Frequently asked questions

Because a copy is what you actually own. Three copies of one set in three conditions are three different things: one sealed, one built and on display, one missing a few pieces.

So each copy in your collection is a record of its own, with its own condition, its own photos and its own purchase price.

Find the set, by searching for its name or number or by scanning its box, and choose Add to collection on its page. You then say which collection the copy goes into and what condition it is in.

Nothing is ever added to your collection without your review, not even after a scan.

Add it once per copy. Each copy is a record of its own, so that the sealed one and the built one are not valued as the same thing.

When you scan a set you already own, BrickDb tells you how many copies of it are in your collection.

Condition has a field for each. Seal says what state the packaging is in, from factory sealed through opened to no packaging at all. Build says what happened to the contents: never built, built and displayed, built and played with, partially built, disassembled or parted out.

For the common case there is a shortcut: Sealed, mint, complete fills in everything at once.

Notes, tags, a storage note, what you paid, where it came from (retail, the secondary market, an auction, a trade, an inheritance) and a note about the seller. You can also record a personal valuation of your own.

All of this is private detail. It is seen by you and by the owners and editors of the collection the copy sits in, and never on a public page.

Yes. Each copy can carry your own photographs, taken with the camera or chosen from your device. They belong to that copy, so a photo of a crushed corner stays with the box it shows.

Photos are private detail: a public collection never shows them, and neither do the Reader and Insurance roles of a shared one. They are included when you download your data.

Yes. Besides copies of sets you can own minifigures and part lots, which are quantities of one part in one colour.

The parts view adds up the pieces across everything you own and marks where each one came from: recorded as loose, or from a set or a minifigure in your collection.

Set Completeness to one of the incomplete states and list what is missing: the part number, the colour and how many. A copy missing only minor parts is graded more gently than one missing major parts.

If you have not counted yet, choose plain Incomplete. BrickDb then grades the copy as cautiously as if major parts were missing, until you know more.

Yes. A copy can carry a signature: what was signed (the box, the set, the manual or a minifigure), who signed it (a designer, an actor, an author or somebody else), and whether a certificate of authenticity exists.

A signature is recorded as provenance. It does not change the condition grade.

Yes. Open a magazine issue or a book in the catalogue and choose Add to collection. Your copies are listed under books and magazines.

A publication is graded on a scale of its own, from As new down to Poor, and you can say whether the polybag or figure that came with it is still sealed, opened or missing.

You describe the copy along several independent lines: seal, build, completeness, box, instructions, parts and stickers, plus any flags that apply. BrickDb reduces that profile to one overall grade for lists and for valuation.

Each line sets a ceiling, and the lowest ceiling wins. A factory-sealed box can grade Sealed; the same set opened can grade no better than Excellent, however fine its contents.

The ladder, from the top: Ready to ship box (sealed), Ready to ship box (opened), Sealed, Mint, Near mint, Excellent, Very good, Good, Fair, Poor, For parts.

• Sealed: factory sealed and never built, complete, with a mint box and nothing that takes away from it.
• Mint: the best an opened or displayed copy can reach. For example, seals intact but the outer box damaged, or built for display with parts that are like new.
• Near mint: one small step down. For example, the box opened with the inner bags still sealed, a near-mint box or instructions, or instructions that are missing.

• Excellent: opened and complete or missing only minor parts, with an excellent box or with no box at all.
• Very good: built and played with, used parts in good condition, a resealed box, or no packaging.
• Good: partially built or disassembled, a box or instructions in good condition, stickers applied with some wear, or a copy that contains parts that are not LEGO® parts.

• Fair: major parts missing, parts in merely acceptable condition, poorly applied or aftermarket stickers, or a flag such as cracked or severely yellowed.
• Poor: parts in poor condition, a poor box or instructions, missing stickers, or mould or mildew.
• For parts: a copy that has been parted out or was only ever a source of parts. It no longer exists as a set you could display, so it stands apart from the rest of the ladder.

