PHOENIX – On a cloudy Thursday afternoon in north Phoenix, a customer walks into a local resale shop with dreams of selling his lime green Lamborghini.

The store owner welcomes the customer into his relatively compact yet organized store, hopeful that they can make a deal.

After a thorough inspection, business owner Michael Stark says he can resell the car for a few hundred dollars. It may seem like an absurdly low price tag, but this Lambo isn’t a typical sports car – it’s made out of Legos.

Stark, founder and CEO of independent Lego reseller Brixperience, launched his business three and a half years ago after a lengthy career in the health care industry. He said he caters to Lego enthusiasts by offering in-store leather booths for customers to build sets and by giving away pieces.

“What I love more than anything is for people to come in, ask me for the last piece of the set that they're trying to complete (and) I've got it in 30 seconds,” Stark said. “(It’s a) zero dollar transaction. It's a one-to-one human transaction that they probably didn't expect… and they'll take that feeling on hopefully to somebody else and spread that.”

Stark has seen an influx of customers since a controversy surrounding Bricks and Minifigs, one of the largest Lego resellers in the nation, surfaced earlier this year.

Bryan Mansell, a Lego collector alongside his father, accused a Bricks and Minifigs franchise in Salem, Oregon, of breaching a consignment agreement that involved their $200,000 Lego Star Wars collection after a change in store ownership.

Bricks and Minifigs and the Mansell family have since agreed to a resolution, but the company is pursuing legal action against content creator Ben Schneider, known online as Reckless Ben, after his video series investigating the situation went viral.

Arizona Brick Co. manager Drew Gregory is surrounded by displays while building Legos at the reseller shop in Chandler, Ariz., on Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026.

Photo by Aiden Hanley/Cronkite News

The videos topped millions of views, and as a result, Bricks and Minifigs franchises throughout the U.S. and Canada received backlash from viewers and former customers even though the Mansells’ case involved only one location.

A franchisee in Tucson tried to separate his story from the controversy by partnering with Schneider and rebranding his business to “Reckless Bricks,” a play on the YouTuber’s online persona. Stark said he appreciates the foot traffic that the controversy has brought to his door, but added that he “feel(s) bad for the community.”

“At the height of it, every day somebody has come in and said, ‘We’re not going to go back (to Bricks and Minifigs),’” he said. There are 11 Bricks and Minifigs stores in Arizona. 

Even though he is an independent reseller, Stark said he sympathizes with franchise owners who may be negatively affected by the ongoing scandal.

“I feel terrible for the franchise (owners) because that's who I am,” Stark said. “I think that there are franchisees that got caught up in something that they didn't fully understand.”

Brixperience avoids consignment agreements because “there’s just not enough money in it for our customers,” Stark said.

Consignments are a type of contract in which “items are sold at a retailer but the supplier retains the full ownership of the inventory until purchased by consumers,” according to a 2010 research paper by Elodie Adida, an expert in supply chain management at the University of California, Riverside. “The supplier collects payment from the retailer based on actual units sold.”

Similar to Brixperience, Arizona Brick Co. in Chandler avoids consignment arrangements.  

Drew Gregory is a manager at Arizona Brick Co., a Lego resale business that focuses mostly on selling retired sets, minifigures and building a community through events. As a Lego collector, Gregory said he appreciates the strong sense of community that the business brings together.

“There’s so many great people, talented builders we absolutely love,” Gregory said. “Everybody who comes in here is like family, (and Arizona Brick Co.) is a meeting point for a lot of people (to) work on projects together.”

Gregory noted that he hasn’t seen an increase or decrease in sales following the Bricks and Minifigs controversy, adding that the business has been “consistently growing” since it opened in January 2024.

Like Gregory, Stark said he is proud of the customers he has attracted since becoming a Lego reseller.

“The Lego community is a very diverse community and it's very open and welcoming,” Stark said. “I think there's a lot of goodwill.”

Alexander Galeazzi, also known as Arizona Jones on social media, is an advocate for the Lego community, highlighting various independent resellers across the country through an online video series.

Galeazzi described the controversy as a “rallying cry” that will ultimately strengthen the community of Lego lovers.

“We are a community where we are no stranger to leading with our pockets,” he said. “We know what we want to spend our money on.”

Lego minifigurines displayed in a glass countertop, organized by price and set at Arizona Brick Co. in Phoenix, Ariz. on Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026.

Photo by Aiden Hanley/Cronkite News

Galeazzi said he admires the inclusiveness of the Lego community, even from when he was a young collector.

“I can not express how welcoming this niche of fans of this toy brand is,” Galeazzi said. “This is a group of people that clearly just want to empower their inner child."

This article first appeared on Cronkite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.