When it comes to collecting LEGO, do you build and then keep sets together or do you part them out into pieces? Or do you fall somewhere in between? Let me tell you a story of my personal journey finding out where I belong on that spectrum… a story that starts… in SPACE!

Sets as a Whole

As a kid in 1978, I was fascinated with space. I was also a maker—I loved Lincoln Logs, Erector sets and the “newest” sets (to me anyway) of the “Highly Sophisticated Interlocking Plastic Brick System” called LEGO. They were Space sets 462 Mobile Rocket Launcher and 483 Alpha-1 Rocket Base.

I loved these sets and still do. I looked at these two different products as one complete “set” when combined back then. I kept them together for years. After branching out into a few Town sets, I started to intermix and try to build MOCs like the ones I saw in the LEGO Ideas Book (6000) from 1980. But I always saw the space bricks as still ultimately part of the space sets. Even when my building interests faded away into other things…

Changing Perspectives

After my Dark Age, I began anew in the hobby with the same mindset—bricks are just part of the sets they came in.

Then we bought a “Classic” element box with no traditional set instructions to build with my kid. That’s when I started to see the world differently… some sets-specific elements started to become inspiration for other builds and found their way out of the collected pieces for the set.

Then we started building mini-MOCs and looking for parts in certain colors. One such MOC idea needed a lot of grey. And do you know what LEGO theme has a lot of Light Bluish Grey (LBG – TLG: Medium Stone Grey) and Dark Bluish Grey (DBG – TLG: Dark Stone Grey)? You guessed it. Space and Star Wars. The sets stood no chance. My kid would not keep them together.

The Search for Parts

Then in 2016, the time came for our first major MOC. That was the year my grandfather passed away. He was a crewman aboard a B-36 Peacemaker, so we decided to make a minifigure-scale B-36 Peacemaker plane as a tribute. And we needed a lot of grey.

1948-1959 B-36 Peacemaker - largest US bomber ever in service

Hooray for LEGO Star Wars sets and my kid not keeping them together! So we started the long search for the right parts, and no sets were spared. After all, this MOC had a purpose. . I started to look at almost all sets as packs of parts rather than their intended uses within a LEGO theme like Star Wars or Power Miners and others. We parted out some entire sets to use in our construction in the search for grey.

From then on, the more we made MOCs, the more I looked at LEGO sets as a collection of parts and not fixed sets. Any set I purchased would be for the parts… until things changed yet again. I have started to swerve the other direction, seeing some of the more iconic sets as models to be kept together like the adults-targeted 1989 Batmobile, Batwing and Ecto-1 (among others that bring back the strong nostalgia of growing up in the 80s and 90s).

So I guess perhaps between preferring sets as a whole or just as parts packs, I’m neither on or the other. I’m in between.

Sets vs Parts

Thinking about the spectrum of AFOLs who fall into the sets vs parts-first categories, I find there are four general categories with a myriad of ranges in between. Each category below reflects a percentage of sets vs parts and a description of what that means for their LEGO collection.

100/0 – An AFOL that likes to look at and admire sets for exactly what they are – great sets produced by TLG. They proudly collect and display sets in their home and if they are taken apart and stored, the pieces are kept together sorted by set.
80/20 – An AFOL that primarily enjoys building sets but also might incorporate them into a large City layout or want to “improve” them. They are starting to look at sets for their pieces and might start creating MOCs of their own.
20/80 – An AFOL that primarily builds MOCs but enjoys a trip down nostalgia lane every now and then by collecting a few sets that are important to them. They face a conundrum storing complete sets or parting them out.
0/100 – An AFOL that only collects pieces and parts out new sets to build MOCs. They might build a set following the instructions every now and then for the experience, but the set is quickly taken apart for pieces to be used in other MOCs.

I think most of us are somewhere in between these categories (and most of us will likely change and evolve as builders and collectors throughout our lifetime). Me? I’m close to being a 20/80 AFOL… I love and enjoy 20% of the sets I get as complete models and I keep them together, and the other 80% of sets I get for parts to build MOCs.

So, what kind of AFOL are you?

LEGO set 483 - Alpha 1 Rocket Base, together again.

Do you collect complete LEGO sets or part them out for pieces—or do you fall somewhere in between? Let us know in the comments below!

Do you want to help BrickNerd continue publishing articles like this one? Become a top patron like Charlie Stephens, Marc & Liz Puleo, Paige Mueller, Rob Klingberg from Brickstuff, John & Joshua Hanlon from Beyond the Brick, Megan Lum, Andy Price, John A. and Lukas Kurth from StoneWars to show your support, get early access, exclusive swag and more.