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Comment by milesvp | Hacker News Reader

I think this article predates a drop in brick quality which happened in the last 5 years. I bought a number of small sets a few years ago and every single one of them had pieces that split up the side after very little use. This may have been around the time they were trying to use plant based plastics, or possibly having issues due to new factories, but I now have a perception that they are not as durable as they used to be 30 years ago.

I’m curious if this is reflected on bricklink prices. You’d probably have to be clever in how you do the analysis though.

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I bought a number of small sets a few years ago and every single one of them had pieces that split up the side after very little use.

Strange. Our 6 y/o daughter has really massive amounts of Lego. She started collecting them after she switched from Duplo when she was ~3. She uses them intensively and we never had a single brick or piece break or split.

I wonder if there are counterfeit sets on Amazon et al?

Hmm, we've bought or received quite a few sets over the past five years, and I've never experienced a single piece to break.

Sounds strange to me, even if the plastic was of poor quality, the sheer smallness of a LEGO brick means it is mechanically very strong (square-cube-law).

Yeah, it was all 1x1 and 1x2 that split along the 1x wall. It’s the point with the most strain. I have older lego that split similarly, but those had at least ten times the play time, and a much lower percentage. I do hope they’ve sorted out whatever problem is causing, since I’d like to continue to share the pastime with my kids.

I’ve had some pieces break over time but you can order the pieces directly from LEGO and they will send them for free.

https://www.lego.com/en-us/service/replacementparts

There's at least one instance where brown bricks had errors in manufacturing and could shatter. I've personally never had a problem with brick quality though.

Did you buy all your sets in one purchase? Sounds like you got a bad batch.

Yeah, most likely they all came from the same factory. Was from a reputable brick n mortor. Probably from the same shipment. There’s a chance they’ve sorted out the issues since. But it’ll take a long time for me to feel confident in their quality again.

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