No one can deny the wonder one feels, regardless of age, when facing a sealed box. From childhood to adulthood, unboxing something always brings a mixture of excitement, anticipation, and suspense. No wonder gifts are always presented inside a sealed box – to elicit the same – because it makes the gift giving extra pleasant and special. One of the best examples of boxed wonders in the universe of toys is LEGO. Through the years, its box has evolved from completely sealed to viewable front to completely sealed again, while a few other models and themes feature unique box designs.
Everyone knows that Lego is a toy meant to be built and rebuilt into countless forms, and it’s bought with its parts loose. What compounds the excitement in getting one is the fact that something wonderful awaits to spring out of the box and out of one’s hands that would open it. And many collectors share the same feeling of this writer – the sound of loose bricks inside a sealed Lego box when shaken is one of the best sounds in the world. To describe it as exciting would be an understatement, because it’s actually therapeutic to one’s ears as music is to one’s spirit. A number of Lego collectors who live in the Philippines have shared how it is like to unbox Lego sets. Young retailer and father of two JJ Gan described it like a special childlike feeling which he doesn’t get from his usual work routine. He added, “From the unboxing to building and displaying, Lego balances my adult life. What has made it more special now is the fact that I now build and share my sets with my two young boys.”
Erick Ngo, a restaurant businessman, on the other hand, feels heavenly about it. “Opening a Lego box feels like heaven on earth. Smelling the innards of the box, feeling the excitement of seeing the plastic parts inside polybags, and equally hearing the sound of the bricks colliding on each other while shaking a sealed box are all heavenly,” he shared.
The first Lego set ever owned by a collector or enthusiast is usually unforgettable. System Analyst and Programmer Mu Florentino vividly remembered, in all of its 32 years, the first set that he ever had – the 1981 model Legoland Red Cross helicopter. Erick, for his part, remembered that when he was 4 years old, getting his first set felt like experiencing an indelible milestone in one’s life, as if God himself gave it to him.
This writer, on the other hand, cannot forget his first set - the 1986 Guarded Inn under the Legoland Castles theme, which jumpstarted his fascination with the medieval age. He even marked the box with his name as well as of his siblings, and even invented names and wrote them on each photo of its minifigures as if they’re new members of his family.
Many toy collectors struggle with the decision whether to keep their hauls mint in box or deboxed. It’s the interesting difference between an adult and a child. They say adults buy toys to display them (and in many cases, keep them as investment to be sold later when they become rare and expensive), while children buy them to play with them until they’re worn out. Either way, toys are enjoyed. But quite many cannot resist unboxing toys, especially when you’re dealing with Lego wherein you’re supposed to see its built glory. Expectedly, collectors prefer unboxing them, but since Lego eats so much horizontal space, many sets are kept sealed for the meantime.
For JJ and Mu, they usually buy 2 copies of a set – one for unboxing and the other for investment. Retired Lego sets do fetch high prices, and as one online report claimed, Lego is a better investment than gold. This writer, on the other hand, feels good while looking at his unboxed sets – especially the big ones – because it’s like freezing the excitement and immortalizing the thrill of anticipating its contents. Unboxing and building a set deflate that earlier thrill, and inflate a new one which doesn’t seem to stay until the same set is rebuilt into a new design, or combined with another set to create a new dimension of imagination.
The contents of a Lego box can sometimes be as special as the box itself. They are stored for reasons like posterity and sentimentality. This writer likes to relive that familiar old thrill whenever he looks at the empty vintage boxes, while JJ prefers to keep the boxes because he plans to include them in a display space for his built sets which he aims to put up one day.
A box of Lego is indeed a box of endless wonders and of limitless unknown creations waiting to unfold. It’s like a box of chocolates – delicious-looking, it’s hard to resist unboxing it. Heck, life itself is like a box of Lego - you’ll never know what surprise you’re gonna get.
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