It is the plain brown carton a set ordered from the LEGO® Shop can arrive in. Kept closed, it means the set box inside has never seen daylight.

So a factory-sealed copy still in its sealed carton grades Ready to ship box, sealed, the top of the ladder, and one whose carton has been opened grades just below. The carton only counts while the set box inside is still factory sealed. For prices, both are valued as sealed copies, because no marketplace grades a carton.

Flags record single observations that the main fields cannot: shelf wear, a crushed corner, a price sticker, yellowing, scratches, stress marks, print wear, a smoke odour, and many more. There are flags for good news as well, such as an original receipt, a poster or a first edition.

None is required. Most flags describe without changing the grade; a few serious ones cap it, among them cracked parts, severe yellowing, mould, and parts that are not LEGO® parts.

The wishlist is a list of the sets, minifigures and parts you are still after. Add an entry from its page in the catalogue, with a note if you like.

The list is yours alone, so it needs an account.

Choose Got it! on the entry. BrickDb opens the form that records the copy, with its condition and what you paid, and the wish becomes a copy in your collection.

A collection is a shelf you can share. Everything you own is filed into one, and you decide who else can see each collection: nobody, people you invite, or the public.

A household can keep one collection together, or you can keep a private one and a second one you show to friends. You manage them under shared collections.

• Owner: full control. Adds and removes copies, invites and removes members, renames the collection and decides who can see it.
• Editor: adds, changes and removes copies, and sees everything about them, including notes, storage location, purchase price and photographs.
• Reader: sees which sets the collection holds and what condition they are in. Nothing else.
• Insurance: sees the sets, their condition and what they are valued at. Changes nothing, and sees no notes, storage locations or photographs.

Open the collection under shared collections, enter the person's e-mail address and choose their role. They receive a link that admits them. It works once and runs out after 14 days, and you can withdraw it before then.

The person needs an account to accept, and may create one on the way. BrickDb never tells you whether an address already has an account.

The collection appears beside your own, with whatever your role allows you to do in it. You can leave it again at any time.

The invitation does not name the collection, because BrickDb cannot check that the address belongs to you; you see which one it is the moment you accept. Declining is final: the link stops working, and the only way back is a new invitation.

The sets it holds and the condition they are in, and nothing else: no photographs, no notes, no prices, no valuations and no storage locations.

You choose between two kinds of public. Anybody with the link can be opened by whoever holds the link, and search engines are asked not to list it. Anybody, including search engines invites search engines to list the page.

Yes, at any time. The public page stops answering straight away.

What has already been seen cannot be recalled. A search engine that holds a copy will drop it in its own time, and anything saved or shared elsewhere stays where it is.

Open the collection under shared collections. Any member can choose Leave this collection, and an owner can remove a member from the list of who is in it.

A collection keeps at least one owner: the last owner cannot leave or be removed until somebody else has been made one. A collection cannot be deleted, because the copies in it belong to the people who added them.

Storage places describe where your sets live: rooms, locations inside a room such as a shelf or a cupboard, and compartments inside a location such as a box or a drawer.

Each copy can be placed at any of the three levels, or nowhere. You can then filter your collection by place and see what is in a given room or box.

Up to 500 places in all: at most 50 rooms, 50 locations in a room and 50 compartments in a location. A name can be up to 100 characters long, and two places side by side cannot share a name.

A place can be deleted only once it is empty. Move or remove the items and the places inside it first.

Your storage places are yours and belong to no collection. Sharing a collection does not share your home.

Where a single copy is kept is private detail, like its notes and its purchase price: besides you, only the owners and editors of the collection it sits in can see it. Readers, the Insurance role and public pages never do, and only you can move it.

From licensed interfaces and published product feeds, never from crawling other sites. BrickDb reads BrickLink's price guide, asking prices of current eBay listings, retail prices from the LEGO® Shop through its affiliate programme, and the product feeds of other shops that have approved BrickDb in an affiliate network.

