What set or theme brought you to LEGO?

Always had lego but started properly in 2005 with the Revenge of the Sith sets, had a brief dark age between 2011 and 2016, was brought back by the Rogue One sets (especially the black shuttle) and to be honest am back in a semi dark age again since about 2022 only picking up a single set a year, if at all

For me it was 42030 Remote-Controlled Volvo L350F Wheel Loader. Remote control Lego was my childhood dream, to the point that we took apart a few other remote control cars to try to make it happen.

around 16-18 yo admired the Lego City Trains (Metroliner) but I couldn’t afford so I settled for the cheaper Technic Sets which I also loved.

I've been interested in lego ever since I was a kid! The themes that most interested me at first were Heroica, Power Miners, and Bionicle.

My return from the dark ages was due to Overwatch. I was a big fan of the game and the sets they released were really cool. I bought/received a few Creators 3 in 1 sets to fiddle with, and I then pivoted to Modulars.

As a kid, I started young with Space, Western, Adventurers, and a few random sets. Throwbots were my thing too.

Space and Techic in the late seventies...
I think my first Lego period was over when I discovered other things (windsurfing, girls).
Came back when I had a bit more money and time, had kids, and found out Lego Star Wars was a thing. The kids don't seem to be too intested anymore and Lego is more like 3D puzzling nowadays, so interest feels like it is fading a bit.

Trains. Never really left or fell into the "Dark Ages" as much as some describe but the periodic release of trains, the Re-release of Metroliner 4558/10001 in 2000 was probably the most significant for me .

Buying Lego for my daughters initially, then seeing the Modular line. I was hooked. 10197 in particular, which was my first modular.

Star Wars got me into Lego when I was 7 years old. I never stopped collecting after that.

What got me first was the Lego Movie as a kid but I am pretty much just a speed champions man now. The Toyota supra is what made me want to get them all. I loved the build.

after my "dark age" in 2015 lambda class shuttle and just after that 2014 at-at and then it went like snowball xD

I remember City, Racers, and Mars Mission from around 2006–2007, but one of the things that really kicked off my interest in LEGO was Adam Reed Tucker's "LEGO Architecture: Towering Ambition" exhibit at the National Building Museum, which ran for over two years from 2010 to 2012. Even though the Architecture theme was geared towards adults, I kept an interest in it as a teenager, and an interest in LEGO eventually led to an interest (and a bachelor's degree) in architecture as a whole.

10030 brought me back into the light.

Previously hadn't bought a set since 1984, so it was a 20 year break for me.

Lego City and Modular buildings

Bionicle as a theme got my brother and I into LEGO as kids, and I can specifically think of 8731-1 Kongu as the first set I remember getting. In 2009 I can remember 8958-1 Granite Grinder jumping out to me on the shelves, and that started my transition into the classic brick system. As for transitioning into more adult sets, that was due mostly in part to 10243-1 Parisian Restaurant for my birthday in 2014

I had a dark age from about 14 to 30. I may have grabbed a star wars set here and there so maybe that held me on. However, the Simpsons minifigure collection is what really drug back into this obsession with all you animals. Now I am sitting on 200,000+ pieces.

Harry Potter POA was the first sets that brought me back, especially since I lived close to a large Lego Store. Then I started getting Star Wars, Super Heroes, City and the Modulars. City and Modulars were mostly for the Super Heroes to have something to do.

LEGO City. Specifically 7741 Police Helicopter. I got it when I was two years old and I still love it to this day.

Technic drew me in back to LEGO in the 90s. Our System (not themes) bricks were disposed of, along with all "toys" by my father in the mid-80s due to my younger brother's declining academic performance.

And then Star Wars LEGO brought me into System. And this opened the door to other themes, LUGS, conventions, MOCing.

Ironically it's these two themes (Technic and Star Wars) that seems to be pricing me out having reduced purchasing of these which has led to decreased spending on others.

Shortly after finally having a job where I made some money, I had recalled a friend's step-dad having sets 7181 and 7191. So I checked out Lego's website and found 75060, 75144, and 75181. Got them all and my Lego as an adult world went wild expanding from the Star Wars theme, to Ninjago, Icons, Ideas, themes that my kids love with Friends, Disney, Minecraft. I love Technic as well. I'm part of an RLUG now. This has been a great hobby to get into and enjoy with my kids.

Was a huge fan as a kid, allowances and any money I had was spent on Lego, Christmas Day spent doing the sets I got that morning. Through high school, college, and post college it fell away in the 1990’s/00’s. A few Star sets here and there as the we’re starting to be released. In 2009, I was poking around at the Ben Franklin’s in Grand Marais MN and stumbled upon the Minifigure packers and grabbed a few. My partner thought they were fun as well. That was the gateway, bought the Saturn V immediately when it came out. Now I try and focus on NASA and Star Wars, mainly original trilogy sets. Would expand out but don’t do to lack of space and resources.

Was a huge fan as a kid, allowances and any money I had was spent on Lego, Christmas Day spent doing the sets I got that morning. Through high school, college, and post college it fell away in the 1990’s/00’s. A few Star sets here and there as the we’re starting to be released. In 2009, I was poking around at the Ben Franklin’s in Grand Marais MN and stumbled upon the Minifigure packers and grabbed a few. My partner thought they were fun as well. That was the gateway, bought the Saturn V immediately when it came out. Now I try and focus on NASA and Star Wars, mainly original trilogy sets. Would expand out but don’t do to lack of space and resources.

Castle was always my favourite as a kid; in 2009 I started to have grown-up money and Fantasy Era sucked me right in, followed by Lord of the Rings and Marvel hot on its heels.

I got back into Lego around 2012 after a dark age of almost 20 years, and while I quickly got into Star Wars, the first set that made me come back into the fold was 6866 Wolverine’s Chopper Showdown. Still love the Magneto and Deadpool minifigs!!

Cafe corner. :)

Got into it as a child, I have very early memories of building castles from miscellaneous pieces with my father. My first real sets were mostly Star Wars sets back in 2008-2011, then came my dark age, and I got back into it 11 years ago when the new movies came out in theaters. I have since become a completionist in the Star Wars line, so much so that I have almost every released set. I have also started to grow more interested in other themes lately, such as the new LotR sets or the BDP series. As an adult, I tend to enjoy the build and the techniques behind it more than the playability but I'm getting tired of the incessant release of inferior "remakes", which is why I think that I'm leaning more into other themes. Clearly, Lego Star Wars has lost its prestige and I don't think that the newer generation cares much about it.

Received my first set in 1982 6842 classic space. Dark period in the nineties (high school, university and got married). Introduction of Star Wars pulled me out when released in 1999.

I had lego as a child, books, cross stitch and writing took over until I saw the Parisian Restaurant and then I became addicted to Modulars, art, difficult builds like the Titanic, Castles, Colosseum and bricklink kept me there.

I’ve been playing with Lego since I was 2, and was hooked on space, castle and pirates until my dark ages. What brought me out from that though was Indiana Jones Lego, I was given a set as a wedding present(!) as I was an archaeologist at the time, and I was impressed with how well built it was and a big improvement on the increasingly specialised pieces of the mid 90s.

These days I’m fully addicted again, dragging my wife and kids into my dirty habit, but the sets I’m most interested in are those that fit in with the worlds that I built as a kid, and in fact the flags I have configured in Brickset include Castle, Space, Historical and Dystopian (a new tag that captures the grungy themes like Ninjago, Dreamzzz, Hidden Side etc)

I was introduced to LEGO, or more specifically LEGO Duplo, at a young age. I did get into a dark age somewhere around 2011/2012.

I got back into the hobby in 2017. From my memory it was when I came across the teaser for the 75192 Ultimate Collector Series Millennium Falcon, but my Brickset profile states I created my account in January of that year. So the real reason I returned to LEGO as a hobby is lost on me.

Into lego as a kid (first set a pirates one age 4) had several sets but from a smattering of themes, went into my dark ages in 1998 at age of 10 (got more into video games).

Had a brief 'relapse' in 2007 at age of 19 where I got a few star wars sets - minifig scale starships (x-wing, y-wing, b-wing etc.) - liked the sets and I missed the early star wars stuff - had a weekend job and a bit of disposable cash while i was at uni.

Properly got back into lego in 2012 age of 24 - the exclusive London 2012 collectable minifig series (I kidded myself that it was for investment purposes XD) and in particular the Lord of the Rings line which I loved and got basically every set of. From then on continued and broadened and did several different themes - Star wars, Galaxy squad, ultra agents, Nexo knights, modulars, the fairground line, super heroes, speed champions and a selection of other stuff that interested me.

I had Lego as a child and it was my favorite toy - as far as I know I received some 1973 100-series basic sets in 1974 when I was 5 years old (they were still new on the shelves at that time), quickly followed by some 1973-75 Legoland sets. I'd say the early Town and Space sets were the first ones that really cemented my lifelong attachment, because of the minifigures and the buildings and vehicles that were scaled to fit them (as opposed to some of the first 1978 Town sets that still used vehicles they couldn't fit into).

Lego has always been around for me - it's pretty much the only childhood toy I saved as I moved into adolescence, and I still have all my childhood sets. I had a very brief Dark Age in my mid to late teens, but after that I had a what I would call an extended "Dim Age" where most of my Lego was in storage in my closets or basement, but I would have one or two small sets on display on a desk or something, and every once in a while - like maybe every couple of years - I'd buy a set if I was shopping somewhere and happened to see one on sale.

What really got me back into the hobby in a full way as an adult was the pandemic, and specifically the Lego Ideas WALL-E set. This was 6 years after it came out, and I was able to find a used copy with box and instructions on eBay for a very nice price. That was the spark and now I'm back into it as much as I was when I was a kid.

I had Lego as a child and it was my favorite toy - as far as I know I received some 1973 100-series basic sets in 1974 when I was 5 years old (they were still new on the shelves at that time), quickly followed by some 1973-75 Legoland sets, and then several 1967-77 Legoland sets with the "statue"figures that I would pick out myself on gifting occasions. I'd say the early Town and Space sets were the first ones that really cemented my lifelong attachment, because the minifigures and the buildings and vehicles that were scaled to fit them added an extra level of interest and immersion for me. I specifically remember liking, but not loving, a few of the earliest 1978 Town sets because they came with minifigures but the vehicles and buildings were still not scaled to be able to fit them properly (e.g. 575 Coast Guard Station and some of the small construction and industrial sets).

Lego has always been around for me - it's pretty much the only childhood toy I saved as I moved into adolescence, and I still have all my childhood sets. I had a very brief Dark Age in my mid to late teens, but after that I had a what I would call an extended "Dim Age" where most of my Lego was in storage in my closets or basement, but I would have one or two small sets on display on a desk or something, and every once in a while - like maybe every couple of years - I'd buy a set if I was shopping somewhere and happened to see one on sale.

What really got me back into the hobby in a full way as an adult was the pandemic, and specifically the Lego Ideas WALL-E set. This was 6 years after it came out, and I was able to find a used copy with box and instructions on eBay for a very nice price. Then I embarked on a long process of building an EVE to accompany it, which got me into Rebrickable, Bricklink, and a lot of the rest of the online Lego/AFOL community. That was followed by parting together the Curiosity Rover set (another Ideas one, I think?), and that in turn led me to part together all my old Classic Space sets from my stored childhood inventory. That was the spark and now I'm back into it as much as I was when I was a kid.

As kid in 70's UK, I was bought 897 (Mobile rocket launcher) and went mad for Space Lego (Spaceship, spaceship, SPACESHIP!). Dropped Lego for 20+ years. Moved to US and bought SW Final Duel I & II in 2002. My love of Star Wars kept me buying a set here or there and then my son was born in the late 'aughts and I was off to the races again. I mostly buy LSW but have been getting 20+ sets per year across several themes now including Icons.

It's good I think to keep on asking this question as the demographic of collectors continues to evolve alongside the output of Lego itself.

For me it was a single set - 7191 - X-wing Fighter - I had no idea Lego had started licensing franchises, and seeing that on the wall at the Lego shop captivated me. I had always tried building an X-wing as a child, and it never looked quite right. This made everything right.

After that I bought a single Bionicle set ("Neither proper Lego, nor Technic" was my initial view) and then it was Star Wars all the way until Marvel came along. I like movies.

Started with Harry Potter in 2007 with 5378... but Winter Village, Creator Expert and Modular Buildings continued the slippery slope downhill from there!

@Robot99 said:
"I've always been confused by the term "dark age", it's thrown around all the time as if every AFoL has experienced it... I haven't lol"

I never had a period of not being interested in Lego, but there was a decade or so as a young adult when I hardly bought any because I was too poor!

Ninjago City Gardens brought me back in 2022.

Last summer I converted half of my garage into a LEGO.

Reclaimed some of my 90s pirate sets from my parents attic as well.

Have been actively participating in the Bricklink Designer Program since late 2024.

Love this hobby!

Six heroes, one destiny.

I could say I've been a fan of Lego since childhood, but I got into Lego because of the castle Fantasy theme, which by the time I could get Lego was a retired theme :(
I then had to adapt to survive and went to Lego Star wars.

Mindstorms did it for me. I gave away most of my Lego sets to my neighbors' kids before going off to college, only to rediscover it a few years later in the form of programmable bricks. As a computer science major that appealed to me a great deal. So sad that Lego gave up on that idea.

Started with the classic town sets at about 4. Went through a dark age in late high school/ university before picking it back up with Star Wars again in 2001 with https://brickset.com/sets/7146-1/TIE-Fighter. Now I have a full dedicated LEGO room with a massive town set up and shelving for the other display models- and my kids have their own growing collections!

I have been playing with Lego since I was very young. Starting with duplo and then inheriting my dads old collection. But then my parents made the mistake of showing me the original Star Wars movies, and I fell in love instantly. So for christmas my family gave me 3 sets 7752 , 7748 and 7749 . And with that my love for lego star wars was born which later spread out from there. And now here I am 15 years later.

Always been here even if my LEGO buying has slowed

When I was a kid, my brother and I got the 783: Storage Case, and it was full of basic bricks. But the first set that was truly mine was 6698: RV with Speedboat. From growing up and through adulthood, we have birthday and Christmas pictures of everyone with new Lego; a tradition that holds true nearly 40 years later.

As a kid Classic Space was probably my favourite with a fair bit of technic as I got older
My dark age was relatively 'grey' with the at least 1 or 2 sets most years
7965 was the set I bought myself for Christmas which finally opened the flood gates - though 70816 and the Lego Movie really clinched it, along with the inexpensive Mixels.

What brought me back is the LEGO Movie that was released while my first kid was 4 years old!

I had a Duplo set when I was really young (5352), and then a few other sets here and there as I got older (4998, 4994, 30051).

I'd say the Christmas when I got 6212, 8017, 7592, and 8092 is when I was finally hooked on the hobby. Never had a dark age.

So I guess you could say Star Wars and Toy Story were what really got me into LEGO.

