Re: 110,000 bricks. This is the Mosiac of San Fran. Made by Eric Harshbarger., originally uploaded by clarity2199.
This thing is huge. Heavy too. My poor back. But it was worth it. Check
out the detail, 100.000 LEGO bricks.
Dan
WILL REOPEN MAY 2019.
Re: 110,000 bricks. This is the Mosiac of San Fran. Made by Eric Harshbarger.
Re: 110,000 bricks. This is the Mosiac of San Fran. Made by Eric Harshbarger., originally uploaded by clarity2199.
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4 comments:
Looks good
Great creation. Is this in the home of LegoRick collection?
The following I found in a newspaper called Senior Life in the January 2006 edition and have copied it without permission.
LEISURE
SENIOR L I F E • JANUARY 2 0 0 6 w w w. s e n i o r l i f e u s a . c o m 18
By Debbie L. Sklar
SPECIAL TO SENIOR LIFE
They may have a funny name, but ask
any LEGO collector what the appeal is and you’re sure to get a wide smile.
Take avid collector, LEGORick, 59,
who has collected thousands of
these brightly colored plastic
pieces for more than 10 years. Not only did he have one of the largest collections around, but the San Diego resident recently donated his vast and beloved
collection to a Midwest museum.
“I was always fascinated that people could build so many things from the bricks that offered so few shapes to do that with,” explains the Vietnam veteran.
Starting block
But where did these odd-shaped building blocks actually come from and why all the hoopla? The tale goes something like this: Ole Kirk Christiansen, a master carpenter and joiner, established a small
business in the village of Billund in Denmark in 1932. His company manufactured stepladders, ironing boards and wooden toys.
In 1934, the company adopted the
name LEGO for their products, formed from the Danish words “LEg GOdt” or “play well.” Later on it was realized that in Latin the word means “I study” or “I put together,” an ironic coincidence that gave the toy even more meaning.
The small company of only a dozen
employees continued to turn out the
popular toy until 1942, when tragedy struck—the entire LEGO factory burned to the ground. Unwilling to throw in the
towel, the factory was rebuilt and the assembly line restarted soon thereafter.
LEGORick actually started collecting the diminuitive building blocks late in life, after purchasing a few sets 12
years ago. “Everything was on sale—half-off— right after Christmas one year and I knew they had a potential investment value, so I started buying the bigger sets,” he says. He was also interested in the LEGO cars, which are considered quite rare these days, after witnessing a few go up
for auction on Ebay. “The cars, called HO gauge, were really
the first things that I truly started collecting, followed by all of the accessories
that went with them,” he says. “They are plastic, of course, with metal wheels and
less than 2 inches wide. Most of them are European models like Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz. For me, I liked collecting things that were associated with real, every day life,” he says. “Like citylife
things including ships and trains.”
Letting go After years of happy LEGO collecting,
however, LEGORick was forced to part with his beloved collection due to personal reasons. “I needed to safeguard the collection
and, for me, I wanted to donate it to someone who would be able to look after it,” he explains. “This was a collection that dated back to the 1960s and it needed to be kept in its wholeness.”
Rick estimates the collection to be
worth somewhere in the neighborhood
of $30,000. Before the donation, the collection included more than 1,000 sets, and 10 trains, enough parts to build five monorails with a total of 85 running feet of track, as well as several of LEGO’s earliest floating boats.
“I was very sad to see it go, but I know it is in good hands,” he says. “When I had the collection, I only had a small portion of it on show; most of the time it
remained in LEGO buckets and in tubs that were stored away on shelves.”
In October, the massive collection—
more than a dozen boxes (many of which were 8 cubic feet)—was sent to Dan Brown, in Bellaire, Ohio. Brown is in the process of starting a toy museum, which
will open its doors sometime in 2006.
“I tried to donate it to the local Boys and Girls Club, as well as the San Diego Railroad Museum,” Rick says. “But, I was afraid the collection would be used for
parts rather than put on display.”
Fortunately, a friend of his from San Diego County’s LEGOLAND hooked him up with Brown, who agreed to pay for the shipping.
“It took three weeks to send it because it was such a big collection,” LEGORick says. “My collection is very unique for him
(Brown) and he is planning on dedicating an entire room to it. He even paid $1,000 for a wall mosaic of more than 100,000
tiles, where everything will be on display.
I think it will take him at least one year to set up the entire collection.”
“Rick is one of the most in-depth
LEGO collectors of his time,” Brown
said from Ohio. “His love for the
unique design ability of the product and his eye for rare items make his collection valuable beyond its purchase price. Anyone can go to the store and buy LEGO products, but it takes a special
person to find the rare items out
there. And his collection would be a dream for any LEGO collector. We were fortunate enough to get it. It will stay intact, and will be shown the way it should be. The way he would want it to be. This is our goal; this is his legacy.”
Quite a story.
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