Carrera124

Yes, I am sure

Have a look at set 8858 (picture taken from Peeron):

This is set 710.

Neither VEDES nor SPIELZEUGRING, but IDEE+SPIEL Picture taken from 1983 IDEE+SPIEL catalog: The text indicates that 1593 has been an exclusive item for IDEE+SPIEL.

In 1987/88, I saw 1593 at an Idee&Spiel store in Germany. Unfortunately, at that I did not have enough money to buy it. When I had enough money, it was gone...

Very nice, too Do you know how to manage to change the name of set 1968 at BL ? I have no idea how to do this, I guess BL will require a "typical" translation? I could also provide better quality scans if needed. The pictures shown above were just quick-shots.

I did not realize that the name of set 1968 is a new information. For the first time, I showed these pictures in 2004 at 1000steine.de, and they are online/visible for quite a while at my Brickshelf account. If you look at the other pictures, you will also find the sets 1593, 8847, 6383 and 6391

That's not 100% correct, set 1966 has been sold at VEDES and Spielzeug-Ring: (pictures taken from my private collection of old toy store catalogs):

But there's no proof for it. Actually, no such sets are offered. So no one can say that they won't sell well, just because they did not sell well one decade ago. So you are saying that the results ofTLC's market research are always 100% perfect, correct and never fail? Then please tell me, why have sales of the "Friends" theme much better than expected? According to you, this should not have happended, because TLC marketing guys and girls know exactly what (and how much) their customers want. And on the other hand, why are some themes / sets been flogged and sold at loss? It seems as if the marketing people were wrong in these cases, too. -> I have no doubt that TLC's marketing department knows very much, but they are not perfect. Marketing people are marketing people, but they are not never-failing prophets. Not a valid argument. Within a range of roundabout 600 new (!) different sets each year, 3 or 4 additonal sets wouldn't have a big influcence on production, logistics and warehousing costs. If this would really be an issue, lots of other sets and themes wouldn't be produced either. No proof for this, just your personal assumption, unless you show some official numbers. You forget about the fact that the adult fans did not replace the kids, they are additional buyers. Moreover, you did not anwser my questions with "yes" or "no", so I'll repeat them: Please, have a look at the 564 (source: brickset) sets for 2013. Do you think that every single one will reach high sales and high profit ? Yes or no ? Do you think that every single one has come into existence only because of thinking about sales and profit ? Yes or no ? Don't you think that also kids own sets 7938, 7939, 3677 and play with them ? Yes or no ? Don't you think that these kids - as long as they like their lego train - would like to extend their trains without buying another expensive starter kit ? Yes or no ? Don't you think that parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents of these kids would like to buy smaller aditional sets as gifts ? Yes or no ? It really would be interesting to know your concrete answers to that questions, instead of repeating "they won't sell". In history, there are lots of examples where people thought that things wouldn't sell, and they were proven wrong.

In 2013, we have ~ 600 new sets. Without promo and polybag stuff, let's say that we are talking about 300 "real" sets. Moreover, let's assume that these 300 sets would contain 2 or 3 additonal train sets (rolling stock etc.). Is anyone out there who thinks that these 2-3 addtional sets will be the worst-selling ones, or the ones that have the least profit marge ? I don't think so. They surely won't reach the profit highscore, but they surely will not lead TLC into bankruptcy. So, the question isn't "why should make TLC additional train sets". The question is "why does TLC not make them". Sales and profit are important reasons to decide whether to produce XY or not. But, they are not the only ones. Again, have a look at the 564 (source: brickset) sets for 2013. Do you think that every single one will reach high sales and high profit ? Do you think that every single one has come into existence only because of thinking about sales and profit ? Well, this proves that there is demand for such stuff. And I guess it is just of the top of the iceberg, because eBay is only a part of the market, and not the whole market. Who knows how many people don't buy, simply because of there are no offers in the official line-up. I am not surprised to hear that. No released Cuusoo model ever appealed to me. I am wondering why this calculation is limited to AFOLs only. There is absolutely no reason for that. Don't you think that also kids own sets 7938, 7939, 3677 and play with them ? Don't you think that these kids - as long as they like their lego train - would like to extend their trains without buying another expensive starter kit ? Don't you think that parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents of these kids would like to buy smaller aditional sets as gifts ? Today, there are only two options: buy another starter set (too big, too expensive) or to buy from Ebay / Bricklink sellers that decompose the starter sets. Both options may be valid for some people, but not for the masses. It's easy to claim that sales would be bad, as long as there is no chance for sales to grow. There is only one thing that could us prove right or wrong: if TLC would do it. If sales were bad 10 years ago, this may not necessary the same today. So, bad sales from 2003 are not a valid argument in 2013. Times have changed since then.

