It might be from an eBay seller, a BrickLink store, or from LEGO directly, but we have probably all bought LEGO parts or sets online at some point. However, until the highly anticipated package arrives, we’re all at the mercy of the courier. I hereby present, for your enjoyment, the first of two postal horror stories from my AFOL years thus far.

Disclaimer: The postal worker in the picture is here for illustration purposes only. He has nothing to do with these stories.

If you’re a longtime LEGO fan, you can probably relate to the scenario I described above: You won an eBay auction for an old LEGO set you’ve wanted for a long time, you bought a bunch of parts from BrickLink for a project you’re working on, or LEGO’s own latest GWP (Gift With Purchase) was simply so tempting that you went and bought something far too expensive from LEGO’s own online shop, just to qualify for the gift.

If you’re new to the hobby or recently acquired a revenue stream to start buying LEGO for yourself, that last paragraph probably contained several abbreviations or terms you aren’t familiar with…yet. Like BrickLink, for example. This online treasure trove/bottomless money pit full of loose LEGO parts, rare items and discontinued old sets was originally the brainchild of an American LEGO fan, the late Daniel Jezek, but after having changed hands a couple of times it was eventually acquired by The LEGO Group in November 2019.

BrickLink is a platform where people can sell their new and used LEGO, and with almost 12,000 registered sellers it’s pretty much unrivalled when it comes to the selection of LEGO items you can get a hold of. That means it’s virtually impossible not to end up buying something from a BrickLink seller at some point if you become an adult fan of LEGO (AFOL).

Descending into the depths of BrickLink

My first BrickLink purchase. It looks so innocent, but It all went downhill from there.

I registered on BrickLink on January 20th, 2007. This was a watershed moment for me, and my wallet has never really recovered since. My first purchase, made shortly after signing up, was innocent enough. It consisted of three old used Town sets, one of which was the classic 6367 Semi Truck, simply because it was one of those sets I always wanted but never got when I was a little boy. Now I had the means to get it for myself!

Obviously, I also had the means to get other things. Far too many other things. I bought a lot of old sets from my childhood, which I’m now in the process (the very lengthy process) of selling off again, because at this point I quite simply have too much LEGO (my wife will agree with that statement). Eventually my focus changed, and I started building my own creations (MOCs). For that, I needed loose bricks, and that has driven me back into BrickLink’s tentacles again and again.

My embarrassingly feedback-rich bricklink profile.

Since that fateful day in 2007—and bear in mind, this is in addition to eBay purchases, finn.no (the Norwegian equivalent of Craigslist), and LEGO Shop at Home—I have, at the time of writing, placed more than 836 BrickLink orders. I say “more than”, because that number is the amount of feedback I have received from sellers, and there are sellers who don’t bother giving feedback. So the real number is higher.

I mention this so that you will get an idea of how many times I have gone to my mailbox anticipating the arrival of one of those exciting, rattling packages. It has happened a lot. And to be fair to the various couriers that have been responsible for those deliveries, I really should add that most of the time the packages reach their destination in a timely, undamaged manner. In fact, considering how many times I have had LEGO delivered, things very rarely go missing—but when they do, it sometimes becomes memorable. Like the orders in today’s story.

The Unexplainable Mystery of the Yellow Wheel Swap

Back in February, I wrote an article revolving around a sponsored walk I did for Fairy Bricks, a UK charity. Using my hobby to donate money to a good cause is something I really haven’t done enough—because it has been so rewarding when I have—but I have donated some MOCs to Creations for Charity, an annual fundraiser founded and organised by New York-based Nannan Zhang. The concept is simple: AFOLs can donate unique models they’ve built for other people to buy. Their website states that “the proceeds are used to buy new LEGO sets for underprivileged children around the world during the holidays.”

In late 2013, Megan Rothrock’s LEGO Adventure Book, Vol. 2 came out. I was lucky enough to have my own chapter in the book, and I built a modular gas station for it. It had a removable parking deck on top and a modernised version of the classic 6561 Hot Rod Clubhouse set from 1994 placed on the parking deck:

My modular gas station, as featured in the lego adventure book, vol. 2.

the sweet yello, as I presented it to potential creations for charity customers.

