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Miami Twp. man builds his hobby brick by brick

Marvin Gale, of Miami Township, has a huge collection of Legos in his basement. Gale has been collecting for fifteen years. He values the collection at around $30,000. This is a Lego dinosaur.

Staff photo by Ron Alvey Marvin Gale, of Miami Township, has a huge collection of Legos in his basement. Gale has been collecting for fifteen years. He values the collection at around $30,000. This is a Lego dinosaur.

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Photos: Marvin Gale's Lego wonderland

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Staff photo by Ron Alvey Marvin Gale, of Miami Township, has a huge collection of Legos in his basement. Gale has been collecting for fifteen years. He values the collection at around $30,000.

Marvin Gale began buying Legos when his son was 2, and now, 19 years later, he has thousands of sets.

By Pamela Ferris-Olson, Contributing Writer Updated 7:37 AM Thursday, July 9, 2009

MIAMI TWP., Montgomery County — Whoever said the difference between little boys and men was the size of their toys didn’t know Marvin Gale.

The civilian engineer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is an avid Lego collector.

Gale, 51, began collecting the plastic building blocks when his son Jonathon was 2 years old. When Jonathon, now 21, moved on to other interests, his father continued to collect.

He has thousands of sets that are all cataloged in a  three-ring binder.

Gale, who lives in Miami Twp. near the border with Washington Twp., frequents flea markets and the Internet and travels to Europe in search of collectible sets. Gale must travel abroad to buy a series designed specifically for girls. For some reason, Lego does not market it in the United States.

“I’ve sent letters to Lego. I wanted to be employed by them as a master builder. They suggested a couple of colleges to go to to get a degree. I don’t remember the title, but it’s a toy-related degree,” Gale said.

The unfinished basement in Gale’s home is a building block paradise. There are Lego set boxes neatly stacked from floor to ceiling, bins of sorted blocks and displays of constructed sets. One shelf has a life-size bust of the Star Wars character Darth Maul. Gale said this was the most difficult piece he has ever constructed.

Other shelves display a working basketball court, and a variety of cars and space vehicles, while on the floor in one corner, is a planetary outpost consisting of dozens of vehicles, a command post and space ships hanging from the ceiling.

“It sneaks up on you. After 15 years I think, ‘What have I done?’ ” Gale said.

Gale’s trying to cut back now that his two children are in college, but he still has a wish list. If he allowed himself to splurge, the collector would buy a Millennium Falcon Ultimate Collector’s Edition, an almost three foot long, 5,000 piece model of a Star Wars starship. The kit sells for $499.

Gale, however, is not the most fanatical of Lego hobbyists. He owns a copy of The Brick Testament in which stories from the Bible have been illustrated with Lego figures constructed by Brendan Powell Smith who maintains a Web site (www.thereverend.com/lego ) of his Lego creations.

With his kids grown, he spends more time focused on another of his passions — the cultivation of miniature trees or bonsai.

But the Lego enthusiast misses playing with his children.

“The sad thing is, I have a ton of (Legos) unopened. There’s a lot of fun in those boxes,” he said.

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