8461 Williams F1 Team Racer was bought for me by my now wife just before my youngest daughter was born in 2002. I was a little slow getting fully and obsessively engaged with Lego for another 5 years or so after that. I failed to get my daughters fully into Lego but fell hook line and sinker myself. Never looked back ;-)

I never really left, but the older kids' Ninjago sets followed by Botanicals was mostly responsible for my continuation of interest in Lego.

I had a long dark age from the early '90's onwards, but gradually rediscovered LEGO after I saw the Helm's Deep set at a friend's house in 2013. I might have slightly (though jealousy) mocked him at first. But a year later I bought Orthanc and the floodgates are still open. Recently my daughter provides me with an additional reason to buy and build LEGO.

Looking back, I feel almost no nostalgia for the period that I missed out on (rougly 1995-2011), so perfect timing I guess?

10182 Cafe Corner.
Nice to get in from the start with the modular buildings ;)

As adults my brother bought me one for Christmas when I told him that they were making Stars Wars Lego!

Started in 2014....just because of the knock off Ironman minifigure...from that day.. hook on lego.. :)

I mean the question was about interest sparked when being an adault, your lifelong relationship to lego was not.

@CoffeeBrickMan said:
"As a kid Classic Space was probably my favourite with a fair bit of technic as I got older
My dark age was relatively 'grey' with the at least 1 or 2 sets most years
7965 was the set I bought myself for Christmas which finally opened the flood gates - though 70816 and the Lego Movie really clinched it, along with the inexpensive Mixels."

Those are two of my favorite sets that I own!

We started getting classic space as kids in the '70s, I bought my own Futuron all the way through UFO? Exploriens? Forget which one was last, in the late '80s. Then held off until Star Wars in '99. Haven't looked back.

I'll always remember the first set I ever had which was 8038 and then the first set I ever built was 4842 with my mom and brother on New Year's Eve, right after I watched Harry Potter for the first time. I've been hooked on Lego ever since!

As a kid it was initially space, until I discovered Technic. Technic overscreamed everything else - and was probably a significant factor in me studying engineering! Had a fairly long dark age but was brought back into it by set 8043 which remains one of the all time greats. However, since 2020 or thereabouts Technic has been going downhill steeply and so I've expanded out into other themes.

Both Icons and Ideas I like a great deal; but individual sets tend to be either 'must-buy' or 'nope, no interest there at all' although of course there are also a fair few that I'd ideally have, but I don't have the space (or the patience required of my family) to go for. My kids are also now keen on it; one has been known to go to sleep with the knight bus..

Recently some of the City construction vehicles have been excellent, and some of the Chinese and Botanicals sets have also been great. I think the set I've been most impressed by recently though is the Dune Ornithopter, which is basically a decent Technic set with Icons cladding..

Originally in the 80s it was Space and Castle. In the late 90s/early 00s it was Star Wars. Finally, in 2015 it was a random Pirates set my partner got me for Easter.

Classic Space in the late 80's and early 90's with the Blacktron and Space Police set are my first LEGO memories. After my dark age is was the Alien Conquest theme, and then the Lord of the Rings sets that started to bring me back before the Lego Movie hit.

My son gave me the Bonsai set 10281 a few years ago, and I had so much fun with it that I started reading up on LEGO. I got interested in modulars and have decided to try to piece together some from thrift store finds. Slow going, but fun.

6581 Dig 'n' Dump was my first ever set. Built it and fell in love!

Technic brought me to LEGO, but now I'm into the LEGO ART and video game themes.

Lego city was my start, up until I became a teenager, where I shifted to ninjago, and then my main theme now is Monkie kid, although it seems it's sadly on its way out.

Loved Lego in the 60s, then totally abandoned in 1971, when I went to secondary school. Got re-aquainted in 2016 when I was shocked to find that not only was Lego still being made but that they'd also released the rather good 10242 Mini Cooper MK VII which I just had to buy. The rest was (expensive) history!

When my daughter was born, we started visiting Toys R Us (and Babies R Us) quite a bit... I would occasionally look down the LEGO aisle, see what it was like these days (mid 2010's). I had collected as a kid through all of the 80's.
Anyway, I kept looking at the Creator 3-1 sets. I liked those and thought they were a good value too. Bought a couple, noticed TRAINS were a thing and immediately started saving up to get some of those too since I never was able to find those as a kid. Also discovered the Modular buildings went well with the train sets - so I started to collect both and have been actively back into collecting LEGO for almost the past decade now after about a 30 year hiatus.

Like others, I never really had a 'dark age'

Had a dim age between 2014 and 2020 where my number of sets per year dropped in to the single digets.
but then not really any single set bringing me out of that, just the realisation of being an adult and beeing able to spend my money on what I want

The modular buildings range. Recall seeing the Parisian Restaurant and falling in love. I now have them all and a second mortcage.

The year 2012. What a year! "Dark Age" feels strong, since I had Lego as a kid amongst other toys and had phased out of toys altogether. But then in the summer of 2012, Lego started making both Marvel and Lord of the Rings sets—the two greatest nerdy interests of mine. I've been invested ever since.

I was just reminiscing recently at how unbelievable it was at the time. Nowadays it feels like almost everything is getting a Lego set, and LOTR and Marvel are obvious candidates, but there was a time where that announcement was simply mind-blowing.

Set 6017-1 King's Oarsmen was my first ever LEGO set at the age of 5, and I have bought some sets I missed out on as a kid later in life, but 40292 Christmas Gift Box was the one that led me to buying new LEGO sets.

As a child my first set was 6274 Caribbean Clipper (89) and for several years enjoyed LEGO until I entered my dark ages. I still have my 4563 Load N' Haul Railroad (91') today but as an adult returning to LEGO. It was 10212 Imperial Shuttle and been hooked on LEGO Star Wars ever since.

Back in 2012 my mum decided to sort our old Lego by building it, and I rebuilt 5590. I then bought a couple of small city Forest Police sets to start me off, but I quickly got into large architecture models like Tower Bridge and the modulars.

My dad has been into LEGO since the early 1960s, and I got the bug from him almost as soon as I was born. I've also never had a dark age.

Cafe Corner did it for me.

The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter in 2012 got me back into LEGO. The Collectible Minifigure (still my favorite) theme was also a factor.

As a kid, i had a couple of Fabuland (3630 and 3789) and Castle sets (6021 and 6030) and a Weetabix set 1483, for a long time i was defined by Pirates set 6270 which i still my all-time favourite as i played with it nearly every holiday i spent at my grandparents. After getting 6246 to compliment it, i didn't get another set until much later in 2000 which was 5920 (Adventurers: Island Racer). Come the 21st century i wasn't really taken with anything. I saw the TMNT and Marvel sets take off but it didn't ignite (despite being a huuuuge lifelong 1st gen Ninja Turtles fan!!) I also miraculously resisted to the Dimensions sets (thanks to not having a PS or Xbox, plus the prices were a bit steep, but am keeping an eye on Bricklink or BrickOwl to see what turns up) but it wasn't until a few years ago that i stumbled upon a collab in Ikea 40357 that the light brick inside me started to light up again!! I snapped it up and have been back into Lego properly since then!

Now being the target audience...sorry..sucker...for a LOT of current themes like Spider-Man and certain Marvel IPs, One Piece, Nike, Disney minifigs, and the occasional retro 80s/90s set (thank you 72046), I'm getting into the builds again, finding time when i can (currently halfway on 42021) but really enjoy doing other sets that i never had but can now do so with instructions available online, it's a weird and satisfactory feeling to placate those chiildhood hankerings in a nostalgic and sometimes vicarious way! Oh and i now buy a lot more Lego books too!

Lego Star Wars in 1999, then Bionicle took over for a while. Star Wars brought me out of my dark age in 2014.

As a kid, I collected the first wave of Pirates, along with Futron, Blacktron II, and M-Tron. My first set was 6245 Harbor Sentry and had to collect the whole wave. Of course, I got everything except El-Dorado Fortress and Black Seas Baracuda, which I rectified later. As I got older, in high school, I stopped collecting, but made an exception for the first wave of Star Wars, focusing mainly on the original trilogy sets, then entered another dark age until 2010, when 10210 the Imperial Flagship came out. That set got me back into collecting and I haven't looked back. Pirates got me into collecting, and Star Wars, Icons, Ideas, and BLDP have kept me collecting.

Creator brought me back in 2008 after 15 years of dark ages, specifically 4953.

The set itself is not special at all, but it looked like the moc I never quite managed to build as a child.

7623 Indiana Jones TEMPLE ESCAPE

I got my first set in 1978…so I guess “Legoland”?

Lego junkie since 1979 with Engine Co. 9, 590-1.
I've never really had a dark age.

Architecture. I had bought a few random City sets around the late 00s with a friend, but not much. Robie was just such a beautiful set but I couldn't justify $200 at the time. I've since gotten it (along with Farnsworth, Fallingwater, Villa Savoye) and I think they're great.

I didn't really get back into it fully until sometime after LOTR. I got Helms Deep and Orthanc before they ended, and then somewhere around that time, I discovered I could buy bulk lots of vintage stuff, and it all went sideways after that. Now I can glance over at couple of Black Seas Barracudas, Caribbean Clippers, some MOC ships, Eldorado, Rock Island Refuge, Black Knight's Castle, a bunch of modulars, Rivendell, Temple of Airjitzu, Creator Expert cars, Speed Champions, and Pizza To Go.

Started with a Technic crane as a birthday present right at the start of COVID lock downs, then some more Technic, then it got really out of hand. I now collect a bunch of themes.

Since I was a child in the 80s.

I never had the dark ages, but if I had to point to the theme that helped to keep my intrest during my teenage years it would have to be Ninjago

Model Team Truck 5571, seen online somewhere in the end 90ies ...
I needed still 2 years to finally had the courage to buy this set as an adult in a cologne supermarket.
It was a big experience to detect new parts and build this set together with my girl friend in these days. Today she is my wife and we have much more LEGO :-)

I am not an adult, but my first sets were the 2015 Age of Ultron Hulkbuster and a Creator Brick Box. My first Star Wars set (my favorite theme) was the Rebels Stormtrooper battle pack.

It was a combination of the 2009 Space Police, the 2010 Atlantis theme, and then the 2011 Pharaoh's Quest theme, that brought me out of my dark age. I loved the Space, Aquanauts, and Adventurers themes as a kid, so these nods to those earlier themes got me back in. They were nostalgic while also being their own thing.

I had a brief dark age in 2017 and afterwards realised I never got around to buying classic Pirates and POTC sets, so that is what got me hooked again.

My first set as a kid was a little Mars Mission jet, then Tiger Shark Attack from Aqua Raiders, and then it never stopped from there.

The year was 2011...
10210: Imperial Flagship & 4195 Queen Anne's Revenge. Target had a buy one get one 1/2 off and after them I was hooked!!!

It was 9457 for me

Marvel Superheroes! My first ever Lego set was 6867 cuz it had both Iron Man and Loki, and that was the start of a long journey that would see me branch into so many different lines.

I've been a fan since I was a kid and never had a dark ages. But Chima was the first theme I started collecting and the first theme to really turn Lego into a hobby for me (Chima was also how I discovered Brickset!)

I started to come back in 2014, wanting just some very small Castle and/or Pirates builds for my work desk. Small sets trickled in as Star Wars sequel trilogy excitement got me into that theme, and I openly came back into Lego in 2019 with that theme.
With Medieval Blacksmith, however, my Castle interests were renewed, while the higher prices and poor Disney+ content drove me out of SW.
I am now mostly Castle/Fantasy.

I've been a fan of Lego continuously since Christmas 1973, when I received... 560-2 Heliport!

My most recent set: 71508 Fox Guardian Mech, last Saturday for my 57th birthday! (57!?)

10199 was my first AFOL purchase, having been captivated by it in the 2009 Christmas catalogue we picked up to find a present for our then 3-year-old.

I count three times I’ve come back as an “adult”:

1. Found a 6090 on the shelf in 1997 and stayed until 2004
2. Picked up 10185 in 2009 and dabbled until 2012
3. Saw the announcement for 76139 in 2019, had to have it, and have been active since then.

Always kinda been here and lurking. But what conviced me to buy Lego again, were some childhood or even pre-childhoods sets I could have never afforded back then.

It started back in 1976 when my Parents bought me the first Police Station. And it never really stopped since. No Dark Ages. I always collected. Years more. Years less. But I never gave up collection and building LEGO

853 for 1977 Christmas present when I was 9

1999: 7140 X-Wing Fighter

As an adult, it wasn’t a particular set or theme that brought me back to LEGO, it was COVID/lockdowns that brought me back. That being said, the first set I got during lockdown was 10264 Corner Garage.

j'ai aimé la license animal crossing

Always was a LEGO fan but could only get limited sets when I was a kid as my folks were of limited financial means. General brick sets and some early Classic Space was my Jam. Got back into LEGO when the first Star Wars sets released back in late ‘90’s. As a new father at the time again my funds were limited so I only picked up some small sets. Then my son was into Clone Wars and my daughter liked Elves. COVID was the final thing that pushed me back in 100%. My current themes of choice: Star Wars, One Piece, some Icons and seasonal sets. But open to all if I like it!

10226 Sopwith Camel ended my Dark Ages. I saw the set on sale when I was looking for a birthday present for my nephew.

Star Wars in 1999. I distinctly remember building the Naboo Starfighter (7141) as my first Lego set since I was a kid.

As a teenager, I didn't ever completely lose touch with Lego, and it was mainly Technic that kept me paying attention. When I first had adult money to buy Lego sets like I'd always dreamt of when I was a kid, the first that I was truly excited about and interested in was 75810

Lost interest from 2009-2014 until Bionicle G2 got me back into it a bit, but I would thank Ideas for getting me back into the Lego corporation, and then Icons for keeping me around.

6091 put me in my dark age.
7676 pulled me out.
So, I guess it would be SW as an answer but castle is still my favorite

As a child, I got interested through the initial batch late 70s Town sets, but I "stayed" for Classic Space and then later on Technic. It was the Sega Master System that ended my childhood love for Lego...

But as an Adult, I was pulled back in by Café Corner. Bought in the end of year sale from the Milton Keynes Lego Store for £45 (yes, really that price!). Which soon led to Green Grocer and Market Street... and then pretty much a full blown addiction until this day.

As a child I received 483 Christmas 1978 was hooked on (Classic) Space Lego from then. Entered my dark ages in 1985/86 (junior high). In 1993, while in my first year of college I passed a Lego display of Ice Planet theme. Saw 6973 which somewhat reminded me of one of my childhood set 6980; from then on I was hooked again on the various Space themes. In 1999 (now working full time) when Lego released Star Wars is when Lego become a full blown hobby for me.

I’ve played with LEGO as early as I remember: Town, Castle, Pirates, and Western

I had a dark age starting in the mid-2000s, but was able to return to the light thanks to 60014 Coast Guard Patrol.

Introduced to Space in the early 80s 6861. I had a very short "dark age" through high school, which ended when I got to college, got online, and discovered "Brickbay" (now Bricklink), where I picked up 6891 (having always wanted it after being forced to choose between it and 6931 years before).