But I mainly build cars, so I also built some hot rods to go with it, and among them was the Sweet Yello, a modernised version of one of the cars that came with that 1994 set. This was then featured in the book, so I thought it could be a cool idea to build a couple of copies of it and donate them to Creations for Charity.

The wheels I used for the Sweet Yello were old. Part 3482, which BrickLink calls Wheel with Split Axle Hole, was introduced in 1974, and hasn’t been featured in a LEGO set since 2006. I needed eight of them to be able to build the two copies I wanted to donate, and amazingly, the UK BrickLink store HouseOfBricks actually had eight new ones, taken from a freshly opened LEGO Dacta set from 1998.

i didn’t expect to find eight unused lego wheels from 1998!

As you can see, I placed the order on November 7th, 2014. But I was also building some other stuff at the time, specifically some MOCs I was planning to display at BRICK 2014, a big show at the ExCeL Centre in London, so I ended up placing a few other orders on that same day—and one of these is essential to the story. I ordered a selection of various parts from Gizmocom, one of the largest UK-based BrickLink stores, run by Darren Smith, a very friendly and helpful guy.

Leaving It Until the Last Minute

When I build something for a specific event, I tend to run late with my BrickLink orders, and this was no exception. I was going to set up a collaborative city display with some fellow Norwegian and Danish AFOLs, and in my infinite wisdom I had agreed to drive from my home in Bergen, via Oslo and Billund, where I was picking up some models (and a crazy Dane), and on to London. That’s two international ferries and 2,300 kilometres, or roughly 1,400 miles, for good measure.

That left only a bit more than two weeks for the packages to travel from the UK to Norway, which in pre-COVID times should have been enough, but they actually didn’t make it in time. So I got in touch with Darren, who helpfully agreed to ship some replacement parts to a mutual friend in the UK who was also going to the event, and then I started driving…

The collaborative city display by “the nordic team”, transported by car all the way to brick 2014 in london.

When I arrived I found out that the replacement parts didn’t get there, either. Shipping time was supposed to be one day, but sometimes things just don’t go as planned, so I simply put my finished models on display, and saved the others for another show. Darren would take back the replacement parts, and give me a refund, which was again brilliant customer service. Then I flew back home and, thankfully, left the driving to one of the other Norwegian AFOLs!

So, the original order from Gizmocom didn’t make it to Norway before I had to leave for London. But to my big surprise, it still hadn’t arrived when I got back home—and neither had the other package with the yellow wheels in it. The Creations for Charity fundraiser runs from mid-October through to the end of November every year, so those wheels would have become a problem immediately after that, when the models were supposed to be shipped… except for the fact that my two lovely Sweet Yellos were never sold! Fortunately, I guess you could say.

That meant I wasn’t in any particular hurry, but the whole thing was still very weird. As I said earlier, missing packages are rare, and in this case it was two packages, from the same country, shipped on the same day. What really happened to them still remains a mystery… but the next twist is the big surprise development.

“Address Unknown”

On January 23rd a small padded envelope landed in my mailbox. When I picked it up it was terribly crumpled, had clearly been opened and very sloppily taped back together—so sloppily, in fact, that there was still a rather big hole in it where a LEGO polybag peered through. A large pink label had been slapped across the envelope saying, “Return”, with the “New address unknown” box ticked. Which was a bit strange to say the least, as the package had my correct address on it, and had clearly arrived… After two and a half months!

In Norwegian… and french! By which logic, I wonder?

I then opened the envelope (although it didn’t really need further opening) and discovered that this was the HouseOfBricks order, which was supposed to contain the eight yellow wheels I needed to finish the two Sweet Yellos, and a mini Volkswagen T1 Camper polybag. While the polybag had arrived in one piece, the wheels were nowhere to be seen. Assuming they had fallen out through the big crease and were quite obviously lost, I sent an email to the BrickLink seller just to let him know the package had finally arrived, and made a mental note to write an angry email to the Norwegian postal service.

