The LEGO community is full of stories, anecdotes, and tales both tall and heartwarming. Sometimes, all you need is a prompt to get them out! So we’re starting a weekly feature here on the Brothers Brick: TBB Asks. It does what it says on the tin: quite simply, we ask a different LEGO-related question every week, and invite contributors and readers alike to share their stories and answers! These may vary from what your favourite set is, to what minifigure tool would be best suited to a zombie apocalypse. (I think it’s a lightsaber, incidentally.) This week, we’re asking: What was your first LEGO set?
Make sure to leave your answer in the comments – and if you have an idea for a question, feel free to leave that there, too!
Daniel: While I did have system sets before the launch of the first wave of classic space sets, the space cruiser was one of the first sets I remember getting when I was 10 years old. The classic yellow castle set also stands out as one of my earliest sets.
Kimberly: Duplo farm 2650. If we want to go way back, I did get Duplo for my 1st birthday; 6085 Black Monarch’s Castle was my first set. We had Samsonite era Lego passed down from my Uncle.
Steve: Technically, my first set was #387 Excavator and Dumper / Road Construction Vehicles. It was a 3rd birthday gift and I was too young for it, and my father and uncle built it overnight. I clearly remember being both disappointed that I didn’t get to build it and delighted by the tread elements and other play features of the finished model. The first set I built myself (at 6) was 442 Space Shuttle. Both are still in my collection.
Bre: I know that there were others, including simple boxes of bricks, but the first set that truly stands out was LEGO Adventurers 5987 Dino Research Compound. As an 8 year old kid with a newfound interest in paleontology, I lost my freaking mind when I unwrapped this set for Christmas.
Lino: It was this one, set 367. That got me started on a lifetime of building with LEGO.
Kyle: I don’t remember which set was the first, but my earliest LEGO memory is building 6508 Wave Racer.
Ralph: I used to play with my sister’s Duplo, but the first set I remember owning was the Police Launch (with the original hands-in-pocket minifigs). I still have some of the parts, the figures, the hull and the counterweight.
Theo: I had the odd Duplo set, I’m sure, but the first one I remember playing with – or more often than not, its constituent parts – was 7111 Droid Fighter. I was barely old enough to have seen Star Wars at the time, let alone the Phantom Menace, but it still stands out after all these years.
Jake Forbes: I don’t remember my first set – LEGO was always present in my childhood. I had some of those pre-minifig buildable figures as well as the earliest unjointed minifigs in my collection, but I don’t remember getting them. Most of my early years of building are a blur, but it was mostly Classic Space. I never kept the sets assembled long, so all the parts got folded into my collection. One of the earliest sets I remember distinctly is when I first got obsessed with castle, starting with the Forestmen set Camouflaged Outpost. I loved that line of sets with all the secret entrances.
I suppose that’s why Jake decided to practice his tree-building techniques on his Forest Hideout set. And neat though those trees are, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit jealous of Bre’s dinosaur hideout! Heck, I’d freak out if I got that for Christmas now. But now, it’s over to you, readers! What was the first set to set you on your LEGO journey? Tell us in the comments, and come back every week for more from TBB Asks!