CP5670

Yes, people are giving TLG too much credit here. They may or may not have good wages and working conditions by Mexican standards, but this kind of offshoring is done only for one reason, and that is to reduce costs. Nothing wrong with that, but let's not pretend that they are better than the average company.

The US pricing of the Unimog is actually more in line with other Technic sets of the past considering its size and piece count. 8043 was rather overpriced here relative to past sets (comparable to the European prices, which made it expensive by the standards here ), and this new set is definitely a better value. I'm surprised it took them that long to do this. It was the only piece still left with the teeth, with the other toothed parts phased out over 10 years ago. The teeth here are actually useful for some purposes though since they allow you to stack two gears on top of each other.

I live by myself in a fairly large two bedroom apartment, so any place inside is fair game for Lego. I try to confine the bricks to the bedrooms though, where I can keep the blinds down and prevent sunlight from coming in. I have cut down on buying more sets in any case, as I have too many unopened sets in storage already and Bricklink is a better source of MOC parts. (have reached my limit at 310 or so sets, although I still get 3-4 per year) Yeah, the scan quality on those is not very good, often suffering from low resolutions and inaccurate colors. The older instructions on Brickfactory and Peeron that were scanned by fans look a lot nicer.

I've had 5 or 6 incidents in the past where I was unsatisfied with an ebay purchase, and all but one seller made the situation right in some way. If the set is advertised to be "100% complete" but is not, that is actually easier to complain about, since there is no ambiguity in what it means. It becomes trickier to complain when you buy "excellent condition" bricks that have lots of scratches and wear. In recent years, ebay's policies have also become loaded in favor of buyers, especially if you pay through Paypal, so most sellers today will go out of their way to pacify annoyed buyers.

Even among AFOLs, there are huge differences in what people consider to be bricks in good condition. I also prefer ebay for used sets and parts due to the pictures, although they have to be reasonably large and sharp to give a clear idea of the condition of the bricks. One of my earliest orders on Bricklink (from this guy, 8 years ago) was all used parts and they were practically in new condition, including some hard to find ones like a trans-blue 6990 canopy extender. Since then however, I've been burned on used BL parts too many times. Today, I only consider them if I want something very rare that cannot be found new.

I think ABS deforms more easily but PC actually seems to be more prone to cracking. Many small transparent PC pieces like 1x1 round plates, 1x1 cones and so on routinely develop cracks on the bottom, while the opaque ABS versions have no issue.

Yes, "used" can mean just about anything. Even more specific descriptions like "excellent condition" don't tell you much. If you want to buy large amounts of used stuff from someone, one option is to buy a small order of representative parts as a test and then place a larger order if you're happy. I have done this with ebay sellers many times. I've had a couple of cases of this too, such as my last Bricklink order. Most of the parts were great, but a few expensive pieces were obviously used. I only found out after I left feedback. This has happened a few times in the past too and the seller may sometimes claim that "new does not mean mint", but I don't buy that. The kind of wear and scratching you see on new pieces is very different from that on used ones.

The belts TLG used up to 1992 (white and thin) were less elastic and became brittle over time. They switched to colored belts made of a different material in 1993, starting with 8082, but maybe the earlier sets still kept using the old kind. The newer belts hold up nicely in my experience. The black rubber bands with square cross sections continued to be used for tension force (and still are, I think), but they weren't usually used as belts.

It's hard to tell from a picture but that box looks good to me. It should be obvious if you have a smoky box. In both of my cases, the inside of the box looked slightly dirty and discolored on the inside.

That's certainly true. In fact, I got my job by meeting someone at a conference and they created a position for me. I had applied for some other jobs on the company's website earlier and was ignored. Well, research jobs do generally require that (sometimes a Masters is enough but it's harder to move up). As far as Lego design goes though, I doubt academic backgrounds matter much. I would think a strong art portfolio (not necessarily Lego) or work experience in similar roles would be valuable, and contacts within the company always help. As someone else said, you can also work for the company in many other capacities. Their current postings show a wide variety of positions apart from set designers.

