Faefrost

Am I the only idiot who read the title and scratched their head wondering who buys used fruit? The MOC is amazing. I can't believe all the details you put into the architecture.

He also had a sly smile when Sam Merry and Pippin intruded on the meeting in FotR.

Maybe we will get a Snootles and Ziro the Hutt in a swamp boat set, as one last TCW hurrah?

Doesn't French Law limit online stores and Mass Merchants that their pricing has to be within 5% of the small brick and mortars, that need French "cultural protection"? And guess what? Amazon and Lego etc have gone to great lengths to avoid onerous French taxes and anti business regulations and policies. They are not going to be all that anxious to pass those savings back through to French customers. I think the technical term is "Fudge 'em!" I know I argue that regional pricing stems from costs calculations and normal business flow, and not any sense of spite or desire to punish a particular group. France today might be an actual exception to that. They aren't going to jack the prices up simply out of spite. But they aren't going to go out of their way to bring them down either. And they will make sure the consumers see every increase. It's just as much politics as it is economics.

There is a new "Scientist" minifig coming in CMF series 11. Indications are he may be of the more wild haired Einstein type look. They may be waiting on that hair piece before they announce or release the BttF set.

Oh man, nice budget but some tough choices. For stuff tied to a holiday like Father's Day stuff from the family I tend to like the larger sets that get kept displayed. But your tastes may vary. I wish you had asked last week. Amazon had the Town Hall at 30% off for a day or two. I would maybe do the LotR Pirate ship and either Arkham and some small stuff or the Sopwith Camel and VW Van. Just for the nice advanced builds.

I love it! Looks very Warhammer or World of Warcraft ish.

My wifes reaction to this set has been amusing. She has a thing for Ewoks, but she also has a thing against me spending $250 on Lego (that she knows about... I operate on the don't ask don't tell rules). So this one has left her conflicted. "How much? But but Ewoks!"

This might actually be a huge game changer if it makes it all the way to production (Which it looks like the Kickstarter goal has been reached). a $350 home 3d printer. (Yes you read that price correctly) http://www.bitrebels.com/technology/cheap-buccaneer-home-3d-printer/ At that price I think I might actually get one of these to mess around with.

I really love those new tools.

That is amazing. The curves and colors. Wow. And all of those great little street level details. Superb.

LOL it's really not that bad to look act, except for the horrid blue trim. Lets agree to say it is at least distinctive and eye catching. I find That newcomers to my office seem to fixate on it to ask questions about. They recognize the other Tie craft.

The BL charges are between BL and the sellers, correct? (I've never sold anything on BL so I am unsure how they get added on or calculated). The larger or more permanent BL stores may not have an issue with BL costing a few points more per transaction, if that is compensated by vastly increased visibility and advertising. We'll see how it all shakes out.

Oh boy! We're getting a Middle Earth Hot Dog Stand! I can't wait. That will look perfect parked outside of Orthanc. Will it be a traditional Dwarvish dog dealer? Or those weird Elvish Tofu things?

It means they have no idea. They don't know if this is a re release, a mistake in the computer, an actual pending release, no idea. They can see it in the computer, but they have no documentation on it. No release notes. No needed links etc. at this point they assume it is something strange, something pending or something simply above their pay grade, and they are taught to be non comital in such cases. My suspicion remains. It's a real "set number" that someone leaked. But it was probably something for an internal project or display, and is not a retail release product. If Lego operates like most similar manufacturers, product numbers are assigned at the point of finalized design. This can include special creations used by various internal purposes, that are never supposed to be seen by the general public. Heck! It may have been something as simple as needing to recreate the old set for a comparison shot with the new 60031 in a designer video. If you are getting conflicting answers from a customer service department, the typical reason is not that they are lying to you. Most often it is because what they see in the computer is strange. More often than not it simply means that the Product Manager made an error when entering something in the computer, and the new product number is visible in ways that it should not be. There is no conspiracy. Now granted there is a slim chance that for some reason they may be doing a re-release in September. BUt given the new set releasing now, I'd call that chance a small fraction of 1%. The 99% chance is the set number is for something internal, and just the CS staff has never encountered it before. (As I said the PM probably messed up in the computer and made the part number more widely visible than it should be.) To kind of help put this in perspective. We know that Lego assigns set numbers to non retail designs. We know that all of the big display models from stores and parks have set numbers assigned to them. Someone recently posted a pick of a large wooden crate, apparently with a Star Wars ISD in it with an unknown number. That big X Wing in Times Square has a number. The set numbers reflect the final designs and blueprints. Anything that may need to be built again. So we know these numbers are out there. We know that the numbering of them is fairly random, and they may be stuck in at odd places near other stuff. But you also can't call CS to find information on ordering a 1:1 scale XWing kit. They probably can't normally see that number at CS. If they could, it would probably look a lot like this set that you are inquiring about. "Not yet released, yet sold out".

That's ok. I got your name wrong and had to edit it. I'm so embarrassed.