Recommended retail prices are read from Brickset. The data sources page names every source that is read today.

Every price is a dated observation: BrickDb recorded it on its own schedule and shows it with the date it was seen or sold. A price page reads BrickDb's own records and never passes your query through to a shop.

So a shop price is a dated reading and not a live price. BrickLink's price guide is shown only within the six hours BrickLink lets a price count as current.

An asking price is what a seller wants. A sold price is what a buyer actually paid. The two can lie far apart, and only the second tells you what a set is worth.

BrickDb keeps them apart. eBay listings are shown as asking prices; BrickLink's price guide shows both what sellers ask now and what the set sold for over the last six months.

It says whether the price includes VAT or sales tax. Gross includes it, net does not. A price without that information can be wrong by the whole tax rate, which in Germany is 19 per cent.

So every price carries its tax basis. A price whose basis is unknown is still shown, and it is left out of valuations.

You can have prices shown in euros (EUR), US dollars (USD), pounds sterling (GBP), Swiss francs (CHF), Danish kroner (DKK) or Mexican pesos (MXN). You choose the currency on the account page. Every price is recorded in the currency it was observed in. Where it is shown in another currency, it has been converted and is marked as converted with ≈. A converted price is a reference indication and not a rate you could trade at.

Recommended retail prices are never converted.

Usually because too little has been recorded. BrickDb shows a valuation only once it holds at least five usable sales inside the window it looks at; below that it says it does not know, and does not show a number it cannot stand behind.

Other reasons: nobody has sold the set recently, no shop BrickDb reads carries it in your country, or the prices recorded are in a currency for which no exchange rate is available yet.

A valuation is the median of the sales BrickDb recorded for the set in a given condition. It comes with the band the middle half of those sales fell into (shown as p25–p75), the number of observations and the period they cover.

Prices that were quarantined, bundle prices and prices with an unknown tax basis are left out, and the price list says so beside each of them.

A median is the middle value, so one absurdly high or low sale does not drag it the way it would drag an average.

And a figure means little without where it came from. A median over two sales and a median over two hundred look identical once the number stands alone, so BrickDb never shows one without its sample size and its window.

Signed in, your collection shows an estimated value and how many of your items it is based on. The value page adds a curve over time, what you paid against what the copies are worth now, and the copies that contribute most.

The curve starts the day your collection did, because BrickDb cannot value a past it did not observe. Any projection shown is a projection and not a promise.

It is the price the LEGO Group published for a market, in that market's own currency, together with the dates the set was available where those are known. BrickDb shows it market by market and never converts it.

A recommended retail price is what a set cost when new. It says nothing about what a copy sells for today.

Because BrickDb is paid for them. If you follow such a link and buy something, BrickDb may earn a commission. You pay no more for it.

Every paid link is labelled where it stands, and a link that earns nothing is never labelled that way. The commission has no bearing on whether a price is shown or where it appears. Display cases and promotions offered beside a set are advertising too, and are never counted as a price of the set.

The shop is running a promotion with a voucher code. BrickDb shows the promotion beside the shop's price and, where the promotion clearly applies to the set, an estimate of the price with the code, marked ≈.

The estimate is a note and never a recorded price: it does not enter statistics or valuations. Check the shop's own conditions before you rely on it.

Yes. A set's price list can be narrowed to the countries you choose, and it starts with your own. Worldwide marketplaces are always shown as well.

Choose Show all countries to see everything that has been recorded.

Yes, from BrickLink's price guide. A part is priced per colour, so choose a colour on its page first.

If a minifigure or a part in a colour has not been priced yet, your visit asks for it: a later price sweep looks it up and records its prices. Check back later.

A valuation is an estimate computed from recorded prices. It is not an appraisal, and whether an insurer accepts it is the insurer's decision.

What BrickDb can do is show it to the right person: invite your insurer or adviser to a collection in the Insurance role, and they see the sets, their condition and their valuations, and nothing private.

