Building a Millenium Falcon 10179 for under $900 (w/S&H)

[DagsBricks]

It seems all the rage now is to build a UCS Millenium Falcon by purchasing all the pieces on the secondary market. This could be a good idea but look at the costs. As of this writing a new Falcon will set you back around $3,000 while a used one can be had for around $1,500-$2,000 in varying conditions.

So let's buy the pieces and put one together, easy right? According to the Bricklink part-out feature, the average price of the parts comes to $2,700. Of course items don't get shipped on love alone so add another 12% to account for postage. We're up to $3,000 assuming all the pieces can be had for average. Might as well just buy new, right?

But maybe there's another way. What if you could substitute some rare pieces for more common ones or pass on others altogether? What kind of savings would you see? And how do you do this?

See the full guide at: http://www.dagsbricks.com/2014/07/lego- ... enium.html

Brian

[JustBrickin]

Wow! Creative and very smart! I know I won't buy it (kids don't get that much money)but that's a HUGE discount. It looks very similar though, right? I've never seen the real thing.

[gopalkrishnan]

Hey, that's a great great idea. I'm looking forward at availing the discounts.

[hatcher]

About 4 years ago I bricklinked a UCS Millenium Falcon. However, I was able to scrounge about 70% of the pieces needed from my existing collection. I had to rip apart a lot of cool sets to do it. I was also able to save a lot of money by substituting similar parts for some of the more expensive items. (The radar dish for example was going for like $10 at the time, so I just got a plain dish, which was still expensive, but not nearly so much). Another way to save money is to use different colored parts in places that don't matter. For example, you need a lot of technic pieces for the interior which you never see. So what if its red instead of black? Not counting the costs of the sets that I took apart, I only spent about $150 on bricklink.

It was a very fun experience. Took me about 3 months to figure out what parts I had and collect them together, and another 3 months to purchase the missing parts and assemble it.

I took it a sci fi convention and entered it in a model contest. And while I won a few prizes, it doesn't travel well. It looks pretty beat up right now (large chunks fell off, etc). I need to find time to take it apart enough to repair the damage.