Beginner’s Guide to Replica Lego / Lepin

Hello and welcome to the other side of the bricks.

This is a starter guide for everyone who wants to buy any types of bricks, building blocks or minifigures from China.

This sub was named after one of the most famous knock off bricks company – Lepin. Lepin is shut down now, but for many people the term “Lepin” means all kind of bricks and sets from chinese companies. There’s no unified terms: ko bricks, bootlego, Lepin, alternative bricks etc.

This sub is about all kinds of bricks and building blocks.

In short, about the chinese bricks market:

There are dozens of brick manufacturers in China. The items they produce can be categorized into:

1. Made of Lego-compatible bricks:

• Lego replicas (including replicas with modifications)

• MOCs (from any sources – freely available, licensed and even taken without permission)

• Original sets (for example Enlighten’s sub brand Keeppley has the license on Evangelion and Doraemon sets, CADA has the license on Initial D)

• Spare parts (including baseplates)

• Duplo-like stuff (mostly bricks, plates and figures)

2. Made of Lego-like bricks:

• Smaller scale Lego bricks (like Loz)

• Not quite Lego-like bricks, but still bricks (like Nano Blocks, Diamond Blocks)

3. Minifigures:

• Lego minifigure clones

• Custom minifigure clones

• Original ones (based on existing series, but ones Lego doesn’t have or just really original ones)

• Minifigures spare parts

Each cloned set can be produced by several brands.

Brick4.com is your best friend in searching sets, checking differences, browsing reviews with pictures.

But there are also many original sets and MOCs, don’t hesitate to use search by name.

1. What is Lepin? What about other brands

2. What brands exist nowadays, and what about their quality

3. What should I know before buying

4. Where to buy and how to buy

5. Instructions

What is Lepin? What about other brands?

Skip this if you are not interested in Lepin story. Just remember Lepin does not exist as a brand anymore. Now it operates as KING/Queen/Jack/ZEBRA/Lion King. There are many more companies, some of them existed even before the creation of Lepin.

Lepin was a Chinese manufacturer that appeared around 2016 and continued its activity till 2019. Lepin has produced replicas of more than several hundreds of diffirent Lego sets, as well as some MOCs, Ideas sets that were not produced by Lego and even few original products.

Lepin became pretty popular in these 3 years, mostly because it gave people what they wanted – affordable good quality replicas of retired Lego sets and cheap replicas of current Lego sets. At first it seemed Lego didn’t consider Lepin as a threat, seeing them as just another small bootleg company like Sheng Yuan (that existed before Lepin btw) or Decool. But later seeing Lepin’s success Lego filed a lawsuit against Lepin and a couple of other bootlego companies.

In 2019 several Lepin officials were arrested and their factory was shut down. Of course it was because of Lego.

After a pause Lepin returned under the name NUOGAO, but very soon they revealed new names – for now brands KING/Queen with subbrands Jack, ZEBRA and Lion King.

Lepin also had sister company XingBao which still exists and from the beginning was focused on original MOCs instead of Lego replicas. So it didn’t suffer the shutdown as designs were mostly original and Lego bricks patent has expired (means any company can legally produce Lego compatible bricks).

Other ko companies also had lawsuit filed against them, mostly for using Lego’s box design. Btw Lego can’t sue someone for IP that doesn’t belong to them. For example if Lego Star Wars sets were copied, Disney would have to sue the Chinese companies as SW IP belongs to them.

A lot of companies have some additional names, like Decool (JiSi) and Bela (Leri/Lari).

As said above Lepin is dead, long live the KING. But in general we discuss all kinds of brands here and generally, their quality is impressive and prices are reasonable.

You can check the brand list on Brick4. Brick4 is a catalog of all kind of Lego, knock off and original sets (MOCs as well). If you know any set number you can find all replicas of the set.

Brands: http://brick4.com/brand/list/

Brands that produce sets:

KING/Queen/Jack/ZEBRA/Lion King, Mould King (it’s not related to KING, it’s a different brand), Sheng Yuan (SY), Sembo, Decool/JISI, LELE, Bela/LERI, Xingbao, Panlos, Super 18K, Enlighten, Winner, Kazi, Ausini, Sluban, DINGGAO, Cobi, CADA and many others.

Brands that produce minifigures:

Pogo(PG), XINH, World Minifigures (WM), LELE, Decool, SY, Kopf, Koruit, KL, DLP and some more.

