the exact pieces and colors of the originals, meaning I didn't substitute any cheaper color versions.  For the MF, that cost also includes the instructions and sticker sheet. 

 

LEGO Shop at Home will probably cost a bit more, but you should be able to get most of what you need from there and knowing all the pieces are new if that is the route you want to go.  If you're not worried about new pieces, I would go with Bricklink.  Upload the set you want to build to your wanted list, and you should then be able to go to the stores and see who has the most of what you need.  If there are rare parts, I would try to get orders in that have those first, so that you can keep your shipping costs down, because that adds up fast.

[Guest eightbrick]

Bricklink definitely. The lowest part price on Pick A Brick online is 0.8 Euro, on Bricklink you should be able to get way lower new and used. Germany has a lot of good Bricklink stores that have huge piece quantities. Good luck!

[DoNotInsertIntoMouth]

Without doing a bunch of research, I would think that Bricklinking or Pick-a-Bricking the Eiffel Tower would be pretty easy.  I'm assuming that there aren't any super rare parts since the whole this is grey, but sometimes a part in a certain color is discontinued. 

 

I have done this with 2 sets, Cafe Corner and UCS Millennium Falcon.   The Cafe Corner cost me about $400 to complete, and the MF cost about $900.  These are to the exact pieces and colors of the originals, meaning I didn't substitute any cheaper color versions.  For the MF, that cost also includes the instructions and sticker sheet. 

 

LEGO Shop at Home will probably cost a bit more, but you should be able to get most of what you need from there and knowing all the pieces are new if that is the route you want to go.  If you're not worried about new pieces, I would go with Bricklink.  Upload the set you want to build to your wanted list, and you should then be able to go to the stores and see who has the most of what you need.  If there are rare parts, I would try to get orders in that have those first, so that you can keep your shipping costs down, because that adds up fast.

 

I'm surprised you got the MF done for $900. How much did you pay for the satellite and the lattice?

[comicblast]

BrickLink and the Pick A Brick wall both have their advantages and disadvantages, but the PAB wall is way more limited, and there are almost always just the generic pieces, like 1x1's, some plates, and some bricks. The advantage of the PAB wall is that you can get way more pieces for a better price than you would have gotten by purchasing each piece individually.

The advantage of BrickLink is that they have basically every piece a builder could ask for. Of course for a price! The rarest pieces in the Eiffel Tower are the gray fence pieces, and you need quite a few of them. They can't be acquired on the PAB wall, since they don't come in any other set, they are quite costly. You may eventually be purchasing pieces from dozens of sellers, since it is fairly rare for a single store to have all the pieces that you want for a good price.

 

In the end, you will probably end up using a combination of both, finding the simple pieces on the PAB wall, and the rarer sets on BrickLink. Good luck, and keep us updated!

[Scissorino]

A guy on the Brick Fanatics site built something in this way - Google that and read up!

[Huskers1236]

I'm surprised you got the MF done for $900. How much did you pay for the satellite and the lattice?

Those prices have gone up a ton since I did mine, which was a couple years ago.  I paid $50 for the dish and I think about the same for each rigging piece.  The light bley antenna are hard to find as well, especially when there are dozens of them on the ship.

 

I had a lot of my own pieces as well, I didn't have to BL the entire ship, about 80% of it.

[Guest brickcrazyhouse]

we decided to BL the Market Street modular and it ended up just under $200.  Finding about 15% of the pieces in our bin'o'lego helped out a lot. the ET project will only have the problem of quantity of parts.  lucky for you like eightbriks said the euro BL stores usually have the biggest quantities.

[srm_520]

BrickLink and the Pick A Brick wall both have their advantages and disadvantages, but the PAB wall is way more limited, and there are almost always just the generic pieces, like 1x1's, some plates, and some bricks. The advantage of the PAB wall is that you can get way more pieces for a better price than you would have gotten by purchasing each piece individually.

The advantage of BrickLink is that they have basically every piece a builder could ask for. Of course for a price! The rarest pieces in the Eiffel Tower are the gray fence pieces, and you need quite a few of them. They can't be acquired on the PAB wall, since they don't come in any other set, they are quite costly. You may eventually be purchasing pieces from dozens of sellers, since it is fairly rare for a single store to have all the pieces that you want for a good price.

 

In the end, you will probably end up using a combination of both, finding the simple pieces on the PAB wall, and the rarer sets on BrickLink. Good luck, and keep us updated!

 

I am currently in the slow process of doing the same thing - and the fence piece is definitely the biggest hurdle.  You need 255 of the 3633 Greyish-Blue Fence piece, and even though there are 22 sets that contain this piece other than the Eiffel Tower - only the Imperial flagship contains a substantial number at 32.  And who would have a bunch of those lying around?  So bottom line is if you want to buy these for under a dollar a piece you'll have to go in small bunches and then shipping hits you, and large supplies tend to run at 1.50 a piece, so you're spending $300 to just get those 255 pieces. 

 

I was able to Bricklink about a 1/3 of the set or around 1200 pieces in bulk orders at around $85, which included shipping costs.  It's a good start, and ultimately I should be able to save substantially, but that dumb 3633 fence piece is by far the biggest hurdle.  Mostly every other piece in the set is reasonable and Bluish-Grey is one of the most common colors (thank God it's not Sand green), and if you hunt and are patient - you should be able to find a good deal. 

[Guest brickcrazyhouse]

srm- are you only lookng in the U.S.  I found a germany BL   254 fence peices $95

http://www.bricklink.com/store.asp?p=dagealka&itemID=17541821

[srm_520]

I haven't actually looked in the last few months - been spending money on other Lego!    Thanks for posting that. 

 

However - a bit annoying that you can order in multiples of 254 and not 255.  Really, one off?

[kenchu2000]

srm- are you only lookng in the U.S.  I found a germany BL   254 fence peices $95

http://www.bricklink.com/store.asp?p=dagealka&itemID=17541821

 

Do you know how much the shipping to U.S. would be?

[srm_520]

Do you know how much the shipping to U.S. would be?

 

The store terms looked to be 6 euro to most outside the EU.  The figure may vary depending where you are located.  Rule of thumb - I always read the store terms before I purchase.  Seems good, but you have to make a $60 min purchase if in the US.

[Arcanum777]

Hi:

 

I have Bricklinked the Eiffel Tower twice now. The first time it cost me about $430 all in and that included shipping and such. I ordered all the fence pieces from Bricks and Pieces - as they didn't have them available through Pick a Brick. The cost from Lego was about $88. I then sold it to a friend of mine that was willing to pay me a whack more than I paid to avoid having to do all the work himself.

 

The second time I Bricklinked it, I actually knew how to better use the site and it only cost about $370 all in and that again included using Bricks and Pieces on Lego for the fence pieces. ($88 or so). You can only order 200 pieces through Lego online so if you want all of them you will have to call to get up to 255. It requires either an override or two lines of order.