Editor of Brick by Brick, adult LEGO fan and collector
I'm Jonny Utah, the editor behind Brick by Brick. I'm an adult LEGO fan who built this site to answer the questions I kept running into as a collector: which set is worth the money, whether a retiring set is likely to hold its value, and what to buy for someone else.
Every guide and comparison here starts from the same sources: our catalog of official sets for piece counts, years and inventories; current market pricing; and community feedback from Reddit and YouTube. Where a page uses AI-assisted summaries it says so, and the numbers on it come from that data, not from the model. I don't build every set I write about, and the site never claims otherwise. When an article draws on hands-on experience with a set, it says so in the text.
I also build the tools on this site, from BlockTalk to the price-per-piece and display-space calculators, because I wanted them for my own collection. The full methodology is on the How We Review page.
Full methodology: How We Review.
Expected exit dates for the LEGO sets retiring in 2026, the biggest December 31 retirements, every Star Wars set on the list, and the sets that are not retiring after all.
Where to find genuine LEGO discounts, from LEGO.com's own sale page and LEGO Insiders to price trackers that show a set's price history, deal alert services and the deal posts LEGO news sites publish, plus how to tell whether a price is actually good.
A SPIKE Prime port is not a set of general purpose pins, so the wiring and code in many older guides do not work. This guide covers the routes that do work in 2026, through Pybricks or by emulating a LEGO sensor, the 3.3V rule for the port, and when a Raspberry Pi is the simpler answer.
LEGO robotics, Arduino or Raspberry Pi for a child learning to code: what each teaches, which ages it suits, what it costs beyond the box, and what you can still buy now that MINDSTORMS and SPIKE are retired.
LEGO's hidden gems are the sets that sit outside the big licensed flagships: a mineral collection, an articulated Pixar lamp, a road bike with a working chain, a forest of mushrooms. Most are on sale now; the last section covers promotional and seasonal sets from 2017 to 2019 that have retired.
Learn Python by programming a LEGO robot through ten progressively harder projects, written for the free Pybricks firmware on MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor and SPIKE Prime hubs.
Which kinds of LEGO sets have gone up in value? A peer-reviewed study of 2,322 sets found small and very large sets, and seasonal, architecture and movie-based themes, did best from 1987 to 2015. Our data on 449 sets retired from 2022 to 2025 shows small sets rising most and big display sets doing no better than average.
How to choose a LEGO set for a child of any age, from DUPLO at 18 months to the 14+ and 18+ display sets teenagers move on to. What each stage can usually build alone, how to read the age mark on the box, when to switch from DUPLO, and a few example sets for every age from our catalog.
Brick by Brick runs fourteen free LEGO tools, from a missing piece checker and a sorting planner to a photo mosaic maker, two LDraw model tools, a gift finder and set calculators. None needs an account; the AI features allow ten answers a day.
Measure the set before you buy the shelf, keep it out of direct sunlight, light it with high-CRI LEDs and decide early how you will handle dust. This guide covers shelf depths that fit common LEGO sets, glass cabinets now that the IKEA DETOLF is gone, LEGO's own cleaning advice and where different sets display best.
How to build a LEGO Star Wars collection in 2026: which Ultimate Collector Series sets leave LEGO's shelves on December 31 and which stay into 2027 and 2028, where helmets and the display-scale starships fit, what retired UCS sets are worth in our market data, and how to display and care for big builds.
How to get smooth, precise motor control on SPIKE Prime, MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor and Technic hubs in 2026 with Pybricks, from built-in motor commands and acceleration limits to a tuned line follower and synchronized motors.
We use cookies 🍪 for analytics and to improve your experience. Read our privacy policy
