Alexandrina

I know this is the Space thread, but that set reminds me of the wacky Racers sets from the early-mid 2000s. All that's missing is the Xalax torso and garish unique faceprint to complete the throwback.

I'm pretty purist personally (aside from a few specific minifigure elements) but I tend not to judge people too harshly for using non-Lego parts, especially since sometimes they make a MOC wonderful. I can't say I've heard of people 3D printing their own pieces (usually when people are using non-Lego, it's either customs from an established customs shop or other brands' pieces) but I don't think I'd bat an eye at a few small bits. To me, it would get to the point where I'd say "is this Lego any more?" when a clear majority of the visible pieces are 3D printed specifically for the model, especially if they're large pieces that take up a lot of the surface area. To my mind using non-Lego elements to complement a build is not an issue at all, but if all you can see when you look at a build is non-Lego, I'm going to be wondering why you bothered making it out of Lego at all. That said, I can't think of any examples off hand.

Based on what I can find from forum posts at the time, the transition of colours was because of a perceived 'better' colour. There were apparently discussions at Lego about the possibility of reverting the changes, or running service packs of the old colours alongside the new colours - this in 2004/2005 when if consistency was the aim their best bet would have been to revert to the old shades. The fact that they stuck with the change even despite the backlash says to me that Lego see the new colours as preferable. But is that any different to, say, blue or red bricks from the 90s and now? Yes you can (usually) tell whether they're old bricks or new, but they can still be mixed and matched.

I completely agree with this - in a perfect world where money and logistics were no issue, there are definitely circumstances where the old grey would be more suitable than the new one, but really with Bricklink the only shortfall for old grey enthusiasts is the lack of new parts and the rarity of some parts that were introduced towards the end of the old grey period. I know that personally, if I could get a thousand or so of the masonry bricks, the pentagonal tiles and those 1x4/2x2 corner tile slopes, I'd be able to get anything else I could possibly want from the secondary market. That's not to say all of the old colours would be out of place today (and as dark turquoise proves, there is a chance for some of these colours to be resurrected if the appropriate set emerges). The light violet from the old Belville sets, or the Knights Kingdom blue-violet, would fit right in with the modern palette imo. Having said that, I think if Lego did decide the old greys needed to come back, most kids would be indifferent (in exactly the same way as most kids didn't really notice the original change). It's clear that Lego see the current greys as the better colours, but I don't think they'd lose money long-term if they switched back to the old ones - obviously they would take the short-term hit of having a pigment-match, though that's presumably the same as it would cost to introduce an entirely new colour to the range.

Oh my giddy aunt! These are wonderful! People combining Lego and the early Doctors is a rare sight but one which always sparks joy (I think the last time I saw a Troughton MOC was a webcomic fifteen years ago or so that has been lost to the Internet aether) Love the use of old and new greys, something which isn't often seen but definitely has its place as a technique.

Okay, first off: I'm starting a new topic out of not wanting to perform necromancy on dead threads. Apologies in advance if I'm retreading old ground, but I couldn't find the answer I'm looking for on the old threads. Recently I was devouring old threads both here and on Lugnet from the time of the great colour shift (when the old greys and brown were replaced by their new variants, and the palette of Lego shrunk considerably). I'd never delved into these threads before, and curiously found that what I'd always taken to be the reason for the colour change - that Lego had been forced to seek a new supplier of ABS that did not provide the old colours - wasn't true. In response to the AFOL backlash, Lego's community rep ended up making a post on Lugnet apologising for the decision but confirming that it was going to go ahead. This obviously is well established (we're nearly twenty years on and the new colours are still here!) but interestingly he mentioned the possibility of Lego making available service packs of key elements like train tracks in the old colours, even asking for community advice as to what was seen as key elements. This leaves me with two questions, neither of which were answered satisfactorily by later threads on the topic - many of which seemed to be more concerned with exactly what the untouchable core colours were. 1. Did Lego ever end up releasing the mentioned service packs? If so, how long were they available and what was the reason for their discontinuation? 2. If the decision to switch colours and stick with the new ones was economical rather than enforced by their ABS supplier, is there any technical reason the old colours couldn't return? I'm not talking economically - I'm well aware that it's unlikely to ever be viable to bring those colours back unless they were replacing the new greys. Simply in a physical sense, is there any possibility of the old greys being revived? In writing this I'm reminded of the survey from the other year which had a question concerning possibly making old sets available. If the old colours could in a technical sense be revived, it opens up the possibility of remaking these sets of yore exactly as they were.

