crossmr

There is a cost, but that cost is only increased by specialty parts unique to a set. They already have pick a brick, which covers a lot of the parts. The only thing they need to do is increase its range for out of print sets to include their specialty parts, and possibly decide on whether or not to keep minifigure prints in stock or not. If they just add those, the rest can be managed from the existing inventory. Many of the parts in sets are used in many sets both past and present. Especially since the older sets were simpler, it would probably be very little trouble for them to offer almost complete older sets (perhaps without the minifigures) and a sticker sheet instead of the printed bricks. Let's look at something like this: https://www.toysperiod.com/img/cache/ec/800x600/u21384r274y2c454w2b4t2n2s5h4c4r2b4w244q2b4v2v2.jpg What pieces aren't really made anymore? The thin verticles that made up the garage door, the bikes, and the base plate? That's about it right? Those bikes were common back then I believe, they appeared in several sets, and I'm sure people would enjoy having them again. Same with those doors, I believe those were used in a few sets and the only really unique thing is the base plate. But it's also a versatile plate that could go well with a road series. Good for building a house on with a garage if you're into more traditional building projects. So basically by running 3 pieces, they could offer that set through pick a brick without the minifigures. Now the figures themselves had a standard head, which I think they could have no problem running again and sell out forever. People would love the traditional head, and the legs were all black, no prints. So all the printing was 2 torsos. So for 2 torsos, an old style hat and helmet, and you have all the minifigures. So that's a total of 9 additional pieces and you'd have that set and many like it available. very few sets had truly unique pieces back then.

They may not have produced marvel figures, but they were still producing figures. They just did the pokemon trainer set.

That was sort of what I suggested before. Most of the bricks are made continuously, perhaps except for a few specialty parts for each set. If Lego would actually take the time, especially when a sets run has ended to keep all the parts in stock, there is no reason they couldn't continue to sell the sets indefinitely. Again, those pieces don't expire. They're plastic. If they make an extra 10,000 of some piece, they can keep it on hand for orders. If they run out, run off 10,000 more.

Honestly? yes.. as long as it is selling there is no reason not to make it. It's not like it's a product that expires. They can do a run of X number of sets and if it sells at a good clip, do another run. If that sells, do more. 2 year products runs like they have is basically introducing artificial product scarcity. While they're at it, they need to look at their prices. While Chinese companies are hit and miss, Oxford in Korea and Star Diamond in China are basically Lego quality. Bricks are fantastic, quality is consistent, and designs are decent and yet their prices are a small fraction of Legos. This was a set they did in collaboration with Toys R Us in Korea, 1500 pieces, 8-9 minifigures, and the price was around $85 USD. That's a lot of bricks for a low cost.

As I said in another thread, it is meant for chinese consumption. Not really for people outside China even though you can buy it there. Also, Enlighten started by copying Lego to build themselves up, get some experience and capital and now they're making original designs, which in my mind, are actually pretty decent. http://enlighten-brick.com/city.html http://enlighten-brick.com/pirates.html (white logo stuff is their new stuff, black logo is the old stuff they copied) http://enlighten-brick.com/police.html Lego really isn't priced for the chinese market, which is another reason these companies thrive. Lego goes for like 7x the price in China. not the 2x you see on aliexpress. A lot of products are expected to be cheap there and if Lego doesn't want to play ball, then other companies will fill that void.

can anyone identify the set in this post? http://tieba.baidu.com/p/4742841825 It's a WW2 set, but the guy who posts the picture doesn't seem to list the brand and box number. I found it while searching for SY stuff, but I'm not sure it's theirs.

Thanks. I need to order it off taobao. I have a reshipper in China that can ship to Korea. There are just 2 listings on taobao, so it's just coming out now. i'll wait for a few more. Right now they have it for 125 which is a little high.

Lego heads can be used. Legs no. Oxford and Lego use different connectors. Oxford does this intentionally to avoid Lego's trademark. Lego doesn't have any protection on the bricks themselves, but they still have minifigure protection in some places. So Oxford makes them slightly different. The feet are rounded and the legs slightly inset. Hands and heads can be swapped as well as any upper body gear.