Probably not, but it may become yellowed over time if you build and display the set. The only bricks in my 6398 with the issue are some 1x2 plates and 1x2x1 slopes though, about 6 or 7 pieces in total. By out of the box, I just mean an MISB/MIB set opened for the first time. They were from different sellers, one in the US and another in South Korea (it was a localized copy of the set). I think the 6395 auction had said the set was found in an FAO Schwarz storeroom. Those are the only examples I can recall. Another interesting thing about these sets is that several bricks (not just white ones) have a slightly dark spot around the molding mark. It's not that noticeable, but it's always around the mold mark and I was not able to easily remove it, so it's evidently some chemical reaction and not just some grime that had collected there. I do want to try out Retrobright on all these parts but haven't gotten around to it. This yellowing looks identical to the UV-based yellowing, except that it covers the whole piece more or less uniformly.

My favorite is 6394, but the garage really puts that set in a class of its own and it's probably unfair to compare it to the others. Among the others, I like 6397 a lot. The recent one is good too but I love the design of that canopy roof in 6397.

The time frame is a pretty rough estimate and is based on the sets I have seen it in myself. It only affects white bricks as far as I know and could certainly be something other than oxygen, but does seem to be related to the air and not light. Just looking over my shelves, some sets containing these pieces include 6398, 6483, 8880, 8839, 5580 (1990 version), 5581, 8868 and 8480. These have all been built up and on display for 7-10 years, in two different houses. Others have reported it on 8880. Unlike the other sets, which only contain a few specific kinds of bad bricks, 8880 has a large variety of pieces affected by this issue. As for the smoke inference, the two MISB sets I've observed it in out of the box (as opposed to appearing after several years on display) were 6395 and 6989, and both had that grimy appearance. I can't really tell what sort of smoke it is. The bricks in these sets also had unusually strong gripping power, which may be related. I got good prices on them on ebay though, so I can't really complain.

See the entry here on oxygen-sensitive bricks. There is no smoke in my apartment but it still occurs over time. The MISB sets where I've seen it out of the box did have a "smoky" look and obvious wear on the box though, both on the outside and inside, as if they had been stored in a grimy warehouse.

Lego prices are probably lower today than they used to be 10-20 years ago if you account for inflation, except for a brief period around 2003-04 when the prices were unusually low across the board. They have gone up again in the last year or two, but not to the 80s/90s level. The higher prices back then were justified though since the quality standards were higher in a number of ways. I only buy 3 or 4 sets a year these days, and all the big purchases are at Lego fan events where the local Lego stores offer some discount, so I rarely pay the full price. I can easily afford a lot more but my time for Lego is limited, and I spend more time with MOCs than sets. Bricklink orders are more efficient and give me better value for MOC parts. I also have a huge backlog of MISB sets in storage and try not to add more to it before opening some of those sets. You don't have to be particularly rich to buy a lot of Lego. There are far more expensive hobbies out there than Lego.

The particular kind of yellowing you are referring to (there are two types) is not easy to avoid. I have many sets from that period that I bought MISB around 2000-2003 and put on display away from windows or fluorescent lighting. They looked good when I opened them but some pieces have become yellowed over time. This issue can also occur out of the box if the MISB set was stored in a smoky environment, but usually appears only some years after a set has been opened. This is not caused by UV since the bricks become equally discolored on all sides, even if they are covered up by other bricks. In some cases, a few specific bricks in a model become severely yellowed while others in the same color look perfect. In my 8839, the 1x8 white plates all look bad now while the other bricks in the model are perfect. I think TLG was experimenting with a different plastic additive in that period and did something funny with these bricks without realizing it. These "bad bricks" are fortunately not that common though, and seem to occur in Technic sets more than anything else. 8880, for example, is known to contain a lot of them.

This site also has a couple that aren't on the others. Some catalogs aren't on any of these sites though. Apart from the large S@H catalogs, there was only one set catalog of a given type per year, but there were several different kinds of these (regular, Technic, small/foldable, Lego Direct, service, etc.) and many countries or regions had their own catalogs. These localized versions were not just translations of the text, but often had different dioramas and content in them.

The original 2000-2002 Legends were excellent and did sell pretty well, as I said earlier. However, TLG clearly put more effort into those than the later sets and made them as close to the originals as possible. The later ones had a lot more differences.

I highly doubt that the typical kid buying Lego noticed any difference in the grays when a set only contained one variety. It's hard enough for us to tell the difference, and I can only obviously see it when they are side by side. The only thing they achieved with the change was to annoy the few AFOLs who did notice. We have since seen bigger differences than this among parts of the same color due to reduced quality, and few customers have noticed that either. A less than perfect outcome that could have been improved upon is in fact often viewed as a "failure" in the business world. As you say, in the long run the color change had essentially no effect on their profits or brand image, but the argument that it actually did anything useful for them is even more spurious.

