Found my old Bionicle collection in my parents' basement last weekend

I spent 4 hours Saturday night rebuilding a Toa Nuva from a plastic bag of pieces. Turns out those joints still click together perfectly after 20 years. My wife walked in and asked if I was having a midlife crisis at 32. Has anyone else pulled out an old toy and realized it holds up way better than you expected?

3 comments

3 Comments

jasonc503d ago

I remember reading somewhere that Lego specifically engineered those old Bionicle joints to be basically indestructible, which explains why they still snap together like new. The plastic blend they used back then was apparently different from what they use now, more durable or whatever. My buddy pulled out his Gali Nuva last year and the rubber mask still had that weird smell from the early 2000s, lol. It's wild how those sets were designed to be taken apart and rebuilt a million times, modern toys just don't have that same kind of staying power.

nancy8242d ago

My uncle still has a full set of Toa Mata from 2001 in his basement. @jasonc50 you're right about that smell, I swear it's burned into my brain forever. I actually tested one of those old joints against a modern Lego technic pin and the old one just felt denser somehow. The rubber masks on those early ones had a weird chemical thing going on that they totally stopped using later. Makes me wonder if we'll still be saying the same thing about current Lego parts 20 years from now.

burns.richard2d ago

Funny you mention that because I used to think Lego was just overpriced plastic and didnt get the hype. Then my nephew found a half-built Kopaka at a garage sale and I offered to help clean it up. That thing had been sitting in a musty box for probably 15 years and the joints still clicked like new. The rubber mask still had that weird smell too, actually brought back a lot of memories. It changed my mind completely about how good those old sets were made. Now I keep an eye out for them at flea markets whenever I can.