fyrmedhatt

The concept is brilliant - finally a Lego web site aimed at adults! The color scheme looks good and I like the focus on Lego's premiere models, and I'm really hoping this could boost the ranks of AFOLs. I have one complaint though, why make it "Lego for men"? While i'm sure that the adult Lego market is dominated by men, there is a surprising number of female AFOLs out there that all seem to be ignored by this website.

Haha, this is so true! It seems like Lego has changed the discontinuation patterns for the modulars, so they appear to last for three instead of two years. That's not so cool for the resellers, but for new AFOLs its great, I certainly wish Market Street and Cafe Corner were around when I came out of my dark age in 2010.

Here is Bricklink's price guide, and it shows that you should be able to get around $1000 for your set on a decent day. This set is beginning to be very rare, and while your set is not absolutely pristine, it's extremely interesting to anyone that wants to build a new Cafe Corner. The value of CCs that have been put together from new and used parts with parts substitutions of some of the rarest and most expensive parts is still in excess of $500 dollars in my eyes, so getting a little less than double for a set like yours is not unreasonable. The list of parts in the CC that are now very hard to find is pretty long, it includes the 1x8 dk. blue arch, the gray doors, the white panels etc, and they run up the price like crazy. Feel great about your good fortune in having saved this set for a rainy day, you are probably going to make an AFOL very happy with this set!

From what I understand, the first batch of sets had the glued manual, and those sets were all old grey. The spiral bound manuals came with the later old grey sets, the mixed grey sets and the bley sets.

Wayno, great pictures, they are far better than the ones Lego uses to promote the respective sets. Taking them at cool angles just make them so much more life-like and appealing. I'm wondering if you use any kind of filters in processing the images though? I so clearly see the "Lego" logo on the studs and the bricks have such nice black outlines.

That's perfect! I love the stand with the minifigure included, it would go so well with the new UCS R2D2.

From what I understand, the size ratio of Lego's bricks was not determined by Lego themselves, but rather by Hilary Page and his Kiddicraft Self-Locking Building Bricks, from which Lego bought their first molds that they retooled and started production of their own interlocking bricks. From what I understand, the bricks were very similar those first few years, before Lego abandoned the slots for windows and doors and came up with the innertubes providing much more clutch power and versatility. As for the original reason why a non-cubic design was chosen I wonder if humans aesthetically preferring rectangular shapes to square ones played a role.

So well said! I agree that a great amount of the increase in prices is the increase in profit margin. It simply means that Lego is a healthy company that has money to expand and try out new and exciting products, as well as having more money for that rainy day. As for the City sets being expensive, it has the same reason that Ninjago is expensive: popularity. Lego City is on of their most in demand lines and is always a big seller, which means that they can charge more for those sets compared to what they charge for themes that Lego is just trying out, like Alien Conquest or Pharao's Quest. Last year the highest grossing set Lego had was the City Police Station, showing that City is something lots of parents buy for their kids, and it's something kids really want, so why not make them pay for it. Some city sets are also more expensive due to large parts; many buildings are constructed with large panels and roof wedges, as in the case of last year's Marina, which had a notoriously bad parts per piece ratio.

This plane is just a treasure trove of cool parts and colors! Much better than the previous rendition, I simply have to have it. I've previously been somewhat critical of it as it is a remake and I wish they would have made a different plane, but since it is a completely different design in different colors I don't mind at all. Something tells me that the previous Sopwith Camel is going to become worth a lot in the near future as there were not that many sold and many collectors are going to want them both to create a mini squadron. Let's hope this set sells well so we can see a new series of planes take shape, I'd love to see the Spirit of St. Louis in Lego form (I know there is a mini model)...

I totally just supported them! At first before I actually looked at the link, I though the idea was stupid and that they would have impossibly long stacks of 2x2 round bricks to represent the blades, but the way it has been done is very elegant and easy to display, I'd gladly pay $50 for each saber. If it is done, they should have a data plaque and display stand like the other UCS's though.

I've heard about this tradition in Korea, and I think it's cool. As far as I know, the US and Europe both have bare bones releases, where the only thing you receive is the Lego. The one exception lately has been the inclusion of the new brick separator in large 2012 sets. To be honest though, I would be happy as long as they put the manuals and sticker sheets in a bag with cardboard backing to keep them flat.

You seem to be doing really well with your budget, impressive! I did make a self-sourced Cafe Corner about a year ago, making the order for the dark red slopes right after the Pet Store arrived in stores. I think I ended up somewhere around $400 for the whole thing, having certain substitutions like the white 2x3 panels being the new type with side supports. I'm really happy it all worked out for you, and I hope you are having fun doing this. I think I had as much fun getting the parts as building and displaying my set afterwards.

I know prateek already mentioned this, but I had to pick up my jaw in the basement when I saw this. It's absolutely incredible, I love how much detail you have, with great angles and the outsides of your buildings look like the real ones. I swear this could be an used as a building model at an architect's office...

Have you tried Lego yet? Call up their replacement parts service, that is how I got them, and a lot more cheaply than through Bricklink as well. They produced a large number of them when they made the Pet Store, so hopefully they have a bunch of them left.

