"New & Sealed" sets on Bricklink are a scam. Change my mind

[MAB]

1 hour ago, JesseNight said:

I seriously doubt it. Most "new & sealed" stuff is bought by collectors with the intention of keeping it sealed for the value.
Someone who plans on using it will rather find a used set that's complete and in good condition, that they can inspect out of the box or on detailed photos, and that still costs a lot less.

That is not my experience when selling on BL. Most of the sealed sets I have sold are from about 2008 onwards, but I have sold probably 25-30 sealed sets from before that. In a few cases, buyers have said that they wanted to build them since they were a kid. For some people, the price doesn’t matter too much and it gives them the joy of opening and building the set.

[Peppermint_M]

Got to say, this looks like a bit of a You Problem and not an actual issue. It looks like Reddit agrees too.

Buying new and sealed is a bit of a lottery the older a set is; unless it was stored in a museum quality archive, your boxed set could have been through a lot. Glue perishes, rubber degrades (all polymers are shockingly active in a chemical sense) Cardboard sheds, cycling humidity and temperatures can cause reactions.  

A good way to tell if bricks are fake though,  they rarely bother to reproduce the TLG codes/marks on elements. Buy a brand new set from a LEGO store and you can compare that to find the aberrations. There can also be a difference in how the elements sound, both the click when parts are combined, or when rummaged together. 

 

[Stereo]

I don't know this era of box designs all that well, but everything except the tires looks exactly how I'd expect a new set to look.  Maybe it's a regional thing if your other old sets aren't like that, mine had those same 3 types of bags (perforated with no printing, smaller clear plastic with no printing, and the ones printed with suffocation warnings that just cut off randomly where they sealed the bags)

 

Tires it's hard to say from those photos, they have a lot of resolution but not much clarity.  None of my old tires are that bad and I'd guess it's a problem with that range of years.

[Amt0571]

IMHO, if you just want to buy a set to build it, there's no reason to buy it sealed.

If it's already open you can assess it's condition before buying, and it will be a lot cheaper to boot.

Having said this, I think what you got is definitely not what you paid for.

[JesseNight]

23 hours ago, MAB said:

That is not my experience when selling on BL. Most of the sealed sets I have sold are from about 2008 onwards, but I have sold probably 25-30 sealed sets from before that. In a few cases, buyers have said that they wanted to build them since they were a kid. For some people, the price doesn’t matter too much and it gives them the joy of opening and building the set.

That's interesting, I had no idea people actually buy sealed sets for that. I do understand the joy of building but that can always be redone anyway.

[recovering_from_dark_ages]

23 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

Got to say, this looks like a bit of a You Problem and not an actual issue. It looks like Reddit agrees too.

Buying new and sealed is a bit of a lottery the older a set is; unless it was stored in a museum quality archive, your boxed set could have been through a lot. Glue perishes, rubber degrades (all polymers are shockingly active in a chemical sense) Cardboard sheds, cycling humidity and temperatures can cause reactions.  

A good way to tell if bricks are fake though,  they rarely bother to reproduce the TLG codes/marks on elements. Buy a brand new set from a LEGO store and you can compare that to find the aberrations. There can also be a difference in how the elements sound, both the click when parts are combined, or when rummaged together. 

 

Lol yeah Reddit "agrees" if Bricklink/Lego PR reps downvote my post with lots of Reddit accounts. That 8455 set is very obviously resealed and very obviously doesn't contain 100% new parts given the state of the rear tires which simply have no excuse for being so much more scratched, dirty, and worn than the front tires. Reddit agrees with 50 net upvotes (including any downvotes) that that's a "dead giveaway". Frankly I'd be more impressed with more accountability here rather than the dishonest and incorrect attempts at discrediting me and ignoring the facts. If I were a Bricklink seller or Lego PR rep, it seems like it would be in my best interest to say that "you were unlucky and had a bad, non-representative customer experience on Bricklink", rather than BS'ing me with blatantly false statements about the state of the set or that I've never owned or built a classic Technic set, or about bag numbering and other completely irrelevant nonsense. The end result is that Bricklink now looks a bit less credible than if full accountability had been taken.

