Storage solutions: produktsumme

For a moment.... I tot you have a solution to my problems....

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBNU2YiHzJu/?igshid=bjg4g850ghx2

A lot of people flat pack there boxes which I’m planning on doing and then wrapping them and putting them in the attic eventually xx I had just started decorating before Christmas then got Ill so it was put on hold, started again then we went into lockdown so my whole bungalow looks pretty much like your cellar! Unopened lego & Amazon boxes of new lego, lego in boxes in bags on a set of bunk beds, boxes of new storage I got for Christmas & then mountains of empty boxes to clear each room ready to empty all rooms for painting & new flooring x It looks like a hoarders programme apart from the lack of rubbish and floors you can walk on ;-) oh & dpd have just arrived with my HP sets & jurrasic world sets - let the Tetris game begin! We’ll get there eventually and your office looks great by the way ????

Next time my mother complains about the volume of Lego (which I too keep in their original boxes) that I have stacked around my increasingly smaller room, I'm going to show her this article lol!! I have lots of bookcases of different sizes and depths so boxes of the same size group together, all listed neatly in a spreadsheet so I can always find them. Just need another 5-10 bookcases and somewhere to put them, then all sorted :P

Thanks for sharing :)

I don’t have as many sets as you , but my space also much smaller than you. My way is put the box flat, or put the small boxes into bigger boxes in the same series (theme). Honestly lego boxes aren’t good for storage. Keeping them is just the dark side as a collector.

Ha, at last a set storage system I can relate to.
I'm glad I'm not the only one with unopened Amazon boxes.

Speaking as someone who doesn't keep boxes, would people mind saying why they keep boxes?

I'm pretty sure anthropologists wants to move in and study the life that has been growing between those boxes.

I'm pretty jealous of the collection though. :)

Why don't you open the boxes on both sides and fold them?
This way (and sorted by size) they can be stored quite efficiently.

Sadly this only works for part of the collection as there are many boxes that are opened from top and have to be trimmed even more...

@produktsumme said:
" @LukasM said:
" @bananaworld said:
"
Speaking as someone who doesn't keep boxes, would people mind saying why they keep boxes?"

because once that you decide (in the future) that you would like to sell it - you get much better price for your set."

Yes but this is entirently psychological....who plans on selling their Lego really??"

me and couple hundreds others with large stockrooms.. ? :)

Very helpful. I’ll start work on this plan right away!

Enjoyed spotting the Blacktron and M-Tron boxes mixed in with all that.

If I want to keep a Lego box from a set I build, I flatten the box and store it. As far as shipping boxes, I flatten and keep those as well so I can reuse for a future sell on Ebay.

BTW, where do you find your set ranking on Brickset?

I try to Russian doll the boxes or carefully flatten them without damaging them.

off topic but, did i spot an Eintracht Frankfurt logo on the second picture? (top of the frame, ca 1/4 from the right border)

BTW: i store empty boxes as well, it safes space if you put smaller boxes in larger ones and so on.

J.

I AM A BOX LOVER SO I UNDERSTAND so first if you haven't put smaller boxes instead bigger ones I noticed that your boxes seem to be very messy you should line them up and put boxes with similar size close to each other you wont see the front but you will see the side that is my suggestion

@Rusticjohn said:
"it would help if TLG still produced packaging that was an appropriate size for the contents instead of huge half empty things... "

Absolutely! I loved the early Legoland miniwheels vehicle sets that you could build, then store in the box!

My current ranking is 1976th, and seeing these pictures reminds me of a time not too long ago when my storage situation looked kind of similar.

I got rid of the clutter by rigorously dividing my collection into five separate areas:

1 - sets that I indend to build in the not too distant future
Those are stored in large boxes, ready to be taken out and built at a moment's notice.
10257 and 10258 are currently being built.

