When did you become interested in LEGO as an adult?

2016. I'd been a fan, as a kid, from 1999 - 2008-ish; then, while I'd still dabbled in nostalgia occasionally, had dropped into a dark age when I started university. It was the news of the Disney collectable minifigure series that first got me paying attention to Lego as a full adult; and while I'm not a huge purchaser even now, I've been keeping up with the Lego news more or less since then ^^

I had a sort of dark ages where 5590 was one of the last sets I bought, but I bought 8856 as a student, and then when 8880 came out I just had to have it, especially since never before I had the money to buy a technic supercar.

I've been a fan since I was a kid. I've experienced the tail-end of the 90s (including the pre-1997 era), then the 2000s and as an adult the 2010s and now 2020s.
If there ever was a hook it would be Bionicle and Harry Potter. As an adult it was various themes. I'm actually a bit of a generalist (although I mainly focus on smaller sets and in-house themes).
If anything I might be slowly slipping into a semi dark age right now, as I've been almost entirely focussing on collecting sets I've sold before from my childhood. Since I'm nearly done, I don't have too much else I'm planning to buy after that. This year I've only bought one set from 2022. But who knows?

I bought my dad the Saturn V during lockdown, got jealous and started buying my own sets pretty soon after that!

The kids got me a small set for Christmas 2020 and I've been hooked ever since. I'm 53

48 years old, always Lego fan. But what I felt was the first adult set for me, was the first modular. And I am proud to own it.

I've always been interested in Lego, but the first set I bought as an adult after a long time without buying Lego was 9493 X-wing Starfighter, used from eBay in summer 2015.

Brick Beard’s Bounty was the one as an adult that got me back in it. That, and my wife winning tickets to a LEGO Kids Fest in 2015. That sent it into overdrive.

I had finally graduated college, got my career started, and finally had some extra money to spend on fun stuff. So I picked up the hobby again.

2012, the Avengers movie sets. Coincidentally someone happened to gift me a gigantic Creator robot set on my birthday that year.

I've been into Lego since I was a kid. The first set I remember having was 575 Coast Guard Station. In high school and college I went away from it a bit. Though I would get a set here and there, especially Star Wars sets. Really got back into it after discovering the Minifigure packets randomly at a register display at a Ben Franklin store. Really got back into larger sets with the Atlas V rocket.

Nice topic! As a kid LEGO was my favourite toy and I was fortunate enough to have quite a lot of it (partly caused by having two older brothers who outgrew the hobby at some moment).

Already from 2016 I started to watch speed builds and other LEGO related videos on YouTube. I also visited the LEGO store in London several times. However, for some reason it took a few years before I started to actually buy LEGO again. (Perhaps it was shame? Maybe the feeling that it is a toy and therefore not for adults? It still feels awkward for me to tell other people that I am an AFOL.)

Ultimately, it was the Architecture line that brought me back to buying LEGO in February 2019. My first two sets were 21042 and 21035. Next, I got some buildings from the Creator Expert range (sets 10253 and 10256). After that, it went quite rapidly :)

Architecture and buildings are still my main interest. But recently my interests have also shifted a bit towards sets that contain minifigures (primarily medieval related sets). The latter shift was still a mental hurdle for me. I don't know why, but it felt strange to me to enjoy something that is mostly associated with kids and toys.

I have to credit the Lego Batman toys in McDonald's Happy Meals in 2008 (when I was in my 20s). They led me to learn about and acquire 7784 The Batmobile: Ultimate Collectors' Edition, which was followed by a Christmas present of 10177 Boeing 787 Dreamliner and then more Creator Expert vehicles and the rest is history.

Building with basic Lego to make space toys was a fascination for me as a child. Classic space came along with its cool parts and cemented the relationship. But, my attention and money were ripped away by Kenner SW toys. Then, sports, girls, books, and music. The end result of all that was a kid of my own. He loved SW and I bought him sets because he could smash them and then we could rebuild. I knew that I was hooked when I bought 10221. There was no denying it was for me.

Early 40s here, grew up w/ Lego but only a few sets that my parents got for us. Classic yellow castle, Futuron Monorail were the two highlights plus had about 5-6 other small to medium castle and space sets. And then nothing for thirty plus years.... we moved around too mcuh and our sets were all passed down to cousins, nephews, nieces etc. How I wish I still had these but hopefully they got some great play out of them!

Got back into Lego at the end of 2019 right before the pandemic hit. I bought a couple of small random City and Speed Champions sets (the tiny unassuming Arctic Ice Glider 60190 was the first one) and then my wife surprised me with the UCS Falcon for Xmas. Been hooked ever - I don't think she had any idea what she started, have built over a 120 sets since then and there's many more to open! :)

I rediscovered LEGO as an adult between 2000-2009 (2002 specifically), primarily collected Star Wars in those years. But then I entered a second Dark Age in 2009. Not just with LEGO, with everything. Life was a dark age, family stuff. I came out of it and have remained an enthusiast for LEGO (I feel like a poser calling myself an AFOL) since 2015 when LEGO Dimensions came out.

Gaming is always something I’ve done no matter what. And after playing the game and getting my hands on some bricks it felt right. Realized how much I missed it. First set I bought after a bunch of Dimensions packs was a Creator car, yellow, can’t remember the name of it. But it hooked me completely back in.

I was always into buying it for my kids but got a cash long service award in 2016 and wanted to spend it on something for myself that would last - that I could look at and remember where it came from. Wandered over to the 'big boy' sets in the store one day and ended up walking out with 71040, 75159, 75095 and 10247. Addicted ever since.

1999 when I heard about Mindstorms 9719 but I quickly expanded out to pirate, castle, trains, space, and pretty much everything. I never built more than one crude line following robot.

I wonder of the poll should be a bit finer grained. I'd love to see how big a jump Mindstorms caused, though another significant adult fan base growth driver was Lugnet that happened in the same time frame.

2020 lockdown for me. 10220 VW campervan was the set that converted me -- I stumbled on it entirely accidentally while looking for 3D puzzles. Strangely I'd seen the first Lego Movie twice at the cinema years before but never made the connection that there could be sets I could buy and build as an adult.

Born in 1974 and got my first set early 1975 (615 forklift) now the counter stands on more than 1750 sets of al years in between. The last 10/15 years the hobby became more collecting than building. I hope in the upcoming years to go back to more building.

Lego was my favorite toy as a child. 4504 brought me back as an adult once I had disposable income.

All our LEGO was in storage for the next generation, until the youngest,16 years old, dug out the 8448 car set in 2015. I also had set 8860. In a short time I had most of the super cars, I also stared buying most of the modular buildings. And some other big sets. Also buy some big bulk LEGO on kijiji or marketplace once in a while and see how many sets I can piece together. I did buy a set once in a while for myself in the day my kids played with LEGO starting around 1999.

Went to Fallingwater in Pennsylvania and in the giftshop they were selling the architecture set. Sucked me back in to building LEGO for the first time in 20 years.

I'm 34 years old and I've been collecting LEGO since I was three years old. I don't recall any specific theme that drew my attention, nor how and when exactly I got my first set, but I remember buying/receiving sets from most themes (I think?) that existed around that time: Town/City, Space, Pirates and Castle.
Later that expanded to Star Wars and Harry Potter, and then Marvel and DC. For the past decade or maybe a bit longer, I've restricted myself to Star Wars and Superheroes (mainly Marvel).
Though I do also own 3 modular buildings and earlier this year I bought the Aston Martin Speed Champions set :)

Regards.
Mitch

I had LEGO sets as a child - pretty much all of the 80's (mostly space a couple technic and city sets). Then I reached high school and lost interest. I went into a LEGO store for the first time in 2011 in Chicago. I was overwhelmed, but only ended up getting 1 set as a Christmas present that year. Then after having a daughter, started seeing more and more sets at TRU and eventually caved into buying a few in 2017. oh yah, then I noticed they had TRAINS and it was all over. Hit up ebay and amazon, etc and have been going full on crazy since then, with my wife and daughter, all of us getting so many sets that we like. We have turned almost our entire basement into a LEGO room. And then fall over them throughout the rest of our house too!

I'm 49 years old and never had Lego as a kid (too poor). When my kids were toddlers (ages 3 to 6), I started buying them Lego. I also bought some Best-Lock and Mega-Blocks. I immediately noticed the disparity in quality and quickly segregated those alternate brands out (and threw them away so they would not contaminate the Lego purity). My kids eventually grew out of Lego, but I never did. Over 1100 sets later I'm still going strong. The Winter Village sets are probably what hooked me more than anything.

Started in the 80s. Lost interest mid to late 90s, with a couple of outliers in the original SW release. Buddy started again late 00s, I picked up the occasional city set when we'd shop together. Really got back into new sets with LOTR and a few modulars, and got into vintage stuff from my childhood shortly after. Now it's a good mix of buying bulk vintage and new sets for the backlog.

One of these days I will update my rebrickable inventory and see where the true dark age lies.

I have had LEGOs since I was about five my other family members hand me downs. What really started my LEGO interest was the 2009 clone walker battle pack and I’ve been collecting LEGO ever since.

Star Wars and Ninjago around 2015

I had a dark age during the middle/high school ages (1998-2006), but I don't know if it was by a social imposition or only the juniorized era of TLG (I was only 10, but I remember I recognized that those sets weren't the same of my childhood...)

In 2010, at 23 years old, I bought my first Winter Village and i fall in love again... so, 10216 saved me!

Always been into LEGO as a kid (got my first minifig in maybe 1997/8?), but took a break while in college in 2013ish and for several years after. Finally got an apartment with some extra room in late 2019 and decided it was time to start buying all those (used) Bionicles that I never had as a kid. Now my living room just looks like a storage unit.

Never really fell off from Lego. The closest I've come to a dark age is right now tbh, I haven't bought a Lego set since Spring 2019, but it's more of a space + money thing. I still love Lego, I pull out my current sets all the time, and would never pass up an oppurtunity if I was offered a set. :-)

LEGO maniac whole childhood up until middle school (mid90s). I grew up and after college in 2010 the Harry Potter theme came back and I absolutely had to have them and that kickstarted the rest of the journey. Obviously LOTR kept me afloat while HP ran its course. Then bounced around over the years until the last few with an even better HP release.

I had set 920 and some of the other small classic space and city sets as a kid in the late 70's and early 80's but Star Wars toys were my favorite. Fast forward to 1999 when Lego started making Star Wars sets and I bought sets 7110 and 7128 to have on my desk at work while buying my son 6441 and 6451 on clearance from KB Toys for his fourth birthday. It avalanched from there with Adventurers, more Star Wars, Res-Q, City, Space Port, and Arctic sets within a few months and grew from there as he and my other two sons grew up. Now my sons are adults who buy me Lego for my birthday and Christmas. =-)

My interest have always been there, but some reason it went a bit down and kept a secret and only Technic for a while. I think it came t a point where it was Lego or no Lego. i found the Modulars and from then it was back as a hobby in 2010-14 and so on.

Always collected Lego. Started seriously collecting as a teenager when I got my first job, haven’t stopped since. Star Wars, LOTR, Harry Potter and Jurassic.

Always loved LEGO as a kid, especially Basic, Town and Technic, my last set was 8868 Air Tech Claw Rig back in 1994. Then dark ages entered but I rediscovered the awsemeness of LEGO in 2006, when I purchased a sealed 8455 Back-Hoe for myself as an adult for Christmas. Since then I've purchased all the LEGO Technic flagships (what a journey) together with some Model Team, Train, Town and Castle stuff.

Last set I had as a teen was 8837 Pneumatic Excavator…first set as an adult was 10220 Volkswagen T1 Camper Van

Born in the mid 1970s, I grew up playing my brothers LEGO, getting my own sets as I got older. Classic Space (or Space as we called it back then!) few town sets, then got into Technic sets. Secondary school and then work got in the way in the early 90s and although I'd occasionally muck about with the odd set, it wasn't until Star Wars sets were released in 1999 that I bought sets again. A few nice display sets until my daughter was born in 2010, then I got back into buying in a big way. We'd build together. Now its calmed down to CMFs, the odd modular and a big set like Technic or Creator Expert as a Christmas or birthday treat.

Was in college when I passed by a Lego display in a store featuring Ice Planets 2002 theme and noticed the flagship 6973 which reminded me somewhat of my classic space theme set 6980 .

Almost 30 years later and I'm still an AFOL. My dark age was 1985-1993

As a child in the 70's and 80's I grew up with the original knights and space sets. I fell away until having my interest renewed and buying the Star Wars 'Final Dual' I & II 7200 and 7201 sets in 2002. That was it, I was back in, and spent the next 10+ years living vicariously through my children's interest in lego. Now they have moved on, the truth is out and I'm still buying!

@Jack_Rizzo said:
"I literally never had a Dark Age. My parents essentially banned me from getting any new sets from when I was 8 to 16, but it never dampened my interest. Family members would still buy me the odd set, and then once I started sixth form college they relaxed quite a bit. By the time I was at uni, I was fully back to collecting."

Same for me. My mom strongly disliked Lego and banned me from buying sets once I was a teen. I actively started buying sets again about 2 years ago thanks to the mandalorian battlepack and 501st set. I had always kept up with the latest sets, reading catalogs and watching reviews, but it was only after those two sets that I began MOC building again. I definitely missed out on quite a few great sets.

In the '80s and early '90s, I dreamed of buying officially licensed minifigures from my favorite IPs (Tolkien, Star Wars, Marvel), and the advent of LEGO Star Wars ensured that I never totally lost touch with the brand. But the floodgates broke in 2016, when I popped into a Toy-R-Us to buy diapers for our brand new baby girl. 76025 practically jumped off of the shelf and into my arms, and I never looked back (although I do regret missing out on most of the LoTR sets). To give credit where credit is due, Brickset also played a large role in my LEGO renaissance!

2011 with 10221 UCS SSD and 8043 Technic Excavator.

@christopher94 said:
"Ninjago movie mechs were my hooks that got me back into it."

Same here! While I never truly lost interest, sets from the Ninjago movie and my son turning 4 were catalysts to my collection really taking off from 2017 onwards.

Previous highlights were my family and friends helping me rebuild all my Classic Space sets on my 40th birthday in 2015, modest disposable income in 2003, and a Dad who sought out the coolest toys for his sons from 1973 until about 1983.

Donated my childhood LEGO during my first marriage. Regretted it ever since.
Came back to it because of Indiana Jones sets, even though I had the Droid Developer AT-AT in my closet during my "dark ages."

Back in 2010, my mam asked what kind of stuff I wanted for Christmas. 28 years old she was surprised with "I don't know, Lego or something to do". So 5867 and 5891 were opened on Christmas day. Vowed I would only get sets that didn't have those childish minifigs. Now nearing 2,500 minifigs/minidolls.
10243 really made it into an obsession though. I was amazed at what could be done.