Please behave with respect. Does this need to be explained ? Because I do not want to buy clones, I want to buy some variety. No, I do not need more track. I already own too much track parts. Selling these left-over track parts is useless - no one needs hundreds of curved rails or flex parts. That's an interesting offer, but I guess this doesn't fulfill all requirements. I'd need it also as a gift, so an "official" box and "official" building instructions are required.

Fact #1: TLC's line-up is bigger than ever before. Source: http://www.brickset.com/browse/ Around 600 new sets for each year 2011, 2012, 2013. Minus polybags, promo-stuff, let's assume that we are walking about 400 "real" sets for each of the last years. Compared to 1980: around 100 new sets each year, ramping up slowly into the 90ies, and exploding over the last years. Fact #2: Videogames and homecomputers are no invention of the 1990ies. The first big crash occured during the middle of the 1980ies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983 That means, videogames have been a huge success before. Therefore, they cannot be the reason for declining sales of single train stuff. Otherwise, TLC made their decision 20 years too late. Fact #3: Clever salesmen sell single train stuff at eBay. They buy sets 3677 and 7939, take them apart and sell the single items. This business seems to run pretty well. Maybe single train stuff wasn't selling well during the 80ies and 90ies. But the situation was completely different from today: in these times, Lego has been considered as a kid's toy, much more than today. Today, Lego discovered that there ary many adults buying sets for themselves (and most of them are able to spend more money than the kids of the 80ies and 90ies). It is hard to believe that 2 or 3 additional train sets would sell worse than any other stuff of the current line-up. Finally, of course you can create MOCs. But according to that logic, TLC wouldn't need to release nothing more than 10 sets of bulk bricks every year, because everything can be mocced.

+1

Imho, Lego is a system toy. So I don't mind if a vintage set contains some newer parts. Of course, not too much. I guess my limit is somewhat around 5% - 10%. Of course, the color should be the same. Replacing oldgray parts by newgray ones, this won't fit (I don't mind the existence of newgray in general, but sets until 2004 should contain the old color and sets from 2004 should consist of the newer parts).

This ist THE motor I dreamed of when I was a child. Unfortunately, I only had two grey 4.5v motors, which don't have much power. Our family kept the older catalogs, so I knew that the black beast existed, but even back in the 80ies it had been out of production quite for a while. Thanks to ebay, I got a 880 set some years ago. As you need a train tpower supply to get it working properly, it is best used for non-mobile models. In contrast to that, the grey 4.5v motor could be used to motorize cars and other vehicles, because the battery box offers more flexibility in handling. Maybe that was a reason to drop the black motor from the line-up after a rather short period of selling, while the grey one has been sold for more than one decade (1977-1989).

8846 and 8865.

I decided to stop buying studless technic sets, but I probably will make an exception for this set.

:-)

Gary, do you have information about sets 1898 & 1899, too ?

Well, the lugnet picture actually seems to be the same as the peeron link from above.

At Bricklink, I just stumbled upon set 98959 from 1977. Peeron shows a building instruction, but I've never seen this set in any catalog. Anybody knowing the story behind this ? Maybe an early promo set, to help introduce the new Technic parts & line-up back in 1977 ?

Well, these items reach high prices because everyone threw them away... if everyone would have kept them, they wouldn't be anything special today, and they would be worth thousands of $$$

I can't believe that this is a valid reason... they could offer both a lo-res and hi-res version...

I really appreciate the service that TLG offers instructions as free downloadable PDF files. But I would like to ask TLG why the graphics qualitiy is so poor ? Maybe it is intended to prevent non-autohorized reprints ? Sometimes, it is really hard and painful to use them, the pictures are rough pixelated, dark/black parts look like a dab of paint without shape. At least for older/discontinued sets, it would be great to get PDF instructions with reasonable quality.

I am wondering if 7938 and 7939 will be replaced by new sets in 2014 ? They were introduced late 2010, and former train sets have been dropped off the line-up after 3-4 years.