Your assessment regarding TLG codes/marks on elements is correct. My 8674 set from that same seller mostly contains parts with TLG logos, but contains a fair number of parts that normally contain the logo but do not in this case, and thus are evidently non-Lego parts. Like this 8455 set, it also suspiciously has parts bags made of multiple different types of plastic, with a few perforated bags that have much thicker plastic and much larger holes than I've ever seen in any perforated Lego parts bag. Unsurprisingly, some of the non-Lego parts are in those bags.

On 1/23/2025 at 4:50 PM, MAB said:

That is not my experience when selling on BL. Most of the sealed sets I have sold are from about 2008 onwards, but I have sold probably 25-30 sealed sets from before that. In a few cases, buyers have said that they wanted to build them since they were a kid. For some people, the price doesn’t matter too much and it gives them the joy of opening and building the set.

Believe it or not, that's the exact reason why I bought "New & Sealed" sets. I missed out on these sets in my 20+ years away from Lego, and can afford to buy "New & Sealed" and want the experience of opening and building the new set. That's one of the reasons why I'm pissed; it was immediately obvious that I'd been scammed when I opened the box, which admittedly took a few months due to my work commitments. I've definitely learned my lesson here and will prefer "New" on Bricklink in the future. I still haven't heard from the seller and can't change the feedback rating on Bricklink, which I foolishly left without having opened the set; we can say that the rating is my fault but any competently made e-commerce website allows updating ratings and reviews. Admittedly Ebay doesn't either, but Amazon does and we all know which of them has won in business. (Side note: that may be one reason why someone in this thread had a bad experience on Ebay.)

Edited January 24 by recovering_from_dark_ages

[Peppermint_M]

28 minutes ago, recovering_from_dark_ages said:

thus are evidently non-Lego parts

Have you attempted a comparison on how the parts sound? Truly, even the best quality competitors do not sound the same as LEGO product and I have extensively collected many examples of Non-LEGO brick.

It is a little odd to think TLG would truly care much that about Bricklink to try and discredit you. Most sellers on Bricklink have aggregated their feedback percentages in the years prior to the TLG buyout. 

Also, I am the last to defend the whole thing as good, I actually ended up quoted in the mainstream media for my opposition to the whole thing (Seriously, look it up, some Journo came looking. Actually one of my prouder moments). An individual on the site is not a corporate schill and we are not that here either. 

For the years of transactions on Bricklink, I have only had non-LEGO when I purchased from sellers that TLG routed from the site, sellers who only dealt in custom parts. 

If your experience is that poor, is there a chance to contest the sale through your Credit Card or Payment broker? Packing it up and sending it back is possibly covered under consumer protection law. 

[recovering_from_dark_ages]

3 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

Have you attempted a comparison on how the parts sound? Truly, even the best quality competitors do not sound the same as LEGO product and I have extensively collected many examples of Non-LEGO brick.

It is a little odd to think TLG would truly care much that about Bricklink to try and discredit you. Most sellers on Bricklink have aggregated their feedback percentages in the years prior to the TLG buyout. 

Also, I am the last to defend the whole thing as good, I actually ended up quoted in the mainstream media for my opposition to the whole thing (Seriously, look it up, some Journo came looking. Actually one of my prouder moments). An individual on the site is not a corporate schill and we are not that here either. 

For the years of transactions on Bricklink, I have only had non-LEGO when I purchased from sellers that TLG routed from the site, sellers who only dealt in custom parts. 

If your experience is that poor, is there a chance to contest the sale through your Credit Card or Payment broker? Packing it up and sending it back is possibly covered under consumer protection law. 

Yes - filing a dispute with PayPal is possible in this case. I don't want to go through the hassle of doing that and then getting a different set to replace it. That process would take some weeks and by that time, I won't have time to build the sets for a few months while my work ramps up more heavily. The biggest issue here is the false advertising, and I posted this mainly as a cautionary tale to other Lego enthusiasts. And thanks to the feedback here and on Reddit, I've decided to prefer "New" over "New & Sealed" sets on Bricklink (after requesting comprehensive photos) from now on.