I moved away from Lego as a child to K'Nex, but when Lego brought in Star Wars (I was 13 at the time), and stayed with it since.

It was a gradual process, but set 40292 Christmas Gift Box from 2018 (and other seasonal sets) definitively drew me back in. I think I own more LEGO sets from the past five years than I ever did as a child -- and I already had a decent collection of LEGO Castle sets, with some Classic Space, Pirates, and Fabuland.

The last set I remember getting as a kid was 6954 (Blacktron Renegade) for Christmas 1990. I was given a few small Indiana Jones and Star Wars sets as gifts in the late 2000s, but it was LOTR in 2012 that got me into LEGO as an adult.

I never had dark age :D

I loved Lego as a child and basically never stopped, you want me to just answer with the year I legally became an adult?

A Galaxy far far Away brought me back from the dark ages

As a child I had Classic Town, then as a teenager moved to Technic. Got back into Lego when I saw the Expert Vehicles. Never had sets like that when I was younger, I thought to myself and bought 3 - The Mini, Beetle and Camper.
Then I saw the Expert Big Ben and that got me into the Landmarks, and as the Architecture range.
Now I have many sets, but the 3 that got me back into Lego are still my favourites.

It started with the little Technic gyro I got as a gift from my student friends: https://brickset.com/sets/8215-1/Gyro-Copter (around 1998).
Started to fiddle around with it, and enjoyed it so much I couldn't resist buying a slightly bigger set that was on sale for 20 guilders I believe (some 10 euro):
https://brickset.com/sets/8280-1/Fire-Engine
Then eyeing the big set in the local toy store, although feeling a little embarrassed as an adult: https://brickset.com/sets/8462-1/Tow-Truck
Finally Mindstorms completely won me over, and at least that was serious and expensive enough that an adult could be seen with it:
https://brickset.com/sets/9747-1/Robotics-Invention-System-1-5
Been an AFOL ever since. Star Wars, and the Sculpture series helped a lot in fueling the interest. Edit: I must say that I played with LEGO from the age of 3 to 15 a lot.

It was 2010 and the Collectible Minifigure series got me back into Lego. I used to buy them on my lunch break.

2008, the Fantasy Era castle line brought me back.

It was the LEGO video games that brought me back to LEGO (specifically, the LEGO Star Wars games going back to 2005). The games are silly fun, but seeing some of the models in-game made me interested and then seeing them again on the store shelf REALLY got me interested. It was mostly the mini scale ones at first (collect all four and you can build a fifth model!) and then slowly grew as my financial status became more stable...and now it won't stop!

I have always been interested, since Christmas Day 2008. But it was around 2015 that I gradually started buying sets more for display rather than play. That’s when I started getting into the larger sets and sets I thought were good display models.

As for themes, definitely the Modular Buildings. I got my first one, the Pet Shop, in 2013. It wasn’t until 2017 that I got Assembly Square to go with it which began my obsession with the modulars. I bought the Green Grocer in August 2021, completing my collection until the new ones come out.

Star Wars sets, both play scale and UCS sets also appealed to me. The 2016-2019 play scale Star Wars sets were just as good for display and I bought many of them, as well as a few UCS sets.

It was the 1999-2001 timeframe. I was an adult and looking for presents for my nephew, when I saw Star Wars LEGO in a Toys R Us.

I was hooked. It took a while before I started building other things out of my Star Wars LEGO, but once I found the online community in ‘04-‘05, things really took off.

I’ve been building and buying ever since. Best hobby in the world.

About ten years ago, 2011/12 I bought the set 10218, my wife was a bit skeptical at first but then we built many other sets together until 2018 when we separated. I am now divorced, 46yo, but I continue to build lego sets and the covid / quarantine period has increased my collection exponentially.

Old school model builder (Revell, Testors, Monogram WWII tanks, battleships, aircraft carriers, etc.) but had small LEGO sets as a child. Love the whole model building hobby.
Many yrs. later, son 3, got a Mega-Bloks Pro-Builder Helicopter.
We enjoyed it immensely. Great bonding moment.
Went in search of more, realized Lego and Mega-Bloks are very different companies, and Lego clearly stood out as the superior designer w/high brick quality standard.

Early '08 got 7623 INDIANA JONES TEMPLE ESCAPE.
Fantastic set, loved it ever since.
Picked up at San Diego Comic Con '08 7667 IMPERIAL DROPSHIP and 7668 REBEL SCOUT SPEEDER for then 5 yr. old son.
Also lucky enough to get BrickMaster (SDCC 2008 exclusive) INDIANA JONES set (limited to 500 kits) at the same convention.
True start of collecting out of the 'dark-ages'.

I always wanted a train set that had figures or something better than a generic train set and I got the 4561 for Christmas of 2002. Then I needed a police station, gas station, etc and then got interested in Creator sets in 2003, then Bionicle in 2004, SW in 2005. By then I became a fan of LEGO and still am 20 years later :D

For me it was a combination of the Castle Fantasy Era sets and the 2009 Pirates wave. I wasn't even thinking about LEGO and I randomly saw 6253 sitting on a shelf at some store and it reinspired me :)

Started off with some small Technic sets then went onto the larger 8880 Super Car and 8868 Airtech Claw Rig both of which I still have today. I continue to favour Technic but have added some Creator Expert / Icons sets to the roster.

I was a LEGO Maniac™ as a kid, but lost the entire collection save for a single blue spaceman when my childhood home needed to be cleaned out with 48 hrs notice. As an adult, I started collecting/playing the LEGO video games (SW, Indy, PotC) and wanted to collect one set that went along with each game I finished, and got 7778 Midi-scale Millennium Falcon. That's how it started... Then they got the Marvel license! My collection has slowed down a little recently, primarily due to space constraints and other interests, but I still collect the Modular Buildings and Winter Village as well as selections from the Star Wars and Marvel offerings, anything real-world space related (Lunar Lander, International Space Station, Atlas V) as well as odds and ends like the Bonsai tree and anything that's pure nostalgia (e.g. Pirates of Barracuda Bay and the new Galaxy Explorer).

I 'grew out' of LEGO a couple of years into secondary school in 1994 when "the grim darkness of the far future" switched my interests.

Around 2014 I stumbled upon some Alien Conquest sets on eBay, and that hooked me RIGHT BACK IN. (I only found out later that the ADU vehicle colour scheme had a connection to that 'other' hobby; I reckon @Nabii knew exactly what he was doing!)

This website helped feed the habit a lot (and still does) :-)

I may not have bought anything between the mid-80s and early 2000s, but always kept an eye on what was available so am classing myself as "always interested". But it was CMFs and 21103 that got me spending money again.

To me it started with 31012 in the summer of 2013.

Was into LEGO bricks from about 1995 - 2003 (we had Duplo before and continued to purchase Bionicle until 2006). Went into my dark ages from 2004 - 2013. Although I wasn't building or purchasing lego during this time, I still would peruse the catalogs. Discovered Brickset in 2010, but did not create an account until 2016, about 3 years after getting back into the brick and having a substantial collection to manage. The things that brought me back were:

- Consistent style with the minifigures (CMF especially)
- The Star Wars sets and minifigures were more detailed (7962 Anakin & Sebulbas Podracer, and 9516 Jabba's Palace)
- I could afford the price of larger sets (10236 Ewok Village, 10246 Detective Office, and 10247 Ferris Wheel)
- Lord of the Rings was a theme
- My youngest sibling was interested in LEGO and this was a way for us to bond despite our big age difference (also The LEGO Movie helped a lot with that later)

Loved it when I was a kid, from about 4 years old (1988), then probably until 1994. I got a few LoTR sets in the early 2000s, but nothing again until probably 2012 when the Hobbit sets rekindled my interest.

Since then, I've been back in (finances/adult responsibilities/time keeps me from going full bore). But I still get excited for certain franchises or really pretty sets. Just wish I had more free money to get some of the bigger Star Wars sets.

Born in late 1998, my parents bought me Duplo in my baby years then NY first system sets 4172 4173 4175 4176 for my third anniversary. Afterwards I got a few little city or knight kingdoms sets for my following birthdays, until 2007 when I began collecting Star Wars sets. Jump to 2022 and I'm still collecting Lego sets, not as many as before but bigger (and more expensive...) ones. And I intend on keeping it going ! :-)

Around 1995, when I started to feel like collecting more than playing, I started to turn into an AFOL. I guess I fully became one around 2010 when I started to create my own stuff.

10197 Fire Brigade which according to my Brickset collection info, I bought in 2011 :)
My only set as a child was 263 Kitchen which obviously didn't inspire me to ask for more sets!!

As a child I was gifted https://brickset.com/sets/6080-1/King-s-Castle , https://brickset.com/sets/6074-1/Black-Falcon-s-Fortress , https://brickset.com/sets/6041-1/Armor-Shop , and a dozen or so other sets. I was all about the bricks from age 7-13. Nintendo pulled me away in '88 or '89.

I was pulled back in December 2006 on a family trip to Disney Springs. We ventured into the LEGO store and I was in awe with https://brickset.com/sets/10179-1/Ultimate-Collector-s-Millennium-Falcon and the size of the sets in general. A lot changed from '89 to '06. My girls, ages 4 and 5, asked for a set and I said no (what a jerk) as I told them I have a box of bricks from my childhood.

Shortly after we got home I located the box and we rebuild some of my childhood sets. It was so wonderful. After finishing https://brickset.com/sets/6080-1/King-s-Castle I purchased https://brickset.com/sets/10193-1/Medieval-Market-Village for my girls and it has been an obsession in my house ever since. We have purchased almost 1,000 sets in the past 16 years.

I never really lost interest in LEGO between childhood and adult, as I continued to build the LEGO I had and played the video games. My last set from childhood was back in '93 or '94 and I kind of got busy with other things as a teen so I never got new sets, but would still build the old ones. I guess getting back into LEGO as an AFOL probably started around 2008 when walking around a mall I happened upon a LEGO store, so I walked around just looking, and I came upon the key chain stand and grabbed a Darth Vader key chain...I did this every couple of years, just buy a LEGO Star Wars key chain when the one I had became faded and worn out. It wasn't until this past April that I really jumped in as an AFOL. I picked up the Duel on Mandalore set one day, and then the current Star Wars micro fighters and it has snowballed down hill...to date this year I've acquired 132 sets from between 2019-2022. That is not including singular purchases of retired minfigs either.

I wasn't sure how to answer this Poll as my adulthood started in the 90's but I never really fell out of LEGO completely. Star Wars in 1999 was big for me as was the creation of the modulars, CMF and then the back to back to back licenses for LOTR, Marvel and DC. :o)

I had my dark ages at 20, but the interest never really went away. That being said, LEGO sets to me were always toys and I never saw something in them that had to have and "adult" theme, look or size.

??

I never stopped?

First set I bought to get me out of the Dark Ages was 10248. I absolutely love it!

Technic Mobile Crane 8421 released in 2005 pulled me back in. My second purchase as an adult was the Trade Federation MTT 7662 released in 2007. From there I collected quite a few sets from the original Star Wars Trilogy. Nowadays I’m finding more and more joy in collecting sets from the classic themes and integrating them into dioramas and I’m finding myself increasingly losing interest in new releases.

I've never had a dark age and have been collecting Lego since I was 4 years old in 1978 and received my first set: https://brickset.com/sets/590-1/Engine-Co-No-9 . My interests have primarily always been in the town/train range (I have the entire portfolio of original town and 9v train sets outside of a few promotional items) and have expanded in recent years to incorporate modulars, winter village, speed champions, and various other "adult" sets and kits that complement my city. It's an expensive but wonderful hobby and I don't think I will ever stop building although I'm rapidly running out of room to house my collection like so many others!

7134 got me back in, 6212 made me a collector again.

I was really into Lego as a kid in the 80's and early 90's. Then when I got older I still had fond memories of building but figured it was a kids thing. I liked the video games (Batman, Star Wars, etc.) but never seriously considered buying sets or anything.

I got back into it when my oldest turned 3 and my parents gave me all of my old Lego. We built some of my old favorites like the Barracuda and King's Castle. This was around Christmas so I looked at what Lego sets to get my son and I couldn't believe how well sets looked compared to back in the day. Plus they had Marvel sets which is another interest of mine. My wife then surprised me with the Avengers airport battle set at Christmas. A few months later she she gave me the helicarrier (big one) for my birthday and that cemented my return.

Not much later, maybe 2-3 years after the birth of my twins, when I was around 32-33.
As small kids, they got their first LEGO Explore sets: 5449 Stack 'n' Learn Sorter and 3650 Stack 'n' Learn First Rollabout. At around the age of 4 I bought them their first "real" LEGO set, an 1000 pcs tub full of classic bricks (4496). I never liked DUPLO, so we skip. And as the years went by, much more sets followed.
Soon I was deep into LEGO again, as I discovered the Star Wars, City and Creator themes. Now my children are out of LEGO, but I keep the passion. I relive the childhood years, when I admired LEGO as the best toy ever. (well side-by-side with 1:120 scale model trains).
My 40-year-old sets were still almost complete until my nephews started to play with them. Even my children reserved them in good shape.

I stopped buying lego altogether when I left home for University, then did not get back into buying Lego until 2019 when I picked up a Creator set (31058) after a particularly stressful day at work. Things snowballed from there really!

My main interest is Creator 3 in 1 but I do buy outside that if a set catches my interest. Also have been buying up old Space sets.

Had a few sets when younger and my mum still has my old LEGO. But never looked at LEGO until LEGO released Series 1 minifigures. My wife wanted me to get a full series for our daughter. Then started buying a few sets, but was not until my wife bought me Tower Bridge for Christmas that I realised I was allowed big sets. And the rest is history!!

I think I came back to LEGO in 2008. At first I started building in LDD (LEGO Digital Designer) and I liked it as much as I bought new set 4884 with lion as main model. Then I bought several more Creator sets before returning to Technic theme with set 8048 - buggy. Since then my favorite themes are Technic and Creator.

2019. Castle. Always Castle.

When I was young my brothers had set 375 that I played with on occasion. In 2001 the Harry Potter theme is how I became an AFOL. I was buying sets for my kids prior to 2001 but the HP theme just sucked me in. Then the Hogwarts Express led to my purchases from the train theme. Winter Village & Modulars really hooked me, but I also own most of the Elves and Nexo Knight sets, TLM sets, some Ninjago, lots of Friends and IP sets, Speed Champions. The list goes on. This is truly the most addicting hobby I've ever had. I hope I never have to "get clean" from it.

Lego Batman caught my eye in 2006. I showed restraint and only purchased the Batmobile set for the Batman and Two-Face minifigures. Then came the Batwing. Then Target had the Batcave on clearance and I had to collect and display them all. I stopped when I ran out of space with the Joker’s Ice Cream Surprise and Harley’s Hammer Truck.

