MAB

While inevitable, there is the issue of timescales and human lifetimes. Prolonging damage can be good enough, even though it is inevitable in the long term. And walls painted black to stop any reflections. And maybe UV filter film on the windows for any light that does get in.Temperature controlled too, as cool but stable as possible.

I feel the same about the horse faction, I don't think I'll bother buying them on PAB. They are too close to Crown Knights. If they had been different colours then they might have been a bit more interesting. I'd prefer to see existing factions expanded rather than one or two new prints for lots of new factions.

LEGO sometimes made boxes like that with the sets inside as a special so that retailers could have an "exclusive" product to advertise. It could be different retailers in different countries. Sometimes they were also used for prizes, either from LEGO or a retailer. As to value, I haven't a clue. To a LEGO packaging collector it might be interesting but to a regular LEGO collector, I doubt it is much more than the individual sets.

Nice build. But I think you need to get rid of a king. Or is one a lookalike decoy to protect the real king from the serpent knights?

But not so silly for a cheap 1x2 brick or plate. All the cheap parts in my store (under 5p) come as lots of ten or more. If a buyer doesn't like it, they can shop in another BL store that has a different business model. Some people don't mind selling one of this and one of that, but I do. That is a positive of BL, you can pretty much sell how you like and there are not too many restrictions. Why is trying to see something from another person's point of view a bad thing to suggest, especially if you don't agree with them? Viewing something from another view can help understand it. It isn't doomed to end. There are plenty of buyers willing to place orders at BL. Selling of both new and used LEGO is still pretty decent. Not as good as during covid, and it is harder to make money on new sets now so many investors are in the game. But there is still enough to be made to make it worthwhile, depending on the buy in price. That is kind of the point though. If you have a wide range of product that customers want then you can charge more for the same items than a small store that can only supply 10% of what the customer wants meaning they have to shop in multiple stores. Similarly, if you have something scarcer, you can charge more than for a similar item that is common. I occasionally get people asking whether I would price match a (typically small) store's price for a part. Why would a seller with bulk of a part price match another seller that has one a part that they price so low just to get rid of it? Especially for a part that is typically used in quantity and not as a one off. As to normal parts being thrown away, I disagree. That is where bundling 10 5c parts together to make a 50c sale makes it worthwhile selling. There is no need for those cheap parts to disappear if they are relatively quick to sort and store as well as to pick. There are positives of paypal, such as integration into bl so you don't need to constantly check bank accounts, especially if you have multiple transactions in a day for the same amount. BL also made it (or stripe) pretty much mandatory wherever they need to collect tax. There are downsides of course, namely the fee. But then there are downsides of bank transfer, especially when new buyers see a great deal on a high priced set from a very low feedback seller and send that stranger a bank transfer payment. It has been good and bad. International buying has become more expensive anyway and I often see complaints about International shipping prices within the EU too. The VAT charged makes it worse to import from the EU and presumably the same is true for EU buyers buying from the UK. There is also the hassle of dealing with customs/VAT forms and there are frequently complaints in the BL forum about VAT being collected twice, on BL and again on import. But the UK is a decent sized market. And many of those buyers have stopped or reduced buying from abroad due to the higher shipping costs and the extra VAT, so they tend to buy from UK sellers. I used to sell a little (maybe 5-8%) to the EU. I turned off International shipping completely a couple of years ago and I don't think it has impacted on my sales. What would have sold to the EU or USA still sells to UK buyers. As above, there are ways to make money from cheap parts. It is not cost effective to take 30 or 60 seconds picking a 1c part. But taking the same time to pick a lot worth 50c is cost effective. Personally, I only sell cheap parts if they are new and parted out from sets bought in multiples. That way, there is no searching to identify what parts are, no need to look up prices, etc. Sorting 20 small sets and selling off cheap parts in 20s is reasonably efficient. If I buy used lots, I can usually identify the set quite quickly (I rarely buy completely random bulk, I look for bits of sets). Then, I part out the set excluding all parts and scan down the inventory 6 month average price list for anything valuable enough (including minifigures) to look for in the bulk, then select and store that if found. Plus I pick out any parts I know sell well as bulk, especially if they are stacked together so quick and easy to find. But there is no way I'd sort 1000s of parts looking for 1c items. The rest goes into a bag of bulk and sold on a local market place by weight or volume. Indeed, customers that browse stores tend to do this especially for low value parts. If I need 10 of a penny part and see the seller has 50, I'll probably buy all 50 as I'll probably use them in future. And I have replacements if there is an issue with any of them I think wants lists have made the issue worse. If a buyer has a wants list of one of this and one of that, then they tend to create shopping carts based on the wants list rather than browsing the store. For some sellers, that business model works and I am more than happy for them to get the order as that is the type of order I don't want. The minimum lot value helps me accomplish that.

Try running a store and you'll soon realise why some sellers have average lot values. Once you get your first 200 lot order with one part in each lot and you make a few pennies on each part, you then spend a 2-3 hours picking to make 3-4 Euros/dollars/pounds just for about 25% of that to disappear in BL fees, paypal fees and other costs like bags and mailing supplies. I find that parts under 5p are not worth selling individually. I bag them in 10s so if someone wants 1, they have to buy 10 or 20 at once. And I use a minimum average lot value of 50p. I don't think it affects the orders I get and if it does, I only lose the type of orders I don't want anyway so it is not a big deal.

