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Crossing back into Canada from the U.S. with a car full of nondescript boxes, Simon Liu, an IT professional from Toronto, was curtly told to proceed to secondary inspection. As four border officers closed in on him, he uttered a few words of explanation, but along one of the busiest cross-border shopping corridors in the country at Niagara Falls, inspectors weren’t buying his farfetched story; they wanted to take a look for themselves.

“[I told him], yes sir, you can open it, you can check it, but please don’t shake the box,” Mr. Liu said.

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The border guards started rifling through the stacks of cardboard boxes, sternly. But a moment later, the whole crew broke down laughing. Just as Mr. Liu had told them, the boxes were packed to the brim with pre-constructed Lego.

Though the Academy may have shirked The Lego Movie at this year’s Oscars, fans have flocked back to the tiny toy bricks in recent years. Lego sales quadrupled between 2003 and 2013 and the fan community has never been more vibrant, with unofficial Lego conventions across the world attracting tens of thousands of young, and young-at-heart fans.