I have Lego figures from the 80s. One thing I remember from when I was young, was that within a few years, a lot of the figures I had (original police, space guys, as well as some printed bricks like the red cross hospital wall plates) the ink had worn off some of them.

This looks great. it isn't out yet though. Any idea when its' coming?

As one of the replies says, it sounds like propaganda. I've handled some truly awful chinese bricks in my time, and never once had any kind of "itchy" skin. I've never noticed any kind of residue on the bricks or anything else. The only proof you have is some vague rumor, but given the popularity of these bricks on some of the facebook pages, where Lepin is actually talked about, I've never seen a single person who actually bought these bricks ever say they've had "itchy skin".

Their new designs are very unique and interesting, So in that regard their quality is good. The actual quality of the build varies. Their bricks themselves feel nice, good color and shine to them. There are clutch problems on some sets. I've tried several of their new vehicles and I'm happy with the prices, and what I got, but they do have clutch issues. I've heard this is because they're using old molds. It's not an issue on every set though.

Keep in mind no one pays MSRP in Korea for oxford stuff. Most shops sell it for a significant discount. For example the MSRP on the Green tank is 54,000 won but in Korea you're only paying about 34-35,000 won to buy it. I don't know why Oxford puts those prices on their page, they don't even have their own online store.

For reference this set (the lepin star wars speeder linked in one of the messages) is about 6.72 USD in china itself. Keep in mind that their main market is China, and aliexpress sellers often inflate the prices. The amount they add on for shipping is often excessive. I've also been lucky enough to buy many sets on the street here in Korea, where they ship them in in bulk and don't have an inflated price. I paid about $8 USD for this set on the street, with a box here in Korea. Mine was fine, no problems with her weapon or arm. As far as these companies go, there are a couple things to keep in mind: A lot of their focus (outside star wars) is on sets which aren't made anymore. So in that regards they're more likely hurting the secondary lego market, not the actual company itself. Also with their primary market being China, Lego itself is prohibitively expensive there. The real lego one is about 7.5x the price of the Lepin one. Lepin is at least giving them a decent produce for a decent price. Some of those other Chinese companies are providing some really sketchy stuff. plastic that smells like it'll give you cancer, and other horrible things. Also think about "Enlighten" they were famous for knocking off legos stuff. They used to copy pirate sets and train sets. Great source for train sets long ago. Too bad they're actually gone now. Starting last year, after building itself up on copying lego, they started their own original lines. They've completely redesigned their entire offering and honestly, their designs are pretty cool. I have several of the new ones, and they give Lego a run for their money. In a few years when Lepin can afford designers and has experience you might see them do the same thing.

I'll see if I can find a copy of the instructions. It's a big set, on the scale of the Lego Modulars I believe.

It's a shame that Enlighten is moving away from the trains. Those are all very old sets. Most of the trains aren't available anymore. This is one that is, there are about 3 engines and 1 car (the log car) that are still pretty easy to find, even in china. I'd like to see them do a new train line with their new idea of being an original company. GBL is good, but a limited range. About all we have these days for selection is Lego, GBL and Ausini and Ausini doesn't give a full set. There are a couple of other trains out ther (banbao, sluban) but sluban isn't compatible, banbao isn't great quality and their figures are stupid, and really that's about it. Enlighten at least gave people some choices on cars and things like that.

The only point of order there is that that has not been decided in the US and while it's done at a certain level in Europe (or the UK wherever exactly it was) they did say they were going to appeal. Until it hits the highest level and is supported they aren't out of the water on that. I like the slightly different Oxford figures, but I think very few people could genuinely be confused by bootleg figure. They all have something off about them. Chinese companies seem to have trouble with one color or another, or the quality is poor or whatever. I think That unless they are straight out copying a print from a lego figure, they should probably lay off on that. Don't allow them to copy sets, or 1:1 copies of minifigures, but their blocks are fair game, and I don't think Lego really has anything to worry about from a random chinese company creating unique minifigs that have the same basic shape as lego. It's almost anti-competitive They should welcome a little competition. It might push them to evolve a bit. Oxford could certainly give them a run for their money IF they'd get their act together.