2 - sets that I intend to either build at a much later date or even sell on in future
Those are stored in the attic, in stackable cardboard boxes with the contents written on the side

3 - sets that have already been built and are meant for more or less permanent display
Those are stored in various shelves and display cabinets

4 - sets that have been built once but are scheduled for dismantling for the parts to be reused in MOCs
Those are in the cellar next to my parts storage bins, awaiting their dismantling fate

5 - sets that have already been taken apart
Those are called the contents of the parts bins ;-)

I'm also facing the same issue.
In the beginning I stored the boxes, then I flattered, but now I bring them to recycling point.
I only stored the instructions with the sets themselves.
I know if I will sell later, I will miss them.
I think the place is for a lot of us an issue.
That I like is to build, not to show that I have some sets MISB.
And for me with the dust, my two cats and my well comprehensive wife, the easiest is to take apart the sets and store them in big plastic boxes.
So I used my new free time to sort my sets by themes and rebuild for example all my Toy Story sets, or rebuild my old Harry Potter's with the latest wave, or take the opportunity to have all my Creator Expert cars build together.
But the two hours to commute I saved the last weeks, months, will be soon no more available as I will have to return to the office at least to 50% due to the new distancing rules my company has defined.

I don't have this problem at all - owning just a few sets. Might even take a picture soon for you to see.

" How are people storing the sheer volume? "

I am ranked 345, more then 2000 sets and not that much Space, and I also want to keep the boxes.

So when I built a set i assemble it afterwards (no room for display) and put into plastic zipper bags (Ikea). inside the big boxes i store smaller boxes. So i can keep the boxes complete and store all of my sets. In one box there are sometimes 4 to 5 other boxes, most of the time from the same series. City into city boxes, star wars into star wars boxes. That is my solution to gain Some Space.

@Huw said:
"Your set ranking can be seen here: https://brickset.com/mycollection/sets/ranking"
Can you also see the top 10 or top 20?

@iefdb

My son and I store the boxes the same way as you do. And the IKEA bags too (they are really handy and cheap).

By the way you only have 1979 sets as I can see in the ranking :-), only 13 sets ahead of us.

I am in the top 1000 for set ranking. I am so thankful I decided to get rid of the boxes. If I ever want to look at box art, I’ll come to brickset.

And before I decided to get rid of the boxes, I did look at set sale prices and the few larger sets that may command a higher price with box wasn’t significantly higher than without the box. Things may have changed since then.

those articles make me kinda happy my collection isn't huge (ranked about 10000 in pieces count)

@Senyoln said:
"I try to Russian doll the boxes or carefully flatten them without damaging them."

That's what I do - especially if part of a collection where there are a couple of big sets and tons of smaller ones

@Legoist61 said:
" @iefdb

My son and I store the boxes the same way as you do. And the IKEA bags too (they are really handy and cheap).

By the way you only have 1979 sets as I can see in the ranking :-), only 13 sets ahead of us."

I counted the doubles also ;-): 2144 sets with doubles

1981 Unique sets ( today 2 sets arrived by mail :-D)

Solved are storage problem, Sold nearly all are collection over the last three years. Rooms cleared bank account healthy, most were sold with boxes which seem to fetch a higher price on eBay but lots of problems with people expecting perfect boxes, if not wanting large partial refunds. Hard work eBay.

I throw out all the boxes. I used to save all instructions but threw out most of them to make room for my actual sets!

I collapse all the boxes and save them. They take up a lot less space when flattened :)

I both love it and hate it, in equal amounts, at the same time lol

Finally someone who organises similar to the way I do! :)

OMG, I thought I was the only one! It looks remarkably like my basement, w/LEGO sitting around everywhere :) I keep all of my boxes (over 1K now) as well but have found it's more manageable to break them down flat and stack them by size. Of course there are many "special" boxes which I'm leaving fully intact, that end up taking up too much space. My ultimate plan is to win the lottery and buy a garage the size of a high school gym to store and display various SW landscapes, a giant city layout, an airport island, under the sea exhibit, amusement park, dinosaur island w/volcano, Ninjago City, Classic Space, Pirates and Castle layouts...

It never occurred to me to keep the boxes...

...or sell LEGO! :-D

“Teenage delinquent”

Seems as though they’d have better things to do than inflate their brickset account haha.

If you are retro LEGO box collector you really have a space issue as you cannot flatten the boxes with trays and inserts or store them inside each other.

