The LEGO Collection
While I have kept a bunch of childhood toys and knickknacks, aside from the plushes and Pokémon cards, I think this is the only collection that's actually grown since then, since I do have an attachment to the versatile buildy stuff. I don't have a particular focus for this, though out of past themes my favorite is Bionicle, while my favorite current theme is Ninjago. Who knew that I'd be into collecting a theme that has a lot of dragons in it?
Go to section: System ⋄ Technic / Bionicle ⋄ Minifigures
⋄ System
The main category of bricks and pieces LEGO is known for, encompassing a wide variety of styles and themes.
70403: Dragon Mountain
Year: 2013
Theme: Castle
Pieces: 376
As a kid, I never had any dragons of my own and had to settle for playing with the one that was part of my sister's 6007: Bat Lord. I didn't get around to amending that until I started buying sets again as a young adult in the early-mid 2010s. At the time, it briefly became my largest set in terms of piece count, narrowly beating out the Emergency Treatment Center my mom had passed along to me. Of course, I got this mainly for the dragon, which honestly looks kinda piddly now in comparison to larger brick-built dragons, haha. But it'd be a few more years until then.
60221: Diving Yacht
Year: 2019
Theme: City - Harbor
Pieces: 148
While it does go up a size category on account of the boat, this set really feels like an upgrade of 6555: Sea Hunter, which already was a great set for its size in my opinion, in pretty much every way. Obviously, the boat, being upgraded from the humble dinghy, to a small yacht on a floating hull piece is the standout feature, but the addition of a second diver, a modernized sawfish, more extensive undersea scenery, and some extra bits and bobs all brings it together for me to feel the way I do about this set. Come to think of it, it's even the first floatable boat set I own! Won't be the last though...
60068: Crooks' Hideout
Year: 2015
Theme: City - Police
Pieces: 473
Since resuming my collection habit in 2013, my favorite kind of set has been what I like to call 'villain lairs'. Sets like Dragon Mountain, Enter the Serpent, and more. I sort of ended up getting this at a whim after a train of thought leading to my realization I didn't have any modern-day style sets that fit the criteria of such a set, so I ended up getting this, which ends up being a pretty extensive cops 'n' robbers activity set, with a bunch of cool things. Aside from the shack, which was of course the main draw, I was pleased by the build of the police jeep, which was very good example of how minifigure scale car builds had improved over the course of the time I had been absent from the scene. Of course, the presence of two boats is a very good touch, because who wouldn't want to put on a water chase scene with this material to work with?
4950: The Loader-Dozer
Year: 1999
Theme: Rock Raiders
Pieces: 90
This set was huge for me back when I got it for Christmas in the year of our lord nineteenninetynine. Between the factors of huge vehicle pieces that had immense appeal to a lil' builder kobl, the huge rock monster with its rock and the energy crystal inside the rock, and a very cool minifig design whose head ended up as my 'self-insert' character's face while I was still playing with LEGO in a freeform way, this set had a lot to offer! Probably the best of my childhood sets in terms of overall enjoyment value.
3401-2: Shoot 'n' Score (Zidane Edition)
Year: 2000
Theme: Sports - Football
Pieces: 22
So the football stuff in the early 2000s was a somewhat interesting exploration of new play features with those "shooting platform" pieces with a spring, so this was a pretty proof-of-concept for a head-to-head experience. The most impact this set had for me was that for no particular reason, Zinedine Zidane, considered one of, if not the world's greatest footballer at the time, would be part of the cast of main characters of the Lego adventures I'd play out for no particular reason, which amuses me thinking back to it.
6514: Trail Ranger
Year: 1994
Theme: Town
Pieces: 36
This was the first set that was bought for me! I got it handed to me at the tender age of probably 4 or 5, when my parents wanted to graduate me out of Duplo. Along with this, I was presented with my mom's old stuff from the early 80s. Overall, very simple but nicely constructed set, that I'd still put into a city display if I had enough space for one.
6555: Sea Hunter
Year: 1997
Theme: Town - Divers
Pieces: 30
This is really just a really good small set! It's got it all - a nice minifig, a bit of scenery, a specialized vehicle, a creature, and a nice bit of treasure to go for. For the longest time, the included sawfish was the only sea creature piece I had so I got a lot of mileage out of both that and the included dinghy over my whole childhood.
⋄ Technic / Bionicle
Technic is the generally larger-scale and more complex line of LEGO intended for older audiences where the focus tended to be more on function than form, especially with the 90s and older sets in this line. I'm also including Bionicle under this because the first Bionicle sets had the Technic branding on the boxes/canisters.
8217: The Wasp
Year: 1998
Theme: Technic
Pieces: 64
Probably one of my least favorite sets, at least out of the ones I own, lol. For some reason it's minifigure scale (note the minifig chair in the cockpit) but looks pretty much like many other technic sets of its era in terms of the aesthetic. It's not even bad in terms of construction, it just... mildly bothers me.
8502: City Slizer (a.k.a. "Turbo")
Year: 1999
Theme: Technic - Slizer / Throwbots
Pieces: 45
These pre-Bionicle waves of action-figurey constructed Technic dudes were pretty neat. Not as neat as Bionicle, of course, but pretty neat nonetheless. This one was my preferred one out of the two I got, though funnily enough it turned out to kinda have more in common with the following line, Roboriders, because of the whole being on wheels thing.
8566: Onua Nuva
Year: 2002
Theme: Bionicle - Toa Nuva
Pieces: 41
In the early 2000s, my parents were pretty much of the opinion that I was getting too old for non-Technic construction toys and action figures. This was kind of a borderline case considering bionicles are pretty much just the precursors to the constructible figures that'd come later. In any case, my grandparents were kind enough to get me this one even though I'd have preferred the original Onua, even back then. I wouldn't get around to getting that until about two decades later, funnily enough.
8686: Toa Lewa
Year: 2008
Theme: Bionicle - Phantoka
Pieces: 52
This one was a later acquisition, only got it online fairly recently. After the Mask of Light stuff wrapped up I kinda fell off Bionicle as I didn't really vibe with the switchup in aesthetics and cast in the Metru Nui subtheme. So when I saw that they were returning to the original Toa with this line, my interest was piqued a bit, though I didn't actually end up getting any of it because it was during my Lego dark age. I ended up picking this incarnation of Lewa as my first pick much later, mostly because I liked the multi-component mask with the transparent visor. Overall I think it's a pretty cool spin on the buildable figures concept, but I don't personally care for the torso piece.
⋄ Collectable Minifigures
Ahh, the LEGO Gacha. I absolutely despise the distribution method of these, and at this point I've just ordered the ones I wanted the most online and only succumbed to buying packs once in a blue moon these days. The sets themselves? They're pretty nice, some of my favorite figure designs come from here.
71001-10: Sea Captain
Year: 2013
Series: Series 10
Pieces: 7
This fellow is the first collectable minifig I unbagged ever, in the first batch of things I bought when I was getting back into LEGO after a roughly decade long absence from the 00s to the 10s. Overall, I really like him. His hat is very nice, the accompanying seagull is too, and he'd make a good addition to any display that includes a ship of sufficient size.