Edited January 25 by recovering_from_dark_ages

[icm]

I seriously, seriously doubt that Lego is running a botnet or a network of paid operatives to downvote your Reddit post. There are enough conspiracies and enough conspiracy theories in the world, we don't need to add another.

[MAB]

There are many parts, especially technic, where the old moulds did not have the lego logo whereas the more recent versions do. You have to be careful saying something is obviously fake when you are not comparing like with like, even more so when it came from a sealed lego bag inside a sealed lego box. And even more when it came from an established lego seller with a long history of selling genuine lego.

Edited January 25 by MAB

[Wiseman_2]

Something I can't understand the logic of is, why would somebody go to all the effort to bag up parts, source a box and instructions, and then not take a few more minutes to clean up the tires?

I was curious about the bags, because I remember getting sets with differing bags around this time so thought that seemed pretty normal. I found a seller on eBay selling a new, unsealed copy of 8455 showing all the bags (image here - think it might be too big for EB) - this is the 2004 version with the black box, but the internal contents are all the same, with the same bags (note the perforated bag under the pneumatic hoses on the top left).

As for the differing state of the tires, somebody did a review of this set here on EB - I don't think their copy was new and sealed, but they still describe it as 'pristine condition' - but you can see the difference between the front and rear tires in how they've aged. Whether the set was kept in a box, on a shelf, wherever, they've clearly aged differently (like yours).

Speaking of the box, the box for 8455 is not airtight and made of a cheaper, thinner cardboard than modern sets. It's only held closed by the tape seals, so the internal contents will be more vulnerable to heat, humidity and moisture (the slight curling of the instruction manual suggests this might be the case?). The condition of your box, to my eyes, isn't perfect - there is some wrinkling and wear, and obvious signs that it has been bashed around a bit judging by the corners where the yellow has come off (for what it's worth, I think the onus should be on the seller to make clear the conditions the set has been kept in). Couple that with the fact that this is a very lightly packed box, so lots of room for parts to move around, and it doesn't surprise me to see signs of internal wear, where the big tires have rubbed up against the cardboard.

Seems like you just got unlucky with this one.

[recovering_from_dark_ages]

On 1/24/2025 at 11:14 PM, icm said:

I seriously, seriously doubt that Lego is running a botnet or a network of paid operatives to downvote your Reddit post. There are enough conspiracies and enough conspiracy theories in the world, we don't need to add another.

Fair point. In any case, Reddit agrees with 50 net upvotes that the rear tires look used, in contrast to the fronts, which look new.

 

On 1/25/2025 at 4:51 AM, MAB said:

There are many parts, especially technic, where the old moulds did not have the lego logo whereas the more recent versions do. You have to be careful saying something is obviously fake when you are not comparing like with like, even more so when it came from a sealed lego bag inside a sealed lego box. And even more when it came from an established lego seller with a long history of selling genuine lego.

Fair point. Further complication arises from the fact that there aren't many close-up photos from more than one angle of some of these parts, although Bricklink has a computer-rendered 360-degree part view tool that hopefully shows the part exactly as it appears in real life. This actually is one of the better features of the site imo although there's certainly lots of room for improvement in other areas. Don't get me started on the checkout, shipping, and messaging interfaces. I actually think that Bricklink sellers (and hence Lego itself) are losing considerable revenue to Bricklink's current implementation of those features, as I described in the Reddit thread. Actually I didn't mention the messaging interface in that thread; its main issues are that

1) Bricklink site messages don't support attachments, which are critical in Bricklink as users often exchange photos of sets and parts and many items are listed without photos

2) Bricklink messages and emails are not automatically coupled including any attachments, such that a reply to an email would also generate a message in the site and vice versa using default settings.

 

On 1/25/2025 at 8:16 AM, Wiseman_2 said:

Something I can't understand the logic of is, why would somebody go to all the effort to bag up parts, source a box and instructions, and then not take a few more minutes to clean up the tires?