I eventually sold them all after my first son was born. It was The Lego Movie and a Metalbeard set on clearance at Target that pulled me in again. The Parisian Restaurant changed my life.

In spring 2014, 70400 Forrest Ambush was the first set I bought as an adult, because I “wanted something for my desk.” The Castle theme offered nostalgia from my childhood but also appealed to me by way of the historical time periods I was conducting scholarly research on.
Then, I suppose with the release of the sequel trilogy, I was drawn back into Star Wars, and I bought individual, modest sets that I could easily hide away until spring 2019 when I stopped caring, bought bigger sets and left them out in the open. I also brought home all my childhood LEGO from my mom’s house.
Now, since the slow return of Castle, my Star Wars collection is making way for Black Falcons and Forrestmen…

I may have answered wrong, I don't think this poll takes dark ages into account and I answered it as if it were "when did you you become re-interested." I had a very short dark age (maybe 4 years) during high school, then got back in shortly after starting college. I filled in a long-standing hole in my Classic Space collection. So for me, it was retro sets.

As an adult, I also enjoyed Model Team, the 8448, the UCS line, and LotR. I've also retained my love of space ships, so Star Wars, but also a smattering of other themes like Lego Movie, Ninjago, Monkie Kid, have all appealed to me.

Lego was always my favorite toy when I was a kid in the 90s. My favorite sets were the Adventure sets, especially the Sphinx one. I got back into Lego last year when my girlfriend and I were in Chicago and she wanted to go to the Lego Store. I bought one of the Classic sets and now I have too many Lego for my small apartment! Lol. My favorite sets now are the 3-in-1s and Friends.

Around 2001;
I started collecting pirates, imperial soldiers, western and 9v trains after giving my childhood Lego away years earlier.

By about 2009 I’d sold nearly all of it again - oh I do miss my black seas barracuda, skulls eye schooner, fleet of imperial clippers & metro liner.

2010 I started collecting CMF figures.

2015 I started collecting speed champions, Star Wars and modular buildings

Now I have Star Wars, creator expert cars, modular buildings, brickheadz, city trucks/cargo/aircraft, speed champions, board games, trains, castle, ghostbusters. There’s just tooo many good sets now… and still I miss my imperial soldier army

around 2012 I guess, I remember being interested in Atlantis, Ninjago, Monster Fighters, Lord of the rings...

Five years ago (was 45 years old) when I was on holiday in Berlin and went for the first time in my life to a Lego shop. They had the Ninjago City 70620 on display and fell in love with the set. I started with buying and making small easy sets to get the knack of building things and a year later I bought the Ninjago City set. I learned a lot from making that set. Since then there is no stopping from collecting Lego :)

2011, because of 8110 : Mercedes-Benz Unimog U 400.
Loved that set.

As a 24h Le Mans Marshall, my first set after childhood was the 42039 24 Hours Race Car in 2015 ... There have been around 160 more since ! :O

I was hugely into Lego building as a kid. I turned to other things between the ages of 14 and 25 or so, but when the Star Wars license was revealed, I was hooked. I had another gap between about 2010 and 2013 but have been obsessed again since 2014. Still loving every minute of it.

2015. I blame 75038: Jedi Interceptor

1993 was when I became an AFOL. I was already well into adulthood and had been collecting fantasy themed toys for some years when I saw 6020 and 6034 . I snapped them up and the rest, as they say, is history.

My LEGO collection as an adult has always centred around minifigures but with quite a few monsters, vehicles and buildings. It’s mostly fantasy (80%) including Lord of the Rings/Hobbit with a respectable amount of superhero (15%) and a small selection of sci-fi (5%) including Star Wars and Classic Space.

1999 - it was the first wave of Star Wars Lego for me. My first X-wing was built out of 2x4 red bricks and 2x8 white plates when I was at primary school, so to see 7410 and 7130 in 1999 when in my very late 20's was enough to bring me back to Lego.............

Very specifically it was the 76895 F8 Tributo being the headliner for the new line of Speed Champions that caught my attention as 'a very compact but cool demonstration of advanced building techniques without having too much Stuff', I think previously the line coming with extras and often more resembling 'playsets' sorta set me off, but the Tributo hit right around the time I could afford stuff like this. I had a few other little sets earlier though: the -very- first set that I got on something of an impulse in my 20s was 31072, partly to stave off immense fretful and worrying waiting stuck in a shopping center for hours.

It's been mentioned already but the first Batman range back in 2006. Not sure if I really lost interest, but there was a definite gap in owning. That range changed all that.

Born in 1956. Started collecting in 1985. One of the first AFOL's in New Zealand. Still collecting LEGO with over 1000 sets, nearly every Town/City, 9V Train sets plus other complete themes like Pirates, Model Team.

As a child I only had 6609, 6821 and 6628 because Lego was very expensive here in Spain. I always dreamed about Technic and the Kenner Star Wars stuff of that period. Instead I had plenty of TENTE, a local brand with a different interlock system and some interesting stuff (ships, tanks and transformer-like robots). In 2012 8043, 7965, 9492 and 9493 throw me back to Lego fulfilling the desires from my childhood.

About age 3. I smuggled Dragon Masters sets into the house when I got banned from buying sets with my own money for “being too old”. That’ll teach my parents to go on vacation and leave the kids at home to fend for themselves…

2002: 10030 Imperial Star Destroyer

I'm a teenager, and I have always been interested in Lego. Can you add 'not yet an adult but still collect lego' as an option?

This one always gets me "booos" when I give a talk and people ask me about it. It was Harry Potter that got me out of my dark ages at age 19. The dark period only lasted 3 years.

10220 camper van got me back into LEGO again, but my nephew had a load of sets I missed

I was introduced to LEGO with the 7242 Street Sweeper set when I was a seven-year-old adult!

As a kid I was fortunate to grow up with LEGO in the 80s. While I didn't have any really large sets they were mostly classic space, castle and pirates with some various other sets, with 375 Yellow Castle as the only one I really rebuilt a few times. I usually built a set once and then made my own creations. My dark ages went from about 1991 to 2016 when my older brother asked me to buy LEGO as a present for his 5-year old kid. When I went to the toy store to the LEGO section I was amazed at how much better these sets looked with all those new parts. I was especially charmed by the Creator sets. I didn't buy anything but I did go exploring on the internet and discovered sites dedicated to alternate builds. It took some time before I crosses the threshold to buy a set and I decided to begin low level with a second hand Designer set, 4098, to see if I was really interested in taking up this hobby again. Within a few weeks I had created a dozen alternates and I was all back in, although I have been selective with which sets to buy. Creator has remained my favorite.

I left LEGO when I was 16 in 2009, and by the time I was 21 I discovered the aftermarket and starting buying all the sets I had wanted as a kid. But the first "adult-oriented" set I bought was probably the Saturn V (21309) at the end of 2019.

I fell off around 2014. Started getting back into things around 2018 but didn't really properly enter the community until about 2020. all of that happened before I turned 18.

I think me initially falling off was more caused by personal things in my life (other interests being more prevalent, things in the house being shuffled around so that my collection wasn't as convenient to access anymore) combined with the website becoming less interesting to visit as flash games started to become less of a thing.

Me getting back into things as an adult is mostly down to Bionicle nostalgia, along with my partner getting me back into ninjago later on.

I can confidently say that LEGO's 18+ offerings have had zero impact on my regaining interest.

7965 Millennium Falcon brought me back to Lego. My brother gave it to me as a Christmas präsentiert!

Lost interest as a teen in the early '90s, came back about 10 years ago when my brother got his first kid. And Shell happened to have those promotional sets. Which I obviously bought for my nephew for when he got a few years older. And kept them all for myself....

But don't worry, he (and his younger brother and sister) has nothing to complain about ;-)

It was Technic that got me started and then it just spiralled out of control! Moduar buildings, Fairground, Superheroes, Iconic cars etc.

I was always somewhat interested in Lego, but got back in during the 2015-2019 period. It started with me looking for something to fiddle with as I watched shows. I got Creator 3 in 1 Red Dragon 31032. It was followed by a few other Creator sets, then the whole Overwatch line, and then I jumped onto the Modulars, with Parisian Restaurant 12243 being the first of many.

I tried a few lines, some for building, others for display, and in the end I'm more of a display person it seems. The modulars are really satisfying to build as well, so it scratches that itch. I get a few City vehicles every now and then to fill up the display also.

The survey is faulty. It needs a follow up question about year of birth.
I was a big Castle fan in the mid ‘80’s to early 90’s. I bought all the Castle sets from 1984 through 1993 and started buying fewer sets in 1994-1995. I spent a year abroad in 1996 and stopped buying at that point. When I came back, everything got packed up in their original boxes and stored in my parents’ attic. I went to a Toys R Us in college and saw the Fright Knights sets, but they didn’t really do it for me. I wanted more Lion Knights and Black Falcons. In the early 2000’s, LEGO set up kiosks in the local mall to hock their soccer series. I didn’t like that LEGO was moving away from its core Legoland themes of Town, Space, Castle, and Pirates and felt that LEGO had jumped the shark. I did buy the reissue of Guarded Inn, which was the one castle set I missed from the 80’s. I was amazed by the Statue of Liberty when I saw it on discount for $100 bucks at the Times Square TRU, but my wife wouldn’t let me lay out that kind of cash on it at the time because we were young and poor. Biggest LEGO regret. We had our first child in 2006 and by 2010 we got him the City Fire Truck from that era. I was impressed with how much more realistic the model was compared to the Town sets of my youth. I bought him a bunch if sets and drooled over the Modular Buildings. I finally bought my first modular (Pet Shop) as it was retiring and have been buying Modulars, Creator, and the random City set ever since. I’m working in an 8’x8’ city layout and most of my LEGO purchasing these days is bulk LEGO to MOC up the city.

-Born in 83. FOL since age 4.
My first sets were a couple of Basic trial size boxes that are hard to identify through databases, plus some *gasp* Tyco Super Blocks. (There is no good Tyco database, and is been a while since I've searched, but I couldn't find a small LEGO Basic set from the mid to late 80s that includes both a white and yellow 3062b Brick Round 1 x 1 Open Stud.)
My brother getting 6357 and 6356, and me looking through the little catalogs that came with, cemented my foundation as a registered, card carrying FOL. (Okay, the VIP card came much later.)
-First real identifiable set: 510-1. First set with a minifig: 6644 Road Rebel.
-KFOL and TFOL years: 1988-2000ish
-Themes owned, in order from most; first sets from each: Town (2nd set) 6354, Space (Fuzzy... I think 6813, Wild West 6706, Castle 6036, Pirates 6236, Adventurers 5938, Aquazone 6175.
-Last set before Dark Age begins: 10000 Guarded Inn.
-Causes of the Dark Age: PC and console games, major decline of LEGO set designs.
-Slight peeking out of my Dark Age: 6208 B-Wing Fighter (2006)
-Interest of Lego was vigorously renewed when looking through my brother's Winter '09 catalog. https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?C=c09sah5 (Or one similar. I don't have it before me. Whichever one had 7036 Dwarves' Mine, 10182 Cafe Corner, 10196 Grand Carousel, and 10193 Medieval Market Village in it.) With all the big sets with details, LEGO had clearly changed since the juniorized early Oughts.
-Set that ended my Dark Age: 10193 Medieval Market Village - acquired in 2010.

The first Mindstorms set pulled me back into LEGO, although it wasn't until 2019 when I also started getting into CMF and finally started down the slide to madness with the midi-scale Millennium Falcon (2nd hand).

For me it was 2014 when I finished sixth form and started working at LEGOLAND Windsor. First interest since the dark ages starting back in 2006/7

R2-D2 10225

A few childhood sets in the 1970s including 351. Dark Ages were the 1980s. The 'reboot set' was 7191 in 2000 for my son's first birthday (danger may contain small parts...)

In 1988 at the age of 15 I first started collecting the Castle series, specifically Forestmen. I never really had LEGO as a kid.

Cafe Corner & Market Street got me back.

Star Wars, 1999. I got 'em all that year (and for many years after...).

Once I was well back into the hobby, I rescued all my childhood 70's/80's Classic Space/Castle/Pirates/Town sets from the parents' garage.

@PhantomBricks said:
" @Jack_Rizzo said:
"My parents essentially banned me from getting any new sets from when I was 8 to 16"
My mom strongly disliked Lego and banned me from buying sets once I was a teen."
What a difficult thing to go through. My cousin had a similar experience. I'm glad you were able to rediscover your passion.

I had a middle-school teacher who publicly humiliated me for saying I loved Lego, but that was the only unsupportive person I encountered in my youth. My parents didn't really understand why I was still obsessed with Lego all through high school, but they also calculated it was a lot better than other "adult" pursuits, so they kept on buying it for me, even with the occasional protestation. I knew they'd fully accepted it when they left a 3033 tub in my college dorm room the day they dropped me off. I'd say it worked out well for all of us.

That said, I don't know if I would have maintained the hobby as a central focus throughout my adult life had it not been for the example of PNLTC (Pacific Northwest Lego Train Club, the world's first) setting up local shows that I encountered as a late teen in the 1990s, and LUGNET, both of which opened my eyes to a bigger world beyond sets and gave me something to aspire toward.

I wasn't able to connect with the world of AFOL events until I got out of college and met @ffilz at the public expo of NWBrickCon 2004. He showed me the prototype model of 10133 (with brand-new cheese slopes, ahhh…) and helped me get in touch with GPLR, my local Lego train club. I'll always appreciate that meeting. It took me a while to build up a loose parts collection and build a show-quality MOC. But because of all this, Lego has been a continuous part of my life since age 6.

The Saturn V was my way back in.

@ThatBionicleGuy said:
"2016. I'd been a fan, as a kid, from 1999 - 2008-ish; then, while I'd still dabbled in nostalgia occasionally, had dropped into a dark age when I started university. It was the news of the Disney collectable minifigure series that first got me paying attention to Lego as a full adult; and while I'm not a huge purchaser even now, I've been keeping up with the Lego news more or less since then ^^"

Although I should add that the set that fully drew me out of my dark age was 75187, BB-8, which my dad surprised me with for Christmas a year later. I am very not a great fan of the sequels (I don't hate them, but am just generally *indifferent* to them), but it was such a surprise to receive, was my first more 'adult' set, and was a very fun build; so that was what got me seriously looking at Lego again.

(Prior to that, my only purchase had been a single Disney CMF, feeling all the bags in Sainsbury's to find 71012-1 Stitch who was the one I really wanted...!)

