MAB

Remember it also depends on what you want to do with them. If they are just facades to depict a street, they can be quite shallow in depth, can be empty and don't even need floors. Whereas if you want to furnish them and be able to get your hands in and play, then you need more depth and room to place your furniture.

To me, it looks like there is wood grain on the hands, suggesting it is dyed. But yes, it does look a bit odd as the head is not yellow. It would make more sense if it was, and even more sense if the head was yellow and had a classic smiley face on it. Maybe the idea is that you paint it. And I agree about the better things for £110! I also wonder how they get the count of 30 pieces. A normal minifigure would be 3, or 9 if you take it apart pulling off legs from hips and so on. So I guess there could well be internal parts to hold the arms on and so on, unlike a plastic figure.

You have edited your comment. And I didn't write that you did call me an apologist. I implied that you were calling other people apologists, which you are by using terms such as City Apologist Group and City Apologism. It isn't. If they stop making police do you really think they are going to make more shops within City? They already have sets in City that are shops and transport, and plenty of other shops in Friends, so why make more of them? They are already catering for that market. A donut shop doesn't cater for the kid that wants a police car. If they lose the market for the kids that want police cars they have to find more customers to replace them. But also think about the logic of your comment. If they can only make a certain number of bricks per year (and a certain percentage is devoted to City) and they are selling all those bricks by doing what they are currently doing, then why suddenly stop doing all police plus other sub-themes sets? They sell, and they are a proven seller, year after year. If they did cut out all police and other sub-themes and did only civilian sets, what possible benefit is there? The absolute best they could do is sell all their bricks, which is what they are currently doing by selling a mixture of sets within City. Whereas there is a risk if they cannot sell three times as many civilian City sets as they have been selling in the past. Your argument is no different to those saying they should stop licensed sets to concentrate on in-house themes or stop City to make more Star Wars, or stop Star Wars to make more City. Stopping one area does not guarantee higher sales in another.

Who is it that is calling other people apologists? Wanting to stop what other people enjoy is not going to get you more of what you want. If you don't like emergency sets or explorers sets or science or space sets in City, then simply don't buy them. The fact that they exist is not stopping civilian sets being produced.

Are the hands plastic, or just wood dyed yellow. They don't look plastic to me.

Why is it apologism? I am not an apologist for LEGO. However, I do support common sense. I just cannot see the point of City doing ONLY civilian based sets for an entire year. Take a look at 2019. There are about 32 or 33 sets in the City range, excluding smaller polybags and so on. Within that there are quite a few civilian sets. Excluding anything that is emergency or space, we have: So just over one third of the output of City for 2019 is civilian - although some of the emergency and space sets also cover civilian aspects too. And remember as well that there are Modulars which are civilian, plus sets in Creator that cover similar material, plus probably another 15-20 civilian sets in the Friends range. I think it would be completely stupid for them to have NO emergency and NO themed sub-theme (like space this year) and concentrate ONLY on civilian based sets covering shops and transport in a theme that is mainly still targeted towards boys. They could put out 30+ sets, all based ONLY on civilian themes. And they would compete with each other. The size of the market for them would be similar to the size of the market for the civilian sets of 2019. On average, each would sell less. They would lose the sales of emergency and the themed sets, which might go to other areas of LEGO, or might go to other brands. Alternatively they could focus ONLY on civilian sets by just cutting out all the emergency and the sub-theme, and do just a smaller range of City sets. Killing off police, emergency, science, space, explorers, etc as you seem to want won't mean you get more civilian City. None of this is an excuse or an apology as to why LEGO don't or won't do ONLY civilian sets for a whole year in City, it is based solely on common sense, the "don't put all your eggs in one basket" type common sense. Why do you think they keep making emergency sets? Surely your own language here is also that of your City Apologists Corp. If saying they make emergency sets because emergency sets sell makes someone an apoologist for LEGO, then saying they make civilian sets such as the Donut Shop or Bus Station because they sell is also the act of an apologist.

Why focus only on civilian? Surely focusing only on one particular aspect such as shops is just as bad as focusing only on emergency. If there are only shops on the shelves, what are people going to buy if their kid wants an emergency vehicle? If City has proven successes with civilian based sets and they keep making them, then they don't need to focus only on them. They are doing well as part of a mixed line-up. If they focus only on them for one year, making more similar sets on the same theme then they are likely to perform less well on average.

Why don't you check the prices on a marketplace such as Bricklink to get an indication of value? A new and sealed 4439 can be had for about $50-60 from a number of sellers. So $80 seems high, but then you will also need to factor in postage. Ask for postage costs and you can decide whether $80 locally is higher than the global marketplace price including postage. If you are building it, it is overpriced compared to the parts it contains. But then many boxed older sets are. Only you can decide if it is worth $80 to you.

I guess we like what we get used to, and get used to what we like. After all, a very odd head is this one: It just doesn't look right - because it actually has a nose like real people!

The real cars rely quite heavily on decals too. Remove all the advertising stickers from the lego versions and they look like the real car without any advertising stuck on.

Although this is one of the oddest in-betweener heads ... with freckles across the nose space where the nose should be. I've seen a couple of these in used lots where someone has drawn the nose on, dot-to-dot style.

If you miss 6349 then you can buy a used one on bricklink for about $50 US.

That was loads of the Christmas Build-Up sets that were stolen.

So how would you sticker a dome?

I think there have been worse minifigure heads, especially in the difficult years between going from the classic smiley to more modern designs. Take divers for example ... Ones with big pupil-less eyes with really thick eyebrows and moustaches, weird female eyes that look lifeless, one that as a mic that has his ears in a strange place, sunglasses that imply eyes are too close together, the introduction of some heads with pupils that are yellow and some very strange stubble ...

I agree for minifigure parts print quality is not great when the design goes over more than one part, but I rarely see misaligned parts on other pieces. At least nothing as bad as not quite aligned stickers.

They donate LEGO sets to hospitals, so it could have been nicked from one. It might also have been a prize in a raffle or similar although it seems strange to put a donation sticker on it then.

Yes, I know that LEGO won't do printed pieces for every set. But if you look at the post I responded to it claimed that Speed Champions would suck if they were printed. I don't see how they would look any worse than stickered versions.

Because a printed one would look very similar to a stickered one without the hassle of having to align stickers carefully.

Why would it suck if they were printed?

Same here. The skater girl is (and was, even at the time) a bit similar to others. The mechanic and flamenco are OK. But the rest were really quite strong / unique characters, especially at the time of release.

Are any of the trolls light flesh though? They all seem to be very brightly coloured, so light flesh hips would seem out of place here.

They have released TWO £650 sets. I don't think collectors need to keep up with everything they release. Collectors set their own parameters for their collection, and can buy what fits with it. How many do you feel you need to collect? Buy one, if you want another newer one, then buy that too. If you are happy with just the one, then stick with what you have. Just because you have a model bought some years previously, why should that stop others from buying a new version?

I'm still waiting to see what the sets look like. The minifigures are useless to me, but I might still get the sets if heavily discounted like Angry Birds and they contain useful parts.

You can if you already have or buy the unprinted parts.