Here's a great Aliexpress deal if you like Lego style modular buildings!

This week on Aliexpress I found these very cool modular buildings.  They are like Lego but made by the Sembo brand.  Not bad for these buildings with nearly 1300 pieces.  There are two different buildings for sale, one is the bookshop (Sembo 601144) and the other is the coffee shop (Sembo 601143).

I bought the coffee shop modular building a few months ago and I paid double for mine, so this is a super deal. 

In case you want to see what this set looks like, I reviewed it on my blog Its-Not-Lego.blogspot.com.   It's the Sembo Coffee Shop set 601143.  I really enjoyed the build and the bricks were just like Lego.  As a bonus, these sets come with several minifigures and even light bricks to light up your modular buildings.

Here's the search I did for the Sembo coffee shop on Aliexpress.

This is a new listing and therefore doesn't show up in the Aliexpress search results yet.   Once, the listing becomes public, I'm sure the price will go up.

As you can see, the other listings on Aliexpress for this set are nearly double the price at the time of this posting.  There used to be a lot more Aliexpress stores selling this but now there's only a handful left.  Like most of these alternative Lego sets, they are sometimes only limited runs and after they're gone, they're gone.

I bought an Alt Lego Republic Gunship from a Zero Feedback Seller on Aliexpress!

 

Hey brick fans!  I was looking through Aliexpress the other day and a Star Wars Republic Gunship popped up in my feed.  Perfect, because I happened to be looking for one!

The listing was for the replica of the Lego Republic Gunship 75021 (2013),  but it says the model number was 05041.  This is the set that has about 1175 pieces.

05041 is the old Lepin numbering system for the Republic Gunship.  According to brick4.com, there are several alt brands that make the 2013 republic gunship.

Not sure why but 91046 doesn't show up on brick4 but I'm told that this is the King brand, which shows up as 81043.   Confused?  Me too.

And if you search Aliexpress for 91046, nothing comes up.  Nada.  But if you search for 75021 or 05041, you get a ton of listings.  Here's a screenshot of a search for 05041 on Aliexpress.

Anyways, the promoted item showed the price of the Gunship being a lot cheaper than the other listings.  As you can see from the screenshot below, the price of this set is that it's about $20 cheaper than all of the other gunships listed on Aliexpress, however a big red flag for this listing is that the seller had 0 feedback!  Normally, I wouldn't recommend anyone buy from these listings because most times these will be fake listings, where the seller will try to scam you.

I've been using Aliexpress for many years, and sellers have tried to scam me many times, but luckily I've always been able to raise a dispute and get my money back from Aliexpress when that has happened.  

At the time of this listing coming out, it was during one of those periods where sellers and Aliexpress were having their coupon promotions.  So the price I would pay would actually only be about $56 CDN after discounts.   

I decided to take the plunge and hope for the best.  At the worst, I would rely on the Aliexpress dispute process to bail me out if the transaction didn't complete.

After a few days,  I actually got a tracking number but sometimes the scam sellers will simply make up a tracking number that doesn't work and string you on.   A few days later, I checked the tracking number which showed an update on the shipment.

So it was a pleasant surprise when the package actually showed up!  In fact, the package arrived within two and a half weeks, so it was even faster than most of my other Aliexpress packages.

Anyways, just wanted to share this little deal with you.  I can't guarantee how long this seller will have this deal, so if you're looking for a republic gunship set, you might want to consider it.  If the transaction does go south on you, you should be covered by the Aliexpress dispute process.  Don't forget to always exercise your due diligence when dealing with zero feedback sellers and prices that seem too good to be true.

Here's the Aliexpress listing showing the price of $46 USD in case you're not familiar with CDN currency.

Watch for a full review of the King branded Republic Gunship soon on my other blog Its-Not-Lego.blogspot.com.   Let me know if you were able to snag this deal and what you thought of the set in the comment box below,  Bye!

I bought a not Lego off-road truck for only $5.44!

 Hey fans of brick toys and Aliexpress!  I just wanted to let you know about this secret deal I found on Aliexpress.  I was hunting for building sets to make a monster truck.  I found this listing from a store called QIHUI Block Store.

Above is the screen shot from the Aliexpress store.  The item is a pullback offroad vehicle.  It has 199 pieces according to the box art.  The brand is Qihui and the set number is 5804.

This yellow truck is supposed to have working suspension too.  The model is comprised of mostly technic style bricks and comes with the large balloon tires. I'm not sure if it is Lego minifigure scale or not.

Anyways the listed price of the offroad vehicle was $17.84 CDN but the price has been lowered to $15.43 now.  When I added  the item to my Aliexpress cart, I checked for any vendor coupons and the store offered a coupon for $12.40 off.

Usually, this sort of coupon requires a certain minimum price before the coupon is valid, but when I checked out, it still worked on my small purchase.  

So far, so good, I got a tracking number and looks like it is shipping out.

I'm not sure how long the coupon will last so I recommend you jump on this deal right away before it goes away!   The link to the item and store is below.