CP5670

I loved the original lineup, with the Dash helicopter probably being the highlight. The Deep Sea and Arctic lines weren't nearly as good though and I never got much into those, although a few of the Ogel subs were nice.

I kind of liked Time Cruisers because of the sheer oddness of the whole thing. It contained stuff from Castle, Pirates, Town and Space all mixed together and many sets had some basic Technic functions as well. At least the concept was very unique and clever. I remember one of the sets had a bunch of helmets from different eras, so the time travellers could fit in wherever they went.

I haven't done this, but it could be a good idea in some situations. Some of my pistons definitely feel stiffer than others. You would need to make sure that the substance won't cause the piston to rust over time though. I never had any problem with turntables. I would be less inclined to do anything with those in any case, since the oil is more likely to spread to other pieces and make things dirty. I got a lightly used 8851 Excavator a while ago, which uses the old pneumatic system, and the previous owner had put a thin layer of some oily substance on the (plastic) piston shanks. It seems to work pretty well, although I can't tell what the pistons were like before.

Of course, the question is how much of a profit you would make, and whether you could invest your money into something else and do better. You have to also factor in the time involved in buying the set, and later in listing and shipping the item over ebay. I would rarely find it worth the hassle when you consider all that, but there are some people who run full-time businesses just buying and selling old sets on ebay and make a living that way. The appreciation in value varies a lot among sets. There are late 1990s sets for which unopened copies still sell for around their original MSRP, and there are other sets that have doubled in value in just three or four years. It can often be hard to predict how this will turn out, and it does not always reflect people's opinions of the set.

That depends on how particular you are about brick quality. The condition of a used set can be highly variable unless it is specifically advertised as a built-once display model, and even in that case there may be some yellowing on a largely white set like this X-wing, if the previous owner has not taken precautions against that. I personally see no inherent value in MISB sets, but the guaranteed perfect quality of the pieces is worth the price premium to me in most cases. I often end up noticing a lot of small flaws in used sets when I buy them, which takes away some of the fun of the building for me. That being said, UCS and Model Team sets are more likely to have been display models than sets from any other theme, so the gamble may be worth taking for those particular themes.

I buy old MISB sets off ebay all the time due to their perfect brick quality, but have no qualms about opening them. In fact, the first thing I do when I receive them is to open the seal and straighten out any crumpled manuals and catalogs inside (in the 7191 set you mentioned, it is quite likely that they will be in this state). I often leave the sets in storage due to space constraints on my display shelves, but intend to build them in the future. There is a long thread in the Pirates forum about this issue that you might want to read.

What do those grays look like? Are they the same as old Lego grays? I think high quality clone brands would be a serious option to consider for MOCers looking for basic parts in old gray. These have become increasing scarce and expensive on Bricklink as the years have gone by. Although at the same time, I'm not sure these Oxford bricks are quite up to Lego standards. There is some visible color variation among identical parts in your pictures.

Wait, so you got 12 icecube trays? And then 12 more on top of that? Hinckley would have gone ballistic if he received that. I had one error from S@H in 2001, and it was a big one. I bought one 8466 4x4 Off Roader (a $120 set) and it came in fine, but a second, identical package came a week later. I called them to make sure my card wasn't charged twice, and they said I could just keep the second one. This is still my best Lego deal ever.

This used to be a constant problem for me, and still is to a lesser extent. I often bought sets anyway though and just put them in storage, with the assumption that I would have room to build and display them in the future. I actually have a quite large number of MISB sets (a mix of old ones off ebay and recent ones) I have collected over the last several years, which I didn't open mainly due to space restrictions. They are just stored in a closet for now. I have my own place now and could create a lot more space for displays by buying more of the garage shelves I'm using, but haven't had time to set that up. The main thing preventing me from building them now is a lack of time.

I picked up the exact same cereal just two days ago, but never saw anything like this on the boxes.

I would have included Aquazone too if you could give a fourth theme in this thread. As you said, the overall concept was pretty original, but at the same time the sets still shared several features and construction styles with space sets (a good thing in my book, since I'm a space fan). The initial Aquanauts/Aquasharks line was just about flawless, with the big attack sub in 6190 being my favorite, but I don't think it ever reached the same heights again after that. There were still some sets among the newer themes that were excellent though. As for the Stingray guys, they don't look like they belong in the water at all IMO. Their helmets appear to have some kind of chain mail construction that would be better suited to Castle. I'm a big Technic and Mindstorms fan, but I think TLG dropped the ball a bit with the NXT and its new parts. The 100% studless design makes it less intuitive to build with and less like Lego, especially for a theme with a heavy focus on MOCs like Mindstorms. I'm not that happy with this change in Technic either, but the Technic models themselves have continued to be very good and many sets are well worth buying just for the models.

