As you probably know, the Pick-and-Build (PAB) wall is undergoing a pretty big change. The round, plastic cups we’ve all come to expect are gradually becoming a thing of the past. As store stock of the cups dries up, cardboard boxes are coming in to replace them. On my last visit to my local store, the transition was in full swing. The large cups were gone and replaced with boxes. While the store still had the smaller cups, employees told me that would only last until the stock of small cups was used up. Those will be boxes soon too. Since I hardly ever go for the smaller size cup, I ended up with my first in-store PAB box experience… and I think I liked it more than the cups.

Before we delve into my box, let’s chat about some of the rules. Firstly, the price of the large and small boxes remains identical to that of the large and small cups. That was a relief. However, other aspects of the PAB experience are changing. Chief among them is packing potential. The lid of the box must now fit squarely closed. Gone are the days of the lid barely sitting in place and requiring tape. I know some stores did not allow that, but my store was forgiving about it. The second big change is no more discounts for reusing containers. There is no discount for reusing the new boxes, and you can no longer bring in the old cups for one either. I forgot to bring in my old cups pretty much every time I went to the LEGO® Store, so that’s not the end of the world for me.

My first in-store PAB box cost about $0.05/gram.

How do the new boxes compare to the cups? Pretty well, I think. This was only my first box, so I need more time and boxes to form a proper opinion. However, I was able to fill my box to the brim with 413.57 g of bricks. At $19.99 CAD for the box, I paid about $0.05/gram. While it has been years since I last analyzed my PAB habits, back in 2019 cups used to cost me on average $0.05/gram. So, my first box falls in line with my past cups. With that said, the box was WAY easier to pack than a round cup.

The straight edges of the box were much more brick friendly than the cups. I stacked my bricks together and fit three layers. Subsequently, I filled the remaining space on top with un-stackable elements, just as I would try to fill the empty cup space with smaller parts. The box fits columns of 19 regular height bricks. My first two layers consisted of five columns of 2×2 round, golden bricks each. The box was just shy of providing enough space for a sixth column. Instead I filled the extra side space with 10 columns of candlestick elements. I was able to fit columns 14 candlesticks high in the box.

My first in-store PAB box consisted of about 1,574 pieces.

The third layer of my box consisted of 1×2 arched jumper bricks and their corresponding corner elements. I made two columns of the corner bricks, and four of arches. The gaps under the arches allowed me to squeeze more space out of the box and fit six columns on this layer. Once again, each column consisted of 19 bricks. I probably could have added another layer of bricks on top to fill up the box, but I wanted a lot of little twig pieces. My final layer consisted of filling the box to the brim with twigs.

In the end, I crammed in 140 candlesticks, 190 2×2 round bricks, 114 arched bricks, and approximately 1,130 twigs. I didn’t count the twigs… but 12 of them weigh 1 gram and I had just over 94 grams of twigs. My grand total was 1,574 bricks for $19.99 CAD, or about $0.01/brick. My average for PAB cups in 2019 was $0.03/brick. Take that with a little grain of salt because I did top the box off with A LOT of small twigs. Obviously, if you fill your cup with larger elements, the cost/brick goes higher. Hence why I provided the earlier mass comparison as well, it is probably a better indicator than cost/brick in this case.

This box cost me $0.01/brick (but there’s a lot of tiny elements).

And now the kicker… do the contents of my box fit in a plastic cup? Yes, it all fits perfectly with the lid neatly snapping closed on top. To sum things up, it looks like a large box fits pretty much the same amount of LEGO® as the old large cup did. The only difference being that the box is faster and easier to pack. I can honestly say I enjoyed my first in-store PAB box experience. I don’t feel like I got any more bricks than I would have with a cup, but I don’t feel like I got less either. I’ll take the better packing experience as a bonus. Of course, this was only my first box. We’ll see how I feel after a few more. What do you think of the boxes versus the cups? Let me know in the comments or reach out on social media.

Until next time,

-Tom

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