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Do you keep any of your boxes for lego sets? I have a bunch of the large boxes from the Creator and modular sets. I don’t have a ton of space so I’m wondering if it is worth it to keep any of the boxes?
Thanks!
– SarahI do in case the secondary market value for a set becomes so great that I would rather sell the set than keep the pieces from it.
I have a few boxes from the 1980s that I still use for storing pieces and a few boxes from the 1990s and 2000s that I have kept just because I really love the box art. Otherwise, I recycle them (I am not a seller, so keeping for resale is not a consideration I have). Since modern Lego boxes don’t come with inserts (plastic or cardboard) for the most part, you could also collapse your boxes to save storage space.
Yeah, I still have a few boxes from my childhood that I save for posterity, and there is at least some merit in saving large / rare set boxes from more recent stuff (I sold 2x B-wing boxes to some guy in Hong Kong for like $13 each – then again, the hassle of packing and shipping was probably not worth the $25…) But in general, once I’ve opened a set these days, I get rid of the box.
I have saved every box from every set I’ve bought since coming out of my dark ages, and every box from the sets I’ve bought for my son. They are collapsed and up in the attic. I can’t imagine ever needing them, but its kind of an OCD thing I guess
I have a pile of boxes. Not cause I like keeping them, but cause I’m too lazy to break them down and throw them away. When the pile starts to get too big I normally find the motivation to get rid of them on a bright sunny day, and feel very accomplished afterwards.
I use attic space to keep old boxes from sets that my kids built and they come in really handy when its time to resell an old set. I also keep the instructions and unused sticker sheets in the boxes. If you are not using the parts from the sets, you can keep the sets in there. In general, a set that is a generic box of bricks does not increase in value much so its not worth the space to keep those boxes.
I am so happy to see so many people respond with their specific habits around boxes. It shows what a judgement free atmosphere we have here at Steel City LUG.
/judging all of you as hoarders. #RECYCLEALLTHETHINGS
judging all of you as hoarders
You have no idea.
judging all of you as hoarders
You have no idea. 🙂
I know this is a 2 year old thread but I am hoping to reactivate it and get a little closure for myself….
I have been doing research online (Brickpicker, eBay, BrickLink) about sets for sale with boxes and without. It seems that most sets command a higher asking price with the box. Obviously, UCS sets and the like really do need the box to command premium pricing. So, in my endeavor to maintain a certain level of re-sale-ability, and the not so hidable fact I am OCD….and an Engineer….and a Virgo, I have kept all boxes, bags, and such for every set we have. My obvious quandary is storage space. Space for unopened sets and space for opened set’s empty boxes and bags.
Does anyone else do this? Do you keep the empty boxes of sets you have built? Do you keep the empty bags that are within the boxes? Do you wait to see resale values before deciding? Have you seen that you made more from having the box? At which level to you keep and which do you recycle/reuse? Do you store the boxes flat or in their original, boxy shape?
Any additional (…and final) thoughts or discussion is very much appreciated!
In addition to my previous notes on this topic, I’d say that the sets that are most worth reselling are the larger sets from licensed series. Other than inventorying the parts, its about the same amount of work to sell a set regardless of the size, so you get more $ for your effort by selling big sets. The shipping cost also eats into the overall price and large sets are also more cost-effective in that regard.
Throughout my years of collecting I have only kept a few boxes. I kept the Beatles Yellow Sub box, Saturn V, The Technic Porsche, and I will be keeping the UCS Millennium Falcon Box. As for the other ones I tend to either throw them out or cut them up and use them as fire starter for when I have a recreational fire.
I think the only boxes I keep are the ones from the Ideas line, as these are much higher quality boxes that contain the higher quality instructions that I want to protect. These boxes have use to me. All others do not.
I have some of the larger boxes from classic sets, most notably the yellow castle, the Galaxy Explorer, the Space Command Center, and the Beta-One Command Center. I only kept the front and the back though (sometimes doing a terrible job of cutting them up, unfortunately, resulting in very jagged edges), so they lay flat. (They’re hidden up somewhere in the attic, but I’m pretty sure they’re still there.)
I have not kept boxes since then. They take up a lot of space, don’t age well, and are difficult to protect. I know somebody who made some money reselling boxes on BL, but for me right now the space in my house is worth more than anything I might’ve gotten for them. Mine all get recycled.
I don’t know if this counts as a threadjack or not but I’ve had the same question about the instructions. I have most of mine from the 70s and early 80s, and plan to keep them, so that’s not an issue. But I also have the instructions (as well as even more useless stuff like catalogs and Bionicle magazines) for every set purchased since 2001. It’s a lot of instructions and took up a huge amount of space in the attic, which I desperately need due to my BrickLink addiction. Right now nearly all of them are bagged up in the garage awaiting disposal at the recycling drop-off, I believe it’s 22 Giant Eagle bags of instructions.
I throw almost everything out. The only ones I have are boxes that came with older sets I get on eBay as I live the alternative models on the back!
@randomdan what about that sealed Deep Freeze Defender? Still got that box lying around?
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