Live data from Hacker News

Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

mybricklog.com

211–220 of 704 posts

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#211
post #10

Adults ruined LEGO. There I said it.

When I was ten, my mum questioned whether my sister and myself were 'too old for LEGO'. In Woolworths we had to reassure her that Set 376-2 Town House with Garden was what we wanted as it came with lots of lovely red bricks that we 'needed'. To be honest, at the time, I thought my mum was right, and that we were getting too old for LEGO, but we had sunk costs...

For us, LEGO was all about ingenuity, improvisation and imagination. We would build a set once, with the alternate back-of-the-box design, without the instructions. Then the real fun would begin, as the new set went in with the bricks we had.

At secondary school (age 11 in UK), the LEGO was cast aside as a mere child's toy. We had moved on and the idea of 'still playing with LEGO' would have been a social faux pas.

Nowadays kids have a ridiculous abundance of LEGO but where is the ingenuity and imagination? Or even the play time? With tablets, phones, video games and so much else, it seems that the set gets built as per the instructions and that is it, job done. The play hasn't even really started.

My parents hosted dinner parties, as was the custom at the time, when restaurants were rare. They quite liked to have our current creations on show, in a low-key way. That is how adults should do LEGO, proud of their kids' creations.

None of our LEGO had a market value, however, every brick had utility and colour value within our LEGO world. We had other things for collecting, even stamps, and they notionally had value.

Hence I am not sure what is going on with people having $200k LEGO collections. That level of abundance just isn't about play, and certainly not for kids. I have no sympathy for the guy, and although the loss is painful, at least he has a chance to grow up a bit!

P.S. Corporate LEGO also ruined it by promoting the whole AFOL thing, but the success of the company has been astounding, considering the product is plastic waste.

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#212

And people wonder why Luigi has so much support from the general public?

This looks like a corporation stealing from an old man. It’s clear-cut wrong, even if the YouTuber is annoying. I wouldn’t put it in the same bucket as a common murderer with similar favorable as Stephen Miller.

The Legos were being sold to fund the college education of the old man's young descendants IIRC. So, like the killing, the alleged issue is a corporation stealing from a young man, actually.

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#213
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's the case why did they lose the small claims cases?

They lost default judgements because they did not appear. Either they thought it was fake or they thought they'd lose, but they were served and did not appear.

Or they thought that the losses were acceptable to avoid having to make sworn statements about the series of events that are still at issue in the previous owner's case and some events that may very well still be charged by Oregon prosecutors.

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A default judgement is still a loss. Why would not they not fight back small claims cases, which would be trivially easy for someone with their resources, if they could win?

They can't even serve papers because they're being relentlessly harassed by Police who have immediately banned them from serving them. In part 2, cops even verify the court case and he has a process server-- but they just refuse to. One of many different cops eventually took the papers to serve them, and ended up coming back saying "he didn't want them." Additionally, the original business in Kaizer shutdown as soon…

Would it count as being served if bodycam shows that police handed him the papers and he gave them back or tossed them on the floor?

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#215
post #140

> Bricks & Minifigs CEO Ammon McNeff is a graduate of Brigham Young University. Joshua Johnson and Brandon Best are, by public record and documented account, members of the LDS community. When Reckless Ben's team, following the pattern of obstruction by local law enforcement, looked into the individual officers involved in these incidents, they found that multiple officers were also BYU alumni. I thought “it has to b…

[flagged]

Absolutely, if they all belonged to the same atheist society and performed the same rituals together etc.

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A default judgement is still a loss. Why would not they not fight back small claims cases, which would be trivially easy for someone with their resources, if they could win?

I am not stating that I think B&M would win. B&M's original intent was to force Ed and Ben into a pyrrhic victory via dragging out one lawsuit, even if they lost that one suit. Without being able to run up Ed/Ben's legal costs, trying to defend these suits at all is just a further loss for B&M for no benefit. I don't think it was the deciding factor, but Ben also sent a fake Guinness award to the store around the sam…

Nah, the whole Guinness thing was obviously just a bit for the video. Clearly the franchise would not fall for that, when you can easily check that you were summoned to small claims (and they also probably get some form of direct communication from the court I would guess).

Legal costs for a small claims suit is tiny, and would be easily doable for them if they could win it. Again, there is a reason they lost those cases.

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#217

[flagged]

This is a personal pet peeve though in a descriptive sense the language has moved past us https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2025-12-10/Trespass

Personally, I have decided that The Lord's Prayer now has the new and alternative meaning when it reads:

    Forgive us our trespasses

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand ownership of the Lego sets never left the Mansells. The consignment agreement states as much. Even if we take what corporate says at face value (there was no agreement, or the agreement is null, or it's an agreement that the previous owners agreed to) that still just means that the store possesses property that they do not legally own. Whether or not they legally came to possess the sets seems…

[flagged]

I don't know how effective the wording of the original consignment agreement would end up if tested in a suit. It reads "Consigned merchandise shall remain the property of Mansell until sold".

On the other hand, without the agreement, how can one prove the expectation that the goods were handed over with, at all? Without establishing that expectation wouldn't the ownership of the goods just stay with the original owner at all times?

It would make sense that there are some ways you can abandon property you own in a way that someone else can swoop up and take ownership it without having to give it back, but do any of those potentially apply here?

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd think that if there was a side of the story where the details exonerated the company, you'd think they would share those details. If they moved someone else's property out of the store, then surely they would be able to share evidence supporting this. All we have to go by is the blogger's account, so that's the story. Just saying "there must be more to it" without evidence that there is more to it, is just vagu…

[flagged]

There aren't obvious holes. Most or all of what's been claimed as holes have just been straight up lies from B&M

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#220
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that hard to understand. A man gave a store merchandise on consignment, signed a contract with the store manager. The manager lost control of the store to corporate. The goods were still there, still on display and being sold. Corporate says, "this is mine now" and refuses to honor the contract. "It wasn't our name on it, says right here that the previous store manager signed this, and she's no longer with u…

This is a gofundme I would gladly donate to. Fight the power for what's right.

There's a link at the bottom of the article

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-bryan-recover-his-lego-colle...

Post reply on HN