BrickLink is like Craigslist for Legos

Have you ever seen any of the amazing custom Lego work proliferating on the internet these days and wondered, “Where did they get exactly the bricks they needed to build that thing?” Sourcing parts can be especially difficult if your model, like Flickr user Legohaulic’s Great White Nautilus, shown above, includes lots of unusual elements. As far as I know, there is, as yet, no site or service in the world that will let you upload a list of Lego elements, in exactly the colors and quantities you want, and then price, pack, and ship you an order containing just those elements. It seems like a great idea, but the logistical problems of making that happen are enormous. BrickLink, however, is the next-best thing. Thousands of private Lego resellers from around the world have shops there selling kits, manuals, and individual elements indexed by official Lego catalog number. If you’re sourcing parts for a particular model, you still have to do some manual legwork running down the particular combination of BrickLink sellers that optimize price, availability, seller location, seller minimum order values, and so forth for the items on your list, but it’s still an incredible resource.

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