A search which yields a handful of results, almost all of which can be definitively dated to parts produced when the brittle brown was a known issue. And, this issue aside, new bricks are not more breakable than old bricks. If anything, they're more durable - primarily as a result of Lego moving to new clips which are less prone to snapping. If you genuinely have a full bag of brand new, broken reddish brown parts from since 2019, you are incredibly unlucky.

Okay, but you understand that you having a few damaged parts from new sets and a few old parts with no damage doesn't mean the new bricks are worse? Some things break even when the quality isn't poor overall. Equally, some things don't break even when they're known to be fragile. I have a few of the milky-white antennas from the 60s in perfect condition, but that doesn't mean the part wasn't prone to breakage. And this is the Pirates subforum - the classic flags are known to have breakable clips, which is part of the reason they're so expensive to buy on the second-hand market. And while the reddish brown and dark red bricks were famously fragile (though if we're talking anecdotal experience, I've never had a brick break in either colour) that issue has been fixed now. 40634 doesn't really seem to be a remake of the old theme so much as a set based on the sport. And football is absurdly popular, the single most popular sport on the planet - not only is it likely more popular than pirates (as a topic of play for kids, not a Lego theme; obviously Lego Pirates has a far higher cultural footprint than Lego Sports), I wouldn't be surprised if football exceeds Lego itself as a pastime for children. On top of that, football isn't something people age out of. Lego, much as we here love it, is just a kid's toy for most people in the world. When they reach a certain age they get rid of it or put it up for their own children. Even many AFOLs tend to have a period (usually starting in their teens) where they're not so much into Lego, possibly due to cultural pressure to give it up. The term 'Dark Ages' exists for a reason. Lego releasing a football set not only makes complete sense, but says nothing about the viability of a pirates theme. If it says anything about the likelihood of a pirate set, it would be that - as Lego are clearly comfortable releasing one-and-done AFOL-targeted sets for a variety of topics - a single release of a pirate set is more probable than if Lego were rigidly sticking to only what they could make a full-blown theme out of.

Not that I've ever seen it in the flesh, but I always thought 6281 looked kinda cool! When I was a kid with no money and access to Bricklink, compiling wildly optimistic wishlists of long-discontinued sets, 6281 was always near the top! I recently got my hands on the original Eldorado Fortress for the first time and having built it, and seen it in the flesh, I'm even more excited for the remake. The other modernisations - Barracuda Bay, Lion Knights' Castle, Galaxy Explorer - were all based on sets that I'd never actually owned. That didn't mean I found them any less cool but I didn't have the true comparison. Knowing what the Eldorado Fortress actually was, I can't help but feel that if Lego do it even a mote of justice we'll have an all-time great set.

Well, I somehow fluked into 6276 Eldorado Fortress complete without instructions for a full £100 less than the Bricklink quantity average price, and my prize arrived yesterday so I got to building that. It's a great set, well worth the money I paid and I suspect I'd have been happy even at the quantity average price. The build was fun and not too difficult once I adjusted to the old-style instructions without piece callouts, and I was struck by how good the part selection was both for creating a high quality original model, and for reusing in other creations. As a kid I suspect I would have had hours of fun just from reconfiguring those bricks alone. I did manage to end up with a couple of 1x2 bricks left over, so I'm still trying to figure out whether I received extras or managed to miss a few bricks in the instructions. I have 1822 sitting ready to go in a similar state, so I'll probably get to that tomorrow.

