CP5670

This looks like it was a lot of fun. I can't wait to see the rest of the coverage. I was considering attending at one point, but it was too far away for me to drive to (which seems to be the only safe way of taking MOCs, and displaying those is half the fun ). If any of you are going to the Brickfair event in DC later this summer though, I'll probably be there.

Nice review. It looks like yours is in perfect condition. I love how there is so much interior room considering the size of the set, and the forklift is a nice addition as well. I used to think that the original gray/blue/transyellow classic space color scheme was rather drab looking and lacked contrast, but after getting one set with it (the 6927 ATV's outpost), it has grown on me to some extent. This particular set and one of the bases has been on my wanted list since then, but the ones in such condition seem to be very pricey. There was one on ebay just yesterday that seemed to be in very good shape, but it sold for $160. For that kind of money I'll probably end up passing on it.

-a variant of the click hinges with double the number of teeth, so that it covers twice as many angles (a big one for me) -1x5 plate -inverted version of the 2x2x2 slope -a big planetary ring gear with teeth on the inside (already exists on the turntables, but the inner gear is too small to be of much use) -elliptic gears -reintroduction of the monorail parts and the large 10x6x11 and 10x10x12 dome panels (well, I can dream ) That would be incredibly useful.

I've talked about the brick color issues here before, but this looks like a good thread to gather all of my observations in one place. The problem is that for the last year or two, most pieces in certain colors have looked somewhat faded, as if the plastic is less dense than it should be. In some cases, they look like a distinctly different color than what they're supposed to be. Among the basic colors, yellow and red seem to be the most heavily affected, and white is as well to a lesser extent. Black, blue, and both blays are unaffected. With red in particular, the difference in the old and new bricks is often as noticeable as light gray and light blay. If you hold these bricks up to a light, you can tell that they're slightly translucent compared to older ones, which don't let any of the light through. The shadows that studs normally cast on a brick's surface are fainter due to the thinner plastic, and the Lego logos on the studs are also less pronounced and harder to see than usual. Finally, these new pieces don't have the same coupling strength that the older ones did and tend to come apart more easily than they should (this actually applies to the black pieces too, even though their color looks fine). I can provide pictures of all this if needed, although you've probably seen it yourself. I first noticed this with a Bricklink parts order about 18 months ago. It was apparently a result of TLG's switch to clear ABS pellets instead of colored ones, but at the time there was some talk that it was only a temporary problem and TLG had plans to fix it soon. However, it has been quite a while since then and nothing has changed. I would be interested to know whether there are still any plans to address this issue or if it's something we should come to expect, looking forward. This issue has nearly put a stop to my Lego set purchases during the last year, despite the great sets that TLG has been coming out with lately. I've seen this too, mainly with large sets. I guess it's to be expected, as those trays in the old boxes had the side effect of keeping the instructions in place. It seems that a simple way to deal with this would be for TLG to shrinkwrap the instructions, which would keep them straight and protect them from most kinds of damage from being tossed around in the box.

Yeah, unfortunately most people don't really care about quality with such things and will just choose the cheaper option. The manufacturers know this and I think it's a general trend we are getting with a lot of things these days, not just toys. Even TLG realized this a few years ago and it explains why we've recently seen an overall shift towards cost cutting at the expense of quality from them too, although Lego still remains a cut above MB and other clones. I guess the only surprising thing is that it took them this long. At least with certain items, it does seem like they either have huge profit margins or are doing something wrong with their production. This especially applied to some of the electric parts in the past; one example is the 9V train speed regulator, which was always something like $45 despite being very simple electronically (having only one output and lacking even a power switch) and being made of some cheaper-looking plastic than ABS. I think they have come down on this a bit with the new power functions parts though, which is good to see.