Always loved LEGO, but it was LEGO that got me interested in Star Wars

Had very little lego when I was younger, no sets just some blocks mixed with knock-off blocks.

As adult, a relative got my daughter a Friends set, so then started building and collecting with her, 5 years later still enjoy Friends theme, along with creator and botanics.

Its always been Ninjago for me. In 2011 when I was 5-6 and saw the trailer and sets in stores i knew i was hooked for life

As a kid in the mid 70's, loved every set. Moved on to other interests in the 80's. As an adult, Star Wars Lego brought me back. New parts! New ways to build! Endless possibilities! Now, looks like I need to step away again, I can no longer afford to buy new sets.

I got my first Lego sets (Duplo) when I was a baby and then got more and more sets. But when I was around 13, I did less and less with Lego. But around 4 years later, Star War brought me back.

Back in 2014, I was looking for some references in order to 3D-model the Addams' Family Mansion when I stumbled across a copy of 10228 for sale. At first I thought, "that's cool, I didn't know LEGO had such cool sets these days". And then I figured "I could just buy the damned thing, I'm a nominal adult with disposable income".

Indiana Jones.

Started as a child many decades ago with Blacktron 1, Futuron, SP1 and a few castle sets of the era (king's castle, guarded inn). Dark age started in 1995 with the advent of the personal computer.

As an adult, no set brought me back to Lego, it was an event: the birth of my son. Before that, the last time I had had a look at Lego was during the "big figure era" (Bionicles and such) which I think have no interest at all, on top of the fact that space and castle themes were no more. SW aesthetics is terrible imo, HP is improper as a middle age/high fantasy replacement, and repeating the same sets over and over over two decades is just a terrible lack of imagination. I stayed on that feeling that Lego had strayed too far until his birth prompted me to have another look.

After that, the first sets I bought were second hand Aquazones. So many years later I was still somewhat frustrated not getting them when they were released ! Still have to put my hands on Galaxy Squad, the bugs and minifigs are pinnacle. And we try to get some Chima and Nexo, these themes were inventive too and fit well in a fantasy world.

Since then, we have found solace in the ninjago/MK/chinese new year themes (nice to have asian architecture and we love ninjas !), the occasionnal castle/space sets/BDP and some wonders such as Dreamzzz and BDP mushroom sets. And of course some dinosaurs. Not a question of childhood nostalgia. Just a matter of shared thematic preferences with my son, and a taste for sheer imagination.

I stopped buying around 2016 or 2017, but I have always followed reveals and reviews. I got back in to buying in 2020, after beginning my diorama moc making, with the 501st battlepack. I've been buying since, although I don't buy too much due to affordability. I typically stick with polybags, CMFs, an occasional BAM, and rarely small sets. Somehow friends got the idea that I'm obsessed with Speed Champions, so I regularly see those for birthday gifts as well.

Not a particular set or theme. It started in 2015 when I got interested in toy photography, particularly minifigures photography after seeing the amazing work of other fans. I was looking for a hobby and everything clicked, so here I am 11 years later with a small fortune spent on Lego sets (and other brands as well).

I got 10220 for my birthday in 2012(?) Been back ever since.

I had LEGO sets as a child, probably from the mid-70s to the mid-80s. It took until 2021 until I was drawn back, entirely by the by then very impressive UCS sets. I think it was the UCS AT-AT that convinced me LEGO was for me again. Towards the end of 2021 I bought a few UCS sets (R2-D2 (not strictly UCS but very well designed), Imperial Star Destroyer, A-Wing Starfighter, AT-AT, Millennium Falcon, Slave 1, Ewok Village and Snowspeeder), as well as two MBS sets (Mos Eisley Cantina and Betrayal at Cloud City). Star Wars is still by favourite theme overall, but I probably more Icons sets these days. Within the Star Wars theme only a few of the UCS sets appeal now, and almost none of the smaller sets. In only five years I've gone from buying 80% of sets released to about 15%.

When I saw some of the Creator 3-in-1 animal sets a few years ago, I was amazed at just how far Lego set design had come in the decade and a half since my childhood interest fizzled out.

When my son was younger we got him the Castle sets from the 2013-14 timeframe. Now its a free-for-all as to what we get.

8868 was my last LEGO set as a kid, so it was hard to find someting similar brilliant as an adult, but 8455 managed to do it.

I had a few Lego sets as a kid but was never super interested. (It was the 80s, and I preferred Construx, since you could build larger structures faster.) When my kids were born, I enjoyed building things out of their Duplo and then out of their Lego as they got older. A couple of years ago I started to acquire a few of my own Lego pieces second-hand, so I would have my own to build with and play with my kids. It was the Minecraft theme that got me really going, since one of my sons was into it, and being blocky it felt easier to create my own designs. But I also ended up getting a Jurassic Park set and the Batman the Animated Series Batmobile, since they reminded me of my childhood. Now I am into several themes.

I got my first few sets in the form of duplo when I was around four years old.
Once I grew out of duplo I wasn't really an avid Lego kid but got city, creator, and Minecraft sets every now and then. Come 2018 the Harry Potter reboot line and collectible Minifigures made me a real Lego fan. Ever since then I have been an avid cmf collector. But since around 2021 Star Wars is what has made me a die-hard fan.

As a kid, my parents offered me technic, space, city and castle sets. My very first one must have been when I was about 5 years old. A red ranch with cowboys (no moveable arms) and brick built horses. Along with my grandmother, so generous, who one day and for no particular reason offered me "The" Yellow Castle. I played with my "Legos" till the age of 12, and then came slowly into my DA. Which lasted many years, until my wife, almost as a joke, offered me 2 SW sets for my 36th birthday, back in 2007 or 2008. And I have never stopped collecting since : SW, Ninjago, Super Heroes, alongside Friends and Elves, some Creators , Icons, LOTR... I have had a bit of a slow down since 2022, and now tend to pick less sets but bigger ones. I have to say that my opinion about the Lego company did not grew positive for the last 5-8 years. Too expensive for what it is.

When I was a kid, Classic Space. As an adult, Star Wars brought me out of the Dark Ages.

My "dark ages" were mostly due to practicality, as I had very little room in my apartments as a young adult. It was also concurrent with Lego's own dark ages of the late 90s/early 2000s, so it was not a particularly exciting period to engage with the product.

I also very much liked my lifestyle as young adult and LEGO didn't always fit super well in that world: My favourite anecdote involves once returning home with a date. My roommates/best friends immediately looked suspicious, playing a video game in the living room. So, as I was introducing every one and showing my date around the place, I ended up at my room door, which I opened to a sound familiar to any LEGO fan having displaced a large amount of bricks, and to immediate raucous laughter!

My roommates had emptied all my bricks on the floor of my room and on my bed as a prank. I hadn't hidden my interest in the hobby to my date and so she was aware I had a few bins in my - literal - closet. We all laughed about it and it was no big deal, but I must admit I find it funnier now (even if I immediately admitted that it was a solid prank) as I was a little embarrassed back then.

My main interest has always been city MOC building (either in a modern or medieval setting), but my heightened interest in the hobby was actually stimulated by lurking early AFOL websites such as LUGnet, The Brothers Brick, Brickshelf, Bricklink and, of course, this very own Brickset.

Big props to these early pioneers (and particular thanks to @Huw) for filling a need and space left vacant by the LEGO group and keeping me interested as an adult!

Started off with LEGO City when I was about 4 or 5 before Star Wars quickly took over. 7744 Police Station was my favourite set as a kid.

Came back to LEGO in 2020 after a 4.5 year dark age thanks to 75280 501st Battle Pack and the other S7 Clone Wars sets. I also bought myself a Speed Champions set (76898) at the same time, which is currently my favourite theme.

What an excellent question to answer by delving into my collection here at Brickset!

As a kid, Castle (in the '90s) was the absolute favourite, with a growing interest for Technic as I got older, culminating in saving up for and eventually buying 8479 (still one of my favourites!!). Then had about 15 years of "dark age" (growing up, basically), until I was absolutely blown away by finding both 8043 and 8110 on discount, and having the money to grab them both. That resulted in a few years buying almost every new Technic set, before branching out to other tempting themes (such as the Creator Expert Fairground range). These days I'm mostly browsing, picking up the occasional Icons or Ideas set.

I came into Lego with Fabuland when i was around 5 and grew up with Pirates and Adventurers! I had and 10 years Dark Age and got into Lego since The Lego Movie with the Orange Bike and Metalbeard sets. Collection still growing since ??

Even though I had LEGO as a kid, and having a son brought me back to LEGO (at minimum it legitimized the purchase of new LEGO sets :-) ), I think I am still allowed to answer this question. Even without having a kid I'd likely have bought sets for my own pleasure - and I used to do until recently.

I was brought to LEGO because of
- nostalgia for the Space sets I had as a kid in the eighties,
- a greatly increased level of detail and sophistication in modern set design, making models more interesting for an adult me,
- brand new themes that appealed to me a lot.

The two themes that specifically brought me back is Space Police 3 (Lunar Limo, Smash 'n' Grab, Hyperspace Pursuit) and Exo-Force (Stealth Hunter, Grand Titan, Thunder Fury, Fire Vulture).

I'm currently in my 2nd dark age, which probably will be the permanent one.

Have always had Lego for as long as I can remember, never had anything resembling a 'dark age' thankfully...
The earliest sets that I remember most / that were most influential were 897-1 Mobile Rocket Launcher from Classic Space, 744-1 Universal Building Set from the BASIC theme, and 3634-1 Charlie Crow's Carry All Car from Fabuland (This is the theme I miss the most, not Castle, Space or anything else!)
I'm fortunate enough to still have all my childhood Lego sets, with a few still built.

Been a fan since 1975, but Star Wars in 1999 brought me back in out of the dark.

System set https://brickset.com/sets/535-1/Basic-Building-Set-5
Brought me back after my dark years as AFOL - https://brickset.com/sets/9398-1/4x4-Crawler and https://brickset.com/sets/42009-1/Mobile-Crane-MK-II

10228 Haunted House brought me back

I had all the Classic Space sets when I was a kid. When I came out of my dark age, it was trains and City that really drew me in.

Childhood in 80s was castle and space and technics. Re-entering after dark ages was the first UCS sets. (1999-2000)

I used to pass by this local toy store all the time when I was working in a small town in Sweden and they had 7893 at their window. I love aviation, my birthday was just around the corner and that was the set that brought me back from my Dark Ages.

As a kid, I had a lot of different stuff - Town, Pirates, but Space was my favorite, especially Blacktron.

Entered my dark ages in middle school, then in adulthood actually reentered the hobby via the LEGO video games, mainly LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Indiana Jones. My first actual LEGO set as an AFOL was 7778 and the floodgates opened from there.

I had Lego longer than my memories reach back. My mom told me my first set was 3654, I must have been aroud 3 years old.
The return from the dark ages wasn't a particular theme but the desire to restore my incomplete sets. Had it been a specific theme, it would have been Creator 3 in 1 (2018).

It was Town back in the day, ‘93-‘96

Apart from buying 8868 (for 50% discount in Argos!) when I had a bumper work shift when my van broke down 200 miles from home, it was seeing the first generation of official Star Wars sets in 1999. I couldn't help myself, and bought 7130 Snow Speeder.........remembering when I built an X-Wing from 2x4 red bricks and 2x8 white plates at Primary School.....
It hasn't really stopped from there - now in the top 2% of Brickset collectors, by number of unique sets (including, of course, 8868 and 7130 !)

Originally - The 4.5V/12V trains, with trains still 1 place for me and used today as well.

Return - Lego Dimension cancellation. I saw these cute Lego 1980s movie tie-in and other pop culture references for $5 on sale following Lego cancelling LD, so ended up buying the whole series and that kick started my return.

I believe LotR finished bringing me back from the Dark Age but there were so many fun themes around 2012... Dino, Monster Fighters and Pharaoh's Quest definitely had an impact as well.

4195 and the whole PotC did it for me back in 2011! A big fan of a lot of licensed themes ever since, especially historical / fantasy connected and Star Wars of course!

I went into my dark ages about 1997, though I did pick up 8880 on eBay around 2004 as it was the set I most wanted as a kid.

I hadn't followed Lego, or noticed what sets were being designed/sold until I spotted 42009 in a random advert online in 2015. I must have clicked on it as for the next few weeks I kept seeing adverts for this particular set. I couldn't believe how impressive it looked compared to the Technic sets I grew up with. We were expecting our first child and I thought well why not get it now or never before things get really busy so I "secretly" bought it (so my wife wouldn't know - I was embarrassed) and honestly thought it was a one off! Haha.

That unleashed the Lego buying monster within me, and after a few years of only buying Technic, I now buy Technic, Speed Champions, Modulars, BrickLink, LotR and other Icons, Ideas, Creator... My wish list constantly increases - every time I buy a set I see two more I want. Ahhhhh

10577 Big Royal Castle & 10569
Treasure Attack

then

10507 My First Train Set

We were building Duplo Tie Fighters and X-Wings soon after. I still wonder why there aren't Star Wars Duplo sets for the littlest SW fans.

Just today, the youngest turned in a National Parks diorama project (of course, fully Lego) and the folks in the office and other students were excited to see that we didn't just use minifigs but "the whole thing is Lego!?" Then the office secretary quips, "you must have a lot of Lego..." yeah... not compared to some of these Brickset people, but yeah, blame 10577 ?

The NES set. My family got it for me as a birthday gift. It was amazing, and when I saw the Atari 2600 set, I was hooked. Now I'm collecting anything videogame related, and have started really enjoying the Star Wars, Botanicals, Speed Champions, and other Icons lines. It's a full on sickness now.

For me it was 21325, soon followed by 21322

@PlayfulBucket050 said:
"I was in Lego as a kid, but fell out until I got into my late 30's/40's. It was the Lego Star Wars Helmet collection that finally drew me back in. It's funny, people on this site seem to always complain about that collection whenever a new one is announced, but I get really excited.

Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of the whole retiring sets thing and I failed to pickup the Tie Fighter set in time, so that's the only one missing out of my collection, and I'm damn sure not paying the $200+ for the set at this point. But it was a short jump from there to some of the statue like figures, and then a bunch of the 80s themed stuff from when I was a kid and now my wife is into the Botanical's and we have sets all throughout the house."

I love the Helmet collection and am anxiously waiting for the 75458 release. Don't be fooled, there are thousands of us proudly collecting them!

I spent my childhood playing with Classic Space sets. Before I went to university, in 1992 I built a big Classic Space ship with most of the parts I had. I still have it, in a wood box my father built for it.
When I started again, around 2008, I bought only SW and Technics sets, but a lot of them (including all UCS from before). Then I quickly realised I could not be 'completist', my interest for SW decreased (no opportunity to see any movie after the first 2 trilogies), and I became interested in so many themes. So I sold most of my SW collection. My favorite themes are Icons, Creator, Modular, Ideas, Architect. And Mixels came at the perfect time, while my kids were about 4-9 y.o. Like many others, it becomes more and more a challenge to not buy every set I would love.