Is 1 year old not a little young? IIRC Lego themselves don't recommend giving bricks to children under the age of three because of the choking hazard. I'd also personally not give a young child access to all the rare stuff until they'd demonstrated that they'd handle the product with care. I don't say this in the sense that your son's ill-behaved or anything (obviously, aside from anything else I don't know your son!) but more some children have rougher playstyles than others. I know I was a very sensitive child and always gentle with my toys, whereas some of my friends were more rough-and-tumble - nothing wrong with that, but they were more likely to have breakages. From your picture you have a few expensive raised baseplates. It might be better to keep those and other fragile/valuable parts back for later. Your storage is looking good though

Unless I've missed a set, you're referring here to Everyone Is Awesome and Fab Five Loft. Neither are what I would call mature. One is literally monofigs symbolising inclusion, the other is based on a TV show which I've never watched myself, but which the BBFC considers to be a '12' rating (the same as Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Guardians of the Galaxy, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, every Lord of the Rings film, and the Hunger Games series). Shaun of the Dead is a '15' rating, so not really a fair comparison and comparing the existence of LGBT+ sets to Shaun of the Dead in terms of content maturity feels like you're saying LGBT+ content is inherently mature content. What you could have done is brought up the existence of the Stranger Things sets, which are '15', the same rating as Shaun of the Dead. There's probably an argument to be made that Shaun of the Dead is at the opposite end of the '15' spectrum to Stranger Things, but that's a genuine debate that would need to be had and empirical evidence has the two franchises being even. Your reference to mafia content confuses me even more. It makes me think of things like The Departed, The Godfather, Scarface, etc., which are on a different level to even Shaun of the Dead and are certainly unsuitable for children and beyond the market Lego targets. As others have said, 18+ is a line targeted towards adults, but it doesn't mean it's adult-only content. Unless you think wildflowers are something unsuitable for children.

I'd go so far as to say that I don't consider that element a BURP. For me the BURPs are the original two and the really big one used in among other things the lunar research base. The other rock panels feel too flimsy to me in how they rest on the base.

The problem with that is that The Lego Movie had Hollywood budget and was a labour of love specifically designed to recreate the feel of stop-motion animation. On the budget a TV series is working with, the best way to get that feel would be to actually do stop-motion animation, which itself comes with the problem that any new sets and figures would need to be in production (at least one example made) so that they could be used.

With how ugly the torso design is, it's probably a blessing people got to have plain figs instead! but in all seriousness, that looks like quite a limited release on top of being promotional - it's possible they couldn't justify making a whole print for such a low-volume set. Nothing in the set looks like it's an uncommon piece, so it could have just been a really quick, cheap set knocked together for the promo

I've got to be honest, I genuinely thought Grosmont was Herefordshire. I went there not eighteen months ago and I don't remember crossing the border to get there, nor do I remember the Welsh language signage which according to the photos is there. Now I'm wondering if I'm going slightly mad!! I've actually never visited the north Wales castles (except for Ruthin, so long ago now that I can't remember a single thing about it other than that I got a Doctor Who action figure from the shop in town!) but I have a soft spot for Raglan Castle. Sadly the best ones my side of the border are ruins or worse - the council in their infinite wisdom decided to sell the main one to be used for building material, so now there's nothing left but a strip of moat. I feel like everyone wants the goat! Probably going to be so many of them sold to the Eurobricks community via Pick a Brick that the market is saturated for decades! I know I'll be buying the set as soon as it comes out and a few dozen goats when I can.

Not to mention, it's not universal that Hidden Side is warming the shelves. There's a shop near me that marks up its Lego so it always has stuff after retirement, but hasn't had any Hidden Side for years despite still having Nexo Knights, Lego Movie 2 and Star Wars sets from when The Last Jedi first came out.

391 according to my spreadsheet, though I still need to go through and update it with some CMF heads from the last two regular seasons. I've got about 80% of the early era heads (up to and including 1996 releases; it's just a few things like the old Admiral head in both colour variants tripping me up (I actually found the head of the female pirate from the first wave in a job lot that cost me £20 for 5k pieces, which was a bit of a steal tbh). Where I fall down is in the recent years, especially the period where CMFs existed but I wasn't buying Lego, as obviously I didn't get those ones when they were new and some of them fetch a premium now. I do have two fleshie-only heads in yellow which I think were misprints, shipped from Denmark, but I see those as a bonus to the collection rather than trying to find every fleshie head in yellow. Suffice to say, I won't be breaking the bank for Chief until I get the other 850 missing heads! That was a fascinating watch, thank you!

