REVIEW: LEGO 853921 - LEGO Xtra - LEGO Brick Stickers

I know that I promised that I'd show off the rest of the 1990 LEGO Magazine and I will do that eventually but in the meantime I want to take a quick look at LEGO 853921 - LEGO Brick Stickers from the LEGO Xtra line of sets.

I actually ordered this set quite some time ago but LEGO was out of stock of the product at the time I ordered.  Months later (and I do mean months later), I finally got my own copy.  Actually, I bought two copies but that's neither here nor there. 

As you can probably guess from the name of the set, this is an Xtra set that's basically all about stickers.  Yes, there are a few (12 total) LEGO bricks that come along with the set but they are mostly just basic pieces designed to have stickers stuck to them (plus one pretzel piece for some reason).  The real star of the set is the five sheets of stickers, so let's take a look at those!

We'll begin with the most boring sheet of stickers out of the five.  On it's own, this is a perfectly fine collection but for the most part the stickers on this sheet are actually duplicates found on other sheets within the set.  I do like the cereal box stickers near the bottom of the sheet, I think those may end up find their way into my custom grocery store before long!

Next, we get the most generic sheet of stickers in that there's a lot here that can be used almost anywhere within a city (especially the numbers and, to a lesser extent, the railway system sticker).  The white spots on the sheet are also stickers (printed in white) but you can't make them out from the scan (sorry about that).  I like the fan stickers near the top but I don't like the clock stickers since there is already a fairly common printed clock piece that LEGO does that basically looks just like the stickers here.  Of all the stickers on the page, I think only the Clutchmoor Elementary School sticker is probably one that I'll never have a use for since I don't have plans (or the room) to include a school in my layout.

Moving on to more generic City stuff (though a bit more creative this time around), we get a bunch of nice street signs complete with LEGO references.  The classic burger sticker is also super cool as I remember seeing that basic design when I was a kid (same with the Octan sticker for that matter).  The duck crossing sticker is the funniest of the bunch here, though that banana warning sticker is a close second.  Good stuff!

The last couple of sticker sheets are much more specific to certain buildings within a city.  For example, the fourth sheet basically is designed to assist builders with four different types of buildings:  a toy store, a bakery, a pizza shop, and a grocery store.

Now that I own this set of stickers, I think I need to revisit my custom grocery store and do some remodeling.  I also like the variety of "open" stickers in different colors, those will be useful for any number of shops within the city.

And finally, the last of the sticker sheets contains a few more stickers to go with the previous sheet along with some random signs/posters.  The real highlight, however, is all of the pet store stickers!  My next custom building that I've wanted to do for quite some time is a pet shop so I know I can make good use of many of the stickers on this page.  In fact, I hope to actually start on building my custom pet shop in the very near future - one of the last things I was needing to do before starting it was write this review prior to using up the stickers! 

Overall, I give the LEGO 853921:  LEGO Xtra - LEGO Brick Stickers the following rating:

The Bottom Line (out of 10):
Fun:  1
Play Value:  1
Kid Value:  2
Adult Value:  10
Overall:  9

I don't think this particular sticker pack is great for kids - the included LEGO bricks are nice enough but you can't actually build anything from this small pack by itself.  In addition, the stickers are clearly aimed at custom city creators and very few of the stickers would probably appeal to most kids (maybe the pet shop animals but that's about it).  On the other hand, this set is a veritable gold mine for adult builders who are working on their own custom creations.  It's actually kind of funny that I complain about getting stickers in sets and yet I jumped at the opportunity to buy a pack of stickers.  What can I say, collectors can be fickle I guess?! 

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