Boy Genius! The LEGO Problem — What’s that brick? (pt. 3)

Ah, LEGO. Most parents have a love/hate relationship with the things. On one hand, they’re undeniable awesome. On the other, keeping track of them, cleaning them up, sorting them, (often multiple times a day) can be a major source of headaches.

We call this the LEGO problem.

(check out pt. 1 and pt. 2)

At some point, every LEGO owner is faced with a mystery brick. You can’t figure out where it came from. Maybe you care, maybe you don’t. But I’m willing to bet your kids do.

I found the coolest site — the Peeron™ LEGO© Set Inventories — you can reverse search for that random piece you found under the couch and satisfy your curiosity once and for all.

It’s a LEGO geek’s dream come true.

Let’s take for instance the POLICE brick above. Peeron tells me that it could have come from any number of sets:

• 2 in 4021-1 – Police Patrol (1991)
• 1 in 6384-1 – Police Station (1983)
• 1 in 6540-1 – Pier Police (1991)
• 1 in 6386-1 – Police Command Base (1986)
• 1 in 588-1 – Police Headquarters (1978)
• 1 in 381-2 – Police Station (1979)

Did you see that? How they have the years and when you click on the link they have a photo of the box, and in some instances the instruction pages? (And if they don’t you can always cross-reference here)

Awesome, right?

Tagged as: LEGO