PxChris

I love both of those ideas! An updated Iron Hook would be a very nice addition to POBB. Captain Kragg as a minifigure is something that never occurred to me until you said it, but now that you have mentioned it I can't help but think what a fantastic addition to the lineup this would be!

I use a combination of tools for dusting depending on what I'm trying to dust - soft bristle paint brushes are my most common go-to. I use a variety of sizes of them. I also use a small "keyboard" vacuum which is really useful. Canned air can also be really useful in some areas.

This is absolutely gorgeous! The colors are amazing and the design is just the right amount of nostalgic. Your Sabre Island MOC was one of my favorite ever classically inspired MOCs and now this one also takes a pride of place next to it!

I can tell you, this huge display of custom ships was even more impressive in person! Check out the huge Battle of Trafalgar setup at Bricks Cascade featuring 18 custom built ships. Needless to say, this was one of my favorite things at the convention.

What a lovely build and great story! I hope that your daughter absolutely loved it!

The only one I really have major issues with is on the Red Beard Runner. Otherwise, I haven't really experienced issues with the other ships really. Even the Armada Flagship, which has a similar mechanism for the sail rigging as the RBR I didn't experience major issues.

Having now actually built the Imperial Armada ship myself, I feel like I can have an opinion on the matter. In general, the Imperials really got the short end of the stick on all of their ship designs. The Caribbean Clipper is without a doubt my favorite of them still in pretty much every way. But there is a heavy amount of nostalgia tied to that set for me since it's the only one I had as a kid. But none of the Imperial ships hold a candle at all to the Pirates ships. Even the Renegade Runner is a better design in my opinion than probably both the Imperial Flagship and Armada Flagship (the same cannot be said of the Crossbone Clipper though!). Having now built them though, I would say that I actually prefer the Armada Flagship over the Imperial Flagship. I enjoy the colors on it and the design felt just slightly better to me on the whole.

That is incredibly impressive.

Beyond the Brick on YouTube has posted a complete walk-through of the entire convention in case anyone is interested in seeing all of the amazing builds that were on display there. My display is towards the very end, starting at about the 1:51:16 mark. Additionally, there are a number of other amazing custom Pirates builds to feast your eyes upon. See especially at the 6:21 and 13:30 marks.

Great space to set up a mighty battle!

Aye! That it is. I feel lucky to have obtained it. However, I'm seriously thinking of trading it for some opened Pirates sets I'm missing from the collection because I'm not a MISB collector.

Yep, the entirety of the display is of my own collection, with the exception of set 6250 Crossbone Clipper since the only version of that set that I own is MISB.

Thank you so much! Believe me, it's gorgeous to me to look at too! Looking at the photos still brings me such joy! Thank you very, very much for the kind words! This really has been a passion project of mine for the last couple of years and it was so wonderful to see it finally all come together!

I uploaded a couple of videos providing a good look through the entire display (the second video is from during the dim light time at the convention so the lights are even more visible).

Thanks so much man! I appreciate that a lot @Mister Phes! That would be quite the expedition - and quite a lot of fun, if only! Thank you! This has been quite a passion project for me over the last couple of years.

I've been asked by a few folks to post the informational signage that I had behind my display. I really wanted to celebrate the history of the theme and how many cool innovations it brought to the LEGO System. I wanted my display to be equally fun and informative! (The conversion from my PDF to a PNG file made the text a bit blurred, apologies.)

Thank you very much! I appreciate that a lot @Red Rackham! I'm glad that you appreciated all the signage in back. I really wanted to celebrate the wonderful history of the Pirates theme with this display. Thank you! Thanks so much!! The lighting really added so much life to the display. I'm glad that I decided to do it. It was a very last-minute addition to the layout (I decided only about a month and a half before the convention to add lighting, and I've never done any lighting before, so it was quite a learning curve). I could never afford most of the larger sets as a kid either!! This is really me living out my childhood dreams of what I wish I could have done. Thank you very much!

Aww, thank you so much @Mister Phes!!

Here is the Classic Pirates display that I made for Bricks Cascade 2022! It features the entirety of the Bluecoat Era (1989-1991) of Pirates, as well as the entirety of the Islanders sub-theme (1994) as well as a selection of other sets from the remainder of the Classic Pirates years (1989-1997), most notably all of the Pirate ships released. I also included a full lighting setup into the display for the first time ever! I hope you enjoy!

Yes. It means that they actually took the time to do the lettering differently for both english markets to keep everything internally consistent. It's a surprisingly high level of attention to detail.

Yes, that minor difference in the covers (which I never noticed before it was pointed out to me yesterday) makes spotting the two editions very easy!

With much thanks to Georgio Martonik on the LEGO Pirates International FB group I was able to determine with certainty that there is indeed wording differences between the US and UK versions of The Golden Medallion. Not only in the names of some people and places (Captain Red Beard/Captain Roger, Black Seas Barracuda/Dark Shark, Eldorado Fortress/Fort Sabre) but even in some more mundane areas where wording was changed to better fit the grammar and vocabulary of UK English vs US English. I wish I was able to get a full scan of the UK comic, but so far no luck with that. However he did provide photos of a few pages which proves the wording differences exists. Fascinating development!

Most of the ships I own have sails that are much older than 20 years, a few older than 30 years, so we're probably looking at it from different perspectives. And while some of the sails certainly aren't as crisp and stiff as they would have been brand new out of the box, I've found ways to work around that. There are other threads around here that talk about cleaning sails and I've seen people mentioning starching old sails. I have cleaned many sails to very good results, however I haven't taken that step of trying to stiffen any of mine with a starching agent.

I can't fathom wanting to display my ships without their sails. Like somebody else said, why display them at all if I can't enjoy them, and I certainly wouldn't enjoy them nearly as much without their sails.

This is quite impressive!