The Beginner’s Guide To LEGO Star Wars Collecting 101: Introduction

Of the myriad of LEGO themes, there are only two that are available year in, year out and continually refreshed with new set designs – City and Star Wars. Being an evergreen theme also means that there is always a new class of freshmen joining the LEGO Star Wars community and the learning curve can be daunting.

First things, first – ask yourself what is your motive for joining the fraternity of LEGO Star Wars fans?

Is it because you want to open, build and play with the LEGO? Whether you are sharing them with your children or just a big kid yourself, you’re the best kind of LEGO Star Wars fans. Or do you build to display, and have loads of glass cabinets full of dust-free models, illuminated by bright downlights? We like your kind here! What about buying the sets but leaving them boxed, so that you can admire, savor the experience and enjoy online reviews while sharing your opinions with others? You are part of a growing trend of new generation LEGO Star Wars fans, and that’s OK too. Or perhaps you belong to the fourth group, the ones who buy multiple sets to put away and brick bank for another day? You’re going to get less out of these articles than the other kinds of fans but you’re still welcome to hang around.

If you know what your motive for collecting LEGO is then you’ll want to start understanding the community you are about to immerse yourself in – because all four different kinds of fans eventually find it necessary to interact with others, whether it’s on Facebook, a forum, going to a convention, bumping into other collectors while shopping or by joining a local LEGO User Group.

Being part of a group – whether it is online or in the real world – increases the experience. You can only share your news, finds, and enthusiasm when you interact with other fans.

To help yourself settle into the community you’ll need to learn the terms that the community uses – acronyms like AFOL, LUG (we’ve given you that one already), UCS, etc – and why fans always capitalize the company’s name and – most importantly – you should never, ever say LEGOs!

Finding a good resource for current and past information early on is important if you want to be knowledgeable and keep up. There are plenty of Facebook groups, Discord servers, old school forums and websites out there that can keep you up to date, as well as provide historical information and once you have bookmarked a couple, spend some time getting caught up.

Be aware that there are plenty of companies cloning LEGO sets out there so learn about fake LEGO sets and minifigures – it’ll mean you won’t get hoodwinked by a scam deal and you won’t get the back up of LEGO fans, who can be extremely loyal to the LEGO brand, by accidentally supporting brands like Bele and LEPIN.

Understanding why LEGO fans support the brand so fervently is probably the last lesson you’ll need before making your first step into the wider LEGO community.

While it isn’t fully understood, it is a particularly notable phenomenon amongst LEGO fans and is commonly put down to the simple fact that LEGO has been around for +60 years and is so unchanged that the bricks that a grandfather had will connect to those of a grandchild. Protecting this legacy can become so important to fans that even when LEGO makes changes to their products or (generally inadvertently) disrupts the community, the normally vocal few will find that there is a surprising amount of support for maintaining the status quo.

Now that you’ve got the basics down, it’s time to jump right in. We’ll coach you through buying, collecting, displaying, and everything in between. Also, be sure to turn on post notifications (by clicking on the blue bell on the right) so that you can keep up with all the current news while you are catching up on the past.