This looks like a great set. I love the suspension and wheels. It's a pity that it again has problems like the excavator though. I hope they get the fixed version out in time for Brickfair, as I want to get the store discount there on this set. What exactly is the difference with the pump? It looks the same as the usual one to me, just a different color.

I still have far more of the old gray than the new one. I have no real preferences between the colors themselves, but 90% of my sets are from the old gray era. Many of the MOCs I build follow the official 80s/90s Space themes, in which the color schemes are important and several rare or theme-specific parts only appear in old gray. As it stands, new gray is like chrome or purple in my collection. It's a nice color but I have very little of it, so I never use it in MOCs and don't bother to get any more on Bricklink, so it becomes self-reinforcing. This is especially the case with Technic for me. I also buy sets much less frequently than I used to (and the sets I get usually remain built), so I don't get much new gray that way either. I have actually been trying to consciously cut down on getting more old gray off Bricklink and reduce my dependency on that color, but I still pick up some odd bits with many orders that I have specific uses for. I want to get more into building City MOCs in the future, where the exact colors are less important, and plan to just buy big quantities of new gray parts at some point. I might also switch the old gray in my built Model Team sets with new gray to free up those pieces for Space models. Some of those sets have lots of old gray parts that all exist in the new color and can be replaced easily. All this applies to light gray only. I only have 3 or 4 sets with a significant amount of old dark gray, brown, orange, etc. and almost none of it in my spare parts, so I don't use those colors enough to worry about this. The odd thing is that the difference is just enough to notice if you have them side by side, at least for regular bricks. Some pieces like Technic pins are even harder to distinguish.

I recall someone at TLG saying that the old monorail sets simply weren't profitable enough to continue producing. The other things are just excuses, as people have said. That was despite the fact that the old monorails were the most expensive Lego sets at their time, and would cost much more today with inflation. If they did introduce monorails again, I would actually prefer to see an entirely new system. As davee said, any new monorail tracks would be in the new gray and wouldn't go together with the old tracks anyway, and as much I like the old system, it does have its issues. The train design with two cars is quite limited and hard to extend, and the system only allows trains to be started/stopped at the switch points. The main thing I like about the monorail system are the ramp tracks, which allow you to easily spread the track out in all 3 dimensions. That opens up tons of possibilities that we don't have with regular trains.

How far are you moving? I certainly wouldn't take apart any MOCs while moving. Even if you're going overseas, you can ship them if you pack them carefully. I plan to keep everything assembled when I move, both the MOCs and official sets (except for monorail tracks and a few things like that). I will just bag each model separately and spread them around the car seats and floor. I think they should all fit in my minivan and one other car, although I have to use all the space available. I could have just given them to the moving company, but didn't want to spend a lot of time packing them in boxes or risk having the movers damage something.

I used to have problems with space at one point when all my Lego was crammed into my bedroom, but it's less of an issue now. I did learn to make efficient use of space back then and manage to keep it all fairly organized today. There are lots of built up sets displayed on garage shelves along the walls, along with a row of Stack-on containers on one wall containing my spare parts. I usually have pieces scattered on the floor in that area from current MOC projects, but clean them up periodicially. I have my apartment to myself and the two bedrooms are big enough for all the Lego, especially since I keep little furniture around and have lots of open space. I try to confine the Lego to the bedrooms, as I can keep the blinds down in those rooms and block sunlight without making the whole place dark. I'll actually be moving in a few weeks and need to think about packing all the Lego soon, but the new apartment is a bit larger and I plan to use the same arrangement there. I have generally cut down on buying Lego sets over the last few years in favor of Bricklink orders, although I do still buy one or two big ones per year. I have the space for more sets but not the time to build them (and still have a huge backlog of 100+ old MISB sets in storage ). I've kept all my boxes so far since most are the nicer ones from the 80s/90s era, but the modern boxes are not really worth keeping. So far, I have kept the new ones too for the sake of continuity, but going forward, I will probably at least flatten them or something.

I plan to come as usual. I'm moving to that area just a few days before the event, which is especially convenient. Not sure what I will display though. Maybe some of the same stuff as last time.