I was curious about the bags, because I remember getting sets with differing bags around this time so thought that seemed pretty normal. I found a seller on eBay selling a new, unsealed copy of 8455 showing all the bags (image here - think it might be too big for EB) - this is the 2004 version with the black box, but the internal contents are all the same, with the same bags (note the perforated bag under the pneumatic hoses on the top left).

As for the differing state of the tires, somebody did a review of this set here on EB - I don't think their copy was new and sealed, but they still describe it as 'pristine condition' - but you can see the difference between the front and rear tires in how they've aged. Whether the set was kept in a box, on a shelf, wherever, they've clearly aged differently (like yours).

Speaking of the box, the box for 8455 is not airtight and made of a cheaper, thinner cardboard than modern sets. It's only held closed by the tape seals, so the internal contents will be more vulnerable to heat, humidity and moisture (the slight curling of the instruction manual suggests this might be the case?). The condition of your box, to my eyes, isn't perfect - there is some wrinkling and wear, and obvious signs that it has been bashed around a bit judging by the corners where the yellow has come off (for what it's worth, I think the onus should be on the seller to make clear the conditions the set has been kept in). Couple that with the fact that this is a very lightly packed box, so lots of room for parts to move around, and it doesn't surprise me to see signs of internal wear, where the big tires have rubbed up against the cardboard.

Seems like you just got unlucky with this one.

Thanks for sharing those photos. There does appear to be a slight discrepancy between the condition of the front and rear tires in that Eurobricks review of the set. Granted, it's not nearly what we're seeing here, but that review was done over 12 years ago. And of course it's a "New" rather than a "New & Sealed" set so one can't be certain that the rear tires are entirely unused and came from the same set as all of the other parts, even if that's very likely the case.

EDIT: I'm still quite convinced that my rear tires when I opened the set were dirty/dusty rather than degraded because the chalky dirt/dust rubbed off easily with a finger and didn't have the residue-like texture that I'd expect of degraded rubber, instead having the obvious texture of grime. Moreover, rubber degradation doesn't result in randomly placed scratches on the bottom of the rear tires that aren't on the sides, as shown in my photos. It is obviously certain that the rear tires were heavily used and frankly I don't understand the denial in this thread. Are you all paid Lego shills or something?

Edited June 11 by recovering_from_dark_ages

[JesseNight]

@recovering_from_dark_ages I wouldn't care too much about Reddit votes or community feedback. That's what such platforms are for, so reporting malicious practices won't do much there.

Bricklink does have a function to report Sellers who don't follow the rules: https://www.bricklink.com/retract.asp
Go to "Item(s) for sale", and under the menu you'll find "Item is incorrectly defined as New/Used or Complete/Incomplete/Sealed" along with many other things. I don't know if they'll take action towards a refund, but they may take action against sellers that don't follow the rules. Show them all your pictures, and if attachments are not supported, upload them to https://imgbb.com/ (free and no account required) and include the urls.

However if the problem is just the 2 tires, I honestly don't know. Rubber doesn't last forever and different sorts of rubber may have different lifespans.

As for future purchases, I've noticed a lot of BL sellers just show the official release showcase pictures rather than their own. Always ask for pictures of the actual product you're buying, most sellers are more than willing to provide that. If they don't, or the pictures are made in very low resolutions or very poor light conditions, that's usually a red flag.

[recovering_from_dark_ages]

On 1/25/2025 at 3:19 PM, JesseNight said:

@recovering_from_dark_ages I wouldn't care too much about Reddit votes or community feedback. That's what such platforms are for, so reporting malicious practices won't do much there.

Bricklink does have a function to report Sellers who don't follow the rules: https://www.bricklink.com/retract.asp
Go to "Item(s) for sale", and under the menu you'll find "Item is incorrectly defined as New/Used or Complete/Incomplete/Sealed" along with many other things. I don't know if they'll take action towards a refund, but they may take action against sellers that don't follow the rules. Show them all your pictures, and if attachments are not supported, upload them to https://imgbb.com/ (free and no account required) and include the urls.