That is absolutely gorgeous! It make me want to plop down $2100 for a Falcon and lights right now, as it is just sooo spectacular. Very impressively done, especially since it's purist. Don't worry about the photos as your skills as a photographer far overshadows any technical glitches with the equipment - they're beautiful!

This has been handled really well by Lego, they really need to do small leaks of information and an eventual community newsletter like this with every significant change they make (I'm thinking of the poor souls who opened their winter 2004 sets only to find completely new shades of gray). The fact that they re-wamped the design while keeping it compatible with the highly collectible bardings and saddles is fantastic, and as far as I know there been very few types of horse headgear so I don't feel it's a big loss. I was originally fearing the re-design would make the horse less iconic, but I've come to terms with this change and in all honesty I like the idea of more poseability. I think the Friends horse is very different from both the old and new horse, it's rounder and has a 2x2 instead of a 1x2 opening, and has been made rounder and cuter to appeal to girls. Boys like horses in the right situations, they were the sports cars of the middle ages after all...

8038 is a fantastic set that you should try hard to get while it isn't too expensive. I'd say it's Lego's second best playset, only surpassed by the Death Star. 7754 is an OK set, it has good minifigures that I think will be more sought-after with time. The great thing about this set is that it's still readily available for less than MSRP. I don't own 7666, but it's a pretty simple playset, to which most minifigures (at least of the same characters and in same outfits) and ship is readily available elsewhere. It's now well over three times MSRP, so it might be a set to try to snipe at a slow ebay auction, but value wise it's less than mediocre in my eyes. The one redeeming feature is the white protocol droid, which is unique to this set, so if you really like protocol droids get this set, or at least BL the fig. A set you haven't mentioned is 10144. Unlike most old sets this has not been remade, and this is a decent value with prices as low as $250 for a 1600 piece set! That's as good a price per parts ratio as some current sets. It's the only Sandcrawler made, it's a pretty good design for it's age, and it has Jawas and Owen Lars, both unique to this set. It will go great with the droid escape set, the skiff and Jabba's Palace for a Tatooine display.

I never did read his book, however his blog was a most excellent read. It hasn't been updated since the summer of 2010, so it seems like he's not really active anymore. I remember reading it from first to last post just as I was coming out of my dark ages. It's really too bad if he's no longer into Lego, it somehow makes the blog about discovering your inner AFOL a little "hollow". Here's the link if you haven't seen it yet: www.brickbender.com

Difficult choice, both sets will be deemed classics in a few years. I will say you are probably better off with the Death Star, as it could easily disappear any second, while the shuttle should still be around for a little while. The DS is a great build with awesome figures and it looks great. If you like vehicles and don't particularly care for minifigures, you should consider the IS as it is one of the most faithful representations Lego has made, while the DS is not accurate, but provides a fantastic backdrop for the figures in the set.

My instructions are kept in accordion-like plastic folders from Office Depot as well as a carry-sized document box with hanging folders. Some of Lego's older manuals are in the European sizes even in North America. Check online for A4 sized binders and plastic pockets like the ones you show, they are longer, narrower and have 4 holes instead of 3.

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This was in the rumor mill long before April 1, and if you see the blog post it was even posted before April 1. It actually appears to be coming out, but I completely understand not getting too excited about it until we see actual photos. See this thread on Brickset

The orientation just reflects the mold that was used at the time, so as LEGOman273 is saying, it's not wrong, just different. I'm curious as to which plastic this is made of, is it ABS (like modern bricks) or CA? You should be able to tell from the feel of the brick. If it's ABS, the brick is certainly newer than around 1963, when Lego made the switch from one to the other. Also, how does it look underneath? A modern 2x4 has "support bars" underneath, while the older "3001old" only has the tubes with no bracing of the walls. I believe the change between the two was at some point in the late seventies. I'm very uncertain about logo changes, although I think the modern logo goes back at least to the early seventies, so from my (extremely limited and somehat speculative) knowledge the brick is from the sixties. For a far more certain answer I would recommend you post this question on the Bricklink message boards, as member Maxx3001 there is an avid 2x4 brick collector and probably knows more about them than anyone else on this planet. Here is a link to his Flickr stream which could possibly help you to answer your question as well: Flickr

Lego pricing is highly unpredictable, but some people have found there to be a certain level of correlation between the weight of a set and its price. Which does make sense, if a set has a bunch of 1x1's, we would not expect it to cost the same as a set that is mostly 2x4's. There also seems to be a factor played by new parts and minifigures in the set, like in the case for the new Jabba's Palace, which has a horrendous price per parts ratio, but does have a bunch of new molds and prints with the minifigs. The "wild factor" in Lego prices is most easily seen in prices from country to country, where some sets cost pretty much the same in two countries, while another set that comes out at the same time, is the same size and is even within the same theme can cost significantly more than in one country than the other (all this is of course after correcting for exchange rates and taxes). These discrepancies does indicate that Lego in each country is given a lot of discretion, and that some sets are just assumed to be more sellable than others, with corresponding prices.

Green Lantern and Batman were for the San Diego Comic Con, while Superman, Batman and Green Lantern were all released for the New York Comic Con.