I think the minifigs are what turned people off those. They look like some kind of Castle era goblins and don't fit an underwater theme at all. Some of the sets are actually really good, as I said earlier.

Actually, I bet that most kids don't like those big, specialized parts either, since they inhibit MOCing. There is a reason why TLG is gradually moving away from them. There were occasionally such parts used in the late 80s/early 90s when I was a kid, and I never liked them even back then. (this was an extreme example, and this wasn't as bad but much more common)

I was thinking of the same thing when I saw that statue. That set had no engines at all.

I didn't like the weird looking Stingray minifigs, but their sets were great, especially the largest one that was shaped like a giant manta. The Hydronaut sets were a mixed bag though.

If you're actually offended by some Lego sets, just don't buy them. The kids certainly aren't going to care about such things, and TLG will produce whatever they think will sell well. I have to admit though, that picture Sinner posted made me burst out laughing. The humans really do seem to be the bad guys in MM. I agree with this, but for a quite different reason. The "only the best is good enough" philosophy is no longer taken seriously, when it comes to manufacturing quality.

A) How Do You Get Your Parts? Mainly parts. It's more expensive to buy individual parts than sets, but you get exactly what you want that way (so the price ratio of "useful" parts may be better). Exceptions to this include sets with a lot of specialized parts that I need. If I want to build, say, an Explorien MOC, I take apart a few of my existing Explorien models to get the unique pieces (in addition to Bricklink orders for the more common pieces). However, I don't buy the sets solely for their parts. B) If/When you buy sets for parts, How do you get them? N/A C) If/When you buy parts, How do you usually get them? Bricklink. The prices on most basic pieces are better than PAB. I have used PAB too at times though. D) How often do you gets parts/sets for parts? It depends on whether I have an MOC I'm actively working on, so this can be anywhere between once a week to once in several months.

Best Technic (model line) Space City My favorite theme is Technic, and it's the only one that has consistently been good year after year, as opposed to the bad patches or no-shows that most other long standing themes went through at some point. Worst Galidor Jack Stone/4J Roboriders The last one was a crappy precursor to Bionicle; the models were made of big, useless parts and couldn't even stay upright. I got a pack of all six sets as a gift once, and still haven't decided what to do with them. Exactly. I have no interest at all in Castle, Pirates or most of the licensed themes, but that doesn't make them bad themes in my book. City models don't actually work. Technic is all about the mechanisms.

Rather than more baseplates, I want to see full-size 32x32 baseplates on the actual structures. Most city buildings these days only include minimally sized baseplates, just big enough for the structures to stand on.

Many of them did use cranks for their main functions. The 8862 and 8853 sets had the same functions as this new front end loader, but worked very well with the cranks. As Musikfreak said, I think the real problem is the type of handle TLG is using these days. Those little 12-tooth gears are no good for this purpose. I guess they look nicer than the large cranks, but they compromise playability. I got this catalog a while ago too. It comes with Lego branded tape flags to mark pages in the catalog. Some things in it are out of date though. I called them up and asked if they still had any of the 9V polarity switches left, as shown in the catalog, but those had gone out of stock. The hoses are still on their website though, and can be replaced by third party tubing if needed. I doubt TLG produces their own hoses anyway. I got 20 feet of some stuff off ebay several years ago, which is slightly thinner and glossier than the Lego tubing but works just as well. I still have plenty of it left. The actual pneumatic parts probably aren't cheap, but I doubt the LAs are much more cost effective either. They both have metal shanks and are made up of several individual parts.

That is just what I wanted to see in this new line. Looks like it includes a large gun and equipment rack. I see some of the classic walkie talkies there. It's also good that everything is trans-dark blue again.

I hear everyone say this, but sometimes that "fake and odd" look is exactly what you want. It produces exaggerated lighting and contrast that makes accents on models "pop out" more in many situations, similar to what you see on the box pictures. The main reason I like flash though is that most cheap point-and-shoot cameras have a lot of trouble taking a completely sharp picture unflashed, even with a lot of bright ambient light and a still surface/timer. I am no photography expert, but I always get some amount of blurriness on low ISO settings with the cameras I've used, no matter what I do. This is probably not an issue with more expensive models.

Nice list. There are a few others that aren't obviously female, but were referred to as such in Lego catalogs or other promotional material. This is one example, which was called Ann Droid in the S@H catalogs and Mania Magazines in 1996.

TLG has done this in the past. Nobody remembers how it worked though or what exactly you got out of it.

Are you using flash on those? They look quite nice, but you can get the same kind of effect by just using flash. This is why I prefer flash in a lot of situations.