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Comment by DoingIsLearning | Hacker News Reader

One thing I do miss from both Lego and Meccano is the generic sets.

Maybe they can still be bought online, but whenever I walked into a toy store these past years, all the sets have a theme and a 'prescribed' thing that you are meant to build.

I just want to buy a bucket of parts for my kids to sort out what to build on their own. It somehow feels really restrictive nowadays.

I understand they are probably making a lot of money with film royalties and star wars themed stuff etc. but it definitely feels like a downgrade.

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It sounds like you are looking for Lego Classic[0] which are pretty much just buckets of bricks. I have seen them in stores although not as prominently featured as say the Star Wars sets. The Creator 3 in 1 theme[1] is also made up of generic pieces. Although they do come with instructions for three different models it’s also pretty easy to use the parts to make your own designs. Finally, there isn’t anything stopping you from buying a bunch of sets and dumping all the pieces into your own bin or bucket. That’s how most of my family’s sets ended up anyway after our sets got scrapped for parts to make new things.

[0] https://www.lego.com/en-us/themes/classic [1] https://www.lego.com/en-us/themes/creator-3-in-1

There is a German Youtuber "Held der Steine" ("Lord of the Bricks/Stones") (and don't think "Youtuber", think "actual knowledgable person who makes videos") who notoriously slams Lego for their policies too.

He's very charismatic, and I learned from watching him that there is simply a very large aftermarket of Lego pieces on various ebay-like sites. Since they don't detiorate (much), consumer prices for random assortments of bricks are much much lower there, so new pieces never really compete.

Just to clarify, "Held der Steine" literally translates as "Hero of the Stones". "Lord of the Stones" would be "Herr der Steine". (However, I don't know if Thomas has a canonical translation that he prefers, or if he's even ok with the name being translated.)

He also runs a toy store; a German publication referred to his YouTube channel as a "side-gig". That maybe explains the knowledgable-ness.

His store is only open three days every month (well, outside of Covid). He's a full-time YouTuber now, with the store as his fun little side gig.

It used to be the other way around, though.

Hah, I literally only noticed from your reply that it wasn't Herr der Steine!

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