Zeya

I was at a Costco near me (San Jose) last night. I swung by the toy area. I saw Kinex, Erector Sets (drool), and things like wooden train tracks. I didn't see any Lego sets. Costco is kind of like that though - one time they'll have stuff and the next time not, especially with dry goods. What do you mean by regular deal? Another thing to keep in mind is that even with the VIP program, even that doesn't quite erase their shipping costs. Apparently Costco has free shipping. Not saying it's a runaway deal though.

I just got my second order of 16 delivered yesterday from s@h. I also ordered a Medieval Village Market with it but I don't think it matters. I don't think they check for previous orders. Sucks to have to pay another round of shipping costs. For series 3 I'm going to buy a box of 60 from a person who buys at wholesale I found on Craigslist.

I'll take a look the next time I go inside my local Costco. If they do have them, they'll probably be in the middle area, near the front by the video games, toys and movie ticket things.

I was wary about posting this in the pinned deals thread, because Costco is US only, and you need a Costco membership, and this deal is only for a little bit cheaper than MSRP. Costco has only a couple of lego sets. Right now they have two Star Wars sets. They're larger sets, and they're about $5 off the S@H price. I'm not sure if they have them stocked in the brick-and-mortar stores, and they only ship within the U.S. http://www.costco.com/Common/Category.aspx?whse=BC&Ne=5000001&eCat=BC|48022|78462&N=4045128+4294896489&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&Ns=P_Price|1||P_SignDesc1〈=en-US&topnav= Palpatine's Shuttle - $55 (shipping included), S@H price is $60 (shipping NOT included) Starfighter ARC 170 - $55m (shipping included), S@H price is $60 (shipping NOT included) (rounded up from X.99 for readability) Not a super deal, but someone might appreciate this. Might be worth bookmarking this page and checking periodically to see if they get new stuff in. Edit: Sidebar, Costco always has the cheapest gas in town (87 and 91 octane, no midgrade), and I also have the Costco Amex card that gets me 1-3% cash back around November each year. Also you can't beat the bi-yearly trips to buy massive amounts of toilet paper, toothpaste, etc.

For the Toys R Us ones, do they just sort of sell them off the shelf? Or is it the type of thing where you have to buy a bunch of other stuff and it comes along too?

I have a simple question that I think bears a new thread. I was reading this post about a kingdoms promotional set (30061 Attack Wagon): http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=46923 From what I gather, this is a "promotional set", and it can be found on eBay/bricklink. But I'm wondering, what are promotional sets in general, and how can you get them new? How are promotional sets generally introduced to the world (distributed, sold, etc)? I'm not necessarily interested in this particular set, per se, but I'm asking more for sets in the future. If I start collected a certain theme and want to get all the sets, I don't want to miss out (have to pay 4x the price later on in the secondary market).

*signed* Old petition I guess, but for Pirates, it's worth it.

Clicking that leads to "This folder is not yet public.".

For a city, you can use several of them. The skateboarder would fit right in on a street, as would the mime (street performing). Series 3 has a guy with a stereo deck that would be good on a street. Unless you mean they don't match the complexity of the standard city minifigures, which might be the case.

I would like to join...

I caved in and ordered the Medieval Market Village from S@H. I guess it's an early Christmas present to myself. I was tempted to buy 2 of them, one for reselling, but then I decided I didn't want to be "that guy", lol. The medieval market looks really cool with a lot of specialized pieces and cows and such. I really hope there are more things like that next year; I hope they continue to put out some sort of knights/medieval theme. I also ordered another 16 collectible minifig series 2 packets, because I only got 8 of them in my first order of 16.

Where in Target was it? The seasonal/halloween area like other people said? Thanks for the confirmations.

I'll give this a try. I live in San Jose, California, USA. If anybody reading this lives in the bay area, please PM me. EDIT: Nevermind, I just ordered 16 more packets from S@H. I'll post again later perhaps. But if anyone does live in northern California, then by all means send me a PM (I won't trade with minors though, sorry).

