Bootleg Pirate LEGO sets

[Henchmen4Hire]

There are a couple of bootleg lego sets actually, up on ebay that I saw that are bootlegs but look great and are way cheaper than their official counterparts (...because that's what bootlegs are for, of course, haha).

They're found by searching for "enlightenment".

Maybe it's just because I'm partial to the pretty color on the sails, but I love that ship, and would have no problem plunking down the cash if I had it (I bought a bunch of cheap Space Police stuff recently :D ).

Has anyone bought some of these? The also have City Police and Firefighter sets, along with closeups of the actual products in each auction.

(am I gonna get yelled at for posting this? :P)

This piano is pretty awesome http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/4738/t2bnmxehaxxxxxxxx196536.jpg

Edited December 17, 2010 by DrNightmare

[Bricks2000]

MEGABLOCKS!

I can't believe you're buying this crap!

I'll buy and BURN this!

[Henchmen4Hire]

No, no, send me the money and I'll buy this crap, then burn it at a later time of my choosing

[Big Cam]

I believe megablock stuff is supposed to go in the community section since its not LEGO, but besides the sail color, its not that special to me.

[Enpaz]

Original red and white BSB looks better. Although I have to admit that the design of the piano is spot-on, I would never buy it. Build it yourself as a MOC if you've got courage!

Enpaz

[vexorian]

The piano strikes me as an AFOL's MoC they CNPed into the catalog... I mean, I think I've seen it before.

Enlightement is on the lower quality spectrum among bootlegs. So much that you shouldn't even expect the color to match that CGI pic's.

Edited December 17, 2010 by vexorian

[WhiteFang]

This is not LEGO and it doesn't belongs here.

Topic moved.

[Peppermint_M]

Once again...

Enlighten is a bootleg brand. That is indeed a bootlegged set design, their "own" designs seem to ape a MOC I have seen before and the many LEGO guns sold by custom set sellers (One of which turned up in the news a while back). About the only thing I can ever say that is good (to a given value) is the variation in colour for utensils and weapons. The plastice varies wildly as does the clutching power.

Enlighten most certainly is not Mega Blocks, a legitemate devision of Mega Brands and legal competitor to TLG.

Feel free to pick up the sets yourself and see how dodgy they are.

[Sam Vimes]

We have found a megablocks fan may we BURN Him.

Sorry could not resist.

[Peppermint_M]

*hand to forehead*

It's not Megablocks...

Massive difference pointed out above.

[LEGO Guy Bri]

MEGABLOCKS!

I can't believe you're buying this crap!

I'll buy and BURN this!

No these are worse than megablocks!! They're so bad they make MB LOOK like Lego... I have two containers that I purchased off ebay WITH a truck cab and trailer. (I purchased only for the truck to be clear) and finally saw this abomination of ABS plastic. These are a truely horrific knockoff. I have been thinking about writing a serious letter to Ebay about these Chinese distributors listing this crap under Lego on Ebay! . Those listing Megablock have no trouble staying out of Lego! But this Enlightenment is mucking up the search for Lego. THEY ARE NOT LEGO OR LIKE LEGO!!! AHHH

[Enpaz]

It's not Megablocks...

It megablockin' is when you are using the term "megabl0x" as a general expression for an object of hate!

[Jargo]

I bought an enlighten ship because it was dirt cheap and I was curious about the quality. The answer is that the quality is awful, dreadful and just plain crappy. Pieces don't fit together and colours are strange. the plastic is shoddy and brittle with many parts malformed. I did discover however that under blue light the yellow bricks are almost fluorescent. Perhaps radioactively.

the crows nest piece is interesting as are the chromed cutlasses but nothing else.

Edited December 17, 2010 by Brickenhead-town-dweller

[Clone OPatra]

I have two bootleg Pirate sets that I bought because I didn't read the finer print on Ebay (or was an idiot, however you want to see it). Anyway, the minifigures are really awful; some have heads that don't look remotely close to the thing that they are "cloning." The brick quality was pretty low as well, and I wouldn't want to mix it with real LEGO anyway. As mentioned, the best thing about them are the variant color weapons: chromed cutlasses, and brown Western-style rifles as opposed to LEGO's pirate muskets. Besides for that stuff, it would really be better to skip.

[Lord Insanity]

Well I can't speak for the pirate ships but I did get one of the Enlighten Union Pacific train engines. The quality of the parts are far better than MegaBloks and only slightly below Lego. Basically it is similar to the "extended line" Lego items that have the "cheap Chinese plastic." The Enlighten clutch is stronger than Lego clutch in most cases. All of the parts are actually printed too, no cheap stickers here. It should also be noted that the set itself is not a bootleg. (some of the parts unfortunately are) While similar to Lego's BNSF engine the Union Pacific is definitely a different design as the Brickshelf gallery above illustrates. The only real bad thing against the engine (besides the fact that Lego didn't make it ) is that there are very sharp injection flashing marks on some of the studs.

