If you’re a dedicated LEGO fan, there’s a good chance you already use BrickLink.com to buy LEGO sets and individual elements. Now the 19-year-old marketplace has a new way of capturing the hearts and wallets of AFOLs (aka Adult Fans of LEGO). Announced last year, it’s called the BrickLink AFOL Designer Program, or ADP. With it, BrickLink is bringing a handful of fan-designed kits to market via a crowd-sourcing initiative. In many ways ADP resembles The LEGO Company’s own Ideas platform, but besides boasting larger payouts to designers, ADP also promises that the final sets will be virtually unaltered from the submitted designs. After a review period, 16 designs were first made available for a pre-ordering process with a minimum threshold of pre-orders before BrickLink would actually publish the kit. It’s a similar process to the way Kickstarter projects require a funding goal to be met. 13 of the designs met that goal and the largest model, Löwenstein Castle by builder Raziel Regulus, skyrocketed in popularity resulting in all 2,500 copies completely selling out during the pre-order phase. BrickLink has provided us an early review copy of the set, so let’s see how this fan-built model stacks up. Löwenstein Castle has 2,015 pieces and a $199.99 USD sticker price, though it is now sold out.
While the BrickLink ADP sets are not official LEGO sets and will not bear the LEGO logo, the sets do have The LEGO Company’s blessing. The AFOL Designer Program was initiated in affiliation with LEGO to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the LEGO brick, and each box will feature the official 60th-anniversary logo. The LEGO Company has also worked with BrickLink to provide elements explicitly for the sets. This is unlike any other aftermarket sets, which have always relied on pieces sourced out of regular LEGO sets (and consequently, those sets have a much higher price).
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