However if the problem is just the 2 tires, I honestly don't know. Rubber doesn't last forever and different sorts of rubber may have different lifespans.

As for future purchases, I've noticed a lot of BL sellers just show the official release showcase pictures rather than their own. Always ask for pictures of the actual product you're buying, most sellers are more than willing to provide that. If they don't, or the pictures are made in very low resolutions or very poor light conditions, that's usually a red flag.

Catching up a bit late here - my Bricklink orders from 6+ months ago have all disappeared completely, which is yet another serious flaw with the Bricklink website.

I'm still quite convinced that my rear tires when I opened the set were dirty/dusty rather than degraded because the chalky dirt/dust rubbed off easily with a finger and didn't have the residue-like texture that I'd expect of degraded rubber, instead having the obvious texture of grime. Moreover, rubber degradation doesn't result in randomly placed scratches on the bottom of the rear tires that aren't on the sides, as shown in my photos. It is obviously certain that the rear tires were heavily used and frankly I don't understand the denial in this thread. Are you all paid Lego shills or something?

Edited June 11 by recovering_from_dark_ages

[MAB]

5 minutes ago, recovering_from_dark_ages said:

Catching up a bit late here - my Bricklink orders from 6+ months ago have all disappeared completely, which is yet another serious flaw with the Bricklink website.

BL orders are purged after six months. A record of the order will be in your emails. 

7 minutes ago, recovering_from_dark_ages said:

I'm still quite convinced that my rear tires when I opened the set were dirty/dusty rather than degraded because the chalky dirt/dust rubbed off easily with a finger and didn't have the residue-like texture that I'd expect of degraded rubber, instead having the obvious texture of grime. Moreover, rubber degradation doesn't result in randomly placed scratches on the bottom of the rear tires that aren't on the sides, as shown in my photos. It is obviously certain that the rear tires were heavily used and frankly I don't understand the denial in this thread. Are you all paid Lego shills or something?

No, we aren't paid LEGO shills. 

[Murdoch17]

3 hours ago, recovering_from_dark_ages said:

Are you all paid Lego shills or something?

Insulting the people who are more knowledgeable about these things than you is not exactly a wise move when asking for these same people's help. If you've already made up your mind on the matter, then why ask all of us @recovering_from_dark_ages? I'm genuinely curious...

Edited June 11 by Murdoch17

[zoth33]

On 1/25/2025 at 11:52 AM, recovering_from_dark_ages said:

Fair point. In any case, Reddit agrees with 50 net upvotes that the rear tires look used, in contrast to the fronts, which look new.

 

Fair point. Further complication arises from the fact that there aren't many close-up photos from more than one angle of some of these parts, although Bricklink has a computer-rendered 360-degree part view tool that hopefully shows the part exactly as it appears in real life. This actually is one of the better features of the site imo although there's certainly lots of room for improvement in other areas. Don't get me started on the checkout, shipping, and messaging interfaces. I actually think that Bricklink sellers (and hence Lego itself) are losing considerable revenue to Bricklink's current implementation of those features, as I described in the Reddit thread. Actually I didn't mention the messaging interface in that thread; its main issues are that

1) Bricklink site messages don't support attachments, which are critical in Bricklink as users often exchange photos of sets and parts and many items are listed without photos

2) Bricklink messages and emails are not automatically coupled including any attachments, such that a reply to an email would also generate a message in the site and vice versa using default settings.

 

Thanks for sharing those photos. There does appear to be a slight discrepancy between the condition of the front and rear tires in that Eurobricks review of the set. Granted, it's not nearly what we're seeing here, but that review was done over 12 years ago. And of course it's a "New" rather than a "New & Sealed" set so one can't be certain that the rear tires are entirely unused and came from the same set as all of the other parts, even if that's very likely the case.