I also realised after making the first post that I should clarify that my dark age didn't really start until mid-2010; it had been slowly creeping up on me since 2008, but the arrival of the first wave of Toy Story sets in 2010 staved it off for a few months longer. I'd been imagining what Toy Story Lego would look like way back in 2000, when I'd fallen in love with TS2, so seeing that dream finally realised kept me hooked for a little longer. Then, like I said, I started university that summer and kinda forgot about Lego for the most part, with only a few exceptions, until the above-mentioned rediscoveries.

Collectable Minifigures and small Creators.

This is not a question easily answered by a poll

(Phase 1 - Childhood 1981-1991)
Phase 2 - Early adulthood (SW licensing) 1999-2000
Phase 3 - Middle adulthood 2010-present*

* interest rapidly waning due to oversaturation / less value for money / quality control problems / and on and on and on

2015 for me with 10248 F40 and 75102 Poe's X-wing, both of which I still own. I've even gone on to buy some of my favourite sets from childhood like power miners

Well.. I'm now 54 and been doing LEGO since I was, say.... 5 or 6 ?? These times (70ties) most of the things I wanted were from Legoland and some former Universal Building sets (402 and 404). Later (80ties/90ties) started to get Space and Technic.. also some sets from "Universal Building" (733 and 744). Today I love the special Ideas/Icons models, some technics, some Star Wars, and buying pieces from some stores for creating my own stuff.

I always was as a kid but my family just didn't have money to by Lego, so my first set was 2283 Witch Doctor from Hero Factory in 2011, I was 23) Then I got into Technic for a few years and now mostly modulars, creator expert/icons and licensed sets.

my favourite toy as a child was Lego and I have never let any of my Lego go (some of my sets date back to the mid late seventies. I sort of stopped buying sets in my teens and didn't start buying them again until 2015 when Lego launched Speed Champions and that was the tip of a very slippery slop!

I feel like this poll is misleading since we're not all the same age. I became "an adult" in the 1990s...and had a renewed interest when I moved out on my own.

Exactly what information is this poll trying to determine? If current sets are more likely to make people into adult fans? I feel like that's something you'd need multiple questions to accurately determine. Just because more readers of this site have happened to have become adults in the recent past does not necessarily mean they became fans because of the recent trend toward 18+ sets.

For me, I was a fan:
1978 - 1989-ish - Childhood into high school
1995 - 1997 - Emerged from first dark age, bought A LOT of stuff, then stuff happened and I left Lego fandom for a while because of reasons...although occasionally bought a set or two per year.
2008-ish - present - Modular buildings brought me back into Lego fandom. Been in it ever since.

I've been a Fan of Lego since 1973, age 4. Of the 34 themes in 2022, I have sets from 24. My favorite themes generally are minifig-based: Town,Space, Castle, Pirates, Aquazone, Rock Raiders, Star Wars, Ninjago, Chima, Monkie Kid... to name just some.
Today I built 75574 Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls.
My favorite set this year is 10497 Galaxy Explorer.

I never really lost interest completely, however my interest shifted towards older stuff (mostly Space at the time) around 2003, due to lack of interest in the themes. The big color change and major changes for Bionicle also played a huge role here.

What brought me back (briefly) for new Sets was Castle Fantasy Era and somewhat CMF.
TMNT was a dream come true and LotR was also quite cool, so this was the second time I returned.

My girlfriend, now wife of 18 years, bought me 7141 Naboo Fighter in 1999 and I've been collecting ever since. Mainly Star Wars (all properties), Super Heroes and Lord of the Rings. Was a serious collector until about 6 months ago.

Started in 2018 with the Paris Architecture sets after my wife and I visited it. Snowballed after that. Damn you James Bond :)

Late 1980s, when my first child was born and I discovered how much Lego had changed since I was a kid. He got Duplo—I got Black Monarch's Castle 6085.

I first started Lego back in the late 70's/early 80's, ending around 1985. I dabbled a little as an adult when the first Star Wars sets were released (big SW fan) but returned from the Dark Ages when my son was born in 2013. As he grew up the sets went from City to Ninjago, Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, and LotR. Personally I got into 3-in-1 creator sets, then expert creator, loved the NASA sets, and the cars like Mustang, Porsche and Camaro

For me it was December 2008, and I took my 4 year old step-son to the local Lego store. In those days they sold off the retiring sets for typically half RRP, and there in the sale section was Cafe Corner for only £45....! I bought it immediately as I thought it'd be something nice to build over Christmas. A week later I picked up Market Street for an equally cheap price, and then Green Grocer a couple of months later. That was it. I was hooked and my dark ages were over.

For me it some time around '98. My dark ages started when most started for other people, around going into 7th grade. Then getting out of high school and a few years later landing a good job with disposable income, combined with a friend bragging about a lot he found at a garage sale, and finally my brother and I finding our LEGO collection in our parents storage locker, got us back into LEGO in a big way. For me, it was 'trains', I always wanted the LEGO trains going up and I started buying them up and eBay marvelously just came online around that time, along with BL a few years later, IIRC, then buying old LEGO lots to get other town sets I wanted as a kid, but could never get (and parents could not afford), and with BL I could finally find parts I needed, and could get them from half a world away, which was awesome! With those old LEGO lots also came a ton of Classic space sets that I could never get as a kid and then Castle sets, then Monorail sets (including 6399), and a rare 1490 Town bank with all of its stickers (sadly no box though). Then also collecting Pirates stuff. Combine that with the temporary resurgence of Train in the 00's and then the modular sets, LEGO stores, PaB and some great 'current' town sets, and well here I am.

Ah, great memories! Fall of 2002, my baby daughter was about 2 when I found a very old Lego box of mine dating back to the late 60's, when I was 8 or 9. I used to love Lego as a child, but my parents couldn't - or wouldn't - afford to buy me more than just that one box. But it was more than enough for me to build houses and cars.
That feeling of touching the bricks, of finding toothmarks on some of them (no brick separator yet!), of smelling them, brought me back in time. That's when something clicked, again. The idea of eventually sharing this feeling and some playtime with my daughter as she would grow up brought me to browse the internet. I joined BrickLink, which had just been founded by a true genius, the late Dan Jezek. Looking up on eBay, I started buying used sets; became a Brickset member and got addicted for good.
We spent winters upon winters playing as she grew up. Now that my daughter turned 22, here I lie with a ton-load of Lego and love it even more.

I was always into Lego ever since my first set... but the thing that really set me towards being an adult Lego fan was seeing the amazing Assembly Square. Then I was hooked...

Mid to late 90s I had a relatively well paid job and on a whim I bought a City crane that I couldn't have afforded as a kid (like an $80 set today). Then Star Wars Lego arrived and I haven't looked back

I received 10177 Boeing 787 Dreamliner as a 2008 Christmas present from my son-in-law
(I was still working at Boeing in Long Beach California at the time & was always interested in aircraft).
I was never into LEGO as a child and as an adult was always busy just being a husband & father; working, maintaining our home, & raising 2 daughters were my priorities. I didn't even build the Dreamliner until 2010. From that point on, my interest grew and now in retirement, I have become a fanatical collector/hoarder of LEGO.

2014 - The Lego Movie piqued my interest then I picked up the DK LEGO Book for some holiday reading, which brought back happy childhood Lego memories, bought the City Brickmaster book and enjoyed building again, followed by a few City and Lego Movie sets, which led to CMFs, Modulars and the rest is history. Several years of slightly excessive buying has led to more stockpiling than building so now reining it in and trying to be much more selective in my purchases.

The first time I became interested in Lego as an adult was when I turned 18 -- my dark age wasn't until I graduated from university and started work. I returned to the hobby a couple of times in adulthood: once to buy a second-hand 7740 (a set I'd always wanted as a child), and once in my thirties when I started collecting some of the other 1980s trains I'd missed, and piecing together a couple of locomotives from 7777. My most recent burst of interest came during the pandemic, when I decided to build the 7777 locomotive shed, and found that eBay and Bricklink were making the piecing-together far easier if not positively addictive.

My dark ages ended 1999 with LEGO Star Wars sets, I was overwhelmed by bricks in "new" colors like green, brown or dark grey.

I always loved LEGO, and I always will!

@Alatariel:
Boo! You should have come back for Bionicle!

As someone who literally just became an adult, I guess this year? I’ve probably been into Lego since I was ~5 so around 2009. I’ve never had or plan to have a dark age! My Lego buying habit has not changed so far, in fact it’s gotten worse since I started getting a paycheck…

Snow trooper battle pack in 2010. Bought on a lark because I am a Star Wars fan and was impressed at the quality and likeness. Huge fan ever since. If it hadn’t have been Star Wars, the Lord of the Rings sets would have drawn me in a few years later.

Original Dark Knight Tumbler was my first set back at it.

I always had LEGO as a kid (mostly evergreen themes, Harry Potter and Star Wars) but as a teenager, my sort of dark age, only some Star Wars sets. A real LEGO fan and collector I became when the Lord of the Rings line was released, branching out in modular buildings, CMF’s, Harry Potter and Star Wars (renewed interest).

I'm not sure which answer to reply with? Either '1990-1999' or 'Over 18 and always been a fan'.

I had a brief dark age between age 13-17, and then started being a closet hobbyist who occasionally bought LEGO until I met a quasi-AFOL in college and found LEGO online in 1998. Then I started going nuts in 1999 when I got a "for real" job with a salary.
DaveE

I had some LEGO experience as a child, but it was not a huge factor in my life.

When my kids were born, I started buying them Duplo, but as I bought more and more on eBay I saw all these wonderful castle sets, and become an AFOL for LEGO castle. Then I discovered Technic (AirTech Claw Rig, best Technic set ever, to present day), and then came Cafe Corner, and the rest is history (and a broken bank account).

Bionicle also had a significant impact. My kids loved it, and I also very enjoyed the more complex sets that were more Technic than anything.

Grew up on mid/late aughts themes like Aquaraiders and Power Miners, with a few other interests. Last sets I bought before a HS/college dark age were Mixels and Benny's Spaceship which sparked an interest in Classic Space. 10497 brought me out of the dark age quite recently, though I'll probably focus on NCS MOCS instead of building a set collection going forward as few themes or 18+ product lines really appeal to me.

I was mega into Lego as a child. Then I mostly lost interest for a while until the first Lego movie pulled me back to the stores. I bought some things occasionally, but not that many. The real problem started when a friend of mine convinced me in a Lego store that the Diner Modular was a really great set (it is!). I never wanted to buy a Modular before because I could see what would happen if I bought one... Yes, you guessed right, I have them all now. XD

"Additionally, which theme(s) or specific set(s) first attracted your attention to LEGO as an adult? Let us know in the comments."

Okay, to answer this question I'd like to go back in time a little further...

I'm seriously into the LEGO hobby ever since LEGOLAND Space arrived in Holland in 1979 (I was 7 at the time and received sets 918-1, 924-1 plus 928-1 all three as presents at the same 'pakjesavond' ['gift night'], 5 December 1979 for 'Sinterklaas'.) I've kept collecting until about the age of 14 when high school and other priorities and interests took over, so my Dark Ages started then. Until then (end 1985, beginning 1986) my collection of Space was pretty much complete. Also moved more towards Technic since 1982. So those were my main 2 childhood LEGO themes of interest, besides some Classic Town and the 3 first Minifigure Castle themed sets.

My Dark Ages ended when I was around 20 years old (1992) when I entered an old fashioned looking housewares store that was also selling lots of different LEGO sets and even Service packs. (I believe this store still exists today) I don't remember with what intention I entered that store, but it wasn't for the LEGO they were selling since they kept that in the back of the store and didn't advertise it in the store window displays! But after spotting a 1986 MISB 6985-1 Taurean Ore Carrier I was hooked again when holding and admiring that 'weird-but-in-a-good-way-weird' to me looking Classic Space set! Of course I had to own it now that I still had the chance, so I bought it without thinking twice! That definitely ended my first Dark Ages and I became a very regular customer of that particular store...

When I got online around 1998/1999 -around the age of 26- I started looking to complete my LEGO Space collection and in the meantime LEGO Adventurers and LEGO Star Wars arrived and I got totally crazy -if I wasn't already- on collecting whole series of quite some themes...

But right now I must admit that either my house is too small or my collection has grown over my head. Perhaps it is a good thing I recently stopped working shifts and weekends and switched to working office hours (no more shift work allowance) to also keep my buying habits in line. I probably have more sets in backlog then I have free time to even build them all, let alone display them (lack of room.) Ah, first world 'problem'! Time to re-evaluate and probably sell some stuf. Time to make some room to display the good ol' stuf once more I guess!? (Even though TLG has brought us lots of fantastic new sets and pieces this century, to me personally -if I have to make choices- nothing beats the originals from my childhood and early adult years. I guess it's the nostalgia that wins me over!?

Btw, I picked 'I am over 18 and have always been interested in LEGO' because even in my Dark Ages I've always picked up and thoroughly studied the free fysical LEGO catalogs each year. Dark Ages or not, the interest in LEGO never wained (and probably never will until I'm no longer around.)

Thank you for the interesting poll and article!

2008, set 7235, my first set. stuck with city up until about 2014, then gradually made my way into ninjago and now monkie kid, with a little bit of city still dabbled in.

I turned 18 in August so…

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Gathering. I "blame" it all on that set.

@dingbat591 said:
"Ah, great memories! Fall of 2002, my baby daughter was about 2 when I found a very old Lego box of mine dating back to the late 60's, when I was 8 or 9. I used to love Lego as a child, but my parents couldn't - or wouldn't - afford to buy me more than just that one box. But it was more than enough for me to build houses and cars.
That feeling of touching the bricks, of finding toothmarks on some of them (no brick separator yet!), of smelling them, brought me back in time. That's when something clicked, again. The idea of eventually sharing this feeling and some playtime with my daughter as she would grow up brought me to browse the internet. I joined BrickLink, which had just been founded by a true genius, the late Dan Jezek. Looking up on eBay, I started buying used sets; became a Brickset member and got addicted for good.
We spent winters upon winters playing as she grew up. Now that my daughter turned 22, here I lie with a ton-load of Lego and love it even more."

Your story is almost identical to mine.

Interesting question. I had a fairly brief dark age between 2014-2016 which was just before my teenage years. I think it was the Rogue One sets and my discovery of sites like Brickset that got me interested in LEGO again.

My dark age was effectively 2002 to 2005, though I never stopped collecting entirely. These were mostly my university years, when a tight budget and lack of storage space meant I could never have more than a few token sets with me at any time. Most of my Lego in this period were Star Wars sets gifted to me by my parents, aunt and uncle, or grandparents. My now-spouse bought me a Star Wars set shortly before we began dating in December 2005, and after I graduated the next year, we very slowly began getting a couple more Star Wars sets until it peaked around 2012. I took another break from 2014 to 2017, only buying a few sets due to the likelihood that I would have to abandon anything I bought in New Zealand, but when we decided to stay in New Zealand, I resumed collecting. I mostly focus on Pirates, Trains, Castle, Jurassic World, Chinese New Years', and the random Ideas set, although I always grab a couple from each Collectible Minifigures series.