Star Wars, and then years later, DIMENSIONS goT me back into the hobbie.

I came back to LEGO thanks to LEGO Digital Designer (LDD) Software. At first I started building digitally and then I bought Creator set 4884 - lion. From that time I played with Creator sets and few years later I found my passion for studless Technic models.

Star Wars Lego when I was in elementary school, in the early 2000's. But I knew of Legos before that because my dad had classic space on the shelf from their childhood.

Have stayed interested ever since. Original IP like Pharaoh's Quest and Alien Conquest helped sustain me through a teenage dark age.

Speed champions, I never had a dark age but when I was a teenager I discovered those and they made me keep up with LEGO in general a lot more.

Lego star wars got a glow-up in 2011-2012. 7962 Anakin and Sebulba's Podracers, the Gungan Sub with Queen Amidala, Jabba's Palace, etc. From then on the sets got better and better, and the minifigures design language was refined and remained consistent. Solid and complete playsets, great box art, I wish they would return to TPM sets again.

Also Lord of the Rings as a theme. So glad I got those when I did

My first LEGO set was 4856 Doc Ock's Hideout, it was a gift from an uncle of mine. After that my second set was 4855 Spider-Man's Train Rescue. After that came 7236 Police Car and 8973 Raanu. I don't have them anymore, but the memories are very fond. I enjoy LEGO a lot, to the point where I sort my parts into jewelry bags often. It's cathartic to fiddle with something you can hold in your hands after a long day of dealing with hardships. Even if I can't afford much anymore I love the peace that building and sorting with LEGO bricks have given me.

I think I Got into LEGO in 2004 with either Spider-man or Star Wars

A combo of the galaxy explorer, the boutique hotel, and the medieval blacksmith. I don't recall which pulled me in first but those I got all really close together.

I've been into Lego since I was a kid, I think what really got me into it was Bionicle and Star Wars though.

You can thank COVID for me getting into Lego, needed something to do during lockdown so randomly bought a £90 Lego set, as you do, the Hogwarts Great Hall set. And now I own around 60 sets and a couple of hundred mini figures.

I think I was five when I got my first base set. Then 565 followed by 483. The rest is history. Never had a dark age, but I sure was excited when Star Wars came about.

I was obsessed with Lego as a kid, I routinely fell asleep looking through their catalogs a night. After a decade long dark age, I was gifted 7747 (Wind Turbine Transport) and built a city around it with my childhood bricks during holiday break. Then I discovered the modulars. Green Grocer 10185 took me right back to the cityscapes from the catalogs. I've been city building ever since.

The big four themes for me when I got into Lego as a kid were Star Wars, Bionicle, Architecture & Mars Mission! After my dark age, Star Wars is still the main focus but I've branched out into collecting from many other themes.

I've had LEGO since I was young, when my dad bought me two Dino Attack sets. But, despite getting a few Creator and Technic sets later on, I think I would've gradually dropped out of the hobby as I grew up, as has happened with so many other things I used to enjoy. So, although I still wasn't an adult at the time, the things that pulled me in to LEGO long-term were Ninjago and LEGO Star Wars, specifically 7965 (that set also triggered my interest in Star Wars at all).

That said, as an adult, I've been feeling less and less interested in LEGO since 2021. The 18+ line and over-corporatization of LEGO as a brand has made it feel sterile and passionless. So, if anything, LEGO's shift towards the adult market has pushed me away as an adult, rather than brought me in.

I had lots of Castle and Space as a kid, but I always loved the big town layouts shown in the catalogues. I never got any Town sets so, perhaps to compensate, when my son was old enough I started him on City before he progressed to Star Wars. But it was Green Grocer that really got me out of my dark age and back into Lego.

I escaped my Dark Ages back in 2015 with the excellent 10248 Ferrari F40. Then I bought small Architecture sets of buildings and skylines I had visited (21027 ,21028 ,21036), splurged on a big Creator set with 10253 Big Ben and ever since I've been buying sets I like. Architecture is still my big one, I love display pieces in my big display cabinet.

70413 (and having a steady job with disposable income) ended my approximately 20-year dark ages that began in my upper teens. Pirates was always my favorite, followed closely by Castle. The modern Creator 3-in-1 sets are also some of my favorites, to build and keep for a while, then rebuild, and easy to pack away.

I am all about substance and "play value" type sets (even as an adult) over giant sprawling displays. I LOOOOVE Dreamzzz, had a big affinity for Hidden Side (not the app crap), and am sad I missed Adventurers and Monster Fighters themes.

I, um, also have all of the mainline CMF full series and many of the branded ones too.

After a long dark period that started over a decade before I met him, my husband bought me 21301 for one of our first Christmases as a married couple. Building that reminded me how much fun Lego could be and I've been (re)hooked ever since.

580 was my first Enviro model as Legoland was called back then in 1974. I did have some classic space, but town was always my main focus. My five years in the dark ages were ended by seeing 6392 in the store and opening up the lid to see all the fuselage pieces in the plastic tray - that brought me back into the fold.

My now wife got me the VW Campervan for my birthday after only dating for 2 months. I knew she was a keeper then and it reintroduced me to Lego as an adult but I think secretly she regrets it now as the house is full!

My older brother (by twelve years) was born in the early seventies and had a lot of LEGO (Technic, some space and of course a bin of blue and grey 12V train stuff). By the time I was old enough most of that was im several large bins - so I had quite lot to begin with.

I myself was born in 1984 - and let me tell you: It was no bad time to grow up as a Lego fan. I got some castle, then pirates hit fully. I was incredibly lucky to get 6285 Black Seas Barracuda for my sixth birthday - best birthday present to this day!
Then I switched over to Space.

I never had a dark age - there were years where I bought little to none, but very much enjoyed what I had (with a whole lot of Star Trek MOCs).

Well, then came the Lord of the Rings. And Modulars. And you need some cars for your city. And people. And Star Wars went well with my Star Trek MOCs and scenarios. And then Harry Potter got relaunched. And I discovered bricklink and could go back and get some sets I always wanted (like 6939 or 6267 ).

Returned to Lego for Nexo Knights, and then never really left -- just kept on making one MOC after another in the Nexo style. I may be the only one who adores the grey-purple-blue color scheme of the second-year stone monsters.

I became an AFOL through my love of fantasy as a genre (Tolkien, Conan, other fantasy literature, films and D&D) which I had had since childhood. I was collecting fantasy themed toys as an adult in 1993 when I came across 6034, 5059, 6020 and 6056 and soon added them to my toy collection. I started getting more and more LEGO Castle sets and before long, LEGO was becoming a hobby for me in its own right though still fantasy themed. Today, my LEGO collection remains predominantly fantasy (Castle, Tolkien, D&D etc) but has grown to include other speculative fiction: superheroes (Marvel & DC), Classic Space and a tiny bit of Star Wars.

I was decidedly disinterested in Lego kits for a long time — I never had any as a child, and it seemed to me that they were rarely if ever beyond things I could build with my boxes of jumble sale Lego bits and bobs anyway — and besides that there have been eras of minifigs I didn’t like at all between the classic originals and now.

But we did get CMF minifigures off and on, the sets got more interesting, and then Nanoblock importing got much, much worse after Brexit, so I was open to a different small plastic bricks thing. My partner, who did have Lego sets as a child and had extremely fond memories of the yellow castle, fell head over heels in love with the 21325 Ideas Medieval Blacksmith so I got that for us to build together, and so I suppose it and Ideas deserves much of the initial credit.

However, I also want to give some credit to the excellent 31088 3-in-1 Deep Sea Creatures (my partner got it for me from the local supermarket and I liked it extremely), 31120 3-in-1 Medieval Castle (which my partner built and loved), 31131 Downtown Noodle Shop (for introducing me to the wonders of Giant 3D Signs in Lego form), the 892312 Sora minifig magazine cover mount (which my partner got for me in the extremely correct assumption I would enjoy a female ninja with cat ears and tech powers and is more or less solely responsible for my fondness for Ninjago), 10309 Icons/Botanicals Succulents (for demonstrating the extremely pleasing quality of some kits being highly adaptable to variable spoons), and Lego Star Wars in general and the magazine mounts in particular (because we both love Star Wars, and the titchy cover mounts are usually interesting to build).

I think it’s the variety of themes that sold us on the hobby. If it had just been the one — even just Icons or Ideas or Creator 3-in-1, the most diverse themes — we’d likely have got bored and moved on pretty quickly, with only occasional dips back in.

Never had a dark age. As a 5 year old child in 2000, my parents suggested I try playing with some LEGO (presumably to get me out of the Thomas the Tank Engine phase I'd been in since I was a toddler) so they bought me 4 small Adventurers Dino Island sets from a POS display in Woolworths. It was love at first sight. Knights Kingdom and Harry Potter sets followed, snowballing very fast in 2002 with 9v trains and Studios. After a few trips to LEGOLAND Windsor in those years, I was completely absorbed by LEGO. It was all i ever thought about, probably to my detriment honestly.

I wasn't so keen on the stuff that came out in the late 2000s and early 2010s but continued collecting from the LEGO System 1992-1999 era. In my late 20s I eventually got a job at LEGOLAND working for the models and animation department and getting to do some stuff for TV which was fun.

Now I live a very modest life with my lovely partner and have let go of a great deal of that original collection. But rest assured, right in the centre of my display shelf, pride of place, are those 4 original Dino Island models bought for me by my parents all those years ago...

J'ai rçu en cadeau de Noël la boîte 6384 quand elle est sortie sortie que la 675 vers mes 10 ans. Depuis que je n'ai jamais arrêté. Si je ne suis pas fan des Technics, j'adore les modulaires, les voitures et d'autres thèmes. Mon problèmes comme d'autres est la place d'expo et de stockage.

Dark age between 1991 and 2013.
My syster presented me with 21013 Big Ben for Xmas 2013.
Then I bought UNIMOG 8110 ( I read it was wery difficult to build) and since 2014 more than 400 sets...

I loved Lego as a child, I had sets from various themes from mid 80's to mid 90's, including Town, Castle, Space, and Pirates. I've always had a love for cars too, so quite a few sets were vehicles, but definitely not exclusively. During those years I moved more and more towards Technic, though, and bigger and bigger sets. And some experimenting with coming up with my own designs, usually of gearboxes, cars, or robotic/mechanical stuff. My childhood era ended with sets like 8485 Control Center II and 8480 Space Shuttle, from 1996. Me reaching my early teens, turning my interest to other things, including RC-cars and mopeds.

I usually kept some sets on display in my room after that, and the Lego interest never really went away, but I didn't get anything new for a long time and I didn't really play or build with it. But around 2010, starting to make some money after college, I saw 8258 Crane Truck and was intrigued to see what the newer style of liftarm-based Technic was like. It was fun, but I struggled to see how I could ever use the system to make my own designs. It felt much harder than the old brick-based Technic I was used to. So it became a one-time thing, with no more sets for another few years.

Then, after another period of limited means my personal finances started to stabilize again. It was now 2018 and I bought 42063 BMW R 1200 GS Adventure, kind of continuing on were I left off, with more Technic. But I also noticed 21313 Ship in a Bottle, and the existence of Ideas. And then Speed Champions when 75890 and 75892 was dirt-cheap in a clearance bin at my local supermarket. That was the hook I needed to come out of my dark age. I found a new love for regular system building again, rather than trying to get back into Technic, which was no longer what I new from before.

From there I discovered the modular buildings, and I guess finally committing to buying something as large as 10255 Assembly Square marked the point of really being back into it. Botanicals and Icons has since been hugely important for my current collection.

Also, digital tools like Studio has helped me a lot too. Having had previous experience with 3D-modeling it was a natural way for me to go.

Edit: I almost forgot to mention Jang's youtube channel, with his city in particular, for inspiring me a lot and showing me that Lego is a legitimate adult hobby.

Got started with LEGO in my 60s, with 40516 Everyone is Awesome. Soon got 21318 Tree House and had a blast putting that together, and knew I wanted to continue. When I got my first modular (10278 Police Station), I was absolutely hooked for good.

@odueck said:
"For me it was the Modular Buildings. Started with the Fire Brigade."

Same. Fire Brigade. I pieced out the prior sets that were not available at GREAT EXPEN$E, except for Green Grocer- Got it on eBay CHEAP because of typos in the name of the listing. Got lucky.

Super Heroes. I always dreamed of having them as a kid in the late 90s/early 00s. I would put existing minifigs in configurations to approximate characters. I stopped collection about 05 and got back in about 2013.

If I remember correctly my first LEGO sets were 600, 602 and 886 in '78 or '79 and have been a fan ever since. My preferred themes switched while getting older and never really had my dark ages. The love for LEGO and especially the collecting part reignited in '99 when Star Wars launched.

@charles76 said:
"So I think this is the first time I've written a comment on this fantastic forum site. I don't know how I can describe it. Lego bricks have always been a part of my life. Even though life, like for many, has been beautiful but sometimes difficult and complicated (separation, divorce, etc.), I have always managed to carve out gratifying moments with our shared hobby. I am currently in a difficult phase. I am in a wheelchair due to multiple sclerosis and I also have some difficulty with manual skills, which I try to keep active as much as possible with Lego. If in the past I was more attached to complex sets such as the construction of large structures and vehicles, today I focus more on things that beautify my home, so flowers, sets related to music and something interesting related to Star Wars, my great passion. And I hope to hold on so that I can continue to build with the same desire and passion that I had when I was just a child."

Thanks for sharing and wishing you all the best!

Bionicle

That's it

As a child, through small sets I got from gifts from my parents. Sets like 1954 , 1731 , and some of the Shell promotions from that time. The earliest ones I remember receiving were 6434 - Roadside Repair, and 7134 - A-wing Fighter.
As an adult, 70751 - Temple of Airjitzu was the one that brought me out of my dark ages, which lasted from 2011 or so to 2015.

Got back into lego after a 20 years break with Technic Space Shuttle 8480, still one of my favourite sets.

I left around 2004 at age 12 and didn't come back until 2021 when I wanted to rebuild all of my Rock Raiders sets. I discovered Bricklink and managed to complete the collection with the few sets I was missing. Then I just started to complete other sets from my childhood, like Insectoids, UFO, Aquazone, Adventurers, Pirates, etc. Only purchased a few new ones that got me interested, such as 76989, 10497, and 10327.

My collecting has slowed down because of lack of space, but there's always going to be some old set that I'd want to get some time in the future!

70816 Spaceship, Spaceship, SPACESHIP!

Star Wars. I’m a 90’s kid that grew up with the prequels. As far as I can remember, 7141 was the first LEGO set I ever asked for, after being gifted 6331 and 5928 sometime before that.

7777 - I'd had the book since childhood but wanting to build designs from it is what brought me out of my most recent dark age.