There was still no sign of the package from Darren. I was in a bit of a hurry with something else, so this whole thing slipped my mind for a while. Then, on February 13th, more than three months after I’d originally placed the two orders, I suddenly received a very confused email from Darren.

“Hi Are,

I received your lost parcel at my workplace today! I have attached a picture, I am not exactly sure what it says on the pink return label, but think it is 'Address Unknown' ? Seems a bit strange as you have obviously got packages from me and others before! I also got the package back from Martin today, so it has all happened at once!

The corner of envelope was ripped, but it had been taped back up again. I opened it and it had obviously been opened before because the order sheet was folded many times which I don't do. Also these was 8 of the 3482 Wheel part in a separate bag which I have never had in my shop! Not sure where these came from. 8 were sold in November and I think from another UK store, was that you who ordered them? A real mystery!”

If you’re shaking your head right now, wondering how on earth this happened, you get an idea of what went through mine. The pink label was identical to the one on the package that did arrive, the address was exactly same—and correct, obviously—and the return date was the same. So how was this at all possible?

A Real Mystery, Indeed

I suppose the biggest clue here is the date on the return label. Since it was the same on both packages, they must have been stuck at the same time, presumably at the same sorting facility. So here is my best guess as to how The Unexplainable Mystery of the Yellow Wheel Swap happened:

At some point in early November 2014, two small, innocent-looking envelopes marked as “plastic toy parts” arrive at the sorting facility dealing with incoming international airmail. An eager employee, let’s call him Erling (just because arguably the most famous Norwegian name at the moment, and also very well-known to LEGO fans) looks at the envelopes and thinks, “No way. The packages are far too small for this to be LEGO. Obviously, these two must contain… DRUGS!”

Erling puts the two envelopes aside and rips the first one open. The content lands on the table before him. A bunch of ziplock bags! This smells of drugs… but wait a minute. They actually contain LEGO parts. How weird. Who buys LEGO parts in such small quantities?

Annoyed, he then proceeds to rip the other one open, a bit more careless than he probably should (which is understandable, he’s about to get a scoop!), so the envelope pretty much disintegrates. A LEGO Mini VW T1 Camper Van emerges from the shredded paper, and a ziplock bag with eight yellow wheels lands on top of the other plastic bags… and suddenly, it’s all a mix of loose plastic bags with LEGO parts. And clearly no drugs.

Erling panics. He puts the one thing that looks different, the polybag with the VW camper, into one envelope, shoves the rest into the other, seals them (sort of) with a bunch of tape and puts them on a shelf, thinking he’ll get back to them. And then he forgets about it.

Two and a half months later, one of Erling’s colleagues spots the two rogue envelopes, picks them up and thinks, “Uh-oh. Those aren’t supposed to be here. What do I do with those? Hmmm… oh yeah, brilliant idea. I’ll just slap an “Address Unknown” label on them, and put them back into the system! Problem solved.”

That’s my suggestion. I must emphasise that I don’t have any intimate knowledge about how things are organised at these sorting facilities, but I think this is reasonably plausible. The one thing that’s still left unexplained, though, is how one envelope ended up in my mailbox, and the other spent more than two weeks travelling back to Darren in the UK. I guess I’ll never find out.

The owner of the original sweet yello meets the two clones, which was clearly too much to handle.

Oh, and the other two Sweet Yellos? Darren, poor guy, agreed to send the parts again, to the same address, and include the eight wheels that he had never seen before. When they finally arrived I built my two copies, which you can see in the image above—and they eventually ended up in the hands of a Portuguese collector, of all things. But that’s a different story!

Next month I’ll be following up with another postal tale, which my former neighbour plays a part in. He had no short-term memory, which added an extra twist to an already long-winded story. Stay tuned for that! Have you experienced something like this? Or do you have a postal story of your own? Let us know in the comments!

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