My nephews are 6 and 10 and both of them are clamoring for Lego Star Wars stuff this Christmas. Cool, right? I like Lego anyway, so it doesn’t bother me to go looking for some deals. I was just offhand griping (half jokingly) to a co-worker about the prices on the licensed Lego sets, when he suggested checking out “Lepin” instead.
Lepin? WTF?
It turns out that it’s a Chinese knock-off of Lego, and it’s not like the old days of copycat building toys. Lepin is just about indistinguishable from the official blocks. No joke. I’m stunned that I’m seriously considering buying some of these - not for presents, of course. For me.
This is $37 compared to the Lego version which is $100+ on most sites. That’s really tempting. I know it’s wrong. It’s legit piracy and encouraging infringement, etc. But…
Buyer beware. Did your coworker actually own any of these? The quality in everything from printing on the mini-figures to tolerances for the bricks can be all over the place on these knock-off brands.
For anyone just curious for the sake of curiosity, Brickset offers A survey of Communist LEGO 2016, a look at the many knock of brands with some reviews of particular sets. I found it fascinating, but I wasn’t looking to actually research any particular brands. FWIW they don’t have much to say about Lepin other than that it’s relatively new.
Lepin is also apparently big enough LEGO is actually pursuing civil action against them in China, but I don’t know if that means anything other than some additional trivia.
I bought a knock off Iron Man set from my local comic shop out of curiosity once (not Lepin, can’t remember the specific brand). Here’s an example of how bad the quality control is on the pieces:
So yeah, maybe if Lepin is such a big deal that LEGO is actually going after them, it means they’re doing something right. But also maybe you’ll get a poorly designed set with out of register printing and pieces that literally fall apart.
Yeah, actually, I’ve read a few reviews (not on the AliExpress site) and the Lepin sets seem pretty damn good. The only consistent criticism was the mediocre quality of the paint on the minfigs and the fact that any stickers are printed on the cheaper paper instead of the glossy stuff Lego uses. The bricks themselves fit tightly together and they have good color.
I usually pick something up every few weeks or so when I happen to be in or near a toy store with a promo running as a commitment to build up a collection to compliment the several kg of bulk stuff I acquired from various ebay sales. LEGO had such a positive influence on my childhood, I want to ensure it is there for my kids as they grow older. Besides, the kits these days are awesome.
I have even come around on the price of LEGO these days. When a cup of coffee is near $5 and a pint at the local is over $10, the price of LEGO suddenly does not seem that bad.
My son has been accumulating quite a few Lego sets, mostly due to doting grandparents. His favorite is the Minecraft stuff, since he’s an absolute fiend for the game. But he’s got a few Ninjago, Batman, StarWars, Nexo Knights, and probably a bunch more. He can make his own jumbled mythology at this point.
My adult LEGO obsession is winding down. For a while I was buying every DC and Marvel branded set. I have the entire Lord of the Rings line. I’ve got four of the modular city buildings, a lot of the Ideas sets, and even the enormous S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier.
I’ve dropped back considerably in the last two years to just buying a few Marvel sets here and there, with the intent to slowly pick up the rest of the modular city buildings and not much else.
But I think I’ve got to get this. It’s the largest set ever produced, and it’s an update to the most expensive set you’ll ever see on eBay. The original UCS Millennium Falcon was, like, $5k or something if you wanted to buy a complete set years after it was out of production.
I can’t afford this right now, but as long as the production run isn’t extremely limited—if I can still get this for retail price from LEGO a year from now—I think it would be a pretty epic “finale” for my LEGO obsession. I’m never going to build a room in my house around displaying it, but I just want the experience of building it, marveling at it for a week or two on my kitchen table, and then boxing it all back up again to take out again in a decade.
I really hope what happened to me doesn’t happen to you… My kid ended up not enjoying building LEGOs at all. He did enjoy playing with them after I built them, though, so that was a win-win since I like the build. :)
That Millennium Falcon’s crazy. For $800, I want a studio-quality model, not an insane LEGO set!