EDIT: I'm still quite convinced that my rear tires when I opened the set were dirty/dusty rather than degraded because the chalky dirt/dust rubbed off easily with a finger and didn't have the residue-like texture that I'd expect of degraded rubber, instead having the obvious texture of grime. Moreover, rubber degradation doesn't result in randomly placed scratches on the bottom of the rear tires that aren't on the sides, as shown in my photos. It is obviously certain that the rear tires were heavily used and frankly I don't understand the denial in this thread. Are you all paid Lego shills or something?

Have you contacted the seller to resolve the issue?   

[Yoggington]

17 hours ago, recovering_from_dark_ages said:

 Are you all paid Lego shills or something?

The jigs is up guys, may as well fess up - he's onto us.

[JesseNight]

22 hours ago, recovering_from_dark_ages said:

...I don't understand the denial in this thread. Are you all paid Lego shills or something?

No, we just don't share the same experiences. Which by logic tells me it was just an unlucky incident.
We are not associated with LEGO or BL directly so we can only share experiences and discuss the matters.

[Peppermint_M]

You came back after months just for this? I really wonder what your contribution to the community here is. 

Unfortunately, the time elapsed since your purchase has probably invalidated any consumer protection there was. 

 

[recovering_from_dark_ages]

On 6/11/2025 at 7:11 PM, Murdoch17 said:

Insulting the people who are more knowledgeable about these things than you is not exactly a wise move when asking for these same people's help. If you've already made up your mind on the matter, then why ask all of us @recovering_from_dark_ages? I'm genuinely curious...

In my previous reply, I was no longer seeking help or advice and just wanted to set the record straight.

My other experiences with Bricklink have almost all been ok, aside from an instruction booklet that was falsely advertised as new and was in fact so heavily used that it had mold and water damage. I've still had better luck with Ebay - never any issues there although apparently others have had them. Buying from sellers with extensive seller feedback on Ebay (not just buyer feedback) seems to be reliable.

As I wrote before, I wanted to build this set immediately when I created this thread (and built it very soon afterward) since I had limited time with work obligations. At the time I had neither the time nor the desire to delay building the set by several weeks in order to exchange it. I posted this thread mainly as a cautionary tale. Requesting photos before purchase is always a good idea although in my case, aside from the taped box seal, it wouldn't have revealed the remaining flaws that only became visible after opening the set.

Anyway, apologies if the accusation offended anyone. I was surprised that people were so adamantly defending the condition of the set.

Edited June 15 by recovering_from_dark_ages

[JesseNight]

19 hours ago, recovering_from_dark_ages said:

My other experiences with Bricklink have almost all been ok, aside from an instruction booklet that was falsely advertised as new and was in fact so heavily used that it had mold and water damage. I've still had better luck with Ebay - never any issues there although apparently others have had them. Buying from sellers with extensive seller feedback on Ebay (not just buyer feedback) seems to be reliable.

As I wrote before, I wanted to build this set immediately when I created this thread (and built it very soon afterward) since I had limited time with work obligations. At the time I had neither the time nor the desire to delay building the set by several weeks in order to exchange it. I posted this thread mainly as a cautionary tale. Requesting photos before purchase is always a good idea although in my case, aside from the taped box seal, it wouldn't have revealed the remaining flaws that only became visible after opening the set.

It can happen, and on ebay too. BL has a feedback system too so that is one thing that can surely help a lot.

Detailed photos is always a good idea, but in case of a sealed set unfortunately impossible because a seller wouldn't unseal it for that. Another reason I would prefer not buying a sealed set if the content is what I'm interested in.

[Kit Figsto]

Regarding the point about instructions/individual parts not being "new," I've always felt that the distinction between selling individual parts, minifigures, boxes, or instructions and listing them as "new" was kind of hokey to begin with.

I might be in the minority here, but to me, something is "new" when it's in the original box and has not been opened or used.  If someone buys a set and parts it out, the brick may not have been used in the sense of being built with, but in my mind, by it being removed from all original packaging, it has lost its "newness."  Especially in the case of a minifigure, it's impossible, in my mind, for it to be sold as "new" but loose, because it requires assembly.

