How would I start about getting a bionicle collection?

[Sunconure11]

A bit of preface, I used to be heavily into BIONICLE when I was younger, and I decided to come back here when I saw BIONICLE stuff was worth quite a bit of money. However, I cannot simply go through my childhood toys and build a collection from that, as in 2009, I had gotten a dog, who decided to chew the everloving heck (can I even swear on these forums? I remember registering here when I was like 7 or something, and all I remember was that I managed to annoy people, and thinking on it, I cringe heavily) out of many of my sets. Some sets seemed to have faired better than others, but most are damaged in some way. RIP Krika, you were chewed to shreds.

Edited August 17, 2018 by Sunconure11

[squidmaster]

EBay is your friend at this point you can find some cheap deals on bundles of sets. Other than that there are many people on bzpower that are selling their collection, just go to b/s/t. Any missing or rare pieces you can try and get off bricklink

 

Hope this helps.

[ActivePalpitation]

These days? An incredibly large disposable income would help.

[TuragaNuva]

Bricklink is a good place to check, especially if you're willing to just buy all the pieces from a set and build it from those (as opposed to buying the set complete). Bricklink has an inventory of every piece included in each set, so you can easily go through and purchase each one. There is also a B/S/T forum here, but I haven't used it in a while and don't know how much activity there is these days.

[Laughing Man]

as long as you don't mind missing canisters/packages, I've been planning on listing my collection on here sometime soon. I could get an inventory of what I've got and the condition and maybe we could work something out.

[Toa Turing]

As TuragaNuva mentioned, Bricklink is a great place to start. I've been building up my 2001-2003 era collection from there, and you can build up full sets by buying the pieces individually, and it generally comes out to a few bucks each. They even have a tool that parts out the sets for you and automatically finds the best stores to buy them from. It's still a bit of work compared to just buying the full sets, but you'll generally come out ahead price wise.

[Sunconure11]

I've been looking at bricklink, ebay, and amazon, and have also decided to keep an eye out on any garage sales and thrift stores that may have anything related.

[Reya]

In my opinion, Bricklink is your best bet. Things usually go for a decent price there.

[onua10]

My source for collecting is usually the farmers market. Yes, I have used BrickLink, it’s good, but I can get lots of G1 sets for awesome prices because people don’t know what they are worth. Same goes for second-hand shops like Value Village and Goodwill, and things like garage sales. Although, the condition of the sets may be more damaged than BrickLink. I guess it all depends on how serious you plan on getting into collecting.

Edited August 27, 2018 by onua10

[Toa_Vezon22]

Amazon has 2 moods. "Vahki in canister for $6" or "Vakama for $600". There is no in-between. If you feel lucky, try that. Otherwise, Bricklink seems like the best choice.

[Tarix819]

eBay and BrickLink are the only effective sites for getting bonkles. I use BrickLink for specific sets and eBay for bargains since Bricklinkers know the worth of what they sell a lot better than eBayers.

 

But before you worry about eBay and BrickLink, you will need a lot of space to display them. My collection has eaten up three 6 foot bookshelves and some other shelves along my wall, and I still have about 1/3 of all the sets to go. Displaying sets by year and wave looks a lot nicer than having a bunch of random figures jumbled on a shelf.

 

I also recommend bookshelves with glass doors to prevent dust building up and cabinet lights is a nice touch, but keep your budget in mind. Even with the bookshelves, 1/3 of my collection is gathering dust as I haven't got the room to install any more bookshelves with glass doors.

 

But once you get it set up, it is oh so satisfying to look at.

Edited August 29, 2018 by Tarix819