2021 boulder blaster kicked off the pain

My last sets were from 2003 (Though I probably got them in 2004) from the Orient expedition subtheme of adventurers. I still played with Lego occasionally, and even collected it from my parents when I got married in 2013. In 2015 I won 79117 at a university orientation week build competition run by Habitat for Humanity. I thought about selling it, which led to looking at our local auction website and finding 5988 for a good price. So I bought that as I always wanted it as a kid. In 2015 with the birth of my first child coming up, I bought my wife 21304 for Christmas and she got me 75030 We have both been active with Lego since then, and love going to shows. Still trying to fill some gaps in older collections, while keeping up with the new stuff.

Received my first set 332-2 Tow Truck age 4 followed by a basic set every few years in between then and 1973 when I started buying my own sets with allowance and birthday money. Then in 1978 briefly got into Technic with 948, 960 and 961. I've always been intrigued by sci-fi and outer space, so when Classic Space sets started appearing in 1979 I shifted all my purchasing to that theme. Then fell into a dark age after graduating high school from 1982 until 2011, but in all that time always kept an eye on LEGO development and occasionally bought LEGO sets as gifts for others.

From the start of its debut I've been obsessed with Star Wars and in 1980 I tried building my own snow speeders, AT-ATs, and Millennium Falcon with the limited selection of bricks I had at hand (I even pitched the snow speeder and encouraged that LEGO should produce Star Wars sets to a local LEGO rep my dad was acquainted with, alas he mentioned licensing was not in the cards for TLG at that time). To my delight TLG eventually got the Star Wars license to start making sets from my favorite childhood franchise, and then in 2007 10179 UCS MF came out; I so wanted to get it but wasn't financially in a position to do so until well after it had retired. So in 2011 I started collecting as an adult when 7965 Millennium Falcon was released (good enough rendition for the time being in lieu of the UCS version), followed by LotR sets in 2012. A few years later I finally got that 10179 UCS MF that sparked my re-interest. What started as a quest for the UCS MF has led to over 1500 sets across many themes outside of Star Wars and LotR over the last 12 years of collecting.

If it hadn't been for the internet tho, I highly doubt I would have gotten back into the hobby. Resource sites like Brickset, Bricklink and Rebrickable along with the convenience of shopping sites like Amazon and eBay have vastly helped enable acquiring sets (new and vintage) and without the exposure to any embarrassment that one might feel loitering the toy isles of physical shops as a grown-up.

My dark age was from 1996 (lego's big brick phase) until 2014 and the great vehicles sets. My son was given 60059 and at 4 years old needed some help. At that point I re-discovered how much fun lego is and the potential for detail. I now collect the modular building range and have been steadily adding to my collection as I can find them. Town hall, one day I will own you too!

Since I was 3.

Always watched fondly from a distance but hardly bought anything between Bionicle generations. Turned 18 in 2013 and bought 1-2 sets per year, but 71738 Zane's Titan Mech Battle and 31111 Cyber Drone are what drew me back in and made this an addiction.

Been interested in lego since a kid. So the question is kinda irrelevant.

First Star Wars sets were what piqued my interest... had probably been "out" of Lego for a decade at that point, having primarily been up for Classic Space when I was a kid.

I have recently (mostly) tipped out of Lego again, with only the trains and classic space holding my attention.

I bought 7676 Republic Attack Gunship when I was 24... after about a 12 year hiatus... got me back in and hooked ever since.

I went through a partial dark age from middle school through high school. I classmate made fun of me in 8th grade for liking LEGO still, which prompted me to have a breakdown and put all of y models in bins. I think I still got sets from time-to-time between then and when I graduated high school, but I really came back to it all once I was in college. Lost any and all shame associated with my love of LEGO—thank god!

My themes: City, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Marvel, Ultra Agents, Alpha Team, Jurassic Park/World, IDEAS, Ninjago, Hidden Site and Avatar (blue people).

I bought a few sets off and on over the years -- a tiny Indiana Jones set here, a little 3-in-1 train there -- but I really only got into Lego in a big way with Nexo Knights. Maybe the theme crashed and burned according to Lego's accounting, but its mix of sci-fi and fantasy resonated with me in a way no other theme had before or since. Especially the blue-purple-grey color scheme of the unloved stone monster wave. I still buy sets here and there, but mostly I'm collecting forgotten footsoldiers and neglected neon-orange bricks on Bricklink to build Nexo castle MOCs.

I had a very short dark ages in Lego, but my dark ages also happened to be Lego's dark ages as well. Truth was I lost interest when Lego stopped being Lego, and regained my interest shortly after Lego started being Lego again. For more on Lego's dark ages, think znap and other failures!

The first line of Star Wars theme got me started in as an AFOL. Unfortunately I lost all those sets (don't ask). Then birth of my younger kids in 2010 got me going again.

I have had been collecting sets since the mid - 1970's and have not really stopped.

Came out of my dark age when my kids were little, maybe buying a Star Wars set to go with the Duplo we would get for them. They liked Bionicle and Hero Factory but I think the Parisian Restaurant really ignited Lego collecting for me. Now I'm all over the place liking Speed Champions, Modulars, still some Ninjago, Monkie King.

Architecture. Visiting the Space Needle in 2009 on a trip to Seattle. Coming off the elevator into the gift shop & 21003 was everywhere! It must’ve just came out. Of course I had to pick one up. The ‘Architecture’ branding on the box was honestly what convinced me that Lego could be for adults in a time before AFOL was widely known. So of course I had to look into this ‘Architecture’ Lego more & wound up having all the FLW sets. I wish they’d do more of those.

I’d like to say I’ve always been interested in Lego as an adult, but that’s really only partially true. I recall in the 90s a guy I knew buying every western set & every large set that came out for a layout in his basement. I at least managed 6716. That was considered quite odd at the time, I can recall my mother thinking I needed to outgrow Lego when I got into double digits, even if I’m glad nowadays everyone can & does buy Lego without judgement. 6954 & 6941 were about the last ‘big’ sets I purchased with my own funds even if 6378 was really my favorite. More of a town guy than space really. Though glad I still have them all.

@fmiskolc said:
"Early 40s here, grew up w/ Lego but only a few sets that my parents got for us. Classic yellow castle, Futuron Monorail were the two highlights plus had about 5-6 other small to medium castle and space sets. And then nothing for thirty plus years.... we moved around too mcuh and our sets were all passed down to cousins, nephews, nieces etc. How I wish I still had these but hopefully they got some great play out of them!

Got back into Lego at the end of 2019 right before the pandemic hit. I bought a couple of small random City and Speed Champions sets (the tiny unassuming Arctic Ice Glider 60190 was the first one) and then my wife surprised me with the UCS Falcon for Xmas. Been hooked ever - I don't think she had any idea what she started, have built over a 120 sets since then and there's many more to open! :)"

Gotta have respect for wife/girlfriend who buys UCS Falcon as a gift! (true as well for any sizeable Lego set)

@thor96 said:
"Wow, these comments are a goldmine for Lego marketing team. Y'all really pouring out your soul here. For free! Amazing."
As long as they don’t ask me about my sex life and all the heart’s I’ve broken, I’m ok with it. ;)

1st encounter with Lego was 212-1 in 1963, in hospital, in traction with a broken femur for a couple of months. The Lego made a nice change from cotton reel tanks!

Then loved the blue motor, blue track train era, finishing off with Legoland miniwheel sets, before losing interest in 1971 for a 45 year dark age.

I collect/restore Minis and in 2016, I happened to notice the 10242 Mini Cooper and wondered if Lego was as much fun as I remembered. Bought that, plus 10214 Tower Bridge and, sure enough, it was just as good as I remembered... Hooked again!

Born in '80, had small sets my entire childhood. Got a few medium sized Space and Town/City sets during my teen years but my family couldn't afford the big ones. During college I got a few Star Wars sets as they came out and EP I was released in theaters. After college I put everything away in storage when I moved into my first house and got married.

Took almost 10 years and going through some mid-life crisis type times, I dug out some of my Legos trying to find some happiness and it reminded me happiness that I had as a child. I soon discovered Bricklink to replace missing parts for my sets and then started looking through the old catalogs I had saved and realized I had missed so many good sets from my child hood that I couldn't afford. I spent the next couple years back buying sets from the themes that I couldn't afford, especially trains and space.

Now I have an almost 3 year old and we'll spend lots of time hopefully in the future building together. We enjoy the simple sets like farm and cars and trucks. But I got my wife hooked on things like the Ideas sets, just finished Winnie the Pooh tonight. I attribute a lot of my intelligence and career success to the mental mechanics that building/following instructions taught me as a child. I recommend Legos to every parent that I run into.

In childhood, I was an avid fan of Classic Space and dabbled in City and Castle.

My first flirtation with becoming an AFOL happened in my early 20s/the mid-90s. I was dating a girl whose younger brother was into the Aquanauts theme. I enjoyed those sets too, and it was enough to get me to make a random trip to Toys R Us to buy a few sets from the theme along with a couple of City sets. I also ended up with some Spyrius (6939) and Unitron (1789) at Christmas.

I slipped back into a dark age for a few years, but was very tempted to pick up the hobby in earnest when the Star Wars theme hit in 1999. But I wasn't making a lot of money at the time, so I resisted.

Cut to a couple of years after that, I had met my future wife. While we were dating, she brought home 7106 as a gift. After that, I was hooked. I've been actively collecting ever since.

@AllenSmith
Honestly, it really disappointed me as a kid. Lego was my main passion, and I remember being so bored without it. My mom certainly shamed me for pulling out Lego as soon as I was a teen. She also tried to convince me to sell everything. Luckily, I was adamant that I was going to keep everything. I also remember a neighbor inviting me to buy all his Lego, but I couldn't because of the mandate. He had a P2 Rex...

Did you ever feel embarrassed to admit that you still liked Lego? I find that I am still trying to get used to talking about it.

@HOBBES:
Certainly more for the second version, which originally retailed for twice what the first one cost if you preordered it.

@PhantomBricks:
I've probably done between 150-200 public displays since joining MichLUG, and I've had several parents (and other AFOLs, including several members of my own LUG) ask me to help find specific CMFs when they see me sorting through them by feel. Let Gonzo be your spirit animal, and embrace your inner weirdo.

I was into the various Lego space themes as a child, pirates as well, but space was my favorite, as I also read a lot of science fiction. I got bored with Lego space in the early 90s, just after finally being able to buy the a big space set - the Space Police 2 Galactic Mediator 6984 .
I always kept an eye out for Lego stores and browsed them, but never bought anything until 2015. I was in a particularly boring job, and worked near a shopping mall with a Lego store. One day after a particularly bad day at work, I thought I would buy myself something small to cheer myself up a bit, and walked out with a couple of small city sets. I was amazed at the improvements in designs over the previous 30 years, and kept popping in whenever I had another bad day... moved cities and to another job the next year but by then I was hooked again!

I always has a eye on LEGO but only picked up a few sets as an adult until I saw the Technic Volvo Loader 42030 and my childhood dream of remote controlled LEGO was realized. There were those remote control cars but to me they didn't count because there was an entire base to build on not individual motors that could be placed anywhere you wanted them.

I still remember taking the motors out of my brother's slot cars and adapting them to use in Technic cars with a long wire running to the battery. That worked until my brother thought they would go faster if he plugged the ends of the wire into the wall socket which burnt out the motors and scorched a few LEGO pieces.

Has anyone suggested follow up polls? I’m curious about all kinds of data here!
Year of birth? - From what I read of the thread (245 comments currently!) quite a few did include in their stories
Age at end of Dark Age?
Set that brought you back into LEGO?

As a kid a bigtime fan. Then came puberty but i kept interested in lego ( in toys in general) on a down-low and then in 1999 they gave us Star Wars lego. Oof!

@allthenamesaretaken:
That’s, um…I mean, the theory is sound, even if the wiring is woefully inadequate.

Volkswagen T1 and Sopwith Camel., then straight to Star Wars.

When I turned 18 in 2010. ??

Started buying Lego again in 2014 when i was 25.

In 1985, when I was 26 years old.

I bought the 550 set, then gave it to my nephew for his 3rd birthday.

Later, when I happened to see an interesting LEGO set on sale, I bought it in advance for an upcoming birthday or Christmas, thinking that I had just saved money.

At some point, I had accumulated 3 or 4 sets in my closet.
One fine day, for my own pleasure I decided to assemble one of these sets, 6391. And I really enjoyed the experience.
Then I disassembled this set, repackaged it putting the parts in Ziploc bags, then gave this set to my nephew on another of his birthdays.

Afterwards, I started buying LEGO sets for myself, and I didn't save any more.

@PhantomBricks said:
"Did you ever feel embarrassed to admit that you still liked Lego? I find that I am still trying to get used to talking about it."
Not really.
Perhaps it's the bubble I live in, but everyone I know either has LEGO themselves or at least is fascinated by the creations that can be made from bricks.
The only thing I notice over the last few years is that many people have started to dislike the company most associated with the product "brick"/"Klemmbaustein". It might very well be a German phenomenon, but TLG has gotten a really bad reputation recently.
(And no, that's not just because of some German YouTuber. Most people I know have never even heard of his channel.)

@legoDad42 said:
" @thor96 said:
"Wow, these comments are a goldmine for Lego marketing team. Y'all really pouring out your soul here. For free! Amazing."

To follow up, I forgot to put in my last reply, you're right.
I did one of these marketing things. Lego invited some Afol's way back like 2010 or so. I did it in NYC. Lego wanted Afols to come in to answer some questions, we got paid and some got some unique Lego brick or something. I got paid but no freebie (I think I got a coupon but can't remember now).
It was fun, they set up an office decorated with lots of large Lego kits. 3 young ladies from Billund ran it, all friendly, all good looking too and kept it fun.
Answered a bunch of verbal question, filled out some others too. About a half hour. When I went for my session I was the only one there.
And yes, got paid, cash envelope plus a coupon now that I think of it on top of the cash.
But here, yeah, we're willingly giving it all away. I thank you though. Maybe we should all get something if we're giving them marketing info. Something right?"

You're obviously right that these answers are not giving very sensitive information out, but it still amazes me how people are so keen to give such specific marketing insights without batting an eye. Especially that the question in the post is to choose an option in the poll. And yet 250+ people decided to tell it all in the comments. Again, this is absolute goldmine for lego marketing department! I just hope they will use it for good- to produce better suited sets for adults, not just huge awful mechs ;)

Born in 1976 and a big Lego fan during the '80's. I guess 6647 was my first set. Went into my dark age around 1995 although I always picked up the catalogues at a retailer to see what was new. It was the Star Wars theme which got me back into Lego starting with 10134 back in 2005. Never let go of it since then.