Those pictures you took don't really show the color difference well (and are probably due to differences in lighting more than anything else, as the big crane is further away from the camera), but I know what you're talking about. You don't need to go 20 years back though; even around 3 or 4 years ago the yellow still looked like the old yellow. This is a pretty recent development and the result of TLG's outsourcing and cost cutting moves during the last year. The same applies to the white and red colors. You can actually still get both kinds of yellows in the same set, especially with basic bricks and plates. I got mostly the new yellow pieces but a few old yellow bricks in an 8275 bulldozer I got a month ago.

There is no set of my number. If I take it backwards though, I get the Aerial Recovery. Excellent set except for the tiny rotor, which is easy to modify. I always loved that Res-Q color scheme. Lego was made of a different plastic called cellulose acetate until 1963. It was apparently much more prone to discoloring over time than ABS.

I've seen some of Sawaya's work before but this is amazing stuff, especially the planets and pencil. Does he use glue to keep them up like that? They're obviously balanced perfectly, but it seems that even a slight movement would knock them over. Even if they're hollow, they would still be quite heavy. I have no idea how he managed to make that swimming dude in two weeks though. It often takes me several months to complete my major projects, which are nowhere near as large or impressive.

Good to know these are available, but this year's Technic lineup doesn't really interest me. The excavator could have been great but those linear actuators don't allow for the three degrees of freedom that you would get with pneumatics (like the really old 8851 excavator). The Off Roader also seems to be a far cry from the previous 8466 in terms of the mechanical functions, lacking any of the supercar-like drivetrain or gearbox that it had, despite being the same price. The new LED light pieces look cool, but I don't want to buy the whole set just for that. I guess we have seen some great flagship sets for a couple of years now (the Bulldozer and Mobile Crane were outstanding, and the Tow Truck seems pretty good too) and there had to be a break in that eventually. I think I'll pick up a Tow Truck while they're still for sale, which I never got earlier. It's interesting that they still have that set but not the newer bulldozer, which has apparently been taken off the S@H site.

I love how the control panels look on transparent bricks in general. That's definitely something I need to look into doing. I generally find the stickers printed on clear paper to be fairly resistant to damage over time, as long as they aren't hanging off the edges of a piece. White paper stickers, on the other hand, are a different story.

I placed an order with that guy a year ago on some service packs, but it was before I knew about the whole deal with the bogus exchange rates. He was at least good enough to let me cancel the order, but something really should be done about that issue. Both the sellers as well as Bricklink are at fault.

Is this thing different from the collector's catalog in the other thread?

Wow, it has 3803 pieces? That sort of makes sense then. I didn't think the piece count was anywhere near that high from the pictures. The model doesn't look very big at all. Still, if I was going to buy one of these super expensive sets, I would rather spend a bit more and get the UCS Millennium Falcon instead (which I haven't gotten yet, mainly because I have no space to put it ).

The pictures are easy to find on Brickshelf in any case. This set looks quite awesome and I love how the rooms are spread out in all three dimensions. The rumored $400 USD price doesn't sound accurate though. That is getting close to the UCS Millenium Falcon, which is way bigger than this set. $150-200 seems more in line with its size and level of detail. I don't think they have any legal basis to demand that if you have not signed an NDA with them. (unless you just removed it out of your own choice)

Interesting thread. I'm not into the Pirates line at all but I end up buying and hoarding MISB sets, although not for the usual "collector" reasons. I buy MISB sets mainly just because I'm very picky about part quality. As far as I am concerned, there is no difference between an MISB set and a display model that has been built once and includes everything that comes with the MISB one. I jump on such display model deals whenever I see them, but otherwise it's usually hard to tell what you're getting with any kind of used set. I probably have around 150 MISB sets in my closet (well, MIB technically, as I have opened most of the box seals to make sure the manuals and stuff inside is not crumpled), mostly Space and Technic things from the late 80s and 90s along with some recent sets. I started buying them in 2000 and my collection has grown a lot over the last several years, originally because of a lack of space to display them all and more recently also due to a lack of time to build them. When I have time for Lego these days, I usually find myself working on my MOC projects instead of breaking out some of those MISB sets. I am always on the lookout for ebay deals on these things and tend to buy the sets at a much faster rate than I open and build them, so they have racked up over the years. I figure that I will get around to building all of them eventually though (although maybe several years into the future), so I certainly intend to hold on to them.

