Carrera124

I'd say ~ 25% to 30%. But Reza may have better figures.

Well, I also saw 7730 from private sellers that came with 3943b. But let's assume that resellers replaced 3943a with 3943b. Why didn't they replace other broken/missing parts? Broken red motors, missing spring from the forklift element, etc? if they have the know-how and resources to replace the yellow cones, they should also be able to replace all other missing and broken pieces. But this doesn't happen. Imho, the "replaced by resellers" theory may have occured in individual cases, but not in general.

That means, that I never found them in grey era lots ;-) When there was a type 1 motor, the cables always had 1-prong connectors.

For me, the 2-prong connectors without middle pin are a kind of mystery. The 1980 catalog clearly shows them. But I never found them in any grey era lots. Of course, it is likely that they were remainders from the blue era, and used until they were out of stock.

Yes, the yellow cone issue is another good example (from Reza). There is no hard evidence, but imho it is very likely that later production runs of 7730 contain the axled cones. It is very unlikely that many sets lost the yellow cones and they all were replaced by the newer versions.

Thank you, these are 2 very good examples. The black wheels with red pins are still not in the Bricklink database. And my 7730 sets also came with white windows without glass.

Hello, when I started collecting the sets from the grey 12v era 1980-1990, I bought many used sets and incomplete lots. Bricklink was (and is) a great help to check them for completeness, and to complete the missing parts. But later on, I faced some problems, e.g.: 1. I found part variants, that Bricklink doesn't know . 2. Some invetories are obviously wrong. For example, it is hard to believe that the power rail 2731a shall be contained in set 7725, but not in 7727. In reality, it looks as if this part wasn't used at all before 1986. 3. Alternative parts are not consistent among various sets. For example, the second version of the black steam cylinder x461 is listed as alternate part for 7730 and 7750, but not for 7865. I got into conctact with other collectors (e.g. Reza) and we exchanged lots of pictures and information. The result is a huge table that can be downloaded here: Table It is a write-proteced Excel file. To use the file, you need a monitor with huge resolution (at least Full-HD) and not too big scaled font size (for Windows, 100% is fine). The table shall be a basis for discussion, not a final document. In many cases, there are only hints and conclusions, but no hard evidence. Any feedback is appreciated. A short guide to the table columns: A "Part" Basic part description B "Variant Type" The different known variants of the part. C "Number" Bricklink part numer. Parts that Bricklink doesn't know, use a "+" at the end of the name, or ar marked "?". D-N "Years" Assignment of the part variants to the years of production / selling. O-P etc. "Sets" Each set consists of two columns. The first one indicates, if the set does containt the part at all. The second columnt indicates, how many parts are contained, and if it is a "regular" or "alternate" part. P.S. I already had contact to the Bricklink inventory admins. They are interested in improving and consolidating the set inventories. But for me, the process is extremely complicated and time-consuming. Every single change for every single set should be handled as separate "inventory change request", and every request takes weeks/months until a decision is made. Imho, this is very ineffective, so I decided to write this text and to provide the table for download.

No, this isn't a good idea.

Hi there, as most collectors know, the grey era boxes were redesigned in 1989. But I don't know if all sets from the 1989-1990 lineup were affected, therefore I need your help. So far, I found 1989 versions of the following sets: 7813 Shell Tanker waggon (sorry, no picture yet) 7817 Crane Waggon all sets from 7850 to 7861 7865 Motor 7867 Light posts The 1989 version can be recognized by looking at the copyright date, which contains two years: the first one states the initial release (e.g. 1980, 1983 or 1985). The second year is always "1989". [7864 power supply is a special case, it exists in three different box versions: 1980 and 1982 without copyright, and the final one with 1990 copyright] So, the question is: do the following sets also exist in a 1989 version? 7823 Container crane depot 7835 manual road crossing 7839 car transport depot 7866 remote controlled road crossing If any of you has one of these sets with a 1989 copyright, a picture would be great. kind regards, Christian

I've learned that most of the ABS lego parts react to vegetable fats. So, if you have residue of chocolate bars or cream on your fingers, touching lego bricks afterwards is no good idea.

When you look at the 1985 lineup, you will notify that the range was simplified and cleared. There were still 4 starter sets, but only 2 single waggons 7817 and 7821. No decoupler, no upgrade set 7863. In total, only 10 model sets, which is the lowest number during the whole grey era. For me, it looks as if the company wanted to arrange things more clearly, maybe they just wanted to get rid of the need to produce two different 12v motor colors.

That's funny. In many cases, I had trouble to find good D/F/NL box versions in collectors's condition. I found more good boxes with other language versions, but only kept them as a placeholder until I found a good D/F/NL version. Meanwhile, my collection is complete so far, including the facelift boxes from 1989 for many sets. 7864 even exists in 3 different D versions, two of them with different contents.

That would mean, that Technic would also use the small battery box with less capacity than today? Imho unlikely.

At least, the new Powerfunctions 2.0 are a proof that Lego trains are not dead. Otherwise they wouldn't have spent money to develop a new system. Maybe the technic sets will also benefit from it, but battery box and motor are train-specific.

Well, the 9V stuff was released in the second half of 1991. Maybe there was concerned feedback from retailers and customers, regarding the future support of their 12v stuff. Which forced Lego to prepare such a brochure for 1992, against their original thoughts.

I rebuilt the original version, but have problem with the steering. There is much friction in it, so the servo motor has problem to re-center everything properly. I already replaced two parts 43093 by parts 3749, but this did not improve very much. Is it necessary to sand some parts lower the friction? Especially part 32054, if the 2L pin would have less friction this really would improve it I guess.

That's the main issue. I think that trains are not a big thing as they used to be in the past. But I think they could be better than TLG handles them today. Right now, Lego releases ~ 300 real sets and an additional ~ 300 polybags etc. each year. 3 or 4 addtional smaller sets (single waggons, some trackside structures, etc.) really wouldn't blow up the complete product range. And I think that they wouldn't be the worst selling products, compared to all the hundreds of new sets each year.

If it wasn‘t a bundled contract, why couldn‘t Lego refuse to produce the LR sets without the fear of getting no license for SW? Either way, they must have thought that LR will sell well, but they were wrong in this case. That‘s natural because they are human. So, there is a probability that they are wrong in other cases (e. g. trains), too.

I'd say no to bundled contracts

Great, thank you very much!

No, this is not what I want to do. I don't want to combine two quotes of two other posts, I want to split up one quote into more quotes.

But who forced them to sign the contract?

When quoting, I can only create one quote into one post. It is possible to shorten the quote, but I cannot find out how to split it up, e.g like this. quote "ABC says part 1" my answer part 1 quote "ABC says part 2" my answer part 2 I remember that there was a button to edit in BBCode or something similar, but it seems to have gone?

Well, but nobody forced them to do the theme at all. I don't believe that Disney is able to push them, if TLG is convinced to have bad selling figures.

I don't think so. Surely, TLG does a lot of research. But they only believe that they know what will work and what won't. And how much, of course. Otherwise, there would be no explanation of why they miscalculate the demand from time to time: E.g. the "Lone Ranger" theme - this was a huge flop, demand was way less than TLG seems to have expected. E.g. the introduction of the "Friends" theme - many sets were sold out long before Christmas - demand has been much higher than TLG had expected / calculated.