Three things: the barcode on a set box, the set number printed on a box (from a photo), and the small square code on a collectable minifigure bag or box.

The set-box scanner handles the first two and the bag-code scanner the third. Looking something up needs no account.

Open the set-box scanner, hold the barcode inside the frame and keep still. BrickDb reads the EAN-13 or UPC-A barcode and shows the set.

If the camera cannot read it, type in the digits printed under the bars. There are twelve or thirteen of them.

Yes, in the browser. Photograph the front of the box with the printed set number clearly in view, or choose an existing photo, and BrickDb reads the number and finds the set.

Avoid glare, fill the frame and keep the number sharp. The first photo after a pause can take up to about 45 seconds while the reader starts up; the next ones are quick.

Open the bag-code scanner and fill the frame with the small square code made of dots on the bag or box. BrickDb reads it and names the figure inside.

The code is a DataMatrix and not a QR code, which is why an ordinary QR scanner finds nothing. If the camera cannot read it, type in the run of digits printed beside the code. The same works for the boxed series sold the same way; for those BrickDb names the set.

Yes. In live mode you sweep the camera along a shelf and every code in view is named where it sits. It reads a frame roughly once a second, so a label follows the box by a moment.

Or upload one photo of several boxes, and BrickDb reads every code it can find and shows where in the photo each one was. Photo upload for several codes is not available in every app yet.

Nothing is wrong. The list of codes is built from scans people contribute, and nobody has told BrickDb about this one yet.

If you know what it is, say so: enter the figure's or the set's catalogue number, and the next person who scans that code gets the answer. Contributing needs an account, because answers are counted per person.

One thing to check on a collectable minifigure box: its barcode identifies the series and not the figure. Scan the small square code next to it.

Give the right answer on the result. Your answer replaces any earlier one you gave for that code, so you can correct yourself as well.

No single person settles a code. It takes agreement between different people, and where answers contradict each other BrickDb's moderators can decide. If something looks plainly wrong, you can also write to us through the support page.

It says how well supported the answer is. The number rises with how many different people agree, and it never reaches certainty.

A result can also say where it stands: taken from a published dataset and not yet confirmed here, early days with fewer than three people agreeing, or decided by BrickDb's moderators.

Check that BrickDb is allowed to use the camera: in the browser's address bar, or in your device's settings for the app. Something else may also be using the camera at that moment.

You never need a camera, though. Every scanner lets you type the code or the digits in, and both routes end up in the same place. The camera stays off until you ask for it.

No. A scan only tells you what you are holding. From the result you can open the set or figure and add it yourself, and nothing is added without your review.

If you photograph many boxes in one go with the box photo import, each photo waits until you say what it is.

More than 28,000 sets, 17,000 minifigures and 64,000 distinct parts, along with books, magazines and merchandise. Every set page lists the pieces that set is made of, colour by colour.

Browse the catalogue by tab or by theme, or type a name or number into the search.

The sets, minifigures, parts and their inventories are refreshed nightly from Rebrickable's published data. Recommended retail prices come from Brickset.

The data sources page names every source, and the attributions page lists every licence.

The part before the hyphen is the number printed on the box. The part after it is a variant suffix: it tells apart different products that share one printed number, such as a re-release years later.

Most sets have only a -1. You can search for 75192 without the suffix; BrickDb uses the full number, 75192-1, wherever it has to be exact.

Yes. Every set page lists its inventory: each part, in each colour, with its quantity, and the minifigures that come with the set.

A set is stored as its inventory and not as a picture of a box. That is what lets BrickDb show every piece in it and, once you own copies, every piece you hold across all of them.

A minifigure page shows the parts the figure is built from and the sets it appears in. A part page shows the colours the part is known in and the sets that contain it.

Both show prices from BrickLink's price guide where BrickDb holds them.