You can check existing minifigures on https://www.herobloks.com/

It also includes Lego and custom Lego minifigs, don’t forget to use filters.

Quality. These days it is really hard to find shitty quality sets.

The brands listed here

are all of quite decent quality. At least 95% of Lego quality, but usually better.

Of course some sets, especially big MOCs that were designed digitally will have assembly issues, sometimes they require some fixing. But the price you pay for it is way lower than if you were using real Lego parts.

There is one brick supplier (OEM) that is considered the best – GoBricks. Some say it’s on par with Lego.

You can check what brands use GoBricks here and herehttps://www.reddit.com/r/lepin/comments/kd0ueb/bootlego_knockoff_lepin_review_and_a_few/

What quality-related problems can occur?

• Missing pieces (if you miss a few bricks, it’s the factory’s fault) or missing bags (usually the seller’s fault).

• Damaged or malformed pieces – most likely damaged or unfinished during the injection molding process.

• Incorrectly molded pieces – pieces that have some excessive height, for example.

Of course they don’t occur in every set, but you can encounter such problems from time to time. You can contact the seller and ask them to send missing/broken pieces. Alternatively, here is a list of stores that sell separate bricks:

[1]https://www.reddit.com/r/lepin/comments/t85041/where_to_get_alternative_spare_parts/

Are Chinese bricks safe?

I would say yes, they are mostly made for the Chinese domestic market, using the same process and materials (ABS) Lego uses.

Besides, we use lots of plastic things everyday, including kitchenware made in China.

In the last couple of years, I haven’t heard any cases of lead poisoning or anything else serious from contact with these bricks. They might be a little oily with residue leftovers, but this might happen with Lego bricks too, because the production technology is similar.

After owning ko sets and minifigures for more than 5 years myself, I’m still alive.

How do the bricks age?

From my personal experience, they age normally (I have sets from 2015). Yellowing of white colored pieces is possible – it’s the same as with Lego parts. Just don’t expose them to direct sunlight and don’t use any aggressive cleaning agents on them.

• Other brands also have the lifecycle of their products. Some sets or minifigures might be discontinued.

Use brick4.com to find which brands make it and use their setcodes for searching.

• Brick4.com

  is also helpful if you want to take a look at real pictures of the set. If you look up the set info, there might be links to reviews in Chinese – they usually include many photos.

• Before asking which brand is best, get an idea about which set you want to buy. A brand’s quality might differ from set to set, and some sets might only be available from a single brand, anyway.

• Picking a store depends on your location and user reviews. Some stores do not ship to certain countries, while others might charge crazy delivery fees. Reviews might help to get the idea about customs fees or delivery times.

• There are a lot of reviews on this sub. They might help you decide what sets to buy. Use the search function or look for reviews on the item pages on brick4.com.

• Usually all types of building blocks are sold without the original box to customers outside of China, because it massively reduces shipping fees. In case you want a boxed version, you have to contact the seller – the box will cost you extra. Generally speaking, the boxes usually aren’t very high quality and aren’t worth the additional money, in my opinion.

• Check prices at different stores to learn the average price. Some stores do not include shipping in the item price, while others do.

• Minifigures might not be displayed on pictures because of Lego copyright issues, but they are included (if the original set has them). Mocs might not include minifigures. Look for reviews.

• Older sets that were released before 2017 didn’t have the parts sorted into the bags by building steps, now they usually do. Some still don’t, especially MOCs that are sold by some stores as a bunch of spare parts.

• You might have to buy the instructions from the original creator if the set you bought is a MOC. Message seller for info or visit Rebrickable.

• If the set is a replica of Lego set (check Brick4), Lego instructions can be used. You can download Lego instructionshere

  Other brands’ instructions might be harder to find.

• Customs fees might occur, they depend on your country’s laws. The seller may assist you by declaring lower package value, but that won’t guarantee you won’t be charged.

• Do not order “presell” (preorder) sets before they are out. They won’t be shipped earlier, prices might change and you don’t know when the set is going to be released.

• Anything sold supercheap is most likely fraud. Don’t be naive, there is self-cost of the set and the delivery fee at least. If it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t.

• There are brands that sell smaller scale but still Lego-like bricks – LOZ, for example. There are also diamond blocks that are even smaller, but they are not Lego-like.