MAB

That has 20 large panels and a raised baseplate. Four horses and 12 minifigures. Those large parts take the place of many smaller parts of today. Take a look at any 450-550 part set of today and they look way smaller than that 30 year old set.

That makes sense. I have a roller cupboard (tambour doors) where I keep my tubs like that, so easy enough to pull down the door to prevent any long term dust.

Sets of 30 years are not really comparable to today's in terms of parts count, due to the different size of parts. Which ship was it? I couldn't see any that cost about $100 with only 500 parts. For example 6285 / 6286 was $110 $126.50 but had over 900 parts, 6271 was $50 with 317 parts. Some of those early pirate sets had very large molded baseplates which are not seen today.

This looks great. While looking very Fabuland in colour/parts, it also has a similar absurdity look to it as the top heavy TLM Sea Cow.

Or a head or torso or legs are more expensive than the whole minifigure they come from. Sometimes with hands too, it is cheaper to buy a torso assembly than just a pair of hands.

I'd go "lids off" in your new storage system. If there is just enough of a gap to get the tubs in and out then dust getting into the tubs will not be a problem. I used to have similar boxes and it is amazing how much time you waste taking lids off and putting them back on again and you really notice it when you don't need to do it. What do you mean by sort sets? Sort parts of a set, or sort out a set mixed in with many other sets? For what reason are you sorting? The method will depend on what result you want. If wanting unique piles by brick type and colour for a storage system, then first do a rough sort into "class" - brick vs plate vs technic vs other (depending on what you have) - then sort each of these into different brick types, then finally by colour. But if you are selling job lots by colour, then you'd do a different search by colour. Or if selling by type (eg. only bricks, or only plates), sort into type.

Chima's speedorz flywheel could easily be included in small spaceships, that can then be raced.

I find the opposite. It is easy to damage hips when removing legs, but I don't think I've had any torsos crack when removing arms.

One half of Lonely Mountain was not far off that. And that shows some of the problem. Creating something epic looking in even a £100 / $130 set is always going to look a bit ... lacking.

They can always buy one for $500 - or $800 - that BL sellers are now asking for one!

For Santa, Sven works OK. However, he is a bit too cartoonish for Thranduil to ride!

It depends on what you want to do with it. From least to most expensive ... Blue paper. Or blue cloth. Or get a wooden board and paint it. Or use baseplates. Or loose 1x1 round tiles in shades of blue and trans-blues. Or brick build one.

It's a definite fake. Look at the real torso, the NY is significantly wider than I♥. Whereas on that one in the first post, they are the same width.

I didn't make a note, but it will come up under 76382. The link for the image goes to https://www.lego.com/service/bricks/5/2/6258853 so the last bit is probably correct.

Maybe flip it around. Instead of historic knights in the future, have futuristic space-people in the past. Rockets built out of trees and so on!

Magnets, superconductors and liquid nitrogen. Yeah, probably best that LEGO avoid that. It reminds me of this .. Although I don't think that realistic play features are that important. For years kids have played with spaceships, swooshing them around. Way before SW came on the scene. The app idea is interesting though. I imagine my kids would like to build a ship, photograph it from multiple angles to build a 3D model and then animate it flying across a space scene.

There is a new yellow-skin chef torso: Note this is different to the CMF one - no cuff printing.

What do you mean by asiatic here? Those sets look more western to me, but could fit into any City scene.

Not for minifigures they haven't. The "greener solution" parts are used in botanicals, https://www.lego.com/en-us/aboutus/news-room/2018/march/pfp, mainly softer polythene parts. Although polythene made from sustainable sources is the same chemically as polythene from oil based sources.

No. If you buy from an established seller, you are very unlikely to get Lepin.

Expensive. Use bricklink and you can get them significantly cheaper. Of course you will pay postage so order multiples at a time.

At 10 minutes for 340 parts, that is almost two seconds per part. I wouldn't call that a speed build. You could easily speed up the video by a factor of 3 or 4 to get it down to about three minutes and people can still see the build at that speed.

How would a non-licensed superheroes theme work? You really need a back story for any superhero, and if LEGO need to develop these and then have them compete for shelf space with the (mainly) Marvel and DC brands, they might as well put that effort into something a little more unique - like they did with Ninjago, Chima, Monster Fighters, Nexo Knights, etc.

Neither of them fit well with the modulars, as they are completely different style builds. But it is really up to you. Do you want a donut store in your city? If you do, go with that set. If you don't then go with the other one.

If you want people for a city scene, why limit yourself to just large packs? The Collectible Minifigures line has produced loads of 'regular' people minifigures - butcher, baker, plumber, mechanics and loads of other jobs, plus lots of more civilian style people. Many are still readily available.