This is just a small guide to help those of you out there when wanting to purchase LEGO for yourself or for children.  The first thing you need to understand is the following meanings and what they REALLY mean:

MISB:  Mint In Sealed Box:  Generally this is the best option for buying lego, it means the item has not been opened and the lego has never been taken out of the box, thus ensuring mint lego that has never been played with.  Although having said that, make sure you ask if the box has been opened and just sealed again.  MISB should mean it has never been opened.

MIB:  Mint In Box:   Now be careful, because this doesn't necessarily mean the lego has never been opened, it just means it is considered to be Mint condition (in the sellers opinion), and can often mean the lego has been played with, but is still in top notch condition, depending on the honesty of the seller.  Depending on the integrity of the seller, they may say it is in "good" condition, and comes with the box, thus giving it a very poor description of "Mint In Box".

USED LEGO..Okay this is just anyones guess as to the condition of the lego.  We have purchased lego before from people, and found it to be below average quality and ended up throwing it out, as we consider lego that has been twisted and/or bitten / marked to be very poor, and is useless.

So just make sure you ask, does the lego have the following... We know it sounds funny, but it wont be funny when you receive lego in the mail with the following problems:

• Bite marks from children playing with it and trying to seperate the pieces.
• Stains or fading this is sometimes obvious over time
• Severe scratches  there is nothing worse than getting an older space lego platform with huge scratch marks running down the spaceship platforms
• Floppy lego  this is a notable problem from older lego, or simply lego that has been played with heavily and as a result, it doesn't "hold" into the positions you want, such as the arms on men or their visors on helmets, just fall down after you move them and/or any item that moves will no longer hold in any position and just falls down.  You want lego that is stiff, and able to be held into any position, just ask the seller, is the lego stiff when you try to move it?
• Marked lego which means it could be promotional lego and such, with strange pictures on it, for example, pieces that you have been trying to find, may come with a picture of a fluffy bunny on it or eyes and a smile, or any other pictures, as many lego pieces have pre-printed images on them depending on the set they come from, which wont look to cool if you are intending to use the pieces on a star wars lego model..

Another good tip is to make sure you ask, is the set complete, in other words, are you about to purchase a set, that is missing a character, or pieces that you need.  You can always check out websites on the internet that solely upload instructions of all lego models ever made, which has its obvious wonderful advantages.