Always been tangentially interested in Lego after 2013, but really got back into it because of the 501st battlepack.

When buying the 1st LEGO sets for my kids, and noticing the Indiana Jones and some of the Star Wars ( mainly ep IV and battlepacks) sets on the shelf..

I really never lost interest in Lego but I just didn't buy so much as I used to as a young kid. My (birthday) money went to buying Transformers instead in the mid eighties. .In my teens I picked up the odd set here and there but I really started buying more Lego when the Star Was sets were first released. That was when I was a student. Then after I got a job I started buying sets from different themes. Today I am not that interested more in Star Wars but I focused more on city, creator and modular.

I always loved Lego as a kid, I had collected some 35 sets from 1986 - 1993 (mostly space, castles and Pirates). Obtaining Lego in forme communist Czechoslovakia was extremely difficult back then. Sold my entire collection in 1994 to buy new skis ?? ?? My dark age bagan. After 20 years in 2014, while shopping, I just went through an aisle with Lego on clearance, bought a star wars set - The droid escape with both well known droids and troopers and I was absolutely amazed how beautiful it was.. And have been collecting since then, ruining my family budget.. have over thousand sets and more than 2000 minifigs so far..

I really came back into Lego with Star wars theme. My wife innocently offered me two little sets (mainly as a joke) for my birthday back in... 2008 I guess, and I hardly ever stop again since. I have slowed down for a couple of years now, prices being as they are, and my dedicated room in our house being almost completely filled, and owning most of the sets I consider being the most iconic in the saga. With a few of beautiful Ninjago ones, SH, Creators and Friends (for my daughter). She never really regretted to have done it, but my love very often and gently scolded herself about her idea, as I sometimes hardly could help myself to buy a new released set even if my budget was already spent. But it never came to being a problem, as even if I have probably spent more money than I should have, I have always considered and done with Lego as a hobby, and kept it the place it had to. As any other hobby, passion. It has never completely... Devoured me. Thanks to her again I think :)

As a kid I loved Lego but as a teenager I stoped to play with them in early 90's. When LOTR and Hobbit sets went out I was resisting for a few months but then I bought them.

@PhantomBricks said:
"Did you ever feel embarrassed to admit that you still liked Lego? I find that I am still trying to get used to talking about it."

Never once. Creative, wholesome passions are something to be celebrated, because they make the world a more beautiful place.

I also find that practically everybody either enthusiastically affirms my hobby or leaves it at "to each their own." I've actually found most people are downright amazed, especially after I've briefly shown them a photo of one of my MOCs. My co-workers usually encounter the hobby as my super-cool background on Zoom, and then they're invariably floored (in a good way) when I reveal it's not fake.

When you think about it, what's really abnormal is for a person to think he has the right to control another person's hobby time. Over the last quarter century, I've only bumped into two such people that I can recall. Their attitude betrayed a lack of respect for others. Neither turned out to be good to spend time around.

I hope your family eventually came around. It helps if you remember what makes you passionate about something when you describe it. People can usually see that passion in you and respect it, even when they can't personally identify with it.

7723 Police Pontoon Plane. It was given as present to my son from a family friends, and this unlocked my childhood memories as a block builder. 7669 Anakin's Jedi Starfighter was the next one (SW is another of my hobbies), and since then, here we are...

I had always liked Lego but 76139 is what spurred me to finally purchase a set for myself as an adult.

The cuteness of 31031 Rainforest Animals brought me back at christmas of 2015.

The first sight of 10197

I'm 30 and the interest never went away really. It dwindled, but always remained present as I always have had LEGO around me. But it's only been since 2018 that I paid a lot more attention and discovered online communities/news sites like these.

I was really into Lego as a child, but growing up in the rural midwest, I felt compelled to let go of the hobby in high school and college based on not wanting to be perceived as 'childish'. Then, the UCS B-wing was on sale for 50% off sometime around 2012, and I realized it was kind of pointless to care what others thought... I was hooked again after that.

Star Wars Lego 1999
As a kid I LOVED Star Wars and I LOVED Lego. So when I saw those first sets I started buying Lego again. And as I was now a wage earner - I could afford it (mostly)!
Then I got into the Modulars, Winter Village, and some City. Then I went on Ebay and bought some of what I missed during my Dark Age.

SkyShark! When my eldest daughter got interested in Ninjago: https://brickset.com/sets/70601-1/Sky-Shark

2005: with set 7015: Viking Warrior challenges the Fenris Wolf

I never stopped.

Although I would say I was 12 or 13 when I started "Collecting" in the sense that's when I started keeping the manual/instructions and boxes for each set.

Got picked on during high school for it, but put up with it.

2018 Ford Fiesta and Mustang from Speed Champions. The start of a very slippery but very relaxing slope!

I had Lego as a kid. In 2012, as my 30th birthday approached, I made a flippant comment to mum and dad that it would be funny to get a Lego set as a birthday present. They knew I like Star Wars, so bought a cheap SW set for a laugh.

They bought the 'wrong one' of course. A random Clone Wars set. For the same price they could have bought one based on the EU with a Speeder Bike for frig's sake! I decided to fix that, and waked into Target armed with $12 and bought the right one.

That was when it all started again. 10 years later I am many thousands of dollars in the hole now, with a decent adult Lego collection.

Little did I know that The Clone Wars was the best Star Wars media ever spat from the minds of those who make these shows for us. Joke's on me, I guess.

Always loved Lego, as an artist it’s another way to express my creativity so I never had a dark age. Sadly at the moment i’m too busy to spend too long with it as much, though I don’t know if that constitutes a dark age because I still might fiddle with something here or there.

When I saw a Lego stormtrooper. I still love those guys

In short, 2012 with PotC theme minifigs (reminded me of Pirates from my childhood, then my favourite theme), then Batman minifigs and other similar licenced themes, then 2018. with City sets

The Technic Super Car 8880 from 1994.

42009 (2013 - age 40)

I had my route back into Lego documented previously in a Brickset article but after getting into Lego in around 1975, getting out of it again as I really needed to 'grow up' (I probably still do!) in early 1984, I spotted the Creator VW camper in a serious classic car magazine in around 2012 and needed to indulge myself. That opened up the floodgates for a whole Modular town and numerous Creator models all over the house, plus a surprising number of friends, colleagues and business acquaintances 'coming clean' with their love for all things Lego too! Its a surprisingly effective ice breaker in conversation...

It was a two step process of reviving precious childhood interests in my late 20s and early 30s. First, I got back into video games and Nintendo games more specifically when the Nintendo Switch came out. Then, when Lego announced the NES set, I got served an ad for it and couldn't believe that Lego was making such cool sets nowadays. I waited in line for it on release day and have bought all sorts of Legos since. Safe to say if the NES set was never made, I may still be in my dark age.

I probably went about ~12 years without buying a new video game or Lego after being very deeply invested in both as a kid, and now they are both a very large part of my adult hobbies.

Entered my darkages in 1995 with 8880 as my last Lego set of my childhood. Returned in 1999 already (at age 17 not technicalky an adult) due to the Star Wars theme, with 7140 in particular. Currently I am transitioning into new dark ages and started sellinf some of my collection. Also selling 8880 probably is a sign that the new dark ages will last longer than my last ones.

76077 as my local Tesco was selling it for 75% off.

Though I had played a lot of the Lego video games by then.

67 years old, got my first set in 1960 for my 5th birthday, recently gave away everything to friends, relatives and charity and started again with trains - Maersk - and modulars - Greengrocer. My granddaughters are hooked on Lego so the fun goes on ...

Fall 2017 - 21301 Lego Ideas Birds, then 10254 Winter Holiday Train and small seasonal sets; then 21309 Lego Ideas Saturn V. From there, winter village, Ideas, Architecture skyline
Spring 2018 - modular buildings starting with Assembly Square and I was hooked.

I think, thanks to Bionicle, I never truly had a dark ages as such. Born in 1990, started to fall off just as Slizers/ Roboriders/ Bionicle showed up, and never missed a Bionicle set (collectibles aside).
After it ended, still stuck with a few themes and odd sets here and there every year till around 2014, when I started working for FireStar. That was around the time of the first LEGO Movie coming out and being able to get sets through the company at trade prices definitely reignited the passion. Then the pandemic hit, lost my job, yet still hitting quite a lot of sets each year.
So I guess, short answer is, “always been interested”?

I have always been interested in Lego, although I bought fewer sets between 2002 (as I was disappointed with Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, and I became interested in a trading card game at that time, meaning that I spent my pocket money on bits of cardboard, which I realize now was not a good investment) and 2012, when I visited my first Lego Store in New York and became a VIP member. I saw that quite a few delightful sets had been produced recently, including the first Modular Buildings and some brilliant/iconic Star Wars sets (e.g. Jabba's Palace and Rancor Pit, which I bought), so I started collecting at a small scale. Somehow I became a bigger collector when I discovered Brickset (purchasing Collector Expert and Star Wars sets mainly, but also CMFs), which must have been around the time when the first rumours of 75192 Millennium Falcon started to appear. And now I have over 1,200 sets and over 3,100 minifigs in my collection!

Thank you for making this website and its features available to us all!

While Lego has never left me, things got kicked into high gear with the start of Lego Star Wars. When I picked up the UCS TIE Interceptor all hope was lost. I still buy many UCS sets and many more from other lines. The UCS AT-AT is going to walk into my living room this coming weekend :-)

My Dark Age was when I was 10 and was rather forced upon me with the disposal of all my LEGO by a well-meaning father to address issues with my younger sibling. And family financial situation did not lend to having LEGO of any significance anyways...birthdays/Christmas' were largely clothing or educational items.
Turn 18 and with limited funds did get the occasional Technic set.
But then enter 1999 with the production of LEGO SW sets and it was my inner geek's team, combining two of my childhood loves. That and a disposable income! Have been a "completionist" up until the last 5 years (too many rehashes and increasing prices). But in that time also got whatever caught my fancy as well as getting into CMF/Modulars/LEGO "Ideas" from Day One. But even this is changing and will have to stop with the Ideas and Landmarks and Fairground.

A totally nonscientific observation: not only did LEGO Star Wars apparently save the company, but it seems to be the most popular reason for Brickset users to have "returned" to LEGO as AFOLs (or continued the hobby, in some cases). Followed in a distant second place by the modular building series, and then the CMF series. Not exactly surprising!

I collected Lego throughout the late eighties till early nineties, then became an AFOL in 2007 with the Creator 3 in 1 houses and modulars. From then on, I haven't stopped, though I've become quite selective and cost conscious in my collecting, as most sets that I want seem to range from £80 to £300. I will still splash out, if the build challenge and or ascetic interests me, but only after I've thought about it for a while.

Collectable 14 Monsters brought me in as an adult at age 46.
I still wonder what ever happened to 400 Building Set I had in 1977.
1466 sets and 2035 minifigs later, I still do something almost every day, and sometimes post to YouTube.

My kids really wanted the 8039 Venator and 10188 Death Star. We couldn't afford those at the time so I built the Venator out of available parts and the Death Star out of Duplo. My search for instructions led me to FBTB.net which was my portal into the AFOL world.

I had Lego as a kid, When I was 16 I joined the Army in 1981 and left in 1995 so didn't have much opportunity to collect Lego. But In 1998 I swapped some computer parts for a bulk tub of Lego with a young lad I worked with and in the tub was a complete 8880 Technic Super Car & a load of random bits..... this put me on the slippery slope of Lego collecting ??. I'm now 57 and cannot see me ever not collecting the little plastic bricks.

@ForestMenOfEndor said:
"A totally nonscientific observation: not only did LEGO Star Wars apparently save the company, but it seems to be the most popular reason for Brickset users to have "returned" to LEGO as AFOLs (or continued the hobby, in some cases). Followed in a distant second place by the modular building series, and then the CMF series. Not exactly surprising!"

Ooooh, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes when the Bionicle lot read your observation...

From time to time I would get out the mid-90s five in one Technic set and build each model in turn, for relaxation and de-stressing. It would have been either 2018 or 2019 when I actually bought any other sets.

I decided that Technic offered the best value in terms of amount of assembly needed for the price so I bought 42056 second hand. After building and taking apart I sold it and bought other sets, some of which I sold again (various Architecture sets, mostly not very interesting builds). I also bought some second hand modulars including Assembly Square and then bought the Bookshop in early 2020, and the Rollercoaster.

I was initially attracted by the building process more than anything else, but I do now display modulars, Botanical and some of the other more aesthetically pleasing sets. I do enjoy building Technic but am less interested in the usual Technic subject matter - I'm just not passionate about vehicles.

I suspect that if it wasn't for modulars, Botanical sets and Ideas sets I would probably have drifted away from LEGO, or would have kept occasionally buying second hand Technic and reselling after building. I'm not interested in licenced sets.

I remember taking my young kids out to buy some Lego and thinking I’d maybe try one with them. I picked up 8286 since I’m an engineer and gears interested me. I have no idea what I bought the kids but for me it’s been a no looking back experience. I long outlasted my kids’ interest and have outlasted 3 of 4 grandkids interest!

I had Duplo as a toddler, and have been into Lego ever since.

@bananaworld said:
"
@ForestMenOfEndor said:
"A totally nonscientific observation: not only did LEGO Star Wars apparently save the company, but it seems to be the most popular reason for Brickset users to have "returned" to LEGO as AFOLs (or continued the hobby, in some cases). Followed in a distant second place by the modular building series, and then the CMF series. Not exactly surprising!"

Ooooh, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes when the Bionicle lot read your observation..."

I did say "apparently." ;)

In all seriousness, though, one might debate about the theme that "saved" the company, but it seems clear that much of the love in these comments is for Star Wars (less so for Bonkle).

I was 6 in 1976 when my brother and I got our first set: Farm Set 190 , and then Police Headquarters 370 , with the non-moving mini-figs. I recall when the first fully-articulating min-figs came out in 1978! Anyways, I collected and built until I was about 14 and built what I consider the first modular building in 1981. A two-floor full-sized house. Also built a custom outdoor music amphitheater. I still have both. I became an adult in 1988 and spent my money on cars, girls, etc., until my oldest son was six years old, and we happened upon modular buildings in January of 2011 and I was 41. Immediately bought the Green Grocer, Grand Emporium, and Fire Brigade that month, and spent the past 11 years collecting and building sets from all of the different genres: Star Wars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, City, Castle, etc. Now my kids have outgrown their interest in Legos and I'm left with several hundred sets that bring back good memories with them. We have a 6' x 16' table that displays our modular city, including a custom modular that I designed and built myself.

Born in 1951, a bit over a year after LEGO produced it's first plastic brick, I never even remember seeing any amongst my pre-high school friends. I didn't buy my first LEGO until 2011 when I was 60. My wife and I were shopping for a nephew in the LEGO store in Indianapolis when we spotted set 10220 the Volkswagen T1 camper van and we had to have it.