GBL is another brand made by the same company that makes Kazi, but the quality is much improved. The bricks feel like "old" lego. The lego I had back in the 80s. Great clutch. Nice feel. They have some original stuff, and some bootleg stuff.

There were some minor inconsistencies in the orange colors, but the front part are two large brick pieces. not individual slopes. They all match color wise. It was the flats that had color inconsistencies. The windscreen has printing on it, The arrows are stickers, the numbers on the windows are printed. The console inside is printed as well. About the only issue I noted was the sliding wall in the first car. There is a tab on it that prevents it from sliding all the way closed. Other than that, It's a very solid and well made train. Sure you can only turn it on or off, but $30 vs $200, it's fine.

This is star diamond: http://lhtoys.com/en/ http://www.aliexpress.com/item/2015-new-Breaker-puzzle-assembling-building-model-toy-breaker-building-express-car-series/32285137294.html?ws_ab_test=searchweb201556_7%2Csearchweb201644_2_79_78_77_82_80_62_81%2Csearchweb201560_4&spm=2114.031010208.3.102.fSslNZ http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Breaker-assembling-building-blocks-deformation-robot-building-blocks/1591260985.html?spm=2114.031010208.3.44.fSslNZ&ws_ab_test=searchweb201556_7,searchweb201644_2_79_78_77_82_80_62_81,searchweb201560_4 Searching "breaker blocks" turns up a few, but none of their dino stuff is there that I can find. Which is decent. The city stuff is some of their older stuff.

Oxford is a Korean brand, You can order them here: http://global.gmarket.co.kr/Home/Main You can see Oxford's product listings here: http://oxfordtoy.co.kr/pro/oxford.asp?p_code=10&menu_img=1 and just search on Gmarket via their model number. Star Diamond sometime shows up on aliexpress but because it's higher quality and slightly more expensive, it's often not sold there. I found a set for sale on the streets here in Korea and ordered some directly from China on Taobao.com but to do that you need a way to get it out of China, and I have a Korean reshipping company that accepts packages in Beijing and resends them on to Korea. Neither of them make modulars. That's a lego thing. Even if a chinese company copied that, it'd still be fairly pricey. They don't usually copy things so large there. The biggest clone I've seen was a clone of the Airjitsu (or whatever it's called) ninjago castle, and the GBL clone of the Horizon express (1260 pieces) I've never seen any of them clone a modular, or even any of the other big sets. A lot of them like to clone the Star Wars line, but mostly smaller sets and figures only. Which is a shame there probably would be a market for clones of the bigger stuff. Especially in China. Most of the stuff you buy on Aliexpress is much much cheaper domestically in China. If you pay $20 on Aliexpress the actual price in china might be $5-10. So actual lego is really expensive in China. You see train sets there for 198 yuan (GBL knock-off Horizon express), while a a real Lego train is like 1400 yuan. About 7x the price. Is it any wonder these kinds of companies are able to flourish there?

Enlighten is up there. In terms of non-bootlegs (so no SY or Decool) I'd rank them as such: Lego Oxford Star Diamond Enlighten Megablocks Also keep in mind Enlighten is very different in terms of quality than it was years ago. Look at the Enlighten logo to know. If it's black lettering, it's their old stuff. The new logo is white and that's their revamped stuff and new bricks. The new bricks have much more of a lego feel to it, the only problem they have is the odd loose joint on an arm. Say out of 5 or 6 figures in a set, I might get one figure with 1 arm there is a little loose. It might pop out easily.

Is this a copy of a an existing Lego ice cream set? Enlighten recently revamped their product line. While they used to copy set designs those are actually from several years ago. Their recent offerings are all original designs (as far as I know). This is their current city line: http://enlighten-brick.com/city.html and I don't believe any of them are copies of Lego sets. For some reason that list is missing 1109 which is a pretty awesome tow truck:

Certainly this. Get yourself some energizer lithiums or whatever the duracell equivalent is..

Maybe vehicles are just really easy, but do the official lines just have way too much vehicle focus? I just took a gander through the official lego site catalog and of the current city line, it's like 1 main building for the theme and then half a dozen different vehicle sets. Does lego have something against mid-size or auxiliary buildings? We can make our own, but it would be nice to have some officially designed ones to fit with existing stuff.