MAB

I didn't get the impression you could order any set from their back catalogue after filling in that survey.

It is not necessarily a good thing, although clearly better than being unknown. LEGO don't want their name to mean any building brick as then the LEGO section in a store could contain Megabloks and Cobi but not necessarily any LEGO. They don't want people to ask for LEGO and get another brand, It is just like Google do not want their name to mean do an Internet search, as in I googled it with Bing.

Unlikely. They are not going to without stock from the whole of Europe in a busy time in the run up to Christmas, waiting for price rises in a few countries.

Like if we ask where is the meat or milk or bread or flour or tea or coffee or fruit. We do ask where are the vegetables or newspapers, but not where are the meats or milks or breads.

Who gets to say that the market is oversaturated with them? It shouldn't be someone that doesn't like them. If they sell, the market is not oversaturated. 18+ sets are hardly the company's primary focus. And as for alienating people that enjoy the toy aspect more than the display aspect, is there really not enough choice in the 500+ other sets that LEGO produce each year.

You did not say who buys a LEGO typewriter, your comment was who asks for one. By voting for it, I take that as asking for one whether or not they plan to buy one. I am also not a fan of absolutely every set that LEGO currently makes or has made in the past. The company would be in trouble if I was, as it would be a very narrow range of products. For LEGO to be able to market products from DUPLO through to adults, from fire trucks, spaceships to buildable flowers or a ship in a bottle means that not everyone is going to like every product. If you prefer the more toy-like playable models, then there is a range for you. If others like the more build-and-done style display models, there is a range for them. Eliminating detailed display models just means that LEGO would alienate people that want detailed display models and lose customers. I have Saturn V as a display model on my desk. I enjoyed building it. I enjoy looking at it every day. I won't take it apart and chuck parts in my MOC bins. I don't swoosh it around. I'm glad they made a beautiful display model instead of something half the size aimed at a kid that can be played with minifigures. Of course, they have also made a spaceship half the size with minifigures that a kid can play with (and done it many times) but I would not want those as a display model on my desk. If others want a typewriter, or a shoe, or a guitar, or a piano that plays tunes on their phone as it fits with their interests, then there are products for them to display like I display a rocket. That those display models exist takes away nothing from the range aimed at people that want to play.

So are you accusing of LEGO of stealing those ideas? To me, those ideas were not passed as LEGO independently decided to make them. Didn't his Tumbler even predate IDEAS and CUUSOO? Making a MOC of a licensed IP before LEGO does it does not mean that LEGO has copied it, or when LEGO does a version of that licensed IP that it is stolen from or credit should go to someone that made a MOC of it first. IDEAS Success to me is how many IDEAS sets someone is credited with, hence there are a number of joint most successful designers on two.

The typewriter is an IDEAS set, so 10,000 people asked for it. Yes, they are display models. Like the UCS SW range, the Modulars, and many sets aimed at an older age range. A display model of an electric guitar is not really that different to the Saturn V or space station. Just a different subject. Most sets are like that though. Very few sets are build your own things. I like them. If you don't, just look the other way. There will be many, many more brightly coloured boxes in your eye line instead.

Why would someone that doesn't like sci-fi promote sci-fi models? There are plenty of other themed ideas that look great builds but not an interesting subject matter to me, and I don't vote for them, let alone promote them elsewhere. After all, LEGO adapt the models anyway. You are not really voting for the build, but the subject matter.

Shouldn't that be joint most successful? Along with AndrewClark2 and Alatariel (and maybe others as I don't really keep up with IDEAS now).

Plus there is the value as measured by how much time do you spend using and enjoying something divided by the price. Expensive LEGO can be excellent value if you use it a lot.

Mine are. Other people's kids might not be but they get their genes from their parents.

Not just like human beings, kids are human beings.

I think there are many "trigger sets" or even whole themes, whether they are specific vehicles, minifig based like Lord of the Rings, nostalgia sets like LEGO's Barracuda Bay or licensed nostalgia like Nintendo or similar. And I guess that is what LEGO relies on, a trigger to get people in, then hope they stay.

You could display them under a glass coffee table, especially if you get one that has a glass undershelf. If you have enough room for a coffee table, that is!

Brickwest Studios has now been moved back due to the accidental shooting on the movie set of Rust.

It is getting on for 10 years now though, so a reboot would probably work. Just like they did with Harry Potter - start afresh ignoring what was done in the past. I have sold quite a bit of my LOTR stock recently since the prices have really shot up. There is definitely demand for what was done before so rehashes of Bag End or Weathertop and so on will probably still sell well. I cannot really see a CMF series filling in gaps in minifigures. If they did one for LOTR, then 9 slots would go to the fellowship and probably one to Saruman and another to Elrond - so that is 11 out of 12 (or better still 16 or 22) so not much room left to explore other characters.

I reckon the average age a child stops playing with / building LEGO has dropped dramatically recently. With so many adult aimed builds now, I imagine if a kid gets to 14 and still plays with LEGO then chances are they will get to adulthood still playing with it and so they no longer affect any statistics. They didn't stop playing as a child. Which will mean the average then drops. Or do they count as stopping at 18 since they are no longer a child playing with LEGO at the age of 18, even if they continue? Semantics aside, it will be a very broad distribution. I know of multiple kids that gave up building LEGO at about 5 or 6 after a single set. They just didn't get into it. It wouldn't surprise me if the average age is under 10, although it depends how you define whether a child was ever into LEGO in the first place, and also what it means by growing out of LEGO. I know of family friends whose kids main hobby is not LEGO, but they will still occasionally build something or continue to display for example Star Wars spaceships in their rooms that they build a few years before.

The head is from a The Mandalorian set, 75311.

You mean the technic one? I borrowed the 1st edition from a friend a few years back and it is very good if you want to understand how technic "works", from a run through of part types and how they can get used to building machines that do something. It is very thorough on the physics / engineering of mechanisms and has lots of ideas to learn from. There is another really good one that is very pictorial rather than wordy by Isogawa Yoshihito that is good if you want lots of examples of simple through to complex machines. Try Google books, you can often get to see 10s of pages free before you buy to see if you like the style.

Yeah, I think this is fairly frequent. I was in a bike shop the other day and a boy about 5 years old wanted a pink bike and the mother kept saying no that he should get a blue one instead. Same with presents. How many grandparents would buy a doll or a toy vacuum cleaner for a boy, or a football or an engineering type toy for a girl without being prompted that is what they want. And if even told that is what they want, I imagine many would still shy away from buying them.

Most sellers on BL don't charge you for making PayPal payments, as it is illegal to do so in many countries. The Netherlands is one country where sellers are allowed to charge you fees for accepting payments, but even then they cannot charge you more than it costs them.

I've ordered probably 20-25 times in 10 years or so from Dutch sellers and never had an issue with delays or open packets. Some would have been boxes but mainly jiffy bags of minifigs or minifig parts. Although I've not ordered since Brexit and the new VAT rules. UK seller prices are often more competitive now, once VAT and higher shipping costs are factored in.

ks6349 is an anti-bricklink troll, and puts down bricklink and bricklink sellers at every opportunity.

It is currently available. Same here (UK)