BrickDb links to building instructions at their source where a link is known, and never copies them. For some sets no link is available.

Books are listed edition by edition, by ISBN, because a paperback, a hardback and a translation are different things to own. An edition's page gives its title, publisher and language and, where it is known, what came with it.

Books that the catalogue lists as sets appear on the Books tab of the catalogue.

Issue by issue, per country, because the same title appears with different contents in different countries. An issue's page shows its cover, its on-sale date, what came with it where somebody has recorded that, and dated shop prices with their tax basis.

If BrickDb holds no issue for a selection, that says what has been recorded so far and not that none appeared.

Write to us through the support page and name the set, minifigure or part and what is wrong. Most catalogue facts come from Rebrickable's published data, so a correction made there reaches BrickDb with a nightly refresh.

Upcoming fan events, exhibitions and store openings. They are suggested by members or read from the organisers' own published calendars, and a moderator checks each one before anybody sees it.

Every event shows where it takes place and when.

Filter the events list by country. BrickDb starts with the country you have chosen, and you can pick another or see them all.

You can also show only events that have a registration-opening date, or longer-running ones such as exhibitions.

Sign in and use the form on the events page. Give the dates and times in the venue's own time zone and a link to the organiser's page.

A person reviews every suggestion, so publication can take a while, and no e-mail is sent about it. Once approved, the event details and the source link are public. Your account identity is not.

The blog carries news about new sets, deals and BrickDb itself. Posts that mention shop offers are labelled as advertising, like every paid link on BrickDb.

For longer reading there are also reviews of sets, step-by-step guides and the glossary.

BrickDb is a free catalogue and collection manager for LEGO® sets, minifigures and parts. You can look up any set, see the pieces it is made of and what copies of it have sold for, and keep a record of what you own: each copy with its condition, your photos and what you paid.

It is an independent fan project. The About page tells the story, and the feature pages describe what works today.

No. BrickDb is free, sells nothing to its users and never asks for a payment.

It pays for itself through affiliate links, which are labelled Advertising, and through voluntary support. If you would like to help, this page says how.

Not to look around. The catalogue, the search, the scanner and the prices all work without signing in.

You need an account for the parts that are about you: your collection, your wishlist, shared collections and your storage places. Suggesting an event and telling BrickDb what a scanned code is need one too.

You can sign in with an e-mail address and a password, with Google, or with Apple. Whichever you choose, your collection, your wishlist and your scans follow you to every device you sign in on.

Your password is held by our sign-in provider and never by BrickDb itself.

Yes. An authenticator app, a passkey or a hardware security key can be added to your sign-in, together with a recovery code in case you lose the device. A second factor is offered and never required.

Codes by text message are not offered. The account page shows the state of your sign-in; a switch to turn the second factor on from there is not built yet.

Open the account page and choose Change password. You are sent an e-mail with a link to set a new one; BrickDb never sees or handles the password.

If you sign in with Google or Apple there is no BrickDb password to change. Your password lives with them.

The account page shows the address you sign in with, and it does not offer a way to change it yet. If you sign in with Google or Apple, the address comes from that provider.

If your address has changed and you cannot sort it out yourself, write to us through the support page and a person will help.

A first name, a last name, a few lines about you, your country and, if you want, a postal address. All of it is optional. None of it is stored by BrickDb: it is kept with your sign-in, so deleting your account takes it with it.

You can also upload an avatar or choose one of ours. An uploaded picture is cropped to a square, and the location and device data your camera embedded is removed before anything is stored.

On the account page, choose Download my data. BrickDb builds a ZIP file when you ask for it, from your own account, and it contains nobody else's data.

Inside is a file with your account and everything you own, including notes, condition, storage location and what you paid, plus every photograph you uploaded. The file also names the few things it leaves out, and why.

On the account page, choose Delete my account. The page first counts what would be deleted, and then asks you to confirm. Deleting removes your collection, your photographs and your sign-in account. It cannot be undone, and there is no recovery.