My introduction as a kid was McDonald's Happy Meal vehicles (eg, 1643 , 1645 , 1649 ), but it got serious with Pirates I ( 6285 was my first real set), then Castle (Black Knights, Wolfpack, Dragon Knights, Royal Knights), then Space (Ice Planet, Spyrius, Space Police II, Unitron), then Aquazone. Collecting wound down during college, but I guess Star Wars started things up again, especially once I had my own income and discovered BrickLink XD Since then I've shifted to Star Wars, Winter Village, Monster Fighters (and other Halloween-adjacent sets), and Harry Potter (cringe).

I’ve been a Lego fan since I was six years old, completely fascinated by the Classic Space sets. My all-time favorites, and the sets that started it all for me, are the 918 Space Transport and later the 6980 Galaxy Commander.
Both of these sets hold a very special place in my heart.

I wish I had the time to post a nice winded story as many others have. But as a father of three little kids, there is no such thing as free time :).

I am thankful to Lego for setting me on a nice career path. As a child (I grew up in Europe though I have been living in the States for the last 20 years), I salivated over various Lego catalogs, especially the Train theme (it was a separate theme back then). Never had the money to buy anything but small-to-medium sets, and certainly nothing with a motor / RC.

Always enjoyed the technical aspects - learned how gearboxes and pulleys work, marveled at the grand details of 8840 Space Shuttle, and even tried building that with my own parts. Never got close.

Decades later, I now design electromechanical systems for aerospace, and I suspect Lego played a major part in academic and career decisions made throughout my life.

Anyway - my beloved themes are "Trains", "Technic", "Castle", "Space", and "Pirates". The monorail sets 6990 and 6991 are obviously nice connectors between the Trains and the Space themes.

LEGO fan since childhood. I am 27 now and basically never had a dark age. My earliest memory is visiting the LEGO Store in Downtown Disney Anaheim (then called LEGO Imagination Center) somewhere around 2003.

When shopping for my kids in 2010 I saw the grand emporium on the shelf and bought it immediately, since then I built and collect Lego every week.

I collected sets when i was a kid and with kids of my own, we build Lego City sets and Minecraft sets together.

Collected the likes of pirates, western, space and castle as a kid up until around 1997. Wife got me Bennys spaceship when the movie came out around 2014 and got back into it. Find it relaxing compared to being on a screen or device. Have the kids interested now too, although they have moana and elsa piloting my millennium falcon! :)

what made me come back to lego was the possibility to buy and build 10294 TITANIC. I bought 2 sets in 2022 . Now i have 340 sets and growing.It is a great retirement activity for a 71 year old pasionate guy from Canada.

Honestly, it was the collectable figs. "Oh cute, and it's like 3 dollars!" spiraled really quickly.

But the little figs were an easy way to be like "I don't have to make space for this" and were cheap, which when you're like, 22 fresh out of college, is a huge win. I never would have gotten back into LEGO (even for cool themes) when prices are so high, but a "taste" of LEGO again at 3-4 bucks a pop (this was when collectable figs were cheaper) got me re-interested, and then the big sets didn't take long to follow.

(The first big "sets" again as an adult were winter village)

I started in 1974/1975 when I received my first basic building set, then followed by the universal sets. When the Town System was introduced, that became my mainstay. I collected everything I could from the late 70's through the early 90's. I also was a fan of classic space and the early technic (expert builder) sets. Fast forward to the mid 2000's and I restarted my collecting with the City line and also got into Harry Potter. Additionally, I have many modulars to make my new town grow. As long as LEGO produces a set that I like and am interested in, I will continue to buy.

10220 got me back into lego after 40 years, I wish I had got back a few years earlier with the first star wars. The internet was a bit basic in 2000 with modems in a house so didn't know about brickset.

The Battle of Helm's Deep 9474

I started collecting Lego as a kid with the Castle theme, but I continued collecting as an adult because of Star Wars.

I started with just basic boxes of tiles, bricks and windows. My dad was in the building trade and showed me how to construct. He built me a wooden box, which I still have, to store my bricks.
Then along came Space Lego and it became my thing, with a little City thrown in for good measure. I was a member of the Lego Club and would have loved to have worked as a Lego designer.
I moved to Technic, the pneumatic sets really set my giblets wibbling!
My 'dark ages' during late teens and early twenties occurred. I still loved Lego, but purchases were not made, as I had to keep a real car on the road!
Eventually, my eldest son came of age and we visited toy shops to get him Lego. He was into City, but on the shelf next to the fire and police sets there appeared Star Wars, my other childhood toy and continued interest. It was a dream come true, what a combination, and a rekindling of my love affair with Lego.
All my children have joined me on the Lego journey, and my wife loves me (tolerates my passion) enough to fulfill my childhood dream of visiting Billund as a special big birthday experience.
My tastes have expanded, even if my bank account has shrunk.
Now all I need are grandchildren so the Lego ride can continue! I wonder what they will be into...

Been a LEGO fan pretty much all my life really, I believe one of my first sets (which I remember) was the 2008 5620 which I would've got around 2009 - 2010.

Though didn't have the proper love for the hobby till around 2013 - 2014 when I was 9 - 10 years old. 22 now and can't imagine my life without the bricks!

I've always had an interest in Lego since very early childhood. Too early to remember where it started, but I know Bionicle was the first theme I really got into.

8038 The Battle of Endor Brought me back

I used to play with Lego as a kid (Castle / Ninja, Vikings, some Star Wars), then I came back at approx. 22 yo. For Christmas I got a present that rattled when shaked and I got unexpectedly excited that it's Lego - but it was Scrabble. So the next day I ordered 75105 to appease that excitement.

The original Lego Lord of the Rings sets brought me back. Been awful for my wallet ever since.

My LEGO journey started exactly one year ago, at age 43.

Apparently I said during a commercial: that looks fun! It was the Rocket and baby Groot set (76282), which became my Christmas (2024) present along with Shadow the Hedgehog (77000). At the time I had no idea what to do with these sets.

Later on, May 2025 my birthday came around the corner and apparently I again said that I liked something, this time it was the buildable C-3PO (75398).

At that point, I thought: I have to build something, otherwise I am being ungrateful.

I started May 24th with Rocket Raccoon and I was sold. I build the Shadow the next evening and C-3PO the next weekend.

Fast forward to this day: I bought almost 300 (all sizes, new and used) sets in one year, mainly Star Wars, but also 'Movies themed sets' and Botanicals.

I am absolutely addicted and every set gives me so much peace and joy to build, display and enjoy.

Originally Town and then Indiana Jones brought me back from the forced dark ages.

I had not bought a set for years, but always looked whilst out shopping. Then the Star Wars range was announced. I did not buy any of the first wave, then my wife bought me a couple of the smaller Episode 1 sets for Christmas.

Never had a dark age, been in the hobby since I was a child 30+ years ago. When I officially became an adult the theme I was into most was still Bionicle, but I'd mostly moved over to Star Wars by the time I had any real disposable income years later.

My dark age was caused by poverty and a marriage, which led to adulting.

Castle got me back into Lego in 2007/2008. Mainly because of the orcs....I had visions of LotR MOCs :o) The new knights helmets (to me) and armour were so cool. Went on a 3/4 year Ebay rampage to collect all the castle models from where I left off back in Classic Castle times. Enjoyed the building / find the missing parts journey immensely.

I bought my flat in 2007 and re-discovered my childhood sets as I was moving. It just so happened that a nearby supermarket had a few sets in the shelf, chief among them 7239

When I'd go to the supermarket, I'd always stop to look at sets, particularly this neat fire truck, marveling at how much design had improved since the early 90s.

Then finally one day I caved and bought it and got hooked.

I'm 16...

I literally do not remember a time when I *didn't* have Lego on hand, although my brother and I had to share a bucket of pieces with bricks from assorted sets until I got 720 for myself. Leter, I got 6780 and 8832 for my eighth or ninth birthday, and there was no going back...

@Robot99 said:
"I've always been confused by the term "dark age", it's thrown around all the time as if every AFoL has experienced it... I haven't lol"

It's not universal, but a lot of us *have* had one. I didn't, but I did have a "dim age" around about the mid-Nineties where I was still buying and playing with Lego, but it had just become something of a routine; I wasn't getting a whole lot of joy out of it at the time.

@Klontjes said:" think my first Lego period was over when I discovered other things (windsurfing, girls)."

I'm reminded of the AFOLs comic that came out in 2004. "A got older, I became interested in other things..." "Cars!" "Girls!" "Lego bricks are still kind of cool..." "Did you just say 'Lego bricks are still kind of cool?'" "Huh? Me? No way! No, cars are cool! Girls are cool! Girls *in* cars, now that's really cool! heh heh..."

person_that_uses_brickset said:"What got me first was the Lego Movie as a kid but I am pretty much just a speed champions man now."

I wonder how many dark ages that movie ended...

I'm a fan since childhood. Built with Duplo bricks from a very early age. Castle is what really drew me in during the 80s, but Pirate is what exploded my collection in the 90s. Star Wars kept me interested during the black days of the early 2000s. But there has always been something to kept me engaged.

Lego Star Wars brought me here

I had been a Lego fan from a young age (even getting 8862 when I was 3 years old, as I was obsessed with tractors) up to the beginning of my teenager years, after buying all of the Star Wars sets released in 1999 and 2000. Then my interest for plastic bricks decreased, especially after SW Episode II: Attack of the Clones had let me down (mostly due to that dreadful droid factory sequence…), and simultaneously getting into another hobby (Magic: The Gathering trading card game), which actually motivated me to learn English on my own, but also emptied my savings account every time I was purchasing booster packs, hoping to find a complete set of a given edition (which never happened, as I wasn't in touch with collectors).

I occasionally bought one set (7103) or another (7781), just because they were cheap and featured nice minifigs (e.g. 7620).

Then I had the opportunity to visit my first Lego Stores; I just don't remember if it was in London or in New York first, but there was no store in Belgium yet; it was an amazing experience.

Then I would say that 10179 is the one that was the beginning of the end of my Dark Ages. I was about to complete my master's degree in 2010 and I heard it was about to be retired, so I pulled the trigger and ordered it.

10188 followed a bit later; having a salary made it possible to acquire such large sets. I first discovered CMFs while on a trip in Milan, then I got addicted to them.

Some Creator Expert sets followed, e.g. 10243, 10247, but this hobby was still under control as I was living with my in-laws and didn't have much space; I had to drop my acquisitions at my parents'. Unfortunately I didn't by any LOTR sets back then, except for a polybag (that I probably got as a GWP).

Later (2017 already), when it was rumoured that 75192 would be an updated and improved version of 10179 I became extremely excited and went looking for information, and ended up here on Brickset. Listing all my sets made me want to get more, and more, and more… And now I'm about to cross the 1900 sets mark — although that number includes some baseplates, GWP goodies, etc.

Now I can share my passion with my children, who really like Lego too; I look forward to bringing them to Billund in the future, as I've already been there 4 times myself. Meanwhile, they are thrilled to visit the Wijnegem Lego Store at least once a month. I know they'll lose interest at some point, but maybe they'll get back into it if they feel like it.

Now my concern is that I have to find ways to optimize space to exhibit the sets in my attic — the shelves are a bit messy, but I have to find time (another big concern) to sort everything in a more coherent way.

I played with other toys as I child, but the set that inspired me to only want Lego was 897 Mobile Rocket Launcher, released back in 1978. It captured my imagination and I "worked" for my dad doing extra chores around the house so I could save up my 20c pay to buy a second one all by myself! I still have the 2 of them proudly displayed in a glass cabinet along with the rest of my Classic Space sets. Great memories and good times!

Loved Lego as a child, mainly space, technic and trains, but entered my dark period in my teens. This seemed to coincide with late 90s reduction in LG profitability and some scrabbling to find the "new Lego"

Much later, for some reason 42043 really jumped out at me, I bought it, built it, and fell back in love.

Seeing Lego Technic in a toy shop when looking for Lego with my daughter in the early 1990’s. I was intrigued with the mechanisms that could be built and purchases of 8868, 8880 and 8485 followed over time. I still major on Technic today and still have the first sets I bought but admit to straying in other directions from time to time - particularly Speed Champions.

Creator 3-in-1 initially, then the 2010-ish Harry Potter and Winter Village sets broadened my interests and really got me "stuck-in" with Lego again.

The classic Ninja theme was what brought me to my childhood love for Lego: I'd had a basic bucket and a few small town sets before then, but I genuinely don't think I would ever have stuck around Lego if I hadn't discovered its themes through the first issue of the UK Lego Adventures magazine, where that one was featured prominently. Ninja got my foot in the door with recognising that Lego had stories and characters, and then in due course Adventurers and Rock Raiders cemented my childhood-long attachment.

As an adult, it was the first Disney CMF series, 71012-19 that brought me back around to Lego. I had fallen in love with classic animation at the tail end of my teens, at a time when I was starting to lose interest in Lego's current product line anyway, and that was what had led to me falling into a dark age at all: so the news that several of these characters, who I had just spent the intervening several years developing an appreciation for, were newly getting realised in minifigure form? It was *just* the right thing to turn my attention back to the brand.

Even then, while I was paying attention again, I didn't commit to anything and even only got one minifigure from the wave (that said, it was the one who I had wanted most, Stitch): but it was when my Dad surprised me with 75187, the UCS BB-8, for Christmas the following year that really gave me the boot out of the dark age. I'm not even a sequel-fan, but it was still just a really fun gift, and seeing how far Lego had come over that past decade was a big part of what got me back on board.

I still don't buy much Lego presently, don't have the budget for it (or the interest in a lot of their current ranges); but I still keep up with their new releases, buy old sets from my childhood occasionally, and enjoy reminiscing over Random Set of the Day articles on here! ^^

Introduced to Lego and Meccano in the 60's. Modular Buildings post COVID was the hook after a 50+ year gap.

I got into Lego about nine years ago when I visited a Lego shop in Berlin during a holiday. They had the 70620 NINJAGO City on display, and I was blown away. A few weeks after returning home, I bought the set and learned so much from building it.

Friends.

My daughters got them and loved playing with them. They slowly grew out of them but I grew into it.

Castle and Pirates, back in the early 90's
Black Knight Castle 6086
Forbidden Island 6270

It was after watching the LEGO Movie that I started paying attention to LEGO again. It wasn't until the LEGO Batman movie came out that I started buying new sets, thus ending a "dark ages" that started when I was 15 and ended when I was 34.
One of the factors was that after a couple of moves, my model kits suffered damage. Whereas the old LEGO sets were unscathed. Also, I find building LEGO more relaxing than the model kits.

Shell/Ferari polybags awakened me from my dark ages, Technic got me back into Lego, and from there at first mostly Ideas and Architecture. And now just whatever I like (and not neccessarily just Lego).

City, mostly, and Star Wars (with classic Space on my mind), 2008.

Love this topic! For me it was am Easter present for my son, City mining set 4200. It brought back a flood of memories from childhood, and got me so hooked I even got a job at my local LEGO Store!

As a child I had small 70s and 80s classic space and town sets and second hand bricks.

In 2005 I stopped suddenly in a store seeing 7623 TIE Fighter and thinking wow lego Darth Vader with a Darth Vader helmet!