Presumably because people have bought it and built it and written a review of it yet, or haven't modified it yet. There is some discussion of the set here and here

They redid Bag End, bigger and more expensive than the original for new fans and older ones that want a bigger set. I wouldn't rule out redoing the Simpsons house to cater for new fans.

Did you read all the responses on your previous thread ? I doubt they read the instructions incorrectly, as the instructions don't say to punch holes. I imagine they wanted a hole there to use the sail in a different way.

This looks more like a minifig storage solution than a display.

Yes, there are many costs associated with printing the manuals as well as indirect costs such as higher transport costs. Plus BDP buyers have shown that they don't mind not getting them, as these sets continually sell very well, often selling out despite no printed instructions.

Not only that, but if they are going to reboot with an exciting new style then why wait two years? It is not like this would build up demand. Not supplying a product when there is demand just drives people elsewhere and they lose customers if there is no alternative. Star Wars is also wide enough they can build up demand for some parts of the range without stopping supply of the rest of the theme. For example, right now they have the UCS MF, the midi version and the Dark Falcon. But no minifig playset of the Ep IV-VI MF. But there is an X-Wing and Tie fighter set. In a few years, a minifig based normal MF will be available again.

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I'm not sure how they would do a peahen costume. It would look a bit like an anonymous brown bird costume. I'd also not want to see a lizard suit in the near future, we've had enough dinosaurs recently plus the green dragon (and red before that). They've got a monkey tail for Monkey Kid, so a new monkey mask like the gorilla's might be nice.

That isn't really how they do Star Wars though. New material or TV series tend to get a few sets but the majority of the range is still based on old source material. They wouldn't come back stronger, they'd come back the same. If, that is, Disney haven't already switched Star Wars and their other franchises to Mega as LEGO dumped one of their flagship franchises. What is wrong with the winter 2026 sets? Or to put it another way, what could they do in three years time that you would buy then that you wouldn't buy next year. If what you would buy is based only on new material then it suggests you wouldn’t buy anything for two years anyways so you can sit out while other fans, especially new fans, can buy what they missed in all the tears you have been collecting.

I got a couple of the cyborgs from that series but I was too busy buying elves, samurai, mummies and gorillas to care. The nice thing about the gorilla mask is that it can be used for a person or an animal, unlike a lot of the recent costumes where the whole face shows through the 'mouth' of the mask.

If you want a break for 2 years then you can already skip buying for 2 years. It is not like if they skip two years there would suddenly be lots of new material to base new sets on. If they rebooted Star Wars, they would repeat what they have already done so the situation would be pretty similar to now. People with an old X-Wing set probably won't want a new X-Wing set whether it is next year or in 3 years. But new Lego SW fans would.

To army build that character. I assembled armies of gorilla suit guys, lizard suit guys, and bee girls. It all depends on if someone can spot a use for them. But I agree a series of all costumes will ge boring, so let's hope they have other animal related figures and not just costumes.

What do you think not having any new Star Wars sets or a reduced number of Star Wars sets for a couple of years would actually achieve? It would just mean that there is less choice for a Star Wars fan. It wouldn't make those sets any better. I dont see why that is cool.

Yet those sets sell and the theme remains a best seller. LEGO will only change when the finance shows they are doing something wrong. They probably have thought hard about what they want to do with the theme and decided that more adult display sets are the way to go, with fewer cheap playsets than in the past. Just because some fans don't like that doesn't mean they haven't thought about it.

I'm not sure they are doing this just to inflate the part count (and hence price). I think it is primarily because people and especially adults these days want as detailed designs / models as is possible and this is often better done with smaller parts. That is not to say it isn't frustrating when you get for example 8 1x2 bricks when maybe two 1x8 could have been used instead or there is a little unnecessary build that adds another 50-100 parts. I was looking at Helm's Deep earlier, thinking how much better it would look with brick built walls rather than panels and those vertical grooves in the curved section filled in with cheese slopes on SNOT bricks.

This is where fan power takes over. I downloaded a pdf of the instructions for one of them that someone made through bricklink/studio.

Because they are very different things.

Classic space cow - brown Classic Space torso with cow head. Castle goat man - Soldier's torso and legs with chain mail, with goat head. Pirate shark - Pirate outfit with shark head. Classic space pig - light pink Classic Space torso with pig head. Castle sheep man - Soldier's torso and legs with chain mail, with sheep head. Pirate narwhal - Pirate outfit with narwhal head. Classic space tiger - bright light orange Classic Space torso with tiger head. Castle falcon man - Soldier's torso and legs with chain mail, with black falcon head. Pirate monkey - Pirate outfit with monkey head. Classic space elephant - dark bluish grey Classic Space torso with elephant head. Castle lion man - Soldier's torso and legs with chain mail, with lion head. Pirate parrot - Pirate outfit with parrot head.

Another series for me to skip completely if it is all animal costumes. If that is what it is, for all I care they can recolour or reprint existing animal costume parts.