First look at LEGO Billund Campus set appears online

A first look at the rare, employee exclusive 4000038 LEGO Campus set appears online, but it’s probably for completists only.

The LEGO Group produce employee-only exclusive sets, often around Christmas time and they are the bane of the LEGO completists life. Unless you know a LEGO employee who is willing to gift you their set, the only chance you have of picking one of these rare-as-hens-teeth sets is to head for the aftermarket. 

To commemorate the opening of the new Billund Campus, the LEGO Group created 4000038 LEGO Campus. Chris from Duck Bricks is one such completist, and paid $600 to get hold of a copy. So is it worth three-quarters of a UCS Millennium Falcon for a 1,494 piece set of an office block that most LEGO fans will never get to see?

• 

• 

It’s undoubtedly a nice looking design, and one that will appeal to the LEGO Architecture collector. It (thankfully) comes in a box that can be opened properly, rather than having to be destroyed by using thumb tabs, and is accompanied by a manual that takes an in depth look at both the campus itself, and some of the history of the company and the site.

• 

• 

• 

• 

The finished set is relatively small, the high piece count stemming from the fact that many of the elements are 1×1 tiles. This makes for a detailed final model, but something of a tedious build. At one point Chris mentions that he considered just trying to download the build instructions and then replicate the set, but decided against it. 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

This was driven by the fact that there are a number of printed elements in the set, the windows on the large circular building being a case in point, that would have meant a MOC’d version would have fallen short of the official set.

As to the question ‘Was it worth $600?’, the conclusion that Chris draws is ‘probably not’. As a small set with fewer than 1,500 pieces the cost is way out of kilter with what you get for the money. However, as a piece of LEGO memorabilia for the dedicated collector, then such is the price you pay for a rarefied hobby. One for the LEGO collector with the deepest of pockets.

If you’d like to buy a more modestly priced LEGO set, then why not use our affiliate links. Each purchase helps to keep Brick Fanatics running. Thanks.

All images: Duck Bricks