Then I realised as an adult I could buy Star Wars sets and Castle Fantasy Era appeared and then Lord of the Rings in 2012 were about as perfect as you could get. Modular buildings and Superheros and Ninjago followed but it is always Stars Wars I keep returning to.

Sadly lack of space and too many repeats (5 Millennium Falcons already) has reduced the amount I buy recently and a set has to be truly exceptional now to make it's way onto my must have list...

8110 Unimog. My brother works for a Unimog and was able to get me one at a discount. Why I felt I needed it having not had Lego in 20 years, I don't know.
I then got 7345 Transport Chopper a few months later - I remember building it whilst watching super Saturday at the 2012 Olympics.

My first real Lego set, not counting Duplo, was the 6205 V-wing Fighter, followed by the 7781 The Batmobile: Two-Face's Escape. I was a small child when I first picked up these sets. Now, I'm a working adult and I still building and MOCcing with these little plastic bricks. I almost had a dark age in middle school...but I decided that I didn't care if people thought Legos were lame and decided to keep building anyway. Haven't looked back since!

20

76923 Lamborghini Lambo V12 Vision Gran Turismo.

It's not the set that got me into Lego, as I've built Lego off and on since I was a kid. But it's the set that really got me into Speed Champions and so into a wider interest in collecting and building Lego regularly, both for fun and also stress relief.

I like the sci-fi almost alien aesthetic of the Lambo V12 and the creative use of parts to get some un-Lego looking curves and shapes. And it's the first set I can remember looking at once I finished building it and thinking "I can't believe I really made that" accompanied by a real sense of achievement.

That was a year ago and now, well let's just say I have quite a few cars in my Lego garage. ;-)

As a kid, I started my LEGO journey with space (ooh! Blacktron), castle (ooh! Forestmen!) and pirate (ooh! Forbidden Island*!) themes, and I don't think I had a dark age as such; LEGO has always interested me.

But what got me to really start my collection (as well as discover the AFOL community) was a trip to Billund in 2013 when I bought 79003 An Unexpected Gathering, which I built in our rented vacation house in Billund. It was the start of my LotR/Hobbit collection and is a very special set to me.

(*= my only complete set from childhood that I still have)

I've been a fan since childhood and never had a dark age. My first sets were Duplo buckets my family got me as gifts. The first regular (System) set I genuinely remember was 6550 Outback Racer. As a little kid in the 90s I was mostly interested in vehicles and town sets, particularly Extreme Team, Res-Q, and Space Port. Then came BIONICLE, which I was obsessed with (and as with most millennials, that obsession continues to today). I became interested in Castle a little bit with Knight's Kingdom II, but only really for the action figures (a natural result of being a BIONICLE fan). What really got me into Castle was Fantasy Era in 2007. I've collected every set since and my interest in Castle now rivals my interest in BIONICLE. Another brief obsession was Tiny Turbos in the mid-2000s. Outside of those themes, the first sets that really got me into advanced, 18+ style builds were Star Wars UCS sets. The Snowspeeder, Y-Wing, and Imperial Star Destroyer of the early 2000s were for a long time my largest and most advanced sets.

As an adult, the first set I got outside of those aforementioned themes that was an advanced build and almost purely a display piece, was the Pet Shop. That set got me into modular buildings and larger display pieces in general. The rest is history. As a lifelong fan, there isn't a single set that got me into LEGO, but rather multiple sets that got me into different themes and areas of LEGO.

My dark ages only lasted about six years, from the end of high school to the beginning of my professional career, as I didn't get any sets during college. McDonald's had Lego Batman toys in Happy Meals in 2008. That led to finding out about 7784, and then 8143, 10177, and 10187 made me an AFOL.

6890 Cosmic Cruiser was my first store bought Lego set and it set the hook! Classic space ship with mini scooter. I still have it. Before that it was McDonalds Happy Meal sets, remember those? Lego Star Wars brought me back out of my dark ages.

I never had a dark age. I got my first set 7143 from eBay in 2006 and continued on from there

Started (of cause) with Town (6530) then sort of got caught by Pirates for a while, but never had any big sets.

The first time Lego "really hit" with me was Dragon Masters. Have the entire mainline and still love it. The blend between fantasy and realism (compared to the all out fictional stuff today) was just right for me.

Next big thing was Time Cruisers. The audio dramas, linking all themes together with a storyline was awesome. The storyline continued with Lego World Club and the magazine adverts around 1997/1998. U.F.O., Adventurers (Desert), Cyber Slam/Competition and Insectoids are all themes I fondly remember.

Slizers/Throwbots was a big hit at our schoolyard and we were highly into trading discs. Lego actually got me into Star Wars (not the other way around), mostly because of the many green, brown and tan scenery in many 1999 sets. Then it was Rock Raiders and Dino Island (highly supported by the video games). Also a bit the last sets from the original Technic line (8446 for example) with their more futuristic designs.

The last theme influential to me before my (very short) dark ages was Bionicle - story, atmosphere, colors. When Bionicle got too much into clone sets and the other themes became less about world building, I slowly lost interest and switched into hunting used older sets. The color change of 2004 was the final nail in the coffin for a long time.

Fantasy Era Castle got me back eventually. Space Police 3, Atlantis, Pirates 2 and the first CMF series were great too. I liked the TMNT/LotR stuff of 2012-2014 too.

Playing Minecraft got me interested in Lego Minecraft.

Castle; specifically, 6073 Knight’s Castle.
For my birthday in 1985 I wanted a specific Transformer, Jetfire, but K-Mart was out of stock so my mother told me to pick some other toy. I picked the aforementioned Knight’s Castle and was hooked on LEGO ever since, collecting all LEGO Castle sets from 1984-1993. I still have them in the boxes.

My grandmother got me 4115 All That Drives Bucket when I was about 3 years old and I never looked back; I never really had a dark age but collected and built less while in college because of limited funds and storage

Had bunch of LEGO when I was young but recently I came back as an AFOL because of Speed Champions. The detail and the build techniques just dazzle me.

Started in the early 70s with a good selection of Legoland (amongst other: 358, 570, 370, 555, 182), then there was Space (i.e. Classic Space). then there was Technic. Then there was the girl period and Uni (first dark age). Now with disposable income I eventually bought 8459 (fantastic set) and a few more Technic. Then I got 7181 and 7191 and a vast amount more. Then I moved to the UK and sold 99% of my Lego collection (second dark age). While in the UK, I started light by buying the first modulars - then plenty of other stuff - mostly Technic as there were good back then. Moved back to Canada and restarted slow again to eventually pick up some speed.

I would say I never left the 'idea' of owning/playing with Lego but I guess I had period of high intensity followed by some lulls of various length (when I was not buying for me, I was buying for niece and nephews). I'm currently reasonably active on the buying but I'm now severely limited by space constraints - with the huge selection of Lego sets by now, I try to be more selective with limited success.

I got serious again with LEGO with both the Architecture Line/Builds like 10214 Tower Bridge and 10234 Sydney Opera House as well as the Creator Amusement Park Builds like 10247 Ferris Wheel and 10261 Roller Coaster. Today I still love Architecture and Various Buildings as well as Botanical and other Nature themed sets. Even Friends has started getting my attention more.

The Rogue One sets were what got me out of a brief dark age, even though I barely collect Star Wars anymore.

I had Classic Space and other sets as a kid, then went dark until about age 30, when Star Wars lego sets appeared in 1999. Since then it's been lots of collecting, lots of building, and lots of fun (and lots of money disappearing from the old bank account...).

This would certainly make an interesting poll. Loved Lego as a kid & thankfully kept my collection. As an adult though, it took the Architecture theme for me to see it as something other than a kid’s toy. I’d come off the elevator straight into the gift shop & saw boxes everywhere of 21003 after visiting the space needle on a trip. Architecture huh? I must buy this. Then of course had to buy all the FLW sets, something I wish they’d do again. Then 10246 got me into modulars & really expanded what I’d buy. Scaling back recently though.

My mom's friend gave me a Lego set when I was 2 years old, it's been 19 years and I'm still collecting.

https://brickset.com/sets/4433-1/Dirt-Bike-Transporter
Got me back into Lego in 2012.
https://brickset.com/sets/6349-1/Holiday-Villa
My favourite set when I was a kid.

My love for LEGO started when I was around 4 or 5 years old. I received one of those Basic sets (the equivalent of today's Classic theme) as a present. At first, I wasn't into the hobby that much. I enjoyed playing with it but really didn't have a full appreciation of its potential. Being that young, the whole "Just imagine..." concept didn't fully sink in to me yet... until the Pirates theme came along. That was a total game changer for me.

Of the several themes offered by LEGO back then, none piqued my interest as greatly as the Pirates did. That's when I started collecting sets. Every birthday or Christmas I would wish to be gifted with LEGO. My Christmases from 1994 to 1996 were filled with Pirate adventures: King Kahuka's Throne (6262), Rock Island Refuge (6273), and Shipwreck Island (6296). One of the things that made collecting LEGO extra enticing back then was their remarkable packaging. Bigger sets would often come with those flaps which you can lift to view the contents inside. The photography work was also topnotch for its time, unlike today when most of the sets' photos are just digitally created.

Eventually, I explored other themes when the Pirates left the shelves around the late '90s. I went on to collect Fright Knights, Western, Ninja (subtheme of Castle), Divers, and even Freestyle (the revamped version of Basic). I did have a hiatus when I was in my pre-teens, thinking I was getting a little old for LEGO. I dropped the hobby for about a year or so until another magical theme pulled me out of hibernation ;-) . It was also the time when LEGO was beginning to produce licensed sets and the building techniques were reaching another level.

Needless to say, I'm still here. I continue to love LEGO (but not its ridiculously high prices) and I hope to see more inspiring builds from collectors and designers around the world. When life throws me bricks --pun intended-- I hit it back with bricks from my own collection. And those are rather priceless. ;-)

For me, my return to LEGO began on 1 January 2000. I wanted to treat myself to something fun to do, expecting to get a puzzle. Saw an Alpha Team set on clearance at Kmart, and thought why not? It had been about a decade since I last got LEGO, and had grown up on the Space, Futuron, and other similar themes. Short after the Alpha Team purchase, I saw an Aquazone set and tried that too.

Set 6075. Yellow castle draw my first attention. I couldn't buy any lego at that time. When I become adult , my actual Lego life has been started with 10194 Emerald night train set.

10185 Green Grocer got me back full time. Building 10211 Grand Emporium with my 9 year old daughter took it to another level.

Although I did keep buying LEGO into adulthood, albeit sporadically, when I had children, I decided it was about time to stop being one. So my darkest era wasn't really all that long. When my daughters became old enough to play with LEGO themselves, I let them play with my old sets from when I was a boy. Then, one father's day, I decided that I wanted to spend the day building LEGO with my girls. The set I chose was 75060, the UCS Slave I. So I guess this was the set that cemented us as being a LEGO family. Although really, it's city and Ninjago that I like the most. Set 10243, Parisian Restaurant, was the second set that we built as a family, and it really clinched it for us.

For me, it was 7471 that brought me back from my dark ages.

After a 20yr dark age where I was aware of what Lego where doing but did not like it (mid 90's-2000's not good) I arrived back in with both feet in 2016 when the sets had improved to a point I couldn't stay away. Modular buildings where probably the main thing that had me start buying but it very quickly exploded from there!

Star Wars reignited my childhood flame, Brickset has kept it lit the past two decades.

After about a 10 year dark age I was teaching in Taiwan when I saw the Black Seas Barracuda on display. It was about $150 in local currency, but I wanted that thing so bad! About a year later after returning to the States I bought it - and obviously no regrets there. Still my favorite set. And it has continued 34 years.

No doubt; the, back then, genious 8880 Super Car.

I've been out around 1994, latest I bought was a blacktron 2 ship and technic claw rig ... Both I loved, but lego became strange after that.

Came back by building my old technic sets and buying the Technic Unimog in 2013(?). Stayed with technic for some years until it turned sour around 2016.
In parallel, I bought 2nd hand creator stuff for my kids and loved that. The old fishing store and modulars (detective, brickbank) caught my attention and I was hooked with Ideas, Creator and modulars since.

By around 2025 I started to emotionally leave again ... Still checking the news, but the hunt for every franchise tires me, I buy far more selectively, it's less fun to actually build, sorting and storing is a drag, ... Considering to sell a good part of my collection and keep the things I connect with. Might be me, but I think it's also Lego who's changing.

I’ve always been here. When I was young it was Town, city and space that I loved, Star Wars got me back into it when that came but the real hook was the modular buildings that got me back into creating a LEGO city in the converted loft. I have been lucky enough to enough to have all of them from when they first came out, some in multiples to use rebrickable versions.

I’ve always been here. When I was young it was Town, city and space that I loved, Star Wars got me back into it when that came but the real hook was the modular buildings that got me back into creating a LEGO city in the converted loft. I have been lucky enough to enough to have all of them from when they first came out, some in multiples to use rebrickable versions.

Exo force and Star Wars

Lego Star Wars in the late 1990s

I never really had a dark-ages, although through the early 2000s I was only getting Bionicle sets so it took me a while to get back into new System sets. Part of it was that I started attending conventions and engaging more with the AFOL community... but also it coincided with me starting to have disposable income. That said, the theme that "got me back" into System was the first waves of Indiana Jones sets.

TMNT got me back in to Lego after selling all my classic Pirates & Space in my early 20’s

We started buying LEGO for our son when he was three in 2011, and then I took the plunge and bought 9492 and 9493 for myself when Amazon sold them at a discount. He's now entered his Dark Age (so still has most of his sets, many on display but under layers upon layers of dust) but I still continue as money and - more importantly - space allow. Now most of the free space in our flat has gone for larger sets, I tend to buy ones like 40921 and 10302, and I always go through the magazine aisle in supermarkets to see what minifigs are attached to the LEGO Star Wars magazine.

Because of space, money, and general disinterest in a lot of things LEGO is producing at the moment, I think I've probably entered my Second Dark Age, or at least teetering on its brink. I do plan to buy 40924 when it comes out, though.

Seeing trains from 1985 in the shops.

21322 got me back into Lego together with Lego city sets for my then 2-year old son....! so there's an argument I just used him as an excuse!

Originally (late 80s): Castle (Forestmen in particular)
After dark-age: Ideas (Wall-E)

I received 6970 from my mother as a kid. Still remember the first time I saw the box. As a teen I put all my Lego away. The set that brought me back is 21322, which I bought for my kids, at least officially.

The last theme I collected before my dark age (2002-2009) was Star Wars. I had collected quite a few sets from 1999-2002 but then they quickly tapered off until I basically stopped collecting Lego at all for several years. This was mostly because of uni and a lack of spending money. In 2009, I managed to find a kid selling a bunch of sets from the recent Castle series and it got me back into Lego. At first, I mostly bought second-hand sets or sets with a really good sale. Then Lego Pirates of the Caribbean came out and I bought a lot of those, and I bought some of the Pirate sets that immediately preceded that as well, and then everything just started to roll. But I'd say Castle, then Pirates, and then the Dino themes got me back into Lego and I never really stopped afterwards.

