JackJonespaw

Review: 30105 Friends Mailbox

  

13 members have voted

  1. 1. What Do You Think of This Set?

    • Poor
      2
    • Below Average
      1
    • Average
      3
    • Above Average
      7
    • Outstanding
      0


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Name: Mailbox

Theme: Friends

Year: 2012

Pieces: 37

Minidolls: 1

Price: $3.99

Brickset

Bricklink

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A Friends set that I only just recently discovered and picked up at Target, this Valentine's-themed set is a great way to get a nice minidoll in an inexpensive way.

The Bag

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Something that everyone will notice who has ever bought a set in the $3-$4 range, the polybag. I think this is a great way to show all of the parts of a set to stir up interest in the buyer, and it saves the hassle of having numerous boxes lying around. This bag is colored in the now-familiar Friends logo, with the five girls in the top right corner, and the "girly" Friends type with the Lego logo on the top left. The design, with all the curves, is a nice touch for girls who may be interested in the theme. I also like the soothing purple, instead of a dark or regular purple. All of the set info, set picture, and CHOKING HAZARD things take up the bottom three-fourths.

The Instructions

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As anyone who has bought a polybag will also know, the bags don't include nice stapled instructions, but a folded up printed sheet of paper. The front of the fold shows the same image as the bag, minus the set info, and the rest is taken up with instructions. The only down side to this is trying to fold this back up to take a picture for a review. :ugh:

The Pieces

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A quite colorful piece selection in this set, with a lot of white, some red, pink, and a few other color pieces. Buying sets in this day I feel like I don't really get the colored piece collection as was in some old sets. So, I'm quite happy with all of the pieces in this set.

New/Interesting Pieces

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None of the pieces are new to the Lego universe, but certainly new to my collection. Now added is the nice pearl gold telescope, (Two are included in this set.) a dark pink 2 x 1 x 1 slope brick, (also, two are included) a dark pink flower, (three adorn the flower stem) and a pink 1 x 1 cheese slope. (check out four of them on the mailbox) All of these pieces can be picked up in other sets, but if you want a cheap way, here you go.

Meet Stephanie, the Minidoll

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Quite surprising to me as I built Stephanie was the rubbery hair. I hadn't had a piece like this since Plo Koon, and before that, Kit Fisto. Luckily, there is no printing to rub off on this piece. The rest of Stephanie is regular, good ol' Lego plastic. Unfortunately, there is no way this can connect to a minifig. I feel that the hands are a bit disproportional to the rest of the body, especially the skinny arms, but I guess there had to be some way to let the minidolls hold regular accessories.

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However unfortunate, the minidolls have no back printing. But the hair probably covers up what every back printing there would be, anyways.

The Components

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This is an ingenious mailbox, formed with only seven pieces. I think it is very recognizable, more a mailbox than a submarine or a GNK droid.

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This Valentine's stand holds a box of chocolates and some flowers. The telescopes aren't actually used as what they are, but as stands, like we saw in 4191 Captain's Cabin. Other than that, the stand is a nice build, with some nice piece usage.

And that's all for this review and this set.

Playability: 7/10 (Fun if you like opening a mailbox.)

Design: 9.5/10 (Good designs for just 37 pieces. I can tell what everything is.)

Minidolls: 10/10 (It's a minidoll. Enough said.)

Pieces: 9.5/10 (Pretty good pieces, although they could have been a small bit better.)

Overall: 9/10

If you're looking for a minidoll to add to your collection, or just another Friends set, then pick up this set. Other than that, you can skip right over this set and go for a bigger one.

Happy Valentine's Day!

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Excellent review, 'JackJonespaw'! :sweet:

I think your review has driven me to pick up this set... I saw one at my Walmart last week, and hopefully it is still there.

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Quite surprising to me as I built Stephanie was the rubbery hair. I hadn't had a piece like this since Plo Koon, and before that, Kit Fisto. Luckily, there is no printing to rub off on this piece. The rest of Stephanie is regular, good ol' Lego plastic. Unfortunately, there is no way this can connect to a minifig. I feel that the hands are a bit disproportional to the rest of the body, especially the skinny arms, but I guess there had to be some way to let the minidolls hold regular accessories.

Having bought this set before Valentine's Day, I had to check the date of your review :wink: Thanks for reviewing it!

For the price, I think it's pretty decent: a printed tile, the red plates, gold telescopes, etc.

I am confused about your comment: "Unfortunately, there is no way this can connect to a minifig." Are you referring to the hair? Because mini-doll hair can fit to MiniFig heads. Or are you talking about something else?

There's always a story involving finding sets. I thought I'd missed getting this one, since it was supposed to be a January Target special. I looked though the "Valentines" holiday section in Target for it -- and although they had other LEGO items like Star Wars and NinjaGO Valentine's card boxes, I never saw the Friends mailbox. Then during a later trip there, the entire end-cap display section was filled with these -- which was interesting since it wasn't near the Valentines, yet at end of "construction toy" aisle. Since all the other small sets of Friends were 'sold out' it was smart of the Target employee to fill up that empty rack with this set! :wub:

A side note: This is a good example of why sometimes a Poll is useless on EB, or at least when attached to a review of a set that most people don't have. Someone voted it as "Poor" which probably has more to do with their theme prejudice than an actual objective opinion of piece-type, piece-count for the money :tongue:

Too bad that "poor" person is missing out on cool sets & pieces :laugh:

Thanks JackJonespaw for taking time to post this review!

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Thanks for the review of this C & C set.....that's Cute and Cool set 'JackJonespaw'. :classic:

The parts are handy, another minidoll.....gee I have three of Stephanie now....clone Friend's ! :laugh:

I'm not sure what the chocolate stand has to do with mailbox....I guess Feb 14th eh ? :laugh:

Brick On Review On with your Friend's 'JackJonespaw' ! :classic:

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I edited the title of this topic so that it matches with other reviews in this forum.

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Unfortunately, there is no way this can connect to a minifig.

This is not exactly true, as my friend's 9 year old sister showed us. Take Stephanie's head off, and a minifig can grab her neck. It was quite a gruesome little scene she made (the red flowers from the treehouse put in the crow's nest along with the head ...)

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