Quality of the bricks mentionned as Used (Good)

brickos

Dear Brick Owl users

I have a question regarding the quality of bricks mentioned as Used (Good).

Just got a bag of white used pieces full of filth with very disgusting bricks having dark/brow matter between the clutches’ that cannot be removed event washing them with soap two times?

Is this acceptable?

I’ve reached out to the seller after posting positive review.

Hoddie

This may help:
https://www.brickowl.com/help/item-conditions

It's subjective at the end of the day. What is good for one person may be considered terrible by another. However, Brick Owl requires that used items are clean.

brickos

Thanks a lot @Hoddie for the very fast answer and the item-conditions details. Will send a heads up to the seller about this.

Assassincreed83

In the past I bought some Legos like that but not on brick owl yet. But I found 1 part vinegar and 2 part water. Really helps get them clean and it's also safe for the lego itself.

brickos

Thanks a lot @Assassincreed83 for your advice! Will do the clean up also with an old toothbrush...

Jay37

I would advise against a toothbrush - they can be quite abrasive - but something like a small paintbrush with softer bristles (the sort you would use for watercolor painting, not decorating your walls!) is less harsh and allows you better access to nooks and crannies.

P6tu

@Assassincreed83 , does this vinegar solution also work on yellowed or discoloured parts that have seen the sun for too long?

Or maybe someone else can chime in on this? I've accumulated conciderable amount of blue, white and grey/bluish gray parts that have this seriously visible and noticable "sunburn"...

Jay37

No, white vinegar is useful diluted to get rid of smells. I believe a solution of hydrogen peroxide is required for the sun damaged parts, but I've read that it is a bit hit and miss (and requires time). Others may have some experience...

mfav

Re: the hydrogen peroxide. This works on white parts only. It may work on blue and light gray parts, provided you don't mind inconsistent color and the parts turning decidedly whiter. So. Yeah. Recommend against anything except white.

Results are varied, and it's a crap shoot. Some things will get whiter, decidedly whiter, and stay that way. Others will revert to "tan" within an unspecified period. I've done quite a few parts with the peroxide and my best guess is that whatever the plastic chemistry of the time the bricks were created has something to do with how well it works or doesn't. I had two old white horses…both yellowed…put one in the bath and the other I left out. The one left out is still tan. The one that went in the bath I can't tell apart from the other white horses that were always white. On the other hand I have some stormtrooper minifigs that are more tan than tan.

I've seen some claims that the process makes the plastic more brittle. I have not found this to be the case in any of the attempts I've made.

If you want to give it a go, put some hydrogen peroxide in a clear bowl or tub or whatever, enough to submerge the parts. I've left them in the sun on the window sill for days (or weeks)…sometimes longer means whiter, sometimes not (again my guess is the particular plastic composition). More recently I've used a UV light set on top of the dish. This tends to whiten them in a few hours…so much speedier.

Ultimately, your mileage will vary and the outcome is decidedly uncertain.

BensBrickstore

I think one issue that I've noticed regarding this, is that if a seller is syncing their inventory between Bricklink and Brick Owl, and they have Bricklink selected as the primary platform, used items get marked as "used (good)" automatically, regardless of any notes that the seller might have on the listing. So you could have something with a comment saying "heavy scratches, use as filler brick only, priced accordingly", and yet it would be added to Brick Owl as "used (good)."

So it's important to always read the comments, and the store terms just in case.

White Horse Bricks

@BensBrickstore This may depend on the sync software. I'm using Bricksync, which is fairly common. You can set your default for the BO condition, it will also pick up keywords such as 'poor' or 'scratched' and set these parts to used (acceptable) automatically.

brickos

What about the parts in the white color, have a lot of those that are more yellow than white? What can i do?