What to do with old Lego sets and other assorted board games

Will be undertaking a clean up of a basement in a few weeks that is filled with bins and bins of smaller toys from when the kids were little.  They include many thousands of Lego bricks, small cars, figures etc.  Possibly some wooden trains, a barely used art easel.  

Not interested in a garage sale but would love to donate or give these things away.  Any suggestions on who might or need such things?


I've done Nextdoor, Freecycle.org, and Letgo if it's too new and expensive to just give away. 


This is for plastic toys - not sure how it would handle legos: http://www.secondchancetoys.org/metro-drop-locations


jamie said:
This is for plastic toys - not sure how it would handle legos: http://www.secondchancetoys.org/metro-drop-locations

 I reached out to them to ask.  Thank you.


Most of the local elementary schools have lunchtime and after-school programs and have happily accepted legos and board games in the past. You might want to call your nearest school and ask if they could use the legos.


As a hobby I've bought a few bins of Lego from people on the cheap and I've spent more time than I  should sorting out what sets are in there and piecing them back together (getting missing parts from BrickLink, etc). I'm not sure what my endgame is, apart from a basement full of bags of Lego that I don't know what to do with, but if your'e up for that I can probably take them off of your hands. It's extremely time consuming, but oddly satisfying when I fight chaos and bring back order.


qrysdonnell said:
As a hobby I've bought a few bins of Lego from people on the cheap and I've spent more time than I  should sorting out what sets are in there and piecing them back together (getting missing parts from BrickLink, etc). I'm not sure what my endgame is, apart from a basement full of bags of Lego that I don't know what to do with, but if your'e up for that I can probably take them off of your hands. It's extremely time consuming, but oddly satisfying when I fight chaos and bring back order.

I know that hobby well -- it has taken over my living room several times in the past decade! 

Finding some unique pieces in the random Lego bin to try to identify the possible sets that might be in there.  (Last year we pulled out a Hogwarts castle from a random bin... several years before my kiddo hit a gold mine at a garage sale with bins that had Cafe Corner and the Star Wars Sandcrawler). Searching different online sources for parts lists, like Peeron.com... rebrickable.com... bricklink... Using different optimizers to buy all the remaining parts needed at the fewest used bricklink stores...

It was like a treasure hunt.  Mostly one finds sets of small cars and trucks. But the occasional big find in a random bin was always fun.


I’d be happy to take some legos off your hands for a soon to be 4 yo niece who’s just getting into the game. Just let me know what might be available. 


sprout said:


qrysdonnell said:
As a hobby I've bought a few bins of Lego from people on the cheap and I've spent more time than I  should sorting out what sets are in there and piecing them back together (getting missing parts from BrickLink, etc). I'm not sure what my endgame is, apart from a basement full of bags of Lego that I don't know what to do with, but if your'e up for that I can probably take them off of your hands. It's extremely time consuming, but oddly satisfying when I fight chaos and bring back order.
I know that hobby well -- it has taken over my living room several times in the past decade! 
Finding some unique pieces in the random Lego bin to try to identify the possible sets that might be in there.  (Last year we pulled out a Hogwarts castle from a random bin... several years before my kiddo hit a gold mine at a garage sale with bins that had Cafe Corner and the Star Wars Sandcrawler). Searching different online sources for parts lists, like Peeron.com... rebrickable.com... bricklink... Using different optimizers to buy all the remaining parts needed at the fewest used bricklink stores...
It was like a treasure hunt.  Mostly one finds sets of small cars and trucks. But the occasional big find in a random bin was always fun.

My last haul included some relatively rare old Harry Potter sets, although a few missing pieces are somewhat rare, so I'm just trickling them in if they are available at a non-crazy price when filling in other sets. I haven't actually been into the pile, but I have a piece from some Lego Spyrius space set, but haven't been able to sort out which one as there were too many generic sets in this pile. Clearing those out got to be too annoying, but at least those I can give to my kid to play with once they're separated out. (He's 5, so while he likes to 'contribute' to the process, he doesn't really help it!)

Since I played with Lego as a kid, and have gotten some of the more collectible sets recently (Yellow Submarine, seasonal sets, Saturn V, etc.) the random piles is a good way to experience sets that bridge the long gap in the time I was playing with them. Good times!


@qrysdonnell

Enjoy! With a 5yr old, you're just getting started. My kids are hitting their teens, so soon it will just be me and hubby treasure hunting and playing with Legos on our own....

Instead of bags of Legos in the basement, the kids' room became the Lego storage area. We sorted (primarily by color/ transparent, but also have separate drawers for: wheels, minifigs, Technics & connectors, hinges, and a few other categories).

Something like these transparent drawer multi-size storage bins under their large desk (plus some transparent tupperware on top of the desk) ended up being our favorite:

https://www.target.com/s?searchTerm=rolling+storage+carts+drawers&category=0%7CAll%7Cmatchallpartial%7Call+categories&tref=typeahead%7Cterm%7C0%7Crolling+storage+carts+drawers%7C%7C%7Cservice&searchRawTerm=rolling+storage




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