I flatten my boxes to save more space

Another great "aspiration" This seems to have gone all boxy. Is it just me, or has anyone else got a "flag" for boxes. Ive just noticed I have 2000 boxes....... Its not 100% as I am torn on some sets whether a box needs to be a box or a packet and I only started noting boxes later in the collection. I tend to box a box, so in some cases one large boxes contain 6-10 others. No idea why I did not think of flat packing them mind. I suppose a flat pack is cardboard, a box implies 3D (cuboid in most cases) Actually following my daughters recent search for a true cube for a maths question ALL lego boxes are cuboids.....

@iriz, true, unfortunately my "retro" boxes were purchased in my childhood, and I wasn't smart enough to keep them :(

Lol boxes every where... just like my box storage ahah

I keep the boxes and instructions as well and don't like to collapse them, especially the older ones. I do sort and keep the Lego parts separately from the stored boxes and in plastic containers.

For the box storage, I have placed the smaller boxes inside larger boxes, and larger boxes inside the largest moving boxes I can find that can still be handled. These tend to be 4.5 ft3 to 6 ft3 or wardrobe boxes. It's a bit of a game of Tetris to get everything into them.

On the subject of keeping original packaging - I hadn't been thinking about the resale side of things. I don't keep the boxes, but then again, I don't plan to sell my collection. My daughters have already told me that one of them gets Lego sets. (My other daughter gets my Transformers.)

Random idea...I do have a handful of Transformers still mint-on-card, and I kept the boxes for two of them for displaying. I wonder how it would look to put up pop-art/poster type pictures of old Lego boxes on my walls next to the TFs, maybe in really slim frames or mounted on foam core...

@Lego34s said:
"Another great "aspiration" This seems to have gone all boxy. Is it just me, or has anyone else got a "flag" for boxes. Ive just noticed I have 2000 boxes....... Its not 100% as I am torn on some sets whether a box needs to be a box or a packet and I only started noting boxes later in the collection. I tend to box a box, so in some cases one large boxes contain 6-10 others. No idea why I did not think of flat packing them mind. I suppose a flat pack is cardboard, a box implies 3D (cuboid in most cases) Actually following my daughters recent search for a true cube for a maths question ALL lego boxes are cuboids....."

Its all about the available space.. I have plenty, but my (almost 1000 sets, most of them sealed) easily fit within a single room in the warehouse (cca 5*2 m). The thing is to "think" vertically.. alongside one wall is a very hefty industrial rack, each shelf holding up to 170 kg, 120 cm long, 60 cm wide, rack is cca 2,5 m high, that gives me some 25 meters (in length) for storing the largest sets such as 10255, Death Star, Technic Bucket Wheelers, Modulars and some larger City sets (60141 Police station and likes) and such. The width of the rack (shelves) was not chosen randomly - the largest sets are 58 cm long. The smaller sets are kept in custom designed very strong carboard boxes (designed to hold both large "10255s", Creator Winter Village and Brickbank-like modulars (in vertical position) (cca 70 x 52 *x 40 cm) and being stacked up to 6 boxes a top of each other. The box at the bottom withstands the column of cca 60-70 kg .. and been holding for more than 4 years..

those box dimensions might seem "weird", but you wont believe how "just" they are to fit almost every single set into it with no or absolutely min. wasted space.. its like some kind of "magical Ludolph's number / 3.14"

that is the BEST way and only affordable way how to keep various sets both intact and consuming as little space as possible. Its kind of "modular" (I can move large 10255-like sets between the rack shelves and the cardboard boxes, sets are protected both from sunlight and dust (large sets on the rack shelves are individually wrapped in a wrapping paper. And still have tons of volume space left. I paid less than 3 EUR for those custom-made cardboard boxes from the company that makes them.

BTW.. it would be BENEFICIAL if ppl adding the "answers" and "recommendations" how to deal with boxes were also to say HOW MANY they have to deal with.. otherwise its just useless chatter from their side..

