LEGO gifts-with-purchase sets run the gamut from common and easily-acquired, to being uncommonly rare. The latter group goes beyond merely being in-store exclusive for instance, but rather because their availability becomes highly situational. Now, since 2012 LEGO’s been presenting GWP sets available only during the openings of their new Branded stores. The building set depicts, naturally, a brick-built LEGO Store as well, with new iterations introduced every few years. Given how uncommon new LEGO branded stores open worldwide, their accompanying GWPs are limited too. With the retirement of the most recent LEGO Brand Store set (40145), a new version was previewed at last year’s end.
And according to German LEGO news source Promobricks¸ building instructions for the new LEGO Brand Store (40528) are now available. They can be found, as usual, in LEGO.com’s Building Instructions portal. As you can see in the box image, we’ve a fully-enclosed build for the next GWP exclusive for new LEGO Store openings. It doesn’t even feature a single minifigure, but has a sticker sheet included for added details. The introduction of this LEGO Store (40528) GWP couldn’t come at a better time. The previous set 40145 was already in low quantity even before retirement this year.
In fact, 40145’s scarcity the reopening of LEGO’s branded store in Bonn, Germany used another LEGO Store set as GWP. Said micro-scale set (40305) is actually a retail version, still listed at LEGO.com (20% off) but currently sold out. For any new branded LEGO Stores opening this 2022 and beyond, GWP set 40528 is what to expect. Of course, those new stores should open near you if you want a shot at collecting this item. As you know, being a GWP it comes free with a minimum total LEGO purchase.
