Man Given ‘LEGO Eviction Notice’ by Wife Shares How Much His Collection Is Worth

A keen LEGO fan who built a cottage in his garden for his collection after his wife gave him an “eviction notice” has told how much it’s all worth. James Bruce, a writer from Liskeard, started collecting the popular toys as a child but forgot about them as he got older until he had his own son later in life.

The 42-year-old’s collection, partly bought from LEGO retailer Madbricks, has since grown so large that he was served with a ‘LEGO eviction notice by the wife’, so he built a cabin and moved all out. James estimates he has spent thousands of pounds on his impressive collection to date.

“I’ve spent around £3,000 on LEGO building sets and between £1,000 and £2,000 on bulk building blocks over the years,” he said. “I’m not sure what my sets are currently worth, and while some of the sets I found contained in the bulk building blocks I bought may be rare, I haven’t cataloged their exact value yet.”

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A LEGO fan builds a cabin for the collection after being given an “eviction notice” by his wife

His collection was a hit with his friends, and despite being given an ultimatum by his wife to get LEGO out of their home, James said he supported his hobby. “My parents think I’m a big man-child, but they thought about it anyway before I went back to LEGO,” he added.

“My friends or visitors are super jealous and always go home thinking about how they can turn their spare room into a LEGO room. Luckily, my wife is amazing and fully supportive of my hobbies.”

But James is not able to devote as much time to building his sets as he would like. He said: “If I’m lucky, I can shut myself down at the weekend for three or four hours, but naturally I put my family and work life ahead of my hobby.”

As CornwallLive reported yesterday, James’ interest in toys was sparked again when his son took an interest in LEGO. James said he decided to take out his old collection, then watched in horror as his offspring tore up his precious creations so they could play with the blocks. James decided it was best to have two collections, one for his son and one for himself, and soon he found himself collecting the colored bricks again.

James said: “I really enjoyed collecting LEGO as a child and have fond memories of playing with my pirate sets and city builders every Christmas. Luckily, my parents kept all my LEGO bricks in their attic and gave them back to me. 25 years later when we got our own house.

“I put the collection away for a few years as my son was too young to play with it at the time, then introduced it to him when he turned six. Something snapped in me and I decided to build him a table. to create their own city.

“But to me, he was playing it all wrong. It was annoying to see him tear apart my prized LEGO City sets. I know that’s the point of building LEGOs, so I decided it would be best to start my own collection. He can’t break soon enough I filled the living room and got a LEGO eviction notice from the wife.”

Before long, James had purchased a log cabin to house his impressive collection. Now his creations are on permanent display in the bespoke showroom, which even has a sign – in the LEGO font.

James continued: “I bought a little cottage called ‘The Brickpit’ and built it in the garden to house the hundreds of LEGO models I collected.

“The most expensive set I own is ‘Welcome to Apocalypseburg’ from the LEGO Movie 2 series, which I had to source online and cost me over £400.”

“The edge of my booth is surrounded by custom shelving so I can zone my collections. I am not precious that everything is clean; however, everything is integrated into a scene and brought to life. I don’t want my LEGOs to just sit there and do nothing on the shelf, they are designed to be played with eventually.”

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James said his rediscovered love of LEGO has allowed him to spend more quality time with his family as the whole family builds sets together.

He added: “Building LEGO together is one of my family’s favorite activities and while we enjoy building new sets, buying mixed bricks in bulk and seeing what we can build is what we enjoy the most. A single bulk purchase of LEGO bricks can keep my family busy for months My wife enjoys sorting the bricks while my son builds random creations and I wonder where the bricks came from.

“Finishing a LEGO set definitely has a sense of accomplishment when we can admire the finished build and see all the stories the designers have put into it. I often incorporate and rearrange the cityscapes I’ve created and figure out how the new set fits into the story. Then I’ll add some minifigures or other bits and pieces to bring the scenes to life.

“I’m lucky that my day job isn’t too stressful, but building LEGO is definitely cathartic. I like the physical aspect of it, and like board games and puzzles, it hasn’t been replaced by a digital version or a video. There’s just something about manipulating physical bricks in a world that otherwise does everything on screen.

“It also taught me how important the concept of ‘play’ is as an adult; I think a lot of people resigned themselves as children.”