Crowds gathered in Long Eaton this morning, March 18, as a brand new Lego resale store opened its doors. Barn Dawg Store in the Market Place welcomed its first customers on Saturday, as a crowd of around fifty people queued from 10am.
The business first began online at the beginning of lockdown in 2020 by Barney Nockolds. The 27-year-old turned his passion for Lego into a business where he started to collect and restore old Lego and trade them online.
After moving to Long Eaton in December last year, Barney decided to open his first physical store, along with his partner, Nadia Boiko. Barney said: “It’s been really good, there was a crowd of people and the mayor was here at the opening, he cut the ribbon and made a speech.
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"There have been a lot of people and a lot of sets have already sold out.”
So far the Wall-E set has been the most popular amongst shoppers as well as the pick a brick bag. The store has a range of sets from Avatar, Marvel, Star Wars and GhostBusters.
They even have over 200,000 individual pieces which can be bought by lego enthusiasts who are missing a piece or need an extra part.
Barney continued: “Nowhere close, other than Sheffield, that has this kind of lego. We have older retired sets that Lego themselves don’t sell anymore. We have individual parts,we have over 200,000 individual parts.
“We’ve had a lot of support, a lot of people are happy we have opened.
Barney built lego as a child, as he grew up he stopped building Lego sets. He said he spent 10 to 15 years not building Legos and then after an injury he bought a lego set which restarted his passion for lego.
Now he has turned his passion into a business and said “it doesn’t feel like work at all, it just feels fun.”
Not only have people visited the shop to buy things, but to discuss and chat with Barney about their passion for Lego and the different sets they have.
Barney's dad, Chris Nockolds, had been at the store opening to help out. The 59-year-old said the store had been extremely busy since it opened, he said: “[There were] 40 to 50 people out there.
"When we have the shutters down you can see the crowd. They queued for half an hour at 10am. It was rammed, it hasn’t stopped. It’s been like this all day and it's fantastic.”
38-year-old James McCarthy ,from Borrowash, visited the store and said: “[I bought the] three in one lego ferris wheel. I do like Lego and my mrs likes Lego. She collects Harry potter sets.
“We don’t have a physical Lego shop. The nearest from here is sheffield. Places like this where you can buy, sell and trade things that aren’t going to be sitting on the shelves [in a Lego store] and get older stuff.”
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