10305 Lion Knights' Castle 90th anniversary set

[Sir Dano]

3 minutes ago, The Reader said:

Just out of curiosity: Set 375 (the yellow castle) had four factions with a coat-of-arms each. Three of them had a revival in set 10305. The only one which has no appearance in the dining hall of set 10305 is the Maltese Cross. Does anybody have an idea why?

The speculation I've seen is it's because it's a real world military symbol and TLG doesn't want to depict those in (unlicensed) lego sets nowadays.

[iragm]

11 hours ago, Metanoios said:

the black corner slopes (Black Slope 75 2 x 2 x 3 Double Convex), the MOC designer chose so wisely for the roofs, cost a lot on Bricklink

Fortunately, they are available on PAB for a reasonable price.  I just picked up a bunch a few months ago.  It's the 2x2 quadruple convex roof piece that's expensive and not available in black on PAB.  And the price has gotten a lot worse over the last year as castle popularity increases.  7946 shows a way to build roofs without it, but, sadly, it's just not quite the same look.

[natesroom]

What pieces are your talking about i could not find what piece you reference on PAB

Edited August 28, 2022 by natesroom

[iragm]

This brick, for building chateau roofs, is $2.41 average on bricklink:

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=3685&name=Slope 75 2 x 2 x 3 Double Convex&category=[Slope]#T=P&C=11

But it's only $0.40 on PAB:  https://www.lego.com/en-us/pick-and-build/pick-a-brick?query=3685&page=1

The capstone piece is not available on PAB in black, and it has a stupidly high price on bricklink: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=3688&name=Slope 75 2 x 2 x 2 Quadruple Convex - Blocked Open Stud or Hollow Stud&category=[Slope]#T=P&C=11

As an aside (and to brag), I have 3 of the 2x2x2 quad convex bricks obtained from bulk ebay lots -- I just look for bulk lots that look like they contain 6074.  You can usually get a 10 pound box for about $80-100 USD shipped.

[natesroom]

dont you mean 3688 https://www.lego.com/en-us/pick-and-build/pick-a-brick?query=3688&page=1

[Follows Closely]

I assume yes, but is is not available in black.

[dimc]

Oh I have one of those, got some parts from BFF but not nearly enough to complete it. That little black spire does look nice. It's only like $6, not like the BF flag that's over 20.

[natesroom]

9 minutes ago, Follows Closely said:

I assume yes, but is is not available in black.

haha that dark grey tricked me i thought it was black!

[Merlo]

On 8/28/2022 at 11:51 AM, Metanoios said:

It is still essentially 70 % of the original design. The only new things are two square towers and a simple tree. Funnily enough there is a reason this person didn't actually build the towers in real life and only showcases these digital renders. If someone actually did try to build it, the ugly plain black roofs alone would cost over 70 $, because the black corner slopes (Black Slope 75 2 x 2 x 3 Double Convex), the MOC designer chose so wisely for the roofs, cost a lot on Bricklink. Additionaly you would most likely have to use multiple sellers to get them in the quantity needed for this build and this would add further shipping costs. Or having to pay international shipping to get the amount from the few sellers, that offer larger quantities. So I hope some are at least intelligent enough to look up the part costs before they buy these instructions. Imagine being ready to pay 70 $ for two tiny roofs (consisting of roughly 100 black pieces) and then complaining about 399 $ for over 4000 pieces...

Like I said, the specific details are irrelevant. You can make a more interesting castle in countless different ways and with much less than 4000 pieces. And 30% is a huge difference.

 

[Aanchir]

18 hours ago, Sir Dano said:

The speculation I've seen is it's because it's a real world military symbol and TLG doesn't want to depict those in (unlicensed) lego sets nowadays.

Beyond that, in recent history, the Maltese cross and other symbols associated with the Crusades and Knights Templar have been co-opted by some Islamophobic hate groups, and the Maltese Cross in particular was featured prominently in the manifesto of mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik. So I imagine LEGO may wish to avoid that sort of imagery on those grounds.

[qbrick]

I still find it interesting that 10305 has only sold 32 units on bricklink globally, which is not what I was expecting.  It would be interesting to know how many units have been sold via official lego channels, if it would be high hundreds, or low thousands of copies sold to the end consumers.

Is it a case that with things like Classic Castle and Galaxy Explorer, that the hype is there and everyone loves the nostalgia of it, but it doesn't translate to a large number of units sold?  Could that we the reason the Classic Themes never really get up?

I still find it interesting how few quantities there are of Lion Knights on bricklink, it must be true that the minifigs are only coming from parted out 10305 sets and none of the big sellers have gotten any "back door" quantities like was referenced on bricklink a few weeks ago. 

Edited August 29, 2022 by qbrick

[Sir Dano]

I'd like to think it means that castle collectors are smart enough to buy from TLG directly instead of scalpers on bricklink.

