MAB

You will need a diffuser to diffuse the light. If you have an old laptop you are willing to take apart then they are a good source. Or you can just use a piece of clear acrylic sheet, and you sand it with fine sandpaper or better still rub with carborundum powder to make it translucent. That then scatters the light rather than have it coming from the LED point sources.

^ I guess it depends where you are. It didn't close over summer last year in the northern hemisphere and did close during lockdown for UK and EU users.

OK, for longer term CMF collectors, the fox and the pizza guy were already yet another animal costume and yet another food costume. The first few were fun but they have done too many. My breaking point was obviously before yours if you liked S19. The pizza guy was especially bad for me, being just a recolour of the watermelon guy suit that had only just been released before the pizza guy came along.

This is where paying by paypal really helps. They cannot increase the amount they charge you. They can write to you to say the price has changed and that you owe them, but they cannot increase the amount billed without your knowledge.

It proves some demand is there. But then there is demand for many things on BL. LEGO is continually doing research on what they think will sell. They also have data on how well Castle sold back in the late 2000s and early 2010s. AFOLS (as a whole) didn't particularly like the 2013 sets, complaining about the similarity to previous sets and about the heraldry used. It's funny isn't it. AFOLs don't like it if LEGO brings out something too similar to what has gone before (Castle 2013), but also don't like it if it is too far away from what has gone before (Nexo Knights).

I imagine Amazon will say it is as big as Game of Thrones. Continually. Especially to Prime users. The dwarves are a bit too tall on medium legs when compared to humans, although look OK next to hobbits. Maybe it is because the humans are all relatively tall in the movie, and the minifigure form is too short for them. Especially Gandalf.

Yeah if you watch some of the production videos, the factory staff are very socially distanced before covid struck. It is amazing how few staff are in the production areas.

Not everyone. I already mentioned there was a change in step 306 a month ago, on this very thread! https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/94814-lego-ideas-discussion/&page=197&tab=comments#comment-3314964

I much prefer the LEGO one to that.

1. You are entitled to one, but that does not mean you will get one. You will need to make sure you pay using a method with a complaints system such as PayPal. 2. It is possible that fakes are on BL although unlikely. Hence it is possible two items are fake. Check the seller. Do they have a long history of selling quality items that are not fakes? If so, you have a very good chance to receive the real thing. If they have no feedback, or have 100s of rare figures, are located in China/Philippines/Vietnam/Malaysia, then the chances of getting fakes goes up. 3. No. It is done on trust and feedback. You can ask the seller for more information about an item, where they got it, whether they have other SDCC proof (entrance ticket, lanyards, etc). Both sellers on BL look legit. The one from HK looks like a collector / investor as they have a number of SDCC items and similar.

I agree. Especially the Battle of Five Armies set having the Thorin / Azog fight in Dale and so on. Plus as already mentioned the "special preview set" marketting of the Barrel Escape was a good indication of scenes moving around once they decided to go from two to three movies, with LEGO getting caught out.

Put them in a (closed) display cabinet. Have a fan blowing air away from the sets. Give them a blast of air once a week (away from the display area, no point blowing the dust on to other models). Use an air filter in the room. Remove carpet and have a hard floor. Use blinds instead of curtains with heavy fabric. Take your outdoor shoes off by the first door to the house or outside. Use a decent vacuum cleaner that doesn't recirculate dust. Mop floors instead of vacuuming if you can. Banish the cat/dog.

This is not really about demand. It is about manipulating offers. LEGO is a huge corporation with a lot of customer purchasing data. They know what they are doing bringing sets into and taking them out of stock or not allowing back orders on some sets at specific times. If they have a certain popular SW set available a month before Christmas that is easy to flip when there is also a popular promotion on, then their stocks of that popular set will disappear and they will need to give out many promotional offers. They then have little stocks of the popular set and have given out many promotional sets, and a significant proportion of those will have gone to people selling them on. Whereas if they hold back the popular set, then they do not give out many promotional sets to people that will sell them on, and also they keep hold of the popular set in the run up to Christmas, so they do not have complaints from consumers saying the only way to get the set is to buy for a huge mark up on ebay. LEGO has learnt to control this. Some people may remember back to the days of "Green Lloyd / Lloyd ZX". That set was in heavy demand and LEGO also had a promotion on, so the easy to flip set went out of stock to people buying multiple orders each of a few of the sets with the promotion. They lost a lot of promotional sets and significant amount of stock of a popular product that they could not get back in stock in the run up to Christmas. They had a lot of complaints from parents about the prices of that in-demand item that was only available on ebay/amazon for 3x the price and not direct from LEGO. That was one of the sets that started the reseller crack-down back then. They have learnt from it. They now limit the sets that are available at a discount during promotions. They now limit the sets that are in stock during promotions. They now even limit the number of VIP vouchers at a discount they will give out (not personal limits, but overall limits). Of course, this year it is also combined with higher demand. Some may call it conspiracy theory, others may see it as good business practice, others may deny it happens at all.

