Lego Bricks & Pieces?

[CardinalBricks]

Have any of you used this service from LEGO before? If you don't know it's basically like Pick a brick but you are ordering parts from lego sets themselves. Anyway, I'm placing my first B.a.P order and it seems that every single torso, head, and most hair pieces from liscensed sets are not available for purchase. They say "out of stock" indicating to me that they did have them at one point, but they all got bought. Do any of you know anything about this? Or are licensed minifig pieces just always not for sale? Do they restock them? 

Also, is there another way to search the site instead of typing in the set numbers that the parts come in or their part numbers continuously? Like what if I just want to go through all the minifig heads they have for sale? 

Thanks.

[NathanR]

Yep, I've used Bricks & Pieces (B&P).  It has a much broader parts selection than the Pick-A-Brick (PAB), though curiously B&P and PAB can have the same element at different prices.  Very occasionally it pays to shop around between the two.

Basically all licensed parts are permanently out of stock.  I think Lego did this to stop scalpers who were abusing the system - I think I heard something about Harry Potter figures (so, early 2000s) being bought in the hundreds from B&P for about £1.50 a figure, then being resold online for £15.  Licensed parts are listed, but only available if you're requesting a replacement for a missing or broken brick, in which case you have to prove you own the set by quoting a code on the instruction book.

That said, sometimes licensed parts get overlooked and are available for a short time through B&P.  For example, I picked up the Portal 2 Chell figure, and the black panther animal through B&P.  There's a thread that keeps track of the available parts:

 

Lego bricks are identified by two numbers. "Element" uniquely identifies brick shape and colour.  "Design  number" identifies the shape.  So a search for "76382" brings up a list of 815 mini-figure torsos (many of which are out of stock).  Unfortunately each head has it's own design code, so you seem to be stuck searching for the sets one by one.

 

Hope this helps!

[CardinalBricks]

2 hours ago, NathanR said:

Yep, I've used Bricks & Pieces (B&P).  It has a much broader parts selection than the Pick-A-Brick (PAB), though curiously B&P and PAB can have the same element at different prices.  Very occasionally it pays to shop around between the two.

Basically all licensed parts are permanently out of stock.  I think Lego did this to stop scalpers who were abusing the system - I think I heard something about Harry Potter figures (so, early 2000s) being bought in the hundreds from B&P for about £1.50 a figure, then being resold online for £15.  Licensed parts are listed, but only available if you're requesting a replacement for a missing or broken brick, in which case you have to prove you own the set by quoting a code on the instruction book.

That said, sometimes licensed parts get overlooked and are available for a short time through B&P.  For example, I picked up the Portal 2 Chell figure, and the black panther animal through B&P.  There's a thread that keeps track of the available parts:

 

Lego bricks are identified by two numbers. "Element" uniquely identifies brick shape and colour.  "Design  number" identifies the shape.  So a search for "76382" brings up a list of 815 mini-figure torsos (many of which are out of stock).  Unfortunately each head has it's own design code, so you seem to be stuck searching for the sets one by one.

 

Hope this helps!

Thank you, this did help! Thanks for the tip with the torsos. I wasn't aware of the existing thread so thanks for pointing that out too.

[Gnac]

I am notorious on there.

To have a better time of finding what is available, Brickset occasionally scrapes the site to compile set inventories and new part additions. Unfortunately, LEGO changed the way their site works a while back and it's no longer possible to check via Brickset if a part is actually available to buy. The best thing to do is keep Bricks and Pieces open in a separate tab while searching Brickset.

Also (you've probably encountered this, but it's here for everyone), don't use your browser's back button to go back to the search, or it'll empty your shopping basket. Always use the "> Add bricks from another set" link instead. Really annoying quirk.

Edited October 9, 2017 by Gnac
typos wagh