Echoing many of the other comments, I’ve been into LEGO since early childhood, so I don’t quite remember. I think I had some Duplo, and then I want to say a set of basic bricks was my beginning.

When I was a kid it was the Classic 4. Space, Castle, Pirates and City.

It was Ninjago which brought me back as an Adult. I lost some interest after the movie and the subsequent rebrand.

Most recent purchases have been Dreams, Modular, the classic space revivals and the new City Space stuff.

Been into Lego since I was 8 years old and now I’m 49.

I grew up in communism, my father was a soldier and we had some blank anti-aircraft bullets in the display shelf.
A colleague's father brought him a bag of loose Legos from France..it was an instant exchange, that colleague had wanted my bullets for a long time.
Wow, how much beating I got from my father for my first bag of Legos.

I started again with Cafè Corner and Green Grocer, then Friends that arrived when my daughters were 4/5yo. Now I'm still collecting, even if at a slower rate

Vikings ship 7018 :) as a gift from my girlfriend at the time (now my wife :P) and later Star Wars microfighters and of course the MODULAR BUILDINGS !!!!

Fantasy Era castle brought me out of my Dark Age in 2008/2009.

First time, when I was a kid, Classic Space.
Second time, as an AFOL, Star Wars 10221 and Technic Excavator 8043

I started getting Lego sets in 1990 when I was 5 years old. I continued to collect them until I graduated high school in 2003. I had over 120 sets as a child. Sadly, I had a 10-year dark age period between 2003 and 2013 until I started seeing trailers for the LEGO Movie. That really sparked my interest in Lego again. I went and saw the movie, loved it, and my dark ages were over. I immediately went to my parents' house, got all my old sets out of storage and brought them home and rebuilt them all. That's when I discovered Brickset because I was looking for a way to organize and catalogue all my sets. Then I started buying new sets. My first two sets I bought were 21103 and 21108. I went crazy after that. I currently have about 500 sets but at one time it was closer to 800. Ive been slowly selling off sets the last few years because I just don't have enough room anymore! Also, I'd rather have vintage sets then newer ones, so I mostly only collect System sets from the 90s now but I occasionally will buy a modern set if it catches my eye. Oh, and I forgot to mention that my wife was never into Lego her whole life until Botanicals came out. She has pretty much every set released so far. She also likes cats and cute animals, so she has all of those that have come out in recent years as well. She has close to 100 sets now!

Star Wars.

I had my childhood Lego days in 1990's; smaller sets from Town, Castle, Space, and Pirates! But Pirates were my love! They were so realistically looking, just awesome! My dark ages were from about 2000 to 2012 when I start buying PotC minifigs! Then minifigs Batman, Avengers, Justice League,... Collecting about 300 minifigs, then starting to sell them, and start to buy sets like 7888 and 7782 (both awesome)! Then sold them and start buying sets for costal city diorama, and minifigs from Batman movies, Avenger movies,...

I loved Lego Space as a kid. After about a 20 year dark age, taking my youngsters to Legoland and coming away with 31064 rekindled my interest. 10243 Parisian Restaurant got me hooked. Now I have a Lego city...

In 1990 as I was 4 years old and laid first eyes on the 6896 M-Tron Celestial Forager. Play features, colour design, size... it was just perfect for my little 4y/o self <3

Early sixties I would get Lego for Christmas, I remember the old battery pack, train set. Then as they say, became the dark age, no interest in Lego. The advent of the modulars, bought me back, my first one was 10211: Grand Emporium, and now I have more Lego than house space :o)

@shotts44 said:
"Early sixties I would get Lego for Christmas, I remember the old battery pack, train set."
It was the Lego Battery Box that first taught me how to solder (and how easily plastic melts!).

The first set I can remember, was the Robot - https://brickset.com/sets/8852-1/Robot

Given to me at Christmas, so I took it, my younger brother's and cousin's sets, and hid in a room for a few hours to build them all

Over the years, the sets have come and gone, but over the last....2 decades...well the collection has grown

Go Technic!!!!

The first set I can remember, was the Robot - https://brickset.com/sets/8852-1/Robot

Given to me at Christmas, so I took it, my younger brother's and cousin's sets, and hid in a room for a few hours to build them all

Over the years, the sets have come and gone, but over the last....2 decades...well the collection has grown

Go Technic!!!!

Lego Star Wars brought back my interest in Lego in 1999. I was 29 and had a 4 and 2-year-old sons that I wanted to inspire their creativity and learning. Lego was a perfect fit. I had Classic Space sets as a kid and seeing the creativity in the Star Wars sets was mind blowing. I’ve been hooked since. I’m still hooked on Lego Star Wars but get a lot of Creator, Speed Champions, and CMF sets.

I came in as a child, with the Adventurers theme. 5928 Bi-Wing Baron was my first set

Classic Space, way back in 80's. Miss those days...

For me, not an actual set but the LEGO Book by Dorling Kindersley for a holiday read which got my interest then TLM happened - first set was 70808 Super Cycle Chase and the rest is history…

my first ever LEGO set that I consciously and deliberately desired as a sapient human, other than whatever loose bulk parts I inherited or what Duplo I might have received as a baby beyond the veil of memory, was 8531 Pohatu. I have been a Bionicle fan ever since, it is my main interest and fandom, and the reason why I'm here

I got my first set when I was 3. <3 IT WAS CASTLE THEME!

Mom bought me my first set, 6314 City People, a little minifig pack from 1992.

The first set I remember actually picking off the shelf and building myself was a 1995 Castle set, 6036 Skeleton Surprise.

The set that locked me into Lego being an obsession was 6248 Volcano Island... So much fun and imagination packed in a 120 piece set. I lost most of the little red lava pieces under my grandma's refrigerator!

Finally, the red/blue color filter, unique space helmet, magnet, holographic star sticker, and awesome sensor/laser from 6854 Alien Fossilizer blew my mind. Loved the Exploriens subtheme.

Ahhh, those were the days.

I shared this with everyone back in 2020 as my featured set of the day - 10220 VW Camper Van in 2013; this then drew me into investigating the sets at the back of the instruction books and onto Modulars, then wanting more than just official sets and expanding into modifying my Modulars into a proper town, and then onto sets built from instructions on Rebrickable, notably the vintage F1 cars at 1/8th scale by the much missed Luca "RoscoPC" Rusconi...

I’ve been a fan since childhood after starting with 7945

Never had a dark age, but I would credit LotR (both the original theme and the Icons reboot) for sustaining my love for Lego

I came out of my dark ages when I bought Lego Ciry set 60126 for my son 10 years ago, and we started looking at all the cool sets from the Lego City theme. The Modulars then got me hooked when I discovered them shortly after. Those two themes are still my favorites.

Cowboys Fort Legoredo 1996

ive always been into lego and never really had a dark age or left the hobby, i grew up playing with lego of all themes as a child, in teenage years collected bionicle, and then during high school-college got into collecting batman and all superhero sets upon their release. gathered a few more odds and ends over the next few years, but really exploded when i got into modular buildings during the release of the detectives office.

I got into BIONICLE as a kid and never left. It's still the greatest theme LEGO has ever created.

I got into BIONICLE as a kid and never left. It's still the greatest theme LEGO has ever created.

Indiana Jones brought me back into LEGO after my dark ages through high school.

I was into Lego growing up a lot. Probably entered my dark ages around 12 years old. When I had kids, we would get the occasional Lego set or they would get one as a gift but I wasn’t pulled back really. Until, right before COVID, I got the Stranger Things Upside Down set. That was it. I fell so deep in the rabbit hole and I haven’t come out since.

I had a few Lego sets as a child in the seventies, then nothing for decades. I went out of my dark age around 2012 thanks to the first wave of LOTR sets. Since then I have bought about 250 sets and 800 minifigs (mainly LOTR, Star Wars, Space, Harry Potter, Architecture, Ideas and Icons).

4504-1
I moved into my own place for the first time, actual pay cheque so I could buy what I wanted for the first time, so I went for it, spent £99 on https://brickset.com/sets/4504-1/Millennium-Falcon, even added extra greebling.

I was back baby and spending far too much on Lego ever since.

Left LEGO in 1995 because I was a big boy lol. Got back into LEGO in 2010 when the reimagining of Harry Potter was coming back. That made me have to get everything! Then found Kingdoms and since Castle was my favorite theme as a kid I had to grab those. They were on clearance all the time at Target so that was fun for army building. Then LOTR kept me afloat. Now 15 years later I hardly buy any LEGO these days in comparison to my glory days. Too many rehashes, too much money, not enough space or time...it's dangerous.

Oh well.

Definitely a combination of Bionicle with 8568, Harry Potter with 4709 and Star Wars with 7256 and 7259 ! This is was quite a vibe to be honest.

An episode of 'Malcolm in the Middle' where I think Dewey? builds a dystopian city of towers and overlords. It really inspired me to retrieve my old box from my parents' house and start building in my flat share! But I had to rebuild my favourite sets first! Then when I started ordering bricks to actually succeed at building a tower, I thought I would add 10156 ! Then 3739 ... :)

8084 Snowtrooper Battle Set. Had never really focused in on the detail of Star Wars minifigs before. Loved the minimalism of the figures themselves after collecting action figures with “more than 5,000 points of articulation!” Posing the pinky finger of a Spider-Man figure kind of loses its charm.

I grew up playing with my older siblings’ Lego sets. My favourite was 6392 Airport from 1986. I stopped building with Lego in the mid-1990s, but then one day I read in the newspaper that the largest Lego Technic set to date was about to be released: 8110 Unimog in 2011. Fifteen years and over 450 sets later... I’m still hooked!

The Saturn V and Green Hill Zone Ideas sets brought me back.

6480 received in 1987. That’s where it all started right there. <3

I don't exactly remember how my Lego journey started, but it was probably around 2010-2011-ish, when my mom bought me 6161 and 6166 for either Christmas or my birthday, while my sister got two sets of her own, which were 5560 and 5585 . We played with those bricks a lot back then, and we ended up mixing the parts from both tubs together, as well as putting spares from all our sets in there too. We also got two City police sets around that time as well, which are 7285 Police Dog Van and 7741 Police Helicopter, and my sister loved the dog van quite a lot. She also had two horse-related Belville sets that are now in storage in the garage, but do appear to be quite valuable. However, the set that I think started my Lego hobby for me was the iconic original Lego truck, 3221. I remember being fascinated by the size of the vehicle as well as the trailer, and I spent many days playing with it and attaching both vehicles to other sets. I still have it proudly sitting in a cubby to this day. Over the years, our collection has expanded to encompass a huge variety of sets, the majority of which are from City (I have 84 City sets as of today!) while my sister discovered Friends at a young age and has most of the sets from the early days of the theme. She also has nearly every single Elves set from 2015-2018, including two complete waves. I also have just three Technic sets, a few Speed Champions and Creator sets, as well as 10321 Corvette and a couple of curious sets, including a Marvel Mighty Micros sets, a Jurassic World helicopter, and a Chima polybag.

In short, my Lego journey has been going since childhood and isn't showing any signs of slowing, except for what you may call a slight grey age between 2020 and 2023 when I didn't buy too many new sets, after which I received 10321 for Christmas that year. It was definitely an amazing and cool build, and it's currently parked in a display cabinet. Then Lego started making all these realistic and more detailed vehicle sets for the City theme, and it's safe to say that the company is still finding ways to keep me happy (well, maybe not the wallet), as every time I think I'm done buying new sets, a neat one comes out, and I usually end up buying it!

Been here ever since I received some small Power Miners sets as a birthday gift when I was a kid. Mostly collected Star Wars plus the Ninjago/Marvel modulars, although I've started leaning more from Star Wars toward Ninjago this year... I blame that neat little dragon build in 71814, which I got at the beginning of the year, as well as how small SW builds have become for how much you're paying.

In 2019, some friends with a 3-year-old child invited my wife and I to join them at Legoland Windsor (we live nearby but had never been). Really enjoyed the models. In the shop I really wanted to buy the 75192 Millenium Falcon, but couldn't justify the expense. Did buy 10266 Apollo 11 Lunar Lander, and that started an avalanche...

Around 2001 I was wandering around Target and stumbled across several Star Wars sets on clearance. I loved Lego when I was a kid and was 10yo when Star Wars came out. So of course, I bought them all. (Yes, including 7153 for which I paid around $30.) I picked up a few sets here and there over the next few years but didn't get fully engaged again until about 2015. Batman brought me back in. I'm 60 now and have almost 300 sets, still mostly Star Wars and Batman. I'm gonna keep going as long as I'm able. Or run out of room...

I was a castle fan as a kid and got a few sets when Star Wars became a theme. What really brought me back was 70818 Double Decker Couch!

in 1990's mine was Spyrius, those magnetic robots!.
Then my aduthood was invaded by Lego Starwars to date.
greetings!

@Crux said:
" @Good_Username said:
"I'm 16..."

It happens. You'll grow out of it."

It's moments like this when I wish we could include images in comments. -Insert luke skywalker NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO here (you know the one)-

@Mister_Jonny said:
"Technically it wasn’t a theme at all; it was The Lego Movie that got me back into it. However, the Winter Village and DC Comics sets of the era certainly piqued my interest."

You have good taste.

For me, the discovery that one could buy minifigure parts on Pick-a-Brick ended my dark ages. I was specifically drawn to acquire the minifigure parts from 31141 Main Street. (You can see one of them put to use in my Brickset profile picture.)

6379

Bionicle as a kid, the creator Expert cars as an adult…with a healthy dose of Star Wars in there, too

It wasn't the first set I bought as an adult but it was the one that really put me over the edge into getting back into lego. 21309-1 was during the brief peak of adult targeted sets from ideas that were around the $100 price point and still had lots of value in parts, play, and the build. Since then I've become almost entirely disillusioned with endless $300+ shelf queens.

It wasn't the first set I bought as an adult but it was the one that really put me over the edge into getting back into lego. 21309-1 was during the brief peak of adult targeted sets from ideas that were around the $100 price point and still had lots of value in parts, play, and the build. Since then I've become almost entirely disillusioned with endless $300+ shelf queens.

I was born with leftover Lego from garage sales.

I first got excited about sets with the arrival of Classic Space.

I came back to Lego from the Dark Ages because of Lego Star Wars.

I've dramatically slowed purchasing and probably will stop accumulating Lego because of Lego Star Wars.

As a young kid, Classic Space sets like 6970, 6880, and 6861 were some of my first, and got me hooked, mostly on space but also castle starting in 1984 (I wasn't interested in the yellow castle).

After a brief dark age between roughly age 13-17, working as a "counselor in training" at a summer camp, one kid brought the Spyrius Robo-Guardian 6949 into camp on day and it inspired me to start looking at new LEGO sets again. The first one I bought a couple months later was 6973 (Ice Planet Deep Freeze Defender).

