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I debated for months as to whether or not I should include a section of Lego clones offered by the Dollar Tree chain of stores. After much agonizing over the idea, I decided, what the heck.... Let's go for it. I was looking for a cheap source of spare parts, and not being a "Lego snob", bought a few of these, and they work well with genuine Lego elements. So we've bought a bunch of them. If you like green, the Harvester is a great deal with 81 pieces - It even includes two packages of parts!
Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING they offer so far only costs you a $1.25. In the whole scheme of things, that is "nothing". If you are not particular in what you use to build things with, buying these kits and basic brick elements can be a cheap way to grow your empire. It would be interesting to see what they could offer if they followed suit with their recent offerings of things priced up to five bucks!
You can buy these kits and parts from the Dollar Tree website, but they have a minimum purchase of 24 or 36 of them, depending on how they come packaged from the manufacturer. There is no discount on the price for buying them this way. You can have them sent to your home or to your nearest store.
All boxes are yellow except for one (so far - as of 1/1/24) and have the name "Make-It Blocks" on them. The exception is the Harvester, which has the "Best Lock", and the box is green instead of yellow.
All of the bricks are well made, they assemble with no problem, and things like wheels (so far) spin freely. Tolerances are good enough that the parts mate with each other without coming apart.
I have not had any problem with any of "their" parts inter-mixing with those made by Lego or any of the Chinese clone manufacturers like Mould King. I have noticed only one problem so far in dimensioning, and that is with some of the 32x32 base plates - they were ever so slightly large, and needed to be filed down in order to mate with the better produced stuff from Lego and Mould King.
BTW, every kit sold includes printed instructions, and ALL of them are well lithographed, in color, and follow the Lego convention with graying out the parts already assembled.
Somewhere in each kit and each bag of parts, will be one part stamped with "Greenbrier International".
By the numbers. There are three different numbers associated with the products Dollar Tree sells. There is a 6 digit SKU, which does not appear on all products. There is the standard barcode. And there is a 20 digit number that I'm going to guess is their stock number. Since there is no one unique identifying number for each product, I've decided to do away with my normal numbering of the parts and kits. I have seen only one instance where the bar code is used for three different kits, and those are the three ZOMBIE kits. Two of the Zombie kits also have the same stock number - I dunno how the Dollar Tree's inventory system handles ordering product with multiple kits having the same number(s), seems like it would be a red flag to me :-)
Acknowledgements:
The Dollar Tree boxes
Websites and other additional information sources of interest:
https://www.dollartree.com/toys/building-blocks-sets
Elements / Building Block Basics
The Dollar Tree offers a number of assorted items to help a budding brick builder with a number of cheap options.
As of early 2024, this is what I have seen:
-- 32x32 Base Plates in green, brown, gray, and blue.... $1.25 for a quantity of one.
-- 16x16 Plates in green, brown, and gray.... $1.25 for a quantity of one.
-- A 25 piece bag of bricks and plates in brown, gray, blue, and white.... $1.25 (finding the white bricks is really, really hard)
-- A 16 piece bag of bricks in brown, gray, and blue.... $1.25
-- A 25 piece bag of bricks in assorted colors.... $1.25
On their website, I did not see three things: 1) Any white bricks, 2) the smaller 16x16 plates, and 3) the mixed bags of elements other than the one shown below that contains only bricks - In the past, I have purchased bags that contain plates in them, but have not seen them for a while..
They also offer boxes to keep your parts in, they come in two different color combo's.
Obviously, for a buck and a quarter, you're not going to be getting a lot. However, in an effort to comb my area to see what the various stores were offering, I came across a store after New Year's 2024 that had a few additional kits. One was a "huge" kit at 81 pieces to build a "Harvester" (a type of farm machinery), and three kits that include a battery/light module!!!
Military: Fighter jet / 30 pieces (can be assembled in two configurations)
Military: Helicopter / 26 pieces (can be assembled in two configurations)
Military: Battle tank / 25 pieces (can be assembled in two configurations)
The Zombie collection is not shown on the Dollar Tree website as of early January 2024.
Zombie: Grave, headstone, zombie minifig / 49 pieces
Zombie: Headstone with plants, headstone with cross, zombie minifig / 51 pieces
Zombie: Funky black headstone, black headstone with cross, zombie minifig / 55 pieces
These three kits include a battery module with two LR41 batteries and a flashing RGB LED. The switch on the light module is momentary, so the light can not be left on and run the battery down.
Lazer Blocks spaceship / 26 pieces
Lazer Blocks helicopter / 38 pieces
Lazer Blocks racecar / 39 pieces
There are 8 vehicles in the City Block Vehicle collection, altho I have never considered a train engine a vehicle :-)
City Block Vehicle: Crane on Yellow Truck / 57 pieces
City Block Vehicle: White towtruck / 56 pieces
City Block Vehicle: Red Fire Truck
City Block Vehicle: Yellow Taxicab
City Block Vehicle: Blue Car
City Block Vehicle: Pink Delivery Van
City Block Vehicle: Blue Jeep
City Block Vehicle: Green Train Engine
City Patrol vehicle: "Police robot" with "grabby" arm / 28 pieces (can be assembled in two configurations)
Harvester / 81 pieces
This kit is not on the Dollar Tree website as of early 2024.
City: Bench, mailbox, lamp post with base / 36 pieces
City: Gas station pump with roof with scooter / 44 pieces
City: Traffic Light, motorcycle, hydrant, box, base / 28 pieces
Fire and Police
Police Helicopter / 25 pieces (can be assembled in two configurations)
Fire Rescue: Fire hydrant and fire extinguishers on a rack with a shovel and 2x6 base / 24 pieces
Fire Rescue: Mini-Fire truck / 22 pieces (can be assembled in two configurations)
Fire Rescue: Vehicle and minifig / 52 pieces
Fire Rescue: Boat and minifig / 52 pieces
Construction: Compactor on wheels / 24 pieces
Construction: Cement Mixer / 37 pieces
Construction: Crane on platform with base, shovel, and cone / 34 pieces
Construction: Mini-Bulldozer with fencing, shovel, and "dirt wall" / 36 pieces
Construction: Steam roller with minifig and shovel + / 57 pieces
Construction: Helicopter and minifig / 52 pieces
Construction: Heavy Duty Crane and minifig / 56 pieces
Animals and Dinosaurs
Dinosaur: Purple Stegosaurus / 19 pieces
Dinosaur: Yellow Triceratops/ 18 pieces
Dinosaur: Green/brown Allosaurus? / 20 pieces
Dinosaur: Green Pterodactyl / 13 pieces
Dinosaur: Yellow Stegasaurus? / 18 pieces
Dinosaur: Dark Blue unknown dinosaur (kinda looks like a turtle :-) / 10 pieces
Lion / 30 pieces
Pterosaur / 30 pieces
Triceratops / 34 pieces
Eagle / 30 pieces
T-Rex / 32 pieces
Shark / 30 pieces
Storefront Building Sets
Firemenn
Police Force
Space
Firefighters
Military
Samuri
No Floobydust for this page, so far.... :-)
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NEW 1/1/2024, JAN02/03/06/07/09/2024
Last Modified 09-Jan-2024