[RichardGoring]

It's also surprising how many are available for less than RRP on Bricklink. The sold price range is pretty broad too - even accounting for the ones that are probably just selling the figures as an incomplete version of the set.

[qbrick]

Would the situation be that for a bricklink seller of 10305, they could part out the 22 minifigures for a few hundred dollars, but then be stuck with thousands of generic grey parts that would take forever to move?  That is, in the ROI on parting out the set not there?

[woodford86]

I'm pretty sure its just plain ol' too expensive. Seems like all of the Lego stuff has stepped back a bit, the Sanctum has only less than 50 on Bricklink as well.

I sold my blue Falcon's horse barding on Bricklink for $40. Not bad for a single piece of plastic.

[iragm]

1 hour ago, qbrick said:

I still find it interesting that 10305 has only sold 32 units on bricklink globally, which is not what I was expecting.  It would be interesting to know how many units have been sold via official lego channels, if it would be high hundreds, or low thousands of copies sold to the end consumers. 

Why on earth would anyone buy from Bricklink instead of directly from Lego?  Lego offers free shipping, VIP points, free returns, and a guarantee that the set is complete.

It would be fascinating to know how many units Lego has sold so far, but only they know that, sadly.  They have certainly moved thousands of units, not hundreds, but something like this is pretty expensive to produce from design to production to logistics to marketing.  It wouldn't surprise me if this could sell 100k units and still not be profitable.

 

1 hour ago, qbrick said:

I still find it interesting how few quantities there are of Lion Knights on bricklink, it must be true that the minifigs are only coming from parted out 10305 sets and none of the big sellers have gotten any "back door" quantities like was referenced on bricklink a few weeks ago.  

I sold a good number of minifigures on eBay, getting $250+ while still keeping the figures I like (the queen, peasant, and handmaid) seems like a pretty solid deal to me and I have no shortage of old school crusaders and forestmen to populate the castle with.  But, it's kind of a pain to sell stuff and most of the people who are buying this have a ton of disposable income, so it's probably not worth their time.

[The Reader]

23 hours ago, Sir Dano said:

The speculation I've seen is it's because it's a real world military symbol and TLG doesn't want to depict those in (unlicensed) lego sets nowadays.

Thank you!

5 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Beyond that, in recent history, the Maltese cross and other symbols associated with the Crusades and Knights Templar have been co-opted by some Islamophobic hate groups, and the Maltese Cross in particular was featured prominently in the manifesto of mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik. So I imagine LEGO may wish to avoid that sort of imagery on those grounds.

Thank you, too!

[BTappel]

Looks like the online US store upped the purchase limit to 5!  Not sure if thats good cause we can buy more or bad cause they arent selling.  Hopefully they are selling well and TLG just produced enough sets.

[TeriXeri]

I don't think purchase limit increases would signal bad sales, but rather bigger supply of sets being made after the initial launch peak, I think this set will be around for years to come (3+ years at least), as it's not tied to a license, or IDEAS, they can keep it around if it sells.

Currently also have not seen any signs of this set appearing outside of LEGO's own shops.

Edited August 29, 2022 by TeriXeri

[Roebuck]

6 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

I don't think purchase limit increases would signal bad sales, but rather bigger supply of sets being made after the initial launch peak, I think this set will be around for years to come (3+ years at least), as it's not tied to a license, or IDEAS, they can keep it around if it sells.

Yes, just look at the forestmen GWP, people were going crazy about that and it did not sell out the first time and lasted a fair bit into the next round before it was gone. Previously some GWPs has disappeared after a couple of hours, maybe they just have become better at calculating demand and produce more sets.
If I was to guess I would say that it is more time consuming to produce 50 different sets that are sold out all the time, then making a lot more of the 50 sets before they are released 

[Merlo]

16 hours ago, qbrick said:

Is it a case that with things like Classic Castle and Galaxy Explorer, that the hype is there and everyone loves the nostalgia of it, but it doesn't translate to a large number of units sold?  Could that we the reason the Classic Themes never really get up?

I can only speak for myself, but when I think of classic themes I think of smaller sets that fit together both visually as a part of a larger theme and mechanically, where it's possible or even encouraged to combine them, with no limitations on imagination except the limitations brought by bricks themselves.

Instead we got things like the Forestmen GWP, Creator Castle, Blacksmith and Lion Knight's Castle, that go from expensive to crazy expensive, differ in scale and visual style and would be quite difficult to combine.

The cherry on top is the fact that when looking at older sets, things like classic space especially, I can't help and think that whatever I think of them now, I have to admit they were pretty cool and imaginative back in the day given what was possible with the bricks they had and non-existent history of the theme at that point.