The good thing here is that both the horse body and the torso are gender neutral. I don't care what the head / hair is, they can be switched. That way, people can make an collection of both male and female centaurs from one CMF. Whereas if they had put female printing on the torso and horse body, this would not be possible. I am a bit surprised that S19 was the best for you and you then rail on this series as the least favorite for the costumes and City-like figures (one only interesting for the animal). The contents of S21 and S19 look very similar to me. Warrior, check. Weird space one, check. Boring one but with interesting animal, check. Couple of costume characters, check. A load of City-types, check. More boring than a man/woman in a plain black suit playing classical music? Unless it was a historical figure playing a violin, I think I'd prefer the kid in the Blacktron top.

Check on your country's VIP site. You will be able to see what they cost in points.

Cash them in for a voucher on the last day before they expire. That way, you will get the longest life-time on them.

Given that LEGO both manufacture and sell these sets, it is surprising that some OOS sets that are not available for either immediate delivery or on backorder but suddenly appear the day after a promotion has ended. LEGO should know what stock they have produced and where it is. If they can offer backorders for other sets that are not in stock with backorder dates in some cases months into the future, then why cannot they do the same for sets that are suddenly in stock the day after the promotion ends? They know what has been manufactured and what is in the supply chain. I cannot believe that stock just shows up that they have absolutely no knowledge of. Even more coincidence that it appears the day after a promotion ends. LEGO also showed how stingy they were with the VIP voucher offers this year. They had a Cyber Monday offer of a virtual (lego.com) £20 voucher for £10 of VIP points (and maybe the same offer in different currencies elsewhere). Yet this went out of stock early in the morning of Cyber Monday. So they were advertising a Cyber Monday deal that was unattainable as they were out of stock of a completely virtual product. What it appears happened is that they only wanted the promotion to cost them a certain amount, so they stopped the offer when that amount had sold, even though they kept advertising it to people that missed the offer. As they do that, I have no problem believing they hold back stock during a promotion so they don't have to give away too many free sets. It looks like they are holding back the stock that they know will sell as soon as it is put back into circulation to avoid too many people taking advantage of the BF promotion.

Sure, they could have moved scenes to different price points. But I don't think that solves all the problems. Plus something else to consider is that LEGO often has to design the sets before the movie is complete so that they can some out at the same time the movie is in theatres. The Lonely Mountain / dwarf mines had to have the big set price point to do it well, and what they did is not too bad. It was never going to be MOC quality at the price. The Battle of the Five Armies also had to have a high price point, as presumably they were told this is one of the key themes of the third movie especially given the movie title. Although the build isn't great and the minifigure selection doesn't necessarily fit the location too well, it at least gives some play action around Dale and the damage by the orc army on Dale. Again, I don't think they could have done much better without knowing what is actually in the movie. No doubt the studio wanted them to have specific characters in the sets without LEGO knowing the specifics about the movie. Thorin vs Azog happens in the movie (just at Ravenhill not Dale), same with Legolas vs Orcs, Dain probably had to be in one of the sets. Of course, it is a shame there are no armies at the Battle of Five Armies. Thror and Thrain are rather minor roles in the movies, so the studios probably didn't care too much about them. Alfrid probably has a bigger role yet is missing. It would not surprise me if the sets were designed a year before the final movies was finished. I don't think someone suddenly decided there was no money in the license so they decided to stop making sets, but rather than they had an agreement to produce a wave to come out at the same time as each movie. If anything, this shows why it is better to know the material before starting to design the sets. LOTR sets, original trilogy SW sets, and so on tend to be relatively good as the movies are known. Deciding what should go into The Hobbit sets is quite easy once you have watched all three completed movies and know what happens and in which movie. Designing sets before you know that going on what studios indicate may happen must be really difficult, especially when they make late changes as to what goes where. But then this is the problem of having sets designed, instructions produced and parts manufactured ready for when the movies are released. Yet if LEGO did not have the Hobbit sets out concurrently with the movies, chances are we would not have got any LEGO Hobbit or LOTR sets.

You can exchange for a voucher now (or on the day the points expire), and it will be valid for either 30 or 60 days (it depends on your country).

Plus the Centaur torso looks like it can be used for male or female minifigures, which is good.

They are now finding stocks of sought after sets that were previously unavailable during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotions. Yesterday the Tantive IV 75244 was not available, even on backorder. Today, it is in stock, available for shipping. Same with a few other larger sets. Either they were holding stuff back, or they have little to no planning in their stock system.

Finding things I wanted to get the recent promos was difficult due to out of stock current sets. I ended up going with items I think I can sell on rather than items I actually want.

There is an existing thread for UK sales. Better discounts from other UK retailers have been available for the few sets they sell.

No, they are Danish. Instructions are in multiple languages. Although as with most LEGO parts, they are made in other countries. Plus Heroica figures do have arms, they are just next to the sides of the body. You see those bulges at the sides of the torso? They are arms.

Or you could go for something like this one ... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-51310566