Top 8 of '08: #5 - Star Wars LEGO

If I had been doing a list like this every year since 1999, I'm confident LEGO would be on it each time. What an incredible line of products they've made! I still remember back when I was a personal equity portfolio manager reading the Wall Street Journal at the start of each day. In the summer of 1998, there was an amazing article in Section B. It announced that LEGO was embarking on their first licensed line, and what better license to pick than Star Wars!?!? I jumped out of my chair and celebrated as if a stock in my clients' portfolios had been bought out and we'd all made a pile of money (I didn't stick with that career much longer, FWIW). When I was a kid, Star Wars and LEGO were my two primary and almost my only toys I played with - the idea of the two of them together was like peanut butter and jelly.

Jump forward ten years and the LEGO line is still going gangbusters. This year saw the usual lineup of small to mid-size kits early in the year followed by bigger ones in the summer. The summer assortment focused heavily on the Clone Wars series, with seven kits debuting on July 26 (four in wide release and three as retailer exclusives). Target also brought us the Republic Tank late in the year, and to top it all off LEGO offered two direct exclusives: a Ultimate Collector's Series model of General Grievous and a $400, 3800+ piece Death Star playset. Grievous must not have sold so well, as he was marked down 50% after Black Friday and has stayed there (I picked mine up at that price). I haven't gotten the Death Star set yet, but I have every confidence it is a fantastic build and hope to see it someday.

All of these sets were great fun, but the top LEGO experience for me personally in 2008 was building the Ultimate Collector's Series Millennium Falcon. When released in 2007, it was the largest kit LEGO had ever made (the new Taj Mahal tops it in piece count but not in scale). I got mine late in '07 but held off on building it until I finished a renovation of my collection space. When I finally got to it, I was amazed. I've never built a kit so large, of course, and the nights of putting together whatever steps I could fit in became a huge blur by the end of the process. Finished, it is a thing of beauty. I don't really know if I'll ever take it apart, which would be the first kit I've ever felt that way about.

Through the years, LEGO continues to deliver on quality and on excitement, and so collecting and building their Star Wars line in '08 is my #5 Star Wars experience of the year.