Oh, I was TERRIBLE for that! Part of the reason it's taken me so long (that and a little thing called buying more Lego ) but recently I've just been powering through. On a good day I can get 1500-2000 pieces sorted into the right containers, so over time the pile is getting less terrifying.

Unfortunately I think this and the other Armada heads might have been; pretty well every listing I've seen on Bricklink is from North America and most of the European ones are above market rate. Not nearly as bad as this one though - there's currently two Bricklink listings for the head outside North America (one in New Zealand, which is of no help to me in terms of postage!) and none for the figure. And of course the sets are far too expensive to buy just for one minifig head! At least it's possible to get those though. I'm dreading trying to find this one. £350 for the minifigure is the cheapest way of getting it right now apparently!

Honestly if you're starting from scratch and you have any sizable Lego collection it's a far bigger job than a few weeks! I'm about three years in to a sort, with a smaller collection than a lot of people here (130k pieces, of which about 25k are still in sealed sets) and I still don't have the end in sight!

All of which conspires to make it very difficult to complete my collection of every different yellow face print on a limited budget. At least for the expensive heads released in the UK (such as the admiral from Eldorado Fortress) I can cling to the outside hope that it happens to turn up in a job lot. Unfortunately the sort of person who will pay to import Dark Forest or 1997 Pirates sets from the US is also the sort of person who keeps their collection organised, so the chances of these things appearing in a job lot are almost zero - and I can't afford to be buying individual heads from the US on a regular basis!

I wasn't sure what to expect when Dreamzzz first appeared as a thing in the rumour mill, and haven't really been keeping up with it, but wow, some of those sets are amazing. It seems like an even mix of sets I want to get day one (the treehouse and the airship) and sets which have zero appeal to me at all (the bunny mech and the school bus); I'll definitely be picking up a chunk of them, and probably any missing minifigs too.

I found this line interesting because it got me thinking of all sorts of possibilities, and I think that while something like that has potential, it also has potential to backfire and result in a theme neither kids nor adults really want. Now, I've never really watched any of Lego's tie-in cartoons (partly due to me having aged out of the target audience before they existed, and also not having a TV package that receives them) but from what I've seen they seem to have a younger core cast. Which I'm not knocking them for and I totally get, kids relate better to characters their age or a little older. The problem is that this doesn't translate well to the genres of the "classic" themes. Pirates is the obvious one - there's room for a few younger characters, bo'suns and Governors' daughters and things, but the archetypal pirate story mainly features men (and sometimes women) who are that much older, grizzled, plundering and fighting soldiers. The core cast of the Pirate genre doesn't match the core cast of a Lego show. The circle can be squared, but necessarily involves stepping away from some genre conventions. Combine this with the fact that most sets aimed at kids aren't especially complex builds or display pieces, and I feel like you'd end up with a lot of sets that don't appeal to the AFOLs, who would buy the higher-end sets that look like display pieces and maybe a few smaller ones for army-building, but are also likely to leave sets on the shelf. This is fine if the kids are buying those sets; if you have a theme that both kids and adults are buying, you have a good variety of sets that appeals to everyone. But if the kids don't take to the series, it's a lot of extra investment for not much pay-off (and let's be real, the type of AFOL who is going to buy smaller sets for army-building is probably the same type of AFOL who will have 150 bluecoats within a month of the parts from the upcoming Eldorado Fortress remake hitting B&P). The same applies to a lesser extent with Castle and Space (though I think Space fans would bite your hand off for a few sets with interesting pieces and windscreens in colours other than trans-clear and trans-light blue at this point!) and certainly if you branch off beyond the core three to things like Western.

I honestly didn't realise this, guess because I'm from a part of England with a comparatively high concentration of castles (and also because a load of the ones close to me which I could have sworn were English - the aforementioned Skenfrith and Grosmont for instance - are actually a shade over the border. Turns out most places have far fewer castles.