Two things remain. Bag codes you identified are kept with your name taken off them, because other people rely on those answers. And an event you suggested that was approved stays public, with the link to you removed. Backups let go of deleted data at their regular expiry, at the latest after 35 days. More is on the data deletion page.

Only you, until you decide otherwise. A collection starts private, with you as its only owner.

You choose who else sees it, one collection at a time: people you invite, anybody with a link, or anybody at all. Even a public collection shows only the sets and their condition. The privacy policy has the full account of what is stored.

Only if you allow it. BrickDb would like to use Google Analytics to count visits and see which pages people use, and it asks first. Nothing is loaded from a third party and nothing is stored on your device for that purpose before you choose.

You can change your mind at any time. The privacy policy says what is collected and how to withdraw.

BrickDb works in any modern browser, and there are apps for Android (version 8 or later) and for Windows. The scanners work in both of those apps as well as in the browser.

Apps for iPhone, iPad and Mac are on the way. The home page shows a store badge for each app as soon as its listing is live.

Not yet. BrickDb needs a connection to load the catalogue and to save your changes. When it cannot reach its servers it tells you so, because some changes may not save until the connection is back.

Editing without a signal, with changes queued on the device and replayed later, is planned. The roadmap shows where it stands.

The interface is available in seven languages: English, German, French, Dutch, Danish, Italian and Spanish. You can switch whenever you like on the country and language page, and your choice is remembered.

The imprint, the privacy policy, the terms of use and the data deletion page are available in all seven languages, and the German text is the authoritative one.

The country and language page lets you choose both, independently of each other. The country decides which prices and which events are pre-selected for you, so that you first see shops that sell where you live and events near you.

It is a starting point and not a wall. You can always widen a price list to other countries or look at events elsewhere.

BrickDb has an address for each of these countries:

• Germany: brickdb.de
• Austria: brickdb.at
• Switzerland: brickdb.ch
• Denmark: brickdb.dk
• Netherlands: brickdb.nl
• Belgium: brickdb.be
• France: brickdb.fr
• Italy: brickdb.it
• Luxembourg: brickdb.lu
• Spain: brickdb.es
• United Kingdom: brickdb.co.uk
• United States: brickdb.us
• Mexico: brickdb.com.mx

The rest of Europe is at home on brickdb.eu, and everyone else on brickdb.net.

They are all the same BrickDb, with the same catalogue and the same account. The address only decides which country and language you start with, and you can change both on the country and language page.

The blog is written in German and in English only. If you use BrickDb in French, Dutch, Danish, Italian or Spanish, the rest of the interface stays in your language and the posts appear in one of those two.

BrickDb was built by Thimo Buchheister, a software developer and lifelong builder, and is operated by ThreeB IT GmbH, a small software company in Ibbenbüren, Germany.

The imprint carries the full provider details, and the team page introduces the people.

No. BrickDb is an independent, fan-made project. LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of companies, which does not sponsor, authorise or endorse BrickDb.

BrickDb takes part in the affiliate programme of the LEGO® Shop through an advertising network. That is an ordinary publisher agreement and not an endorsement.

Through affiliate commission and voluntary support. Some shop links are affiliate links: if you buy through one, BrickDb may earn a commission, and you pay no more for it. Every such link is labelled Advertising.

The size of a commission has no bearing on whether a price is shown or where it appears. The partner page explains the arrangement in full.

Use the form on the support page. You get a ticket number straight away, and the answer comes by e-mail from somebody who can fix the problem. You can also write to hello@brickdb.net.

It helps to say what you were doing, what you expected, what happened instead, when, and on which device. Never send a password: nobody here will ever ask for one.

On an event or on a publicly shared collection, choose Report, pick a reason and, if you like, add a sentence about what is wrong. You do not need an account, and leaving your e-mail address is optional.

A person reads every report. You get a reference for yours straight away, and BrickDb acts on the content rather than on whoever posted it.