And I am to think that the absolute best we can do now, with vastly superior brick choices and brick counts, a whole four decades later, are well-built, yet impressively vanilla looking rehashes/reissues of those old sets?

I can't believe that for a second. I don't see the love for Lego in there. All I see is: "Fans older. Got money. Sell nostalgia."

By now it's a sadly familiar scene of companies trying to guess and please the market with one-off solutions without any thought going into planning, coordinating or developing something that can grow into its own thing. There were no original castle/space/pirates lines for ages, so no harm if there are none in the future, right? There will always be new IP's to sell.

[RichardGoring]

Whilst I don't disagree with you (the varied scale and style of the available sets is a bit of a shame), from LEGO's perspective it's probably very lucrative.

They can use the classic approach of a playscale playset for the 3 in 1 castle to give it mass market appeal at a price that many will be tempted by - especially the high volume children demographic.

But then there are the folks clamouring for more detail and bigger things, so the Blacksmith (which got a lot of criticism for being too simple compared with the original) caters to those who want a 'proper' model and 'sophisticated' building experience. As we've seen in earlier posts, if this was made the same scale as 10305, it would be so disappointingly basic, and most likely wouldn't have had the love it now has. Now, if they released that simpler version as part of a wave, then maybe. But it was first, and as we saw with Vidiyo, if you release the basic stuff first, it fails, because there is no hero set to promote/lead it. So it's detailed (and large) and people love it, and LEGO makes a bunch of money from it.

And then there's 10305 which is a brilliant marketing tool for LEGO. So many media outlets picked up that LEGO was doing this huge new castle (none outside of LEGO sites picked up the 3 in 1 castle) for the size and scale, but also the nostalgia. It's $400, which is a lot of money, but there are enough people who grew up with classic castle sets who will buy it - most importantly, those who haven't bought much/anything in a while. And, perhaps even better, the news, presented alongside 10497, will catch other people's attention, who can't afford a $400 set, but will buy the also very cool $100 10497, or see LEGO in a different light as something they can get. But why not do something brand new for this? Well, the expectation that comes with nostalgia probably has a lot to do with that. I suspect that's part of what generates most of the excitement for it. At least initially.

So yes, it's frustrating for the fan who will want and probably get all three, but that's very likely a small proportion of the people who buy any of them, so LEGO hasn't compromised on the demographic reach for the sake of the consistency you'd get in a full wave from a single theme. Again, not saying I like it, but I can understand the business rationale for it. Although, to be honest, I do really like both the Blacksmith and 10305.

 

[GeoBrick]

1 hour ago, RichardGoring said:

So yes, it's frustrating for the fan who will want and probably get all three, but that's very likely a small proportion of the people who buy any of them, so LEGO hasn't compromised on the demographic reach for the sake of the consistency you'd get in a full wave from a single theme. Again, not saying I like it, but I can understand the business rationale for it. Although, to be honest, I do really like both the Blacksmith and 10305.

 

To me, a splendid set has both a "Wow, must have it" AND a "Mmm, but I'd like to change a bit to this... and this... and this here as well".
Both the Blacksmith and the Lion's Knight Castle tick those boxes for me.
 

[Merlo]

3 hours ago, RichardGoring said:

So yes, it's frustrating for the fan who will want and probably get all three, but that's very likely a small proportion of the people who buy any of them, so LEGO hasn't compromised on the demographic reach for the sake of the consistency you'd get in a full wave from a single theme. Again, not saying I like it, but I can understand the business rationale for it. Although, to be honest, I do really like both the Blacksmith and 10305.

I'm kind of in both demographics. I'd love original Lego themes with small sets because that would be cheap for me and I could have a diorama that grows over time.

And I also have excess income that I can splurge on big sets.

Despite this, I seem to be in nowhere's land ATM.

There aren't really any original Lego themes or lines that would appeal to me as classic themes did.

And the fact that bigger sets are so visually inconsistent and cannot tie together pushed me out of that group as well.

Eventually I just kept the few sets that I like enough as standalone items (Blacksmith, Barracuda Bay, etc.) and stopped buying others.

So I'm now at the absurd situation where I won't even buy a castle as a castle fan. If it was a crown item in a bunch of smaller sets - sure! But I don't need another one-off in my collection.

Basically the only thing I'll buy if it ever comes out is another Ninjago City, as those fit together perfectly and combine in many different ways.

This is all a reflection of the modern short-term thinking, where everyone tries to instantly squeeze the most cash they can from the fans ATM, not really bringing any new fans

or even reigniting the fire of old fans, since there's not really anything they can do other than buy that one-off item.

[The Reader]

5 hours ago, GeoBrick said:

To me, a splendid set has both a "Wow, must have it" AND a "Mmm, but I'd like to change a bit to this... and this... and this here as well".

Well said. Same here. 👍

Edited August 30, 2022 by The Reader