While I’ve been building with BIONICLE and LEGO Technic pieces since 2001, I’ve always had one consistent problem: I was always short on some of the critical pieces needed for building with the non-brick-based system. In particular, the black and blue Technic pins. I’ve generally avoided BrickLink due to a difference in how I process things — it’s hard for me to integrate certain kinds of information like fees, invoicing etc rather than just buying a bag of parts at a garage sale and being done with it. But I made a large-scale exception to that rule that I’m quite happy with.

Once, when I was attending BrickUniverse, I ended up coming out of a building contest victorious. In addition to the prize itself, BrickUniverse’s founder Grayson Beights tossed me an unopened bag of what must have contained over 200 Technic pins inside. I can’t even remember what the actual prize for winning was, but at that moment I had GLORIOUS TECHNIC PINS at my disposal, and that was the important thing.

Before I began working on my Uberonicle, I knew one thing: I would need literally thousands of those pins to achieve what I was envisioning. To that end, I wound up putting more effort than I care to admit into planning and ordering four thousand of part 2780 and two thousand of part 43093 from Potter More Bricks. Should Potter More Bricks restock his pin inventory, he would be worth checking out for those pieces, especially with his no-hidden-fees-ever policy. My only complaint was that he shorted me about 80 black technic pins (probably an unintentional miscalculation trying to weigh the pins on a less-than-accurate scale), and weirdly, gave me 26 additional blue pins, although he quickly refunded me for the missing pieces.

Until he restocks though, it looks like Brickenburg is having a 33% off sale, including the pins in new condition, and I’m at least not seeing any fees listed in his policies. The price also comes up a bit cheaper on the blue pins than what I paid for at Potter More Bricks at the time: parts 2780 and 43093.

Carpe diem Technic pins!