I expect a lot of us received the email from Bricklink about celebrating 20 years but for anyone who didn't,
here's the announcement. They're inviting people to share stories of their experiences with them, or make MOCs and share them on their studio on the site. I'm sure anything posted there will get lost in the noise, so I'll share share my own experience of it here :)
It's incredible to think that it's 20 years old. I vaguely remember placing an order at some point in my late teens, so maybe 15 years ago, back when it looked like this:
Aside from six large old-style
Technic wheels, I have no idea what (if anything) else was in that order.
Bricklink enabled me to emerge from my Lego dark ages about 4 years ago - there aren't many sets that I'm that interested in buying, but I picked up a few retired Technic sets that I liked. When I joined lug.ie, user
Mike commented on my intro post and I realised he'd recently sold me set
8880! Once I took the plunge into starting to build a MOC Lego city, I started to meet loads of Irish Bricklink sellers and have a few regulars that I collect my orders from - some in Dublin, and one in Midleton who I now see every time I visit my parents :D
So thanks to all the Bricklink sellers who enable the rest of us! Would love to hear anyone else's thoughts or experiences on Bricklink.