That was the hook and now our home in Flagstaff has LEGO everywhere. What are dark ages???

Ill be turning 45 tomorrow and since my childhood I’ve always been a fan. From 1980 till now, the only year I don’t have a set from is 2005.
Of course with my kids turning into fans themselves ( 10 and 8 ) our collection grew exponentially. ( They didn’t have a choice! Lol ) With duplo, friends, dots, ninjago, chima, nexo knight etc. As a big star wars fan myself, I’ve allowed myself to buy bigger and more sets each passing year, but no UCS set so far.

@Darth_Dee said:
"My kids really wanted the 8039 Venator and 10188 Death Star. We couldn't afford those at the time so I built the Venator out of available parts and the Death Star out of Duplo. My search for instructions led me to FBTB.net which was my portal into the AFOL world. "

I remember my son begging for a y-wing fighter circa 2009, and me telling him to build it out of spare parts. I was AFOL enough to know where to find online instructions, but not suave enough to understand the difference between UCS and minifig scale sets.

Thus, I embarked on a 28-hr extravaganza of part hunting to build what-turned-out-to-be the first UCS Y-Wing 10134 made out of all the bright Lego colors. It taught me the value of part sorting and that expensive sets are cheaper than spending 28 hrs sloshing through boxes of parts. We still have the ol' set to this day as testament to determination.

I started my dark age when I moved away from the place I grew up for university in 1999 and had to sell off loads of stuff. I occasionally saw cool sets, but around 2013 I decided I had to build a LEGO ED-209 one day, and so started picking up sets and job lots to build a collection. It ended up taking around 7 years to get properly started, and after 2 years work was only finished last year!

While I was already buying sets for my boys beginning in the early 2000s, mostly star wars sets, it was the Palace Cinema Modular that really got me going. Then when my wife saw the Monster fighters Ghost Train it really got rolling. My boys have grown and we still get together to build sets from several themes, Architecture, Star Wars, Ideas is becoming a personal favorite, Modular. It's great that we can all still spend the time together building while discussing what is going on in our lives.

I spent about 15 years without a single LEGO purchase. Then I went to a model train show with my uncle, where a local LUG had a small L gauge layout among all the traditional O, HO & N gauge layouts. They had LEGO train catalogs free for the taking, so I grabbed one. I had always seen the trains in the catalogs as a kid but was never able to own one, as I think they were only available from Shop at Home here in the US. This was all right at the end of the 9V era.

The first purchase post dark ages wasn’t a train however, it was a heavily discounted 8376 Hot Flame RC Racer sold exclusively at Radio Shack. After that, I found Bricklink and set out on a quest to acquire all the 9V train sets ever produced. I’ve basically done that and continued with every train since, with the exception of the recent Hogwarts display set. Along the way I’ve also purchased far more sets than I should have, from many themes.

Dark Ages going into the 2000's until 2014 after I saw the Lego Movie in theatres and drove to a Wal-Mart to see what kind of sets were there. Bought Metalbeards mech.

Loved classic space as a kid, but I eventually left LEGO behind in my young teenage years. When my wife and I were married in 1993, we were gifted with 1687 Midnight Transport by my wife's younger siblings. A couple of months later, we were walking through Toys-R-Us and saw 4558 Metroliner. We decided to buy the train set so we could run it around our Christmas tree. Five children and over a thousand sets later, it's safe to say we're a LEGO family. We still enjoy the hobby, although I am more into LEGO than my wife.

One of my sons loved Legos (still does) and had some Space and Harry Potter ones. My nephew started his love of them with these. As I began to read the Harry Potter books to him we started rebuilding my sons and were delighted to discover that quite a few sets were coming out. 2018 perhaps? We built them as they related to the books and now I have a huge display of them. New and old. There were so many Harry Potter sets. We've had so much fun. My two sons are also back into them with the adult sets and now my little niece is joining in on the lego fun.

Got back into Lego late 2015 as a 35 year old because of the Simpsons House set 71006. Wife gave the go ahead, little did she know that she allowed for a crazy addiction! Force Awakens came out that Xmas so got into the Star Wars theme. From there, it was modulars, superheroes, ideas, cmf and then trains. Discovering the AFOL online community on forums and YouTube have helped. And finding BrickLink, PaB and army building have been very damaging for the wallet. Realised I have missed out on some amazing themes but glad that Harry Potter came back and looks like LOTR and Indiana Jones will make a comeback. Just wish Castle will also make a full comeback with a general wave as that is a theme I have always looked on fondly but didn't own any back in the 80s. Still very glad we now have the blacksmith shop, 3 in 1 castle and lion knight's castle!

Got back into Lego when the LOTR and Hobbit sets came out... bought most of them, then started a SW original trilogy collection... I currently buy mostly space-related, medieval and architecture sets. I own in total about 200 sets and 700 minifigs.

Lego Friends are what brought me back. I had stars in my eyes when I first saw Olivia’s House, and my husband bought that for my 40th birthday. When I was a kid there were NOT pink legos of any kind. Nothing girly, nothing cute. Friends finally filled that void. Of course, the cute, pink, girly feels of friends was short lived. I buy less of their sets since they have changed. I do like a variety of others now, most especially dots, art, “adults welcome”, creator 3 in 1, the winter village sets, Disney Princess, etc.

2000… I saw 3450 Statue of Liberty and bought it right away. Then I bought UCS XWing and 22 years later I’m still addicted.

Born in '87, grew up on Pirates, Castle, and Space (Blacktron II , Spyrius etc) , and OG Star Wars, until I sort of stopped in 2002 in High school, was in my dark ages for 12 years, until I got Anakins Jedi Starfighter from Ep III from a toy fair in 2014

I’ve always been interested in LEGO as an adult, I entered a semi-Dark age as a teenager and as an adult my semi-dark age continued as I used to download Ldraw and its parts update whenever a new update became available.

I came out of the Dark ages in 2010 not long after meeting my then girlfriend (now my poor suffering wife) that I saw a popular mechanics magazine issue and one article as about a guy who made mechanical clocks out of LEGO he mentioned getting parts from Bricklink, I visited it of course and I’ve addicted to it ever since,

I got my first childhood set when I was 2 (it was 310-4 shared with my sister who was 3) and my last when I was 12/13 (a surprised 4552 as I didn't own any lego trains, I thnk it was in 1996). My sister ended up going the Sylvanian route but I loved lego. I had mostly had city sets, just vehicles. I was given my first technic set when I was 7 and this became my favourite theme. I did see 8880 in a lego magazine and really wanted it but it was too much money for my family.

In the first couple years of secondary school (ages 11-13) when everyone was sharing what they got for Christmas and birthdays, I was very embarrassed and ashamed that I liked and still played with lego. No one else I knew was still into lego. I ended up lying to others and said I just got money when in fact I got lego. I still played with my lego for a couple years but asked my parents not to buy me anymore. So I would say dark ages had started '95/96 and properly set in by '98.

I did always have 8880 at the back of my mind as something I wanted and when I first joined eBay in 2004 it was the first item I searched for and bought. I also randomly bought 8438 at the same time but this was not anything other than completing a want from childhood. Certainly the dark ages stayed. I didn't follow or know what lego was out there.

I saw a lego documentary with my wife that included 76042 , so it must have been early in 2015, and I did think there was a lot of cool lego sets. I thought the 76042 was amazing, I had never seen any lego set so big! It wasn't this but actually a fault of personalised advertising that got me back into lego. I had noticed 42009 appearing on adverts on websites more and more, maybe I had clicked on it once intrigued, I can't remember. I presume it was Google who had learned that and assumed I was interested. Eventually I searched for it to find out more about it and as a lover of technic I knew I had to get it.

In Aug 2015 my wife was pregnant with our first child and I was decorating my now daughter's bedroom, I secretly bought 42009 thinking that this might be my last chance to buy and do something for myself before parenting took over. Actually it was the opening of the flood gates. Since then I've bought 160 more sets, 100+ for myself (mostly technic and speed champions) and around 60 for my daughter. My wife despairs at my obsession but she did really like the flowers 10280 my daughter gave her for mother's day - so there's still hope for my wife!

Brickset has hugely helped to fuel my interest and see what's good in the lego world. Thanks for everyone else's stories.

TLDR - dark ages started when I was 13 (1995), AFOL life started in 2015 aged 32 with 42009 .

Born in 1974. dark age from c. 1987 - 2017. No new set brought me back. My kids reached lego-age and I found my old collection. And I was hooked again. Found out how much LEGO is available when you are a grown up middle class with a salary...

Taking my 5 year son to see The LEGO Movie in 2014 brought me back to LEGO.

Born in 1976.
Got my first LEGO set 9 as a child.
Have loved and played with LEGO ever since.
Had a semi-dark ages i guess, but i never really left the hobby.
It only got better when i found out there were other people in my area that also loved LEGO. :)

As a child, LEGO sets were always around - particularly pre-minifigure LEGOLAND sets. I entered my dark ages after dabbling with some technic in the early 80s (no need to consider this as cause and effect).
I became curious when I saw Star wars and Mindstorms appear. Even more so when I was gifted the Dark Side Developer kit, and built a walking AT-AT.

But my passion was probably reignited when I attended a local convention and met some AFOLs who gave me permissions to play with LEGO again. And, for some reason, there were around 8 versions of Cafe Corner set up in different permutations on the train layout.
And then things got expensive...

Born in 1964, I got back into LEGO when I stumbled into a complete 10188 Death Star for $56 at Savers in 2014, after a "dark age" that started in 1987. That got me back into it, and my collection is now over 300,000 bricks.

Was an early space fan in early to mid 80s but it was Star Wars in 1999 that really brought me back, that first X-Wing fighter!

Like @yooha at the top, the collectible minifigures got me back into LEGO!

I was way into M-Tron, Spyrius, Ice Planet, etc. when I was younger, but one day in early 2010 my wife and I were in Target and found the packs of Series 1 Minifigures and grabbed a couple. We opened them in the parking lot to see what we got and thought they were so fun we went back into the store and picked up several more.

After that I paid more attention to what LEGO was offering, and I quickly got into the Creator 3-in-1 sets and the City Alien Conquest and Space and the Winter Village sets that came out later that year.

What got me back to bricking was the release of Lego Star Wars The Video Game. In the release week of this game a polybag with a micro ship was given away. After building that, I wanted more Micros... At some point I purchased a small kit with a Darth Vader, after that things went fast and in a matter of weeks I retrieved my old brick collection from my parents' home and started a first MOC as an afol...

'Malcolm in the Middle' 2003? The episode where Duey builds a huge 'Lego' city and turns it into a fascist dystopia. I thought I always wanted to build skyscraoers.. now I'm 25 maybe I can. And I did! Then got deep back in when I found AFOLs!

Since I saw StarWars Ep. IV in cinema in 1977, aged 10, I am addicted to this theme but LEGO start their series in 1999 and at that time some different things were more important to me than "kids toys", but I have to admit, I did not really realize that LEGO is producing such kind of "hot stuff" interesting me. It takes 20 more years until a colleague of mine showed me pictures of coming release of the UCS MF 75192 . It was like a wake-up call and in the deep of my heart I knew for sure, this set would be mine the day they start selling it. But as my first set -just to see if I like LEGO- I bought the UCS TIE Fighter 75095 ; the MF came next. Since that I bought more than a hundred SW sets and spent more than many of thousands euros, which I can fortunately afford today at this age. And there is no end in sight...

Excellent poll, article, idea,question. So many good stories in there. The number of comments/ answers proves it. Thank you.

I'd picked up the occasional Star Wars set, but what I really wanted to do was make my own LEGO City, which I only had vague ideas about. But I didn't really seriously consider it until Marvel LEGO was released. That's when I realized I could have my favourite heroes swinging and blasting their way through my LEGO city, and I've been hooked ever since.

2016 Nexo Knights, after about 15 years of not following/buying LEGO products.

I never had any of the big castles or big ice planet sets but 70317: The Fortrex really interested me a lot at the time, and then to see 70323 : Jestro's Volcano Lair appear in summer kept me interested even moreso.

When rebuilding my old childhood sets in 2011/2 to 'sell' (never happened!) my search for the sets I had and instruction manuals etc led me here! Which then led to seeing the modern range of Lego, and it was a combination of the Modular Buildings, Creator trains (Emerald Night and Maersk) and Monster Fighters that reeled me in :)

I grew up with classic space, castle and pirates (born 82). I had a long dark age, from about 94 up to 2014/2015 when i bought the simpsons house. That set was my comeback and made me realise how much was possible with lego. A few months later the palace cinema followed and i was hooked...

When I was about 6 or 7 the City wave of 2014 was what got me into it. (TFOL here)

Pretty sure this came up before. I didn't answer "always", and instead chose the year I returned. I mean, it's true I always have been, but I went through a decent gap where I wasn't getting anything due to "college, living situation, moving regularly, not having money" and so on. Once I was in my own place stably and had disposable money again... Lego was in the books again.

I'm glad my lifeline largely coincided with my own dark years being Lego's dark years, too.

@Darth_Dee said:
"My kids really wanted the 8039 Venator and 10188 Death Star. We couldn't afford those at the time so I built the Venator out of available parts and the Death Star out of Duplo. My search for instructions led me to FBTB.net which was my portal into the AFOL world. "

Casually mentions he built the Death Star out of Duplo... impressive, most impressive.

Born I. 1968, played with Lego as a kid. When my son was born in 1998, a few years later we stared with Duplo (bob the builder sets were great) and quickly moved into city theme, jack stone and similar sets. By 2004 we were buying star wars and bionicles. Star Wars became our main theme for the next 10 years as our collection expanded. We also were able to get many of the early star wars sets so we now have a pretty complete collection covering episodes 1-6. Early Cusso/ideas sets and Architecture sets were also a focus. We have slowed down but still get the occasional set. Just bought and built the newer USC falcon (still have the original sealed in the box).

Being a child of the 70s, I was lucky enough to be just the right age to live through a golden age of Lego - classic space, town and the first technical sets. I lost interest about 1982 (blame the ZX Spectrum for that!). Never parted with my childhood sets though, fortunately. I recall digging them out about the early 2000s which also coincided with the discovery of ebay. I spent the next few years buying sets I never had as a child and sets is missed out on during my dark age. Started buying new Lego again about 2010, and the rest they say is history! So here I am fast running out of space 1500, or so, sets later.....

I had Lego as a kid. I never "lost interest", but I didn't get any new sets after 2003 or 2004. My first set I bought as an adult was 21103 in 2013, and then I got 21108 two years later. 2019 was probably when I got fully back into Lego, though.

I’m in my 40s and Lego has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. The introduction of Star Wars Lego is what has maintained my love for Lego. It will be with me always!

