I LUG NY held a parts draft of set #75002 at our monthly meeting on March 16, 2013. For those of you who do not know what a parts draft is I’ll share how one works and explain the benefits of holding a parts draft.
To begin with, each member brings their own copy of the same set. If you are thinking about holding a parts draft of your own there are some points to consider such as what parts are in the set and if the set can be bought at a discount. Seeing as the Star Wars set, #75002 AT-RT was on sale at the time at Wal-Mart and other retailers we went with this set. We have started using the inventories provided on brickset to see what parts and how many of each are in a set (http://www.brickset.com/detail/?set=75002-1).
[bs_set number=’75002′]
Now the fun begins as members rip open their sealed copies of the set. What we have done recently that helps make sorting parts more efficient is open each numbered bag at separate parts of the table where the draft takes place. Once all of the parts have been separated we find elements that were in multiple bags and combine them. The next step is to look at the piles of elements and gauge which are too big and need to be separated into 2 or more piles. We usually build the minifigs and they become their own pile (1 fig per draft choice so members get multiple opportunities at obtaining the figs in the set). The last step in setting up the draft is deciding the order that we will be making our selections. I LUG NY goes high tech with this and scribbles numbers on small bits of paper to be picked out of a hat. The person who selected 1 gets to draft first and in this case the person who pulled out the number 8 would go last in the first round. Number 8 then selects 1st in the second round and number 1 selects last. You keep selecting parts until there are no more piles to pick from. The picture below is my draft selections from this draft:
As you can see I acquired a large quantity of several items, some harder to find than others. I had my eyes set on the robot arms and am glad they were still on the table when I picked. These were actually in two piles as there were a decent sized quantity available. Some parts I was not so lucky to draft (grated cheese slopes and the 501st trooper fig for instance). Not only does drafting a set give you the opportunity to add parts in sizable quantities, you also have the shared experience of drafting a set with your LUG.
- One last word of advice, keep the box your set came in so you can place your draft selections inside and carry home your new parts.