I just got a shipment of 16 Series 2 packets from S@H last night. What I ended up getting was 8 of them, with 8 duplicates/triplicates/quadruplicates. Here's what I got: #1 Maraca Man x1 #2 Spartan x2 #3 Ringmaster x0 #4 Witch x0 #5 Vampire x1 #6 Cop x3 #7 Explorer x0 #8 Lifeguard x4 (!!!) #9 Mime x0 #10 Lifter x0 #11 Pop Star x0 #12 Skiier x3 #13 Disco x1 #14 Karate x1 #15 Surfer x0 #16 Pharaoh x0 I have all except one of the duplicates sealed (opened a second skiier it by accident). I was kind of bummed about getting 4 lifeguards. But at least I got 2 Spartans. By the way, here is a link to barcodes for North America (I've seen barcode sheets that are half-wrong like someone's playing a trick, and others that must be from Europe and they have completely different barcodes. I'm trying to decide what to do to collect the rest. I'm considering buying 16 more from S@H, along with a set I really want (medieval market). I figure, I have to sell 8 duplicates anyway, may as well just buy more and sell lots of the same duplicate on eBay. I'm troubled thinking about series 3 though because they won't have barcodes and we'll just have to open massive quantities of them, or do a whole lot of mailing and ebay-ing back and forth to trade. I wish I could find someone local to me that I can trade with, but that person would have to be an adult like me. Hmm.

Hmm. Maybe I'm a little lost, but I'm looking at what I assume to be an inventory page for the Cheerleader from series 1, for example: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemInv.asp?M=col002 And that isn't listing all the parts. It's showing the body parts and hairpiece, but not the accessories (pom poms in this case). None of the other inventories list the accessories either. (Let alone extra pieces.) Am I mistaken or lost here? EDIT: Oh I see now. There's another page for the "set". http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemInv.asp?S=8683-1

Cool, thanks fred67. I might try trading on this forum and/or bricklink, almost certainly for series 3 and onward when they get rid of the barcodes. I'm also wondering this. I've combed the Lego aisle at two different Targets, and I haven't seen them. I haven't tried looking for a shelf label for it though.

I wonder what the error of the scale is, because the weights differ by less than one hundredth of a gram, except for the torso at two hundredths. It would also be cool to see the table include some other minifigures (same shape and not bulkier), like maybe a townsperson and then a space astronaut, etc. There might just be these variations among minifigures in general coming off the line. Basically, if I was a scientist I wouldn't draw any conclusions without more data. Yes, nerdiest post of 2010 indeed. :)

This has probably been discussed but...I can't search through 144 pages here. I read on S@H that there is a limit of buying 16 minifig packets per household. Can anyone confirm what happens if you try to place a second order (say, 2 weeks later)? What happens if you order with your same account but ship it to your work address? I'm not trying to do anything sinister mind you; I fully intend on selling all the extras I get. My issue is that I want to collect all 16 unique figures, and I have to assume that my local stores are all sold out (pretty sure they are at this point). So that leaves me with S@H and other internet sites. I'm wary of ordering them from eBay, especially when series 3 comes around (no barcodes) because I saw one today, for example, where they weren't including the series 1 ringmaster's hair, but I wouldn't have known it included the hairpiece if I hadn't opened him from a fresh packet. See what I'm saying? Buying the opened ones on ebay, you don't know if they'll omit the extra pieces or even the non-extra pieces if it isn't pictured on official literature (like the hairpiece).

Hmm. Thanks for the awesome responses. I'm looking at this page: http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/2010 And it looks like for Kingdoms, almost all sets, including the 3 big ones, were released in May. And then there were a couple of the 30-some-brick sets released in August, and then the Advent calendar in October for the holidays. In 2009, the Castle series were all (except one) released in the summer. (And then there's that Medieval Market Village set that looks awesome. I need to get that.) So I guess any new Kingdoms sets would arrive for 2011 in the spring or summer timeframe, assuming they don't discontinue it, of course. A "little birdie landed on my shoulder" and showed me a German catalog of future things to come. I didn't spot any Kingdoms/knights/etc sets in there, but hopefully those catalogs come out multiple times a year. Well thanks again. I learned that my shipment of series 1 collectible minifigs arrived this morning, so I'm looking forward to opening them when I get home. My series 2 random ones should be arriving from S@H on Wednesday or even tomorrow as well.