[Henchmen4Hire]

I appreciate the first-hand testimonies and lament over your unfortunate purchases! They sound terrible! Looks like I'll have to suck it up and buy the real LEGO pirate ships. If the bricks aren't even a decent color then I'd rather not get them. I customize action figures, but painting large amounts of LEGOs is beyond my patience!

The florescent aspect has me cringing, I don't think touching stuff that glows inexplicably is good for anyone's health xD

And yeah, they're not MegaBloks, don't be blinded by hate guys, read a little lol.

Edited December 17, 2010 by DrNightmare

[Capn Frank]

the crows nest piece is interesting as are the chromed cutlasses but nothing else.

Agreed. I have a couple of the chrome cutlasses, and I like them.

Everything else from my Enlighten bricks has been shoved in a drawer for later mutilation.

They are of a very low quality as others have already mentioned.

[meyerc13]

Almost two years ago, my son was sick and in the hospital for a few days. My father-in-law wanted to bring him a gift, and I told him that my son liked LEGO. So he picked up a few LEGO pirate sets which my son loved. My father-in-law then mentioned that he had two 'lego pirate ships' in the basement that he had bought for the grandchildren to play with, but my son could have them.

When the ships arrived at my house, it turned out that they weren't LEGO but Cobi/Best Lock. The instructions and pieces look a lot like LEGO from a distance, but once I started putting together the ships I could feel the difference. Sections of the ships would fall apart as I was building them. Once I finally got them together, when my son would play with them pieces would constantly fall off. There were cannons that were supposed to connect to their equivalent of a jumper plate, I eventually super-glued them because they'd fall off if you looked at them funny. With even the most fragile LEGO set, I've never had to resort to superglue.

Eventually I was able to talk my son into selling these at our garage sale last summer. I think we got $5 for the pair. Some people may not have a problem with these knock-offs and competitors, but I've purged my house of everything non-LEGO, with the exception of a few Duplo-like Ni Hao Kai Lan Mega Bloks sets that my daughter plays with.

Since Cobi/Best Lock actually are sold in US stores, I suspect their quality could be higher than Enlighten, which if true would be a good reason to avoid these. In any case, I agree that ebay shouldn't allow these in the LEGO categories. It's the main reason I stopped browsing for LEGO on ebay... it was too time consuming to try to filter these out or wade through all the bootleg listings.

[Peppermint_M]

Cobi and Bestlock (they parted ways in the last year or so) are Competitor brands, not bootlegs.

I find Bestlock stock to be rather bad quality, Cobi is a fine competitor to Lego, great quality parts and themes Lego never touches. I have had one or two issues, but they are not as bad as any single bootleg set you could care to name.

Once more with feeeling: A bootleg is a rip off of the set designs parts and branding, there is a confusing logo that resembles a known brand and they are often very poor quality. All in all they try to be sold as Lego.

A Competitor (Or Clone) Brand is a company that makes bricks in competition to Lego, they have their own set designs and sell under their own branding. They share the stud and tube grip and many basic bricks but they often have unique parts themselves.

[frogstudio]

I do own that ship. Bought it since it's simply impossible to get a BSB here in my country. So, some words about it:

Quality: the bricks have a really strong clutching power. Colours are much stronger than LEGO (yellow has a bit of an orange hue)Most of the plates and bricks have really sharp edges. Printing on sails aren't that good. Instructions are good and well printed. Minifigs aren't good at all, thopugh you can get some accesories in strange colours (golden coins and silver cutlasses)

Major concerns: I would certainly NOT GIVE THIS TO A CHILD!!!! Besides cutting my fingers twice during the build, the worst thing is that some of the bricks (basically, the brown riggings of the masts)have some quind of chemical comning out of them!!! I stored this ship unasembled indide some ziplock bags. After a year, the riggings had tinted the plastic bags and the sails of my Caribbean Clipper, on over which they were lying, basically ruining them!!!!

On the good side... once built, the ship looks really nice, and it's a cheap way to build a pirate fleet to use as background in your layout.. Just my two cents...

[BrickWild]

There is also a 'clone brand', known as Bela, which usually produces blatent copies of official Technic sets!

Take a look at this one for example! The LEGO logo has been blanked off, but the Technic trademark still exists!

And worst of all, no stickers!