@LukasM said:
"BTW.. it would be BENEFICIAL if ppl adding the "answers" and "recommendations" how to deal with boxes were also to say HOW MANY they have to deal with.. otherwise its just useless chatter from their side.. "

Apparently im in the 500s as far as collection rank goes. I easily have 100s (maybe 1000+) boxes flattened and stored in a closet right now. I just love the box art but the space has been becoming an issue.

I do a combo of what people have mentioned here: flatten the boxes, sort them by size, put them in larger boxes or bags. I have enough sets from over the years that they're sorted by size and theme. Have two big stacks of $20 SW and Hero set boxes all lined up together nicely.

As progress goes, I'm happy to say I recently decided to not keep every package of every collectible minifigure I get; I only only keep one per series now. :)

Maybe you can get rid of the Amazon cardboard boxes, then at least you will have a more colorful cellar.

In the long run, I would expect that something along the lines of these boxthrones for boardgames will start to appeal to Lego collectors as well. In particular for those that want to keep their original lego boxes and all them to all be individually supported (ie no stacking and horizontal instead of vertical). https://storemyboardgames.com/

I can't help but feel the 'in case I sell them' argument is a bit of a misnomer as how much does a modern set's box actually add to the price? I guess the question is also at what point does a set/box become vintage. I've a couple of large boxes from the 80s for that very reason, but mainly for nostalgia, and I tend to keep the boxes of large/expensive sets. Anything else goes in the recycling.

@LukasM Can I ask why you have nearly 1000 unopened sets? Do you collect but have no time or space to build / display? Are you storing to sell on later ? Do you but one for show and one for keeps? Just Curious. I have a lot of unopened but I will probably open all I have today at some point over the next year or so before buying more yet to be opened. Turns out 7% of my collection is unopened, but there are a few minifig or minifig packs I may never open.

@Lego34s said:
" @LukasM Can I ask why you have nearly 1000 unopened sets? Do you collect but have no time or space to build / display? Are you storing to sell on later ? Do you but one for show and one for keeps? Just Curious. I have a lot of unopened but I will probably open all I have today at some point over the next year or so before buying more yet to be opened. Turns out 7% of my collection is unopened, but there are a few minifig or minifig packs I may never open."

- its easy.. the exclusives are so expensive that "somehow" they have to pay for themselves.. thus I buy some xtra, keep them for a couple of years and then sell them to cover the costs for those that I build.

My set collection is rather small in comparison and I keep the boxes. I also store the smaller boxes in larger boxes that larger or multiple sets were delivered in. I tend to store mine on their side on top of each other, which helps as I'm limited to three inbuilt cupboards.

I wouldn't like to flatten them, as I don't think the boxes would be that strong aftwards. Some of my old sets and those brought off ebay are quite weak, particularly the ones that have those thumb press releases.

I'm not sure if the box adds value or not, but if I'm looking for a set on ebay, I tend to go for a box. It feels better having it, I don't know why.

@iefdb said:
" @Legoist61 said:
" @iefdb

My son and I store the boxes the same way as you do. And the IKEA bags too (they are really handy and cheap).

By the way you only have 1979 sets as I can see in the ranking :-), only 13 sets ahead of us."

I counted the doubles also ;-): 2144 sets with doubles

1981 Unique sets ( today 2 sets arrived by mail :-D)

"

Here also two sets extra today :-) 31109 together with 40409. So now a total of 2302. Wonder when our house will start to sink away in the seabottom here...

Why do I keep all the boxes of my sets? Because I love the graphic design!

All these articles of people and how they organize their collections.

I have parted out most of everything so the actual parts fit nicely into two Ikea drawers and three additional boxes. Issue is more I can't really present stuff I have built and wonder if I will ever get around to getting enough space to actually present the builds that I have planned with Stud.io files, especially since I would like to have bigger dioramas like in the Lego Movie dads cellar.
Looking up my sets owned rank it's actually around 2700. Really doesn't feel like it. Or maybe I am cheating the system because I own like 30 Battlepacks of some sets.

Haha, this resembles my collection more... :D I also keep boxes but they take up so much space so K'm changing from Russian doll to flattening... That's hard work!