Time for a MOC of Merlotte's! SSssssoookie!

I'll state the question up front and then ramble a bit so you know where I'm coming from. My question is: how do Lego product cycles work? When are new sets released to the public, and when are old ones taken off? Is it a continuous thing, or do they chop up the year in quarters or halves and release a whole bunch of stuff at once? I'm wondering in particular when the next "wave" of products is. (Is everything set in stone for the holiday gift-buying season now? How long after Jan 1st will it be until the new wave of sets?) Basically, how does Lego go about releasing new stuff? To explain, I'm pretty new. I assume when people say "dark age" they mean the time between when you stop playing with Lego around age 13 or so, until you're an adult. So I'm just coming out of that dark age. I guess it took me a few times walking by my local Lego store before I decided let myself start a new hobby. I ordered a bunch of collectible minifigs (series 1 set of 16 from ebay and then 16 random series 2 bags from Lego.com). I also bought the winter toy shop and bakery from the Lego store, and that's partly for my girlfriend for Christmas decorating after Halloween. What I want to do going forward is to collect all the collectible minifigures, and then one or maybe two themes. I was all jazzed to collect Pirates, but they're discontinuing it. So I'm thinking I'll collect Kingdoms because I like knights and bandits almost as much as pirates. (I grew up with both Pirates and Kingdom style sets in the 1988-1994 period, which is probably why I'd go with those). So my question is more or less asking how long the current Kingdom (for example) sets are available at retail, and then how long until there's a new wave of Kingdom sets. Also any random advice you want to give a new guy is welcomed, too. Thanks for reading.

I live in San Jose, California. I've visited two Target stores and the Lego store, and none of them had any collectible minifigures (unless they're hidden away somewhere in Target, which I doubt.) I'll check the Walmart eventually, but I don't have high hopes. I mean, if the Lego store itself doesn't even have them, why would anyone else? I guess the Walmarts you mentioned must have stocked a lot somehow. Sidebar: The lego store had both winter sets (toy shop and baker). I also asked about any Pirates sets (they're discontinuing the Pirates sets), and the lady said they only had a couple odd things they keep in the back and didn't have them in when I was there anyway (not sure what things she meant). They had the imperial flagship on the shelf though.

Someone posted in another thread that the Toy Shop is available on the US S@H store. Thanks everyone!

I wonder that too. I have to voice my disappointment here also. I'm 28 and I just recently decided to get back into Lego a bit. I was so happy to see they still have the pirates line I remember from my youth (early 90s). (Although I now understand it took a hiatus and is just a 2009 limited run.) I thought it would be awesome to get some sets and look forward to seeing new ones and focus on Pirates. The only other theme that appeals to me is Castle/Kingdoms, and maybe some SW here and there. We saw some photos of a Jack Sparrow and other things at a recent comic convention. Let's assume for a moment that Lego will be putting out some Pirates of the Caribbean in 2011. Now, what would happen if Lego had the generic Pirates alongside the Pirates of the Caribbean on the shelf? Who would win? From the perspective of a typical non-enthusiast parent at a toy shop, why buy a pirates set when you can get another one with Jack Sparrow and the new princess character (or whatever)? They don't want to confuse consumers either and risk a parent getting "the wrong pirates" for their kid either. I think what's happening here is that Lego scored a deal with Disney to make a Pirates of the Caribbean line, and they know it will be a goldmine. They have 3 existing movies to make sets from, with another on the way. Just checked wikipedia, and it looks like the release date for the 4th movie is May 20, 2011. I can easily see the Pirates of the Carribbean line lasting for multiple years: at least 2 years, probably more like 3 or more. In that time, we can expect there not to be the classic Pirates for the reasons I mentioned. I secretly hope I'm wrong and Pirates of the Caribbean sets won't happen. (I think the movies are a bit overrated. That last one wasn't so good.) No Disney IP means a better likelihood of Pirates returning sooner than later. And by sooner I mean in something like 3 years instead of 6-10. Edit: Good god. What if Lego and Disney partnered up for even more IP-driven sets? We would never see the end of Disney Princess and whatever cartoon-du-jour there is. *shudder* Let's just hope that doesn't happen. Of course if you love Disney stuff, then good for you I guess.