Can't recall the set number. The set would be in the 1970s. It was a large box with 2 of the blue storage boxes that you could flip and round the base was a single line of studs to attach stuff to. I also got a universal motor for my birthday which was amazing. More recently I got into Star Wars themed sets. My wife enjoys various sets. Only taken nearly 30 years to get a hobby we do together! Lego is great for both manual dexterity and mental health. Just wish the Doc would prescribe it! :)

I got my first Lego set 485 as well as many others. Went into my dark age after I got 404 for Christmas 1978. Came back to Lego with the Futuron models in 1990. Went back to a dark age when I got married and started having kids. Came back into Lego with the Star wars sets 7110 and 7121 and 7128 and haven't left since. I have quite a collection now but it's taken 27 years to do it.

The remade Galaxy Explorer brought me back. It was a 18+ set, so it made it ok to buy it as an adult. But I’ve always kept a few of my favorite minifigures and sets, like two Castle Dragons, a mini Blacktron II rover, a few Islanders…

Castle sets from 2013 70400 being my first set ever. Depending on a point of view I had no dark age or my dark age engulfed most of my life.

I don't think I ever had any sets myself as a kid, I received all of my older cousins' stuff after they grew up so I pretty much just built mocs as a kid. I got hooked into LEGO sets as an adult with Pharaoh's Quest in 2011. Very fun sets.

I believe my first set as a kid was 6680, which got me hooked. I returned to Lego for Lego Star Wars, my then girlfriend gave me 7127 as a birthday gift, as she saw me marvel at the boxes in a store, where I first saw them. Since then it’s mainly LSW, with a few occasional discourses over other themes.

We had a lot of Lego when I was a child, from what I guess you could consider the 'classic area,' starting from the late 70s, early 80s up till the early 90s. A lot of space, a lot of city, and a good chunk of castle and pirates. Then I've been in my dark ages for a good 20 years eventually.

And then my wife brought me back :) Not really intentionally, I suspect. She just thought I should do something more creative or 'manual' than just sitting around listening to music, reading about music, etc. So, I ended up buying this book here https://brickset.com/sets/ISBN9783868526585-1/Build-Your-Own-City-The-Big-Unofficial-Lego-Builders-Book and some initial bricks to go with it, likely 10662-1 . From there, all the mess started :)

I had two dark ages, Star Wars took me back both cases. 7140 in '01 and 9496 in '13. But I have started collect many things since then, first my old childhood sets then everything which please my eyes :) SW, Ideas, Modulars, City, HP, Winter vilage, even Ninjago and Friends.

Been in the LEGO bubble for as long as I can remember, and the only 'dark age' I had was in first year of uni, but even that didn't stop me from getting some sets :)

I very likely had LEGO before 1999 but as an 8 year old I very vividly remember getting the very first Star Wars sets. I still have my entire old collection flagged on this very website, and although my current collection far surpasses it in size and value those 1999-2002 sets really hold a space in my heart. I'd be so happy to get a 7124 or 7134 sealed for example. I certainly wish I never sold my 7166.

My mum bought me 9675 for my 40th Birthday as a 'joke' 12 years later I'm still collecting.

Started as a kid in the 80s, was in the dark ages for too long, and then was brought back in my early 40s because of Star Wars.

I had City as a child. Then a 20+ year dark ages hiatus. Adventurers, Bionicle, and Castle for my kids, and Technic for me, brought me back. Cafe Corner kept me there. You could say my kids brought me back, not any particular LEGO series. Unlike so many here, I never had any interest in Star Wars.

I've kind of given up on Technic, but still love Castle, and I collect several things including Cafe Corner, Ninjago large sets, Winter Village, some Ideas and Speed Champions,

M-Tron

What drew me back into Lego was the “10185 Green Grocer” modular set. My wife ordered it for a 47th birthday gift back in 2008. It was a fantastic build. We then purchased the Cafe Corner set and then we both became hooked again. It has been 18 years nonstop from that point. We have sense converted over My oldest daughters family, my wife’s brother and his family, and many teammates from work into Lego aficionado’s.
‘

I didn't have LEGO as a child (it was a "boy's toy"), but I always lingered by the aisle when I went shopping. Somehow I ran across a photo of the Temple of Airjitzu, and that was the set that launched me into LEGO. Now I have an entire room, mostly with sets from Elves and Harry Potter, with a few modulars and a few more from Ninjago among the Pirates of Barracuda and the Ideas Treehouse.

Bulk bricks for the first few years of my life, then Bionicle & Star Wars as a kid in 1999-2001 and never left since

While playing LEGO with my boys in 2010, i remembered my own childhood and so i started a new carrer as a LEGO-Builder.
First it was LEGO-Technic, meanehile i prefer Icons, Ideas, Architecture, CMF, Starwars.

75884 drew my attention back to Lego after almost 30 years dark ages, but the City theme is what made me stay. Especially after the Speed Champions got 8 studs wide.

I was a Classic Space and Town kid from the late 70s. Dark Age during high school and college. Randomly came across 1097 at a grocery store check-out line in 1999 and picked it up just for fun.

To my surprise the booklet inside revealed the first Naboo Fighter in a tiny image - which of course tipped me off to LSW, combining my two favorite things from childhood.
Dark Age O V A H !

Really wish I'd returned to Lego a few years earlier. Missed the first three Modulars and they're a bit too pricey now!

Classic space (6891) and town (6393) in the mid 80s then Blacktron (6894). Pirates (all of them) really hooked me in middle school. I had keychains in and after college. Then my wife got me the Robbie House (21010) when I was in grad school. Son was born in the mid 2010s and there were some great DC sets (10937 76025 , 76028 , 76040, ) and then both he and my daughter love Ninjago (75051). So, a winding journey though lots of stuff.

And my cubicle at work probably has 75 minifigures standing guard.

Oh, and I had planned to buy my first Porsche at 36, but family life pushed that out of budget. Conveniently I could grab 75910 and kind of hit my goal.

Building sets with my children brought me back, specifically 31053 , 60076 & 31052 . Quickly transitioned to buying creator expert sets for myself.

10244 was our first big set, after we had got some Lego for the children. It's still the set we have rebuilt the most, and has something for everyone: world building, play, technic functions, looks great.

I fell in love 15 years ago when I saw the two Pirates of the Caribbean ships (Black Pearl and Queen Anne's Revenge) assembled at a comic book convention and bought them immediately. I then discovered the world of Lego Star Wars, Lego Lord of the Rings, and Lego Harry Potter. Since then, I've bought a set among these three fabulous themes every year.

Sorting out my sons box of Lego into it's individual sets by building them and realising I enjoyed it a lot and then bought SW 75021 Republic Gunship as that was my favourite prequel ship and was in the shops at the time.

I think the first LEGO set I ever got was the 70805 Trash Chomper or 70802 Bad Cop's Pursuit. Had a bit of a dark age in the 2020's but Sonic the Hedgehog brought me back.

It was definitely the Castle theme for me. My grandmother bought me the original Yellow Castle (set 375), and I was hooked. After my "dark ages", it was the Dragon Knights and Ninja sets that got be back in, and I've just loved having LEGO be a part of my life ever since.

Loved LEGO growing up and never truly grew out of it. Started back in about 2006 at the age of 5ish. In 2014 I was still buying / being gifted playsets, but by 2015 it reduced to buying the UCS Slave I (my first UCS display set) and not a whole lot else. 2016 I didn’t really buy anything (even now I still own almost nothing released in 2016), and I was all but done acquiring new LEGO sets. Or so I thought. 2017 rolled around and I only bought one set that year, but it was a big one: the UCS Millennium Falcon. I was done with LEGO, I was never buying more… but I just had to buy that. 2018 came and went, then in 2019 the Tantive and ISD drew me back in. Suddenly I was buying a second hand UCS Imperial Shuttle, and from there my UCS collection grew and I never looked back. Since then I’ve bought display sets, playsets, UCS sets, Brickheadz, and new sets from a variety of themes from Star Trek to Architecture to Indiana Jones to LotR. Maybe one day I’ll stop. But not today.

Let’s see…260 Idea Book was my first ‘adult’ purchase of a Lego product…although, I guess it doesn’t count: it’s not a ‘Lego’ product, it’s a book…:)

The next purchase was: 7128 Speeder Bikes; because, well, SPEEDER BIKES…duh…:D

But THE ‘thing’ that “dragged me back in” was…well, to paraphrase the great Jack (Nicolson or Napier; doesn’t matter, it’s the same guy:)): I have given a name to my irony, and it is Batman…
See, I was DAY ONE when I hear this was going to be ‘a thing’, but I was ‘forward thinking’/’hopelessly optimistic’ that it would lead to DC sets…which it did, through ‘expansion’…then came (and continues) the ‘contraction’…and now (for better/worse) we’re back to just Batman…:|
Of course it's not all 'bad'; 'City' has grown nicely, CMFs are good for the most part, SPA...um, Space is back, as is Castle, and Pirates...:D

Started when I was 7 (in 07) and I found 7103 Jedi Duel, 4476 Jabbas Prize, and 4490 Republic Gunship at a garage sale. Been hooked ever since.

I was gifted the Doctor Who set for my birthday some years ago.

As an older adult who never had Lego sets as a child, I only got interested last year because of building with a grandchild. My 1st set was the Tranquil Garden, and I was immediately enchanted! With no fond memories of very “studdy” pirates, space, castles sets, etc., my favorites tend to be in the Ideas and Icons themes, including some modulars, and some of the BrickLink as well.

As an older adult who never had Lego sets as a child, I only got interested last year because of building with a grandchild. My 1st set was the Tranquil Garden, and I was immediately enchanted! With no fond memories of very “studdy” pirates, space, castles sets, etc., my favorites tend to be in the Ideas and Icons themes, including some modulars, and some of the BrickLink as well.

As an older adult who never had Lego sets as a child, I only got interested last year because of building with a grandchild. My 1st set was the Tranquil Garden, and I was immediately enchanted! With no fond memories of very “studdy” pirates, space, castles sets, etc., my favorites tend to be in the Ideas and Icons themes, including some modulars, and some of the BrickLink as well.

As a kid I had a few city sets but nothing worth mentioning - Harry Potter in 2010/11 got me into LEGO for real, but unfortunately the theme went on a hyatus right after - so I moved on to Star Wars and stayed ever since.

the Theme that brought me to Lego is Ninjago. I remember my dad showing me the show before I went to visit a preschool I was going to start at then later that year I saw the jungle trap (set 70752) set in Toy R us when me and my family were picking out a toy for my brothers third birthday and I asked for the set and because my partents did not want me too be sad that my brother got something and I did not so they got me it.

Star Wars, Slizers/Throwbots, RoboRiders, and Bionicle. It would be a good idea if Lego would bring Bionicle (and Hero Factory) back again. Seriously. This year is its 25th anniversary.

The Gungan Sub 9499 set is what brought me back, it was on sale at Walmart and it is what brought back the love to LEGO.

Originally? Who knows, I was a kid.

I grew up with LEGO always in my house. I never went into a dark age because as soon as i had adult money I got the modular sets (and a job at the local LEGO store)

It was the Apollo 11 Lunar Lander (2019). I don't remember playing with Lego as a kid, but I definitely remember my brother playing with them all the time. I've always loved space and was really just drawn to the Apollo Lunar Lander, which I found a little surprising since Lego was never my "thing." And then I found it so enjoyable to put together and was hooked. Since then I've had to limit myself primarily to Star Wars, space, holiday themed items, and Harry Potter (at first, but I've gotten away from HP now), with a few exceptions here and there b/c I don't have an unlimited budget or space!

One of the first ever Lego sets I remember getting was 5508 back in 2010, but I really got into collecting Lego Ninjago sets with 70721 . Star Wars came a bit later in about 2015, and has since taken over my more recent collection

My dark ages ended around 2010 when I rediscover Lego thru Advanced Models, mainly modulars like 10185 and 10197 (my first set as adult), I was able to get 10194 just before retiring, same as 10219

It started for me with technic as in 8820 when I was still in primary school, which back then didn't have 'age labels' on them. So 8868 and 8880 were birthday gifts for me in my early teenage years after my parents discovered that the smaller sets were too easy for me to build like 8837.
It got paused when I started to study, but now the collection is mostly complete.
Additionally I'm trying to get the botanical collection complete as well and pick up the occasional Icons set.

I became a lego fan bacause of the Lego Elves theme, which I miss so much. I was almost a teenager back then. I never stopped since

I was too young for Classic Space, but then I was given a couple of Space Police I and Blacktron I sets as a kid and I was hooked, especially by 6986 Mission Commander and 6941 Battrax. I kept them meticulously preserved in their boxes. After turning 40 and shortly before the pandemic, I rediscovered them in my parents' house, brought them home, and have been re-hooked ever since.

First theme I got into after my first Dark Ages period was when Star Wars was licensed back in 1999. I had put a pause on sets between the Classic Space theme jumping the shark (IMO) after Unitron and a shift in financial responsibilities. Star Wars renewed my interest almost immediately, as well as opening the door to other themes (Ideas, Creator 18+/Icons, Marvel, Technic and Architecture). There have only been pauses since as far as finances go - there hasn't been any years that have had no sets worth getting since.

I'm not sure I can remember a time when I wasn't into Lego. I had Duplo Bob the Builder sets, but my interest really took off when I got into system stuff, when an aunt gifted me and my brother a couple of Harry Potter sets around 2003, I think 4711 and 4726 . That interest grew with me through the years, so no real "dark ages," thus no need to be brought back to Lego as an adult.

Though with how high prices have been, and how messed up my mental state has been over the past few years, I'd say I'm closer to having a dark age now than before. I guess that makes me the opposite of what this poll is trying to gauge...

I loved Lego from the first time I met it--at the Denmark Pavillion of the New York World's Fair in the 1960s--but entered my dark ages in the early 70s because I no longer had time for it while I was in high school and college. After I finished my studies, any time I was in a toy store I always looked hard at the Lego sets, and bought a few small ones from time to time, but I didn't really become an AFOL until I saw an article in the Wall Street Journal (!) about the Lord of the Rings sets. Since then I've tried to concentrate on large buildings, especially the modulars, but I will buy sets from any theme if they appeal to me! Botanical sets really interest me these days....

LOTR/Castle

My first LEGO sets were older than me, since I had older siblings. Besides the basic building sets, I remember having 200 LEGO Family, 263 and 265, 367 and the first Technic sets, like 850. Growing up, I stopped building with my LEGO bricks - but I always kept a house I had built.
The set that brought me back was 21050 LEGO Architecture Studio. I was gifted that set in 2015 and the moment I saw it, I fell in love with it! It inspired me to start creating my own architecture builds and I used it to design an architecture course using LEGO bricks for kids.
It also "inspired" me to buy many, many, MANY more LEGO sets and ...eventually become a LEGO Model Designer myself! :)

I entered my dark ages in the early-mid 80s
building LEGO City sets with my kids in the mid 2000s kicked things off. Discovering modulars in 2009 gave me permission to shop for myself!