That would be a pity, as the sets themselves are great but were hurt by TLG's overcharging for them. Given their size, $100 is honestly a poor buy compared to mainstream sets like the Mars Mission line (and this is doubly so since they're Factory sets with a limited parts selection). I was always expecting a price drop sooner or later and held off buying them, as they were never going to sell well at the $100 price.

If you're talking about Paint Shop Pro, it can do antialiasing on lines and pretty much any basic shape. At least in the older (Jasc) versions, there is a checkbox to enable it in the toolbar. I use PSP too and actually prefer it to Photoshop for its interface.

This was one of my favorite sets as a kid, certainly the best Space set I had until the mid 90s. I'm not sure if they're intended to be used that way, but the two things just behind the cockpit are the space handguns from those days and can be taken out and used as such. The four circular arrow tiles are also quite rare. They only ever came in three or four old sets, in any color. That's a nice vehicle. The base is actually not that great, definitely one of the weaker BT2 sets in my opinion, although the ship it comes with is excellent and it has numerous good parts. I disassembled mine a while ago for my MOC. If you aren't going to be doing it yourself, I might do a similar review for the Aerial Intruder soon. I need to strip down mine for parts in a few days so it might be a good excuse to take pictures of it first.

TLG's replacement service is good in the sense that they won't give you any hassles, but my impression is that they are not very organized and often won't send you exactly what you are supposed to get. Sometimes it will go in your favor and other times it will be against you. I remember I sent them a bunch of broken stuff at one point in 2001 (at their recommendation after contacting them), which included two pneumatic pistons, a 9V electric wire, an 8448 damped shock absorber (notorious for breaking) and a European 220V transformer that I had gotten out of an ebay set but couldn't use in the US. I got replacements for most of the stuff, but some things were either replaced by the wrong part or had no replacement at all. I recently also tried to replace a broken micromotor (which itself was actually a replacement they sent me a few years ago) with them and just got a generic email that "this part has been discontinued." I guess it has been quite some time since those appeared in any set though.

Great news. I wanted to get at least the Star Justice set but thought that it was well overpriced at $100, especially given that it was a factory set and pretty much only included standard pieces. This price is much more reasonable and what it should have been released for originally.

I'm pretty sure it was available in all of TLG's markets. I got one as a kid and picked up a second one off ebay a few years ago. Generally, the sets with the 1xxx numbers had limited availability in some way while all the others were available globally, although there were a few exceptions to that rule.

It's not really moaning, just an observation on how TLG's approach to these things has changed. If I wanted to moan, there are many other Lego related things more worth moaning about. Also, what I was saying earlier is that shortening steps does not necessarily make them easier beyond a point. This especially applies to Technic models where you need to keep track of how well the geartrains and other functions are operating during construction of the model. The tiny steps often make it harder to get a sense of what exactly you're building or how it's supposed to work until you're halfway done with the model.

This Alien Moon Stalker crew seems to be just as crazy as Schwartz. Nice to see that ATV joke I pointed out a while ago. I guess it can't even go over a single plate, so you can forget about the craters. The Aero Module has always been in pretty low demand considering its age. I remember I got mine for $10 MISB off ebay and I was the only bidder on that one, although that was a few years ago. If nothing else, it does have a number of rare parts like the big panel.

I bet that many kids would see that image, think it's a great idea and go and do exactly that.

I have this one and agree with your review. I don't think the design is as good as the Alienator, but it still has a number of useful and rare parts. As for the lack of controls, the set actually comes with a 1x2 computer tile. It's normally supposed to go into the container, but it can be used in place of the white grill as a control panel.