How To Buy individual LEGO® Bricks

An intro to the wonderful world of after-market LEGO bricks.

How do you get started building your own creations when you’ve only built sets?

One option is to build with whatever parts you have on hand. Kids are great at this. But, if you’re looking for specific pieces or colors, then you’ll need to do a little more.

I want to help demystify this process. Whether you’re doing it for your kids or yourself, this tutorial will walk you through step-by-step how to do it.

Let’s say you want to make some Hmong minifigures and you need some parts. Here’s how to find them.

5 Places to Buy LEGO bricks

1. Bricklink.com – This site contains LEGO’s complete catalog of parts, as well as thousands of online stores from which to buy them.

2. Facebook Marketplace - This is my go-to for bulk LEGO bricks, especially if I just need to build up my supply. Prices can range from $6 - $12 per pound.

3. eBay – There are parts and minifigs here that you might not be able to find on BrickLink. But, generally, prices are higher on eBay than BrickLink.

4. LEGO.com Pick-a-Brick – There is a limited selection of the whole catalog, but it has a great search with reasonable prices. I particularly love the “Same Brick” and “Same Colour” search.

5. The LEGO Store Pick-a-Brick wall – If you happen to live near a LEGO Store, you can go in-store and browse their wall of bricks. It’s only a small selection of pieces, but if you find the one you need, you can save a lot by buying in bulk. It’s also an excellent way to build up your spare parts collection.

6. Amazon – While Amazon doesn’t sell many parts, I have bought items like minifigs, baseplates, and plant sets from them.

Since you’ll probably buy most of your parts on BrickLink, I’ll walk you through the basics of using that website.

10 Steps to Finding the Part You Need on BrickLink

1. Go to bricklink.com and create an account. It makes everything much easier.

2. Find the search box at the top of the page and enter the name of the LEGO brick you want. In our case, it’s “black legs.”
   HINT: If you’re not sure what a part is called, try a Google Image search with a description of the part, e.g. “LEGO flat curved corner." You can often find the official name in the results, e.g. “Tile, Round Corner 2 x 2 Macaroni.”

3. Click the “Parts” tab to filter your results.

4. Look for the item you want. In this case, it’s “Black Hips and Legs - Spring Legs.” Click the link for details.

5. Go to the “Lots for Sale” column and click the color that you need. In our example, we’re looking for black. If you don’t see the color you want, it’s not available.

6. At this point, you have two options.

   • If you want to buy it, you’ll now see a list of stores, both U.S. and international. There’s a lot of variation in cost, shipping fees, and minimum purchases, so it’s worth looking around.

   • If you want to save it for later, click “Add to My Wanted List.” This is a handy tool for building sets. In this case, you could add legs, a torso, head, and hair to the same list and purchase them all together.

7. Once you find a store, click the “View” button to be taken to the store’s individual website.

8. Pick a quantity and click the “Add Items to Cart” button.

9. Click the shopping cart icon and the “View Cart and Checkout” button.

10. Proceed through the checkout process like you usually would for online purchases. Most stores use PayPal for payment. Also, some stores will send you an invoice after you go through the checkout process. Then you pay the invoice separately.

There you go! Now you can build anything your imagination can dream up. Enjoy, play well, and build your community.

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EXTRA NOTE

Bricklink is an robust site with many great tools. This tutorial just scratches the surface. But luckily, there are several good YouTube tutorials to help you learn the additional features.