Further, there's literally no way to verify newness of parts coming from BL or other third party sellers.  Without a doubt, there's ways to tell if a brick or minifigure has been used (scratches, cracks, damaged edges/corners, etc.) but I could very easily disassemble a set of mine that I just recently bought and list the parts as "new" because they still look new enough.  Now, this might beg the question "if it looks new, who cares?" but my point is that, as someone who really only buys new stuff, I won't buy parts from third party sellers because, again, I want to get something "new" and not "used being passed off as new," especially if I'm paying a premium for new items.  If buying used doesn't bother you, more power to you.

This gets even more shady at times on eBay, where I see people all the time listing stuff that is blatantly used under the "new" category.  I can't tell how you many people I've seen literally listing built sets as "new" which, I don't care how good of condition it's in, that's just untrue (especially when it's a set from the early 90s!).  

 

 

Regarding the set, though, I think it's just a case of bad luck and poor storage on the part of the seller.  I bought a new copy of 6753 Arctic Expedition off of eBay earlier this year, and it was very clearly sealed, but I'm guessing had been stored in a garage or some place without climate control, because the robot vehicle's tires had a very slimy, sticky residue on them (likely from melting), one of the minifigure's torsos had a very stiff arm, which upon messing with, caused the arm itself to break and the torso to crack, and a 1x2 grill tile also cracked.  My guess is that heat caused the plastic to weaken over time, but I'm not sure.

In the time since then, I've bought and built a total of 3 other sets from 1997 and 1998 (all of which are actually older than the Arctic Expedition set) that contain between them 16 tires, and the worst issue that I ran into was one of the sets having a slight crease in the sticker sheet.  No melting issues with the rubber pieces, nor do any bricks feel brittle.  One of the sets was purchased from BL, the other two from a LEGO resale shop near me. 

Sometimes that sort of thing happens, and it's unfortunate when it does, but I don't think it really is worth the time or effort that it would take for sellers to create fake sealed sets, at least in the case of like 99% of sets, especially since it would have to be convincing enough to actually fool a customer.

[Stereo]

29 minutes ago, Kit Figsto said:

In the time since then, I've bought and built a total of 3 other sets from 1997 and 1998 (all of which are actually older than the Arctic Expedition set) that contain between them 16 tires, and the worst issue that I ran into was one of the sets having a slight crease in the sticker sheet.  No melting issues with the rubber pieces, nor do any bricks feel brittle.  One of the sets was purchased from BL, the other two from a LEGO resale shop near me. 

Some of my sets that I bought at the time had slimy rubber from new, ones I can think of offhand are 8479 (barcode truck, 1997), 8444 (air enforcer, 1999).  It was specifically the hard rubber tires, parts 3483, 2346, 3634, 4288.  It was noticeable immediately (compared to older sets with the same tires) and now 26+ years later the one on 8479 that's used for Hand of God steering is still slimy enough that it slips on the wheel instead of steering.  When they were new I thought they were shipped in something like vaseline, but if I washed them it came back.

[Kit Figsto]

4 hours ago, Stereo said:

Some of my sets that I bought at the time had slimy rubber from new, ones I can think of offhand are 8479 (barcode truck, 1997), 8444 (air enforcer, 1999).  It was specifically the hard rubber tires, parts 3483, 2346, 3634, 4288.  It was noticeable immediately (compared to older sets with the same tires) and now 26+ years later the one on 8479 that's used for Hand of God steering is still slimy enough that it slips on the wheel instead of steering.  When they were new I thought they were shipped in something like vaseline, but if I washed them it came back.

That's really interesting, because one of the sets that I didn't have this issue with was the Scorpion Tracker (5918), which features part 3483 for its tires.  However, the tires that did have the slimy issue were part 6015, which I didn't have the problem with on two other sets from 1997 that both featured that exact same part (10 total across both sets).  

Now I'm wondering if it was a storage issue or a manufacturing issue.  The parts cracking lead me to believe that it may have played a factor, but I'm not sure now!