Wonderful review Hinklry. Although I spent a few moments of confusion at the title. "CITY Bakery? When did they put out a Bakery in the City line?" Although I chalk that up more to total cluelessness on my part. To be fair this set looks like it would be perfectly at home in a City layout. A Backery is the type of building that actually works well with the Friends color palettes. And Clone O'Patra, the one advantage I will give to the more cluttered art on the US boxes is the piece count. I always find the lack of that on the European boxes strange.

A re-release of that set still doesn't make any sense. Maybe the classic Town Plan, but not that one. Didn't some of the early catalog or lego club magazine pics of the new city sets show a large layout scene with those buildings as part if the background? I suspect that the new 60026 was not yet finalized and approved, so they used the older design for the city scene pictures. But since some parts were no longer available or in inventory, they had to do a minor redesign. This redesign was assigned the number 60031 to be used internally, so the marketing and art department could order the reworked set or pieces thereof from the warehouse. So 60031 is a real set. And a re-release. But it's total production run is 1. It was recreated for the photography department. Hence it is both sold out and not yet released. Pure speculation on my part, but its the only scenario I can see making any sense.

True, but in both cases Lucas fell for those characters and decided to use them based on art work. Not stories. Comic book cover art in both these cases. Lucas, by all appearances is very visually driven.

I'm confused? Why would Lego do a re-release of the City Corner, with Bus, Bike Shop and Pizzeria, right on top of 60026 which is a new Bus, Bike Shop and Pizzeria? Are we sure 60031 isn't simply some internal coding for a set recreation that was used as a placeholder in marketing materials? That would also explain why it is so confusing in the Customer Service people's computers. It would show a picture of a real looking released set, but the data would conflict to make it seem as both not yet released while inventory would appear as no longer available.

To put this in perspective, do you have any idea just how much of the original art from Marvel and DC comic books were flipped over, used as scratch paper, or outright tossed as trash? The TV Networks erased the tapes of the first two US Superbowls in order to reuse the tapes. Companies rarely ever think about what they have in front of them now in terms of keeping a record for future history. But this is nothing new. Most of our actual historical records as nations is derived more often than not, not from well documented descriptions of the participants, but rather from the most mundane of accounting documents. There are few contemporary descriptions of Caesar, but somewhere his tax returns are still on file.

I know he LotR loyalists are miffed at this subject choice, hoping for something big from Gondor. But I don't care. This set is just gorgeous. Huge Pirate ship. 9 Minifigs. New sails and styling. Fantastic. It must be mine!

Wow! You completely miss the point. Much of those fixed costs that I mention, they are purely artificial costs applied by the region or locality themselves. Australia is unfortunately legitimately somewhat screwed. They don't impose particularly high costs on business as a matter of policy. However the traditionally overly extended supply chain combined with the relatively small customer base increases costs. This is further complicated by the simple rule that merchants will sell at a price the consumers are willing to pay. That is that balance point of perceived value, Australia is so used to paying more for everything because of how remote they are generally considered to be, that they continue to pay more. US consumers traditionally tend to be a bit less forgiving on this subject. And then we come to the absolute perfect example. One that I have been more than a bit hesitant to bring up. You live in France. Which is bar none the current record holder for worst industrialized nation to do business in. Much of those costs of doing business stem from artificial costs imposed by the locality or nation. And there is no nation on earth at imposing said costs as France, that are not actually engaging in corruption. And these costs get passed to the consumers. Heck did you see this weeks stories regarding the French Culture Mnisters actions against Amazon because they threaten local French bookstores when they offer discounts? Or the degree that French Law places limitations on the larger block vendors such as Amazon in order to keep their prices inflated to be the same as the small local shops? You cross the border to buy cheap beer with better quality. Do you not understand that the same forces apply to Lego? And that the differences between US and Euro pricing is just the same mechanism on a larger scale? As far as New Jersey vs Montana. The costs vs profits differences balance out to close enough that most large multi state merchants will flatten the pricing to keep it even. New Jersey has the higher population and customer base so they will sell more. But Montana has the much lower costs of doing business. Both states are still operating under the same core tax and regulatory system. Local taxes and cost differences are therefore much more limited than what they are cross border in Europe. The European Union has been an attempt to similarly flatten these costs accross the boards. But currency union without fiscal union does not work as well for that. And once again an element of he equation is that perception of value. Pricing will where possible rise to what people are willing to spend. And in Europe people have become horribly conditioned to spending more and getting less for it. This is neither limited to nor an effect of Lego.

Absolutely stunning. The building alone is perfect. But you throw the working wheel on top of that. Wow! Just how big is it?

That's kind of my point. BL generates income via transactions, not simply traffic or page views. There is not a lot of benefit for them to start hosting banner ads. At best they gain a pittance revenue stream for completely unrelated ads (ooo! Pills to enlarge you! Just what the AFOL needs) and at worst you are getting ads for competition (Lego.com, eBay, amazon, etc) I can't see banner ads fitting well with the sites business model. Now I can see them pushing out an extensive banner ad campaign themselves. Nexxon is noted for that.