The Imperial Soldier

I can kind of understand if they only have a few figures and they consider them to be rare, however the seller that is selling basic Imperial Soldiers for £9 each has over 130 of them. It made me laugh that they have the word "cheap" in their shop name! LOL

Really like the soldiers fort. Little details like the rocks built up on the side wall and the cook in the interior. Is there some kind of boat crane on the back? It looks like there is a rowing boat hanging off the back wall in the 2nd picture?

I think they're sensible prices. It's hard to believe that people are actually trying to sell basic figures at more than you would pay for rare ones though!!

Yes, eBay is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine too. Just got this lot for £70. Needs a good clean and there'll probably be a few bits missing but should get a lot of pieces ready to use in MOCs and there are quite a few minifigs there. Boxed sets and more eBaying! by The Imperial Soldier, on Flickr Also got this to keep my expanding collection of parts in. Boxed sets and more eBaying! by The Imperial Soldier, on Flickr

I don't think you can get the raised baseplates with the slope on the opposite side. They appear to all have the slope on the left side but are available in different colours depending on the set.

How much are you willing to pay? I aim to go to about £3 or £4 max. If it's a figure I really need them maybe a little more. I ask because some of the prices I've seen online at various places verge on ridiculous. I'm trying to build up my Bluecoats at the moment so picking up standard Imperial Soldiers when I can get them. You can get good deals occasionally on eBay but it usually involves purchasing mixed lots and then making up the figures from the parts you have. I saw a seller on there that was trying to sell 5 Imperial Soldiers for £25 and they also had another listing with 20 Imperial Soldiers for £120??!? On Bricklink there are a lot of different lots with fairly sensible prices but I've actually seen a seller on there with Imperial Soldier minifigs listed at £9 each!?!!! This appears to have been reduced from £10 each?!?!! Crazy. So how much are you willing to pay for your minifigs?

Just ordered the Ghostbusters Ecto-1. Really wanted the firehouse too but it's just too much cash at the moment. Hopefully there'll be some left later in the year.

It's 2552. The same baseplate comes in multiple colours as its used in lots of other sets outside the Pirate range too. The same coloured one is used for Fort Eldorado and a slightly different one for Rock Island Refuge.

The Fort Eldorado and Forbidden Island sets are immaculate. The Black Seas Barracuda could do with a clean. Will need to break it down and clean the pieces properly. I've recently got hold of another unboxed BSB and loads of spare parts and minifigs. They're a bit of a mix so I need to go through properly and see what's there. They were also really dusty and dirty so I've broken everything down and cleaned it in warm soapy water but there are still bits of residue so it's all going to need a more thorough clean. Will try to go through everything I have at the weekend and organise it into built sets and setup the Bluecoat and Pirate armies. I've accumulated a fair amount of extra parts for use in MOCs too so hope to start building some things soon.

Finally built all 3 boxed sets and here they are! 6276 Fort Eldorado - 2 bricks missing but I was buying a smaller set off the same seller so messaged asking if he could check he had them and he just got the bricks out of his spares and sent them on. Boxed sets and more eBaying! by The Imperial Soldier, on Flickr 6270 Forbidden Island - All there apart from the green brick at the top of the palm tree. Boxed sets and more eBaying! by The Imperial Soldier, on Flickr 6285 Black Seas Barracuda - Had repro colour printed instructions. Missing a couple of yellow translucent pieces for torches. There was an extra pirate figure included although several of the pirates don't match what is supposed to be in the set. Also the string that runs from bow to stern is missing as well as the string for the crane. Boxed sets and more eBaying! by The Imperial Soldier, on Flickr My new buys are not quite as exciting although they are parts I need to smarten up the Bluecoat army. Red epaulettes and capes - I have a lot of Imperials that I gained in auction lots but they tended to come in a mix of tricorne hats and mostly no epaulettes or yellow epaulettes. Would like to convert these into soldiers and the red epaulettes seem to be in short supply in mixed lots. Thinking of using the red capes to create a few figures to be Governor Broadside's personal guard. More eBay bits by The Imperial Soldier, on Flickr 10 set of shakos, backpacks, muskets and pistols - with the addition of these I hope to convert more of the mixed Bluecoat figures into regular soldiers. More eBay bits by The Imperial Soldier, on Flickr Here are some of the Bluecoats I need to convert. After getting more red epaulettes I may actually convert a few into sailors to bolster the crew of my Caribbean Clipper. Bluecoats! by The Imperial Soldier, on Flickr

I got one on eBay about a month ago for (£8.50 + £3.20) £11.70 GBP.

It's unbelievable that these sets are currently being sold on eBay for £350-£450 used. Some of them are even being bid up to above £300. The people bidding are clearly unaware that they're still available brand new direct from Lego.com at £275.

I think it was mainly to make them more colourful as they are toys. Also I think when the line launched they wanted to clearly distinguish between the Pirates and Imperial Soldiers.

I've seen it for sale before and it is an actual Lego pack with Pirate specific pieces in case you lose them from the main sets.

I think it was simply to do with the way they released the original line in 1989. They seemed to have tried to get a broad mix of vessels and land based structures across the small range. So the Pirates got a big ship with smallish base and the Bluecoats got a smallish ship with a more fortified base. They should have really taken advantage of the next launches in 1991 and given the Bluecoats a bigger ship then. After all the Pirates got a bigger base with Rock Island refuge. After 1991 they changed the Bluecoats to Redcoats so the chance was lost.

Have just built both boxed 6270 Forbidden Island and 6276 Fort Eldorado. 6270 has I brick missing - little green cylinder on top of palm tree. 6276 has 2 bricks missing - 1x2 yellow and 1x3 black Not too bad and at least I can just add them to a Bricklink order. Just need to build my 6285 BSB now and check that!

Thanks. I have a boxed version of the set so I'll make sure all of the parts are there for that too.

Have gone through the inventories and seems the Eldorado Fort has about 10 pieces missing plus the minifigs. The Forbidden Island set appears to have the minifigs and some of the unique parts like the ropebridge, stairs and prison doors missing. Mean while these 2 sets turned up today! More eBay buys! by The Imperial Soldier, on Flickr More eBay buys! by The Imperial Soldier, on Flickr So now my boxed collection looks like this: More eBay buys! by The Imperial Soldier, on Flickr

Very good. I have this set on its way in the mail. Can't wait!

Got a boxed FI on its way and just had an offer accepted on a boxed BSB! :D Can't wait for the BSB to arrive. Really wanted one as a kid but never had it till now!

Have printed off the inventories and going to check what's there. Hopefully not too much to replace.

The bits at the end are parts from the FI and EF sets. I started to build and a few bits are missing. I can see the rope bridge and stairs are missing from FI. There doesn't seem to be any cannons or minifigs either. I'll have to get an inventory for each set and mark off what's missing then try and Bricklink the parts. They were mainly bought to use parts in MOCs anyway.

A few more bits arrived: New bits by The Imperial Soldier, on Flickr New bits by The Imperial Soldier, on Flickr

I managed to get them so it's only really missing the plastic insert now!

Cool. I'd love to get this at some stage along with the other Redcoat sets. Looking for a boxed 6285: BSB and 6270: FI that aren't silly prices at the moment though.