I loved Lego as a kid, and fortunately still have most of my childhood sets (albeit missing various pieces/minifigs). But as an adult the floodgates were opened for me when I was gifted the B-Wing Fighter 6208 as a Christmas gift. At the time it just seemed a fun gift, but a few years later I decided to rebuild it and it ignited a new Star Wars Lego love within me. Fast forward to today and I've got a living room full of UCS sets, the Titanic proudly displayed above the fireplace, and dioramas scattered around the house. Thank you, B-Wing!

I bought the first wave of Star Wars in ‘99 when I was 19 to break my first dark ages, then the 2010 Imperial Flagship broke my dark ages the second time.

I have been building with Legos since I was six years old and I still do today at age 22. I will continue to build legos for the rest of my life. Star Wars was my main starting theme, and still interests me to this day.

My collection started with 10181 Eiffel Tower; I had a bunch of lego during my childhood, but that was where the collection started, so I guess from 2000-09, I was 9-10 at the time. 10185 Green Grocer remains my favorite set I remember getting that in 2009. Props to 10 y/o me for keeping boxes and instructions even though my parents told me to throw them out.

Got my first Lego set from my father somewhere around 1975 (I was 5 at the time). Got hooked (and spoiled => yes, indeed my parents only had 1 child ) with Lego since then.
First set was the black taxi 605-2 , which I bought again with the original box when I became 45 for good memories.
Never really had any dark ages since then, but I call them more the hidden ages when girlfriends also became very interesting. Now 50+ but still collecting and enjoying to build new Lego's.

Around 1987-1988 through an ex childhood friend. My favorite was Space Classic followed by the rest until Explorians came out. Loved the LEGO Town Space Shuttles too

I've always been interested in Lego but thought it wasn't suitable for adults.....I even considered having kids just to be able to play with again!

But thankfully my wife bought me 60073 for xmas 2016 and the rest is history!

The last set I acquired before my dark age was 8859 Tractor. Expert Builder sets (they weren't called "Technic" here yet) were just beginning to expand on their part design inventory with working differentials, shocks (8860), and other pieces that helped overcome certain limitations... and sometimes introduced others.

Roll forward over 25 years, and my son saw Transformers (the Michael Bay one). He had a few small Lego sets of his own already, so when he saw the Kreo Optimus Prime set in a store he was smitten. I warned him that it wasn't Lego and probably wasn't transformable, but he wanted it anyway. He was indeed somewhat disappointed when he realized that it wouldn't transform (to non-owners of that set, it was a "parts-former" that was designed so that it appeared on the box as if it might transform). So he asked me if we could make one that did with my old Legos. That ended my dark age, and has only grown since. Our recent addition of 10302 closed out that initial goal, and with Star Wars, Dr. Who and Voltron additions to the collection, even the sky is no longer the limit.

I’m 39 and was definitely in the dark ages 1995-2002. In 2002 at 18 I bought Final Duel I and II, and the Lego Studios Green Goblin glider sets and I was BACK!

My dark ages from LEGO started in 1993 at 12 years old when all the toys were packed into storage for a big move. Rediscovered LEGO 25 years later, my first set as an adult was Poe’s X-Wing. Since then I love the Modular buildings, all kinds of spacecrafts, Star Wars and otherwise. Now I have an assorted Harry Potter, Marvel, Jurassic World and CMFs collection. My favourite theme is LEGO Ideas!

I bought a few in the '90s, 5571 and 8880 come to mind. But, in 99 when they got the Star Wars license! That was when all hell broke loose and I've bought every set since. Now, 23 years and 712 sets later, I'm planning this being part of my retirement. It didn't start out that way, but, I'd be foolish not to?!

The last set of my youth was the Technic 8868 : Air Tech Claw Rig, for Christmas 1992, I was 17y/o. But during the next years, I enjoyed my younger brothers sets, and my bricks, including 1997 6975 : Alien Avenger or 1998 8428 : Concept Car, until 2002, when I left home. At the end, between the 4 brothers, we had around 140 sets from 1971 to 1999.

Then in 2003 at 28y/o, I discovered the Shop @Home ; in 2004, eBay, and I decided to find all the sets I wanted as a kid, and rebuilt my old sets.
6374 : Holiday Home was my first rebuilt,
4511 : High Speed Train was the first new set,
and 6356 : Med-Star Rescue Plane, the first set bought on eBay.

So, how long was this dark age, precisely ? Not sure : 11 years, 3 years, no dark age ?

I blame my eldest nephew. After buying Lego for him over the years I eventually decided to grab 75039: V-wing Starfighter in Asda of all places. I thought that would be it. Over a thousand sets later...

I notice that 75039 was only available in 2014 so I gave the wrong answer in the survey as I assumed it was when my nephew was younger. I mistakenly put 2000-2009 so feel,free to correct the result!

I'm one of the unique cases where I never had a dark age with Lego. As a 90's kid I really enjoyed action themes, then in 2001 Bionicle came along, and that was all I cared about for years! I skipped a lot of system sets in lieu of doubling and trippling up on Bionicle sets. Then I just turned 18 and became an AFOL.

There was a brief period where family was like "aren't you getting a little too old for Lego?" But they saw I was good at it, didn't hurt anyone, and kept me out of trouble, so that phase quickly passed. I think it also helped that there started to be more media of adults engaging with lego at that time. This was before the full embrace of AFOLs by lego, but it was becoming more and more common. I could point to lego land and how adults had to make the cool lego models there. So there was definitely examples to use to show that Lego wasn't just for kids anymore. The AFOL community has come a long way since then to. Lego being for adults as well is pretty mainstream now.

The re-release of the Black Sea Barracuda as 10040 under the 'Legends' line got me dabbling back into Lego as a young adult while in university. But it wasn't until the introduction of the modular buildings, specifically the Green Grocer, that really put be down the path. Also, the Emerald Night that kicked off my train interests.

I had a TON of sets growing up. I was born in 79' so I had a love affair with space sets and city sets. I remember saying to myself when I was an adult with tons of money I'd get any set I wanted.

Feel out in my 20s but when my daughter was born I was at target with her and the lando version of the Millennium Falcon out from the movie and she was 4 so I used it as a reason to buy the set. Everyone knows it was for me but she fell in love with it, spending time with Daddy.

I was 33, now I'm going to be 43 in a month and I own almost every Lego star wars set I ever wanted even getting away overpriced sets to fill in ones I missed over the years. I now buy almost every set when it's out in duplicate so I can build one and keep one collector grade.

I've spent a ton on Lego and I don't regret it. I've actually found some sets that I bought for retail that are now worth something and made a few sales this year that helped fund my hobby which really solidified my determination.

I had Lego as a kid in the 70s, but never really took it up as a hobby. Three years ago, I was bought a Batmobile for christmas - and I've never looked back much to the disgust of my bank account! In some ways, I'm glad I didn't start earlier, but do wish I had!

I played with LEGOs for some time, but got hooked in 1978 with the introduction with the minifig. I have been collecting all town (now city) and train sets for the last 44 years.

I am now over 55 and got my first LEGO set in 1972-73 and it was a fire station. I went through a period in my teens and earlier college years when my focus in real-life changed to other interests and a limited amount of disposable income available when right out of college. In my 30's I came back full speed ahead but now have gotten much more selective, focusing on specific themes because there becomes a point where you look around and ask yourself, "Do I really need all of this stuff and when was the last time I actually got xxxx set out and used it?" There are some sets that I have an emotional attachment to that I can't part with regardless of theme.

At a rough guess, 2015/6 & a bunch of cheap charity shop Friends finds. I grabbed them because I had children that would soon be of the age to build & play with them

My little family watched Lego Masters (AU) together because we like Hamish Blake's humour. We ended up really enjoying the show (especially Blake - and the Blake / Brickman dynamic - but we also started getting into the teams and the builds themselves).

My daughter started building and role-playing with some old 80's / 90's Lego that we had in storage, and my adult interest took off from there .... before long, I realised I had become part of the AFOL community!

My daughter and I now enjoy building and creating stories together with Friends, Disney Princesses, and Elves (the "pretty" mini-doll based themes). It's a beautiful, creative way to spend time with her, with so much scope for teachable moments along the way.

I also really enjoy being immersed "in the zone" just building on my own to relax, or mucking around creating new characters and settings and storylines. I'm actually quite grateful to have rediscovered Lego as an adult.

Hard to say because Knights Kingdom II & Bionicle action figures kicked off my LEGO collecting as a small child & Indiana Jones got me into the traditional system sets. I have never had a dark age & continue to be a fan in adulthood, so I'm not sure if this poll suits me.

For context, I was born in 1968, and was interested in LEGO as a kid from the mid-‘70s to the early-to-mid-‘80s. I entered my dark ages in my teens.

While in my dark ages I occasionally noticed LEGO sets on the shelves in stores and felt certain pangs of longing to return, so I could be said to be interested then. In 1990 Kellogg’s had a mail-in promo for four small polybag Stunts sets - 1560, 1561, 1562, and 1563 - and I wound up getting all four, plus a duplicate copy of 1563 Track Blaster. I therefore *could* answer “1990-1999”, but those few small sets were all I had for just over a decade.

I watched with fascination as they introduced LEGO Star Wars in 1999, and by the early 2000s I figured I’d get just a couple small sets - the Star Wars paired “Final Duel” sets, 7200 and 7201 - as little desktop display toys, no big deal, but of course that led me down the rabbit hole again. Those first couple Star Wars sets got me hooked, permanently; I haven’t stopped being interested since then, so I’ve put “2000-2009” as my answer, since it’s more relevant to my behavior since than the little flashes of interest I had in the ‘90s, even though “1990-1999” would technically fit as well.

I was born in 1982 in Germany. My first LEGO encounter was when I'm around two and half years old in the 80's. I played with 60's bricks that belonged to my Mom and Uncle. I finally got my 1st LEGO set on my 4th birthday, FABULAND 3668 Merry-Go-Round. Since then LEGO was almost the only toys I wanted most.

I don't have many sets back then since we're moving out from Germany to a place where LEGO wasn't a common toys and quite expensive. My only chance to get a LEGO set was when my grandparents in Germany send us a package on Christmas or Birthday.

However, I stopped getting new sets around the age of 13 (the last one was LEGO 6350 Pizza to Go), as I became more interested in new hobbies such as scouting, cycling and playing music (and eventually in girls :P), although I sometimes still built moc from my old sets until I graduated from high school. I then went on to study in another city and parted completely with LEGO.

2014-2015 was a hard and sad period of my life, and an accidentally encounter with LEGO Model Team 5590 Whirl and Wheel Super Truck, a set that I really want when I was a kid somehow save me from falling deeper in my depression and suicidal thoughts.

Now LEGO is a separable part of my life and I'm really proud of my LEGO collection, mostly 80's stuff, all the sets that I couldn't get as kid!

2001. We saw 7106: Droid Escape and my dad said "They have STAR WARS Lego?!" I was 4 years old and it's been downhill from there.

As a child, I was prevented from having any LEGO Sets because my brother had them. I had other building sets (Toggles (?), Lincoln Logs, Erector sets, etc.), but to avoid tensions I was not allowed to have them.
As an adult, I became interested when my sons were old enough to have them. After a few years, I began to buy my own sets. When my sons graduated from High School, they "sold" me their collections.
Now I have so many LEGO parts it takes up an entire bedroom from floor to ceiling! And I am still buying sets to build.
I prefer castles but have been known to buy many other Themes as well.

As a child of the 60s and 70s I didn't really have much LEGO but my younger brother got sets in the 70s that we both played with. I took all of the LEGO with me when I moved out in the 80s and spent time on my own building MOCs. In the early 90s a friend wanted to open a daycare and I offered to give her all my LEGO. She never did open the daycare but that was the last brick I touched until I moved to the UK and discovered there was a Legoland in Windsor in 2007. I'm now in my 50s and haven't looked back since! I have more LEGO than sense sometimes :)

As a kid, I never had lego, so my dark age lasted for the first 52 years of my life.
I got interested in lego at the first lego masters season in Aust. My first set was Disney castle in 2019.
Since then I’ve bought way too many sets, across various themes. I love technic, ideas and Modular’s the most.
Since the start of Covid, I also got my 85 year old Mum into lego as well. After I build and dismantle sets, she them builds them. Her favourites are the piano, typewriter, but she is now also getting into technic sets.

@Saxycd12 said:
"As a kid, I never had lego, so my dark age lasted for the first 52 years of my life."
I enjoyed that!

"Since the start of Covid, I also got my 85 year old Mum into lego as well. After I build and dismantle sets, she them builds them. Her favourites are the piano, typewriter, but she is now also getting into technic sets.
"
Brilliant! That's what is so great about Lego, it doesn't matter what age you are you can still enjoy it.

The set that really got me into LEGO was 5974 Galactic Enforcer from Space Police III. A great set and really fun ship too! I was 40 when I got it in 2010. I also collected The Lord of the Rings series, some Hobbits sets, as well as Space themes.

@LegoAndWhisky said:
" @Saxycd12 said:
"As a kid, I never had lego, so my dark age lasted for the first 52 years of my life."
I enjoyed that!

"Since the start of Covid, I also got my 85 year old Mum into lego as well. After I build and dismantle sets, she them builds them. Her favourites are the piano, typewriter, but she is now also getting into technic sets.
"
Brilliant! That's what is so great about Lego, it doesn't matter what age you are you can still enjoy it.
"

Not only mum enjoys it, it keeps her mind active - if she makes a mistake, she goes back and works out what went wrong and fixes it.
It helps to keep chillblains at bay as she is using her fingers and has helped her mental health.
I’m proud of my mum for how much she has learnt about lego over the last couple of years.

I started with Basic set 10 at age 2 in 1975 and since then there has never been a year when I haven't bought some LEGO or had it bought for me. LEGO is a significant part of what made me into an engineer. I would like to give more back to TLG in product development, particularly in electronics and system-thinking.

@Saxycd12 said:
"Not only mum enjoys it, it keeps her mind active - if she makes a mistake, she goes back and works out what went wrong and fixes it.
It helps to keep chillblains at bay as she is using her fingers and has helped her mental health.
I’m proud of my mum for how much she has learnt about lego over the last couple of years. "

That is fascinating, and brilliant that what was started as a toy for kids can be used in so many ways, and particularly in this case a benefit to health. I hope this success story continues for many years for you both!

Honestly, I've always been interested in Lego since I was a kid, but I really got back into them when my husband gave the the birds set (21301) for Christmas in 2015.

I was trapped again in Lego in 2013,as i bought a Star wars set in a second hand market ,was the 8039 venator ship..and then i grew a collection that now has officially reached 731 sets (many themes) and 992 Minifigs..but i know they are....much more as not all is registered...