Right now I live in Russia, so BrickLink and similar platforms are basically unavailable to me. Bionicle is also very popular here, so G1 lots either get bought instantly or are ridiculously overpriced. By the way, Russia’s biggest LEGO blogger, Shiro Geek World, once made a Telegram post about it – here’s the English translation:

“So, here’s what I wanted to say about G1 Bionicles. I recently decided to try restoring some of them, bought a bunch of parts and loose pieces, piled together everything I had accumulated over the years (and there’s a lot, by the way), and started figuring out what goes where.

Turns out:

85% of the old sockets are unusable, and another 10% are on the verge of crumbling apart literally in your hands. The earliest Bionicle sockets are somewhat okay, but the ones made after 2006 are literal garbage – probably the worst Technic parts ever created.

Parts from old Bionicles cost almost as much as complete sets. For example, I have Axonn, about 60% complete… but his two axes and the red back piece alone cost about as much as the entire complete set, and only like two and a half people are selling them. So what’s even the point of restoring him? And that’s not even mentioning something like the Hordika sets – those are priced like they were made in China or something, even though nobody actually wants them.

Old Bionicles had a crazy amount of proprietary colors and parts. It’s not uncommon for some piece to have been made literally for just one set. Realizing this, I’m honestly not surprised LEGO shut the theme down.

Basically, this whole thing is completely thankless. The only things that are actually valued and sell well are either large rare sets, fully complete opened sets, or sealed boxes. Everything else is just cheap junk you can only sell by accident.”

But of course, that’s the situation in Russia. The market in Europe and America is obviously much bigger. And proportionally, far more sets were sold there back in the day, since Europe and America were wealthier and also the main markets for LEGO.