MAB

They might be waiting for one that they think will sell well. Sure Minas Tirith got there, but they may be looking at sales for Orthanc and decide that such a large set is not going to make as much money as a smaller more unique offering. Development costs for the build are presumably very low for things like the Big Bang Theory set, it is really a minifig pack in a scene. Design the minifigs, and you have the set, with little play testing or stability testing problems.

I can't see them going after the Chinese based companies selling knock-off minifigs that flood ebay.

Completely different article, from more than a year ago.

As for the poor head clutch, wrap a piece of sticky tape around the neck or paint it with nail varnish (or paint the inside of the head with nail varnish - as that way the torso can still be used with other heads). It won't solve the much bigger problem of lose heads in the CMF line, but it will solve the problem for your particular minifig.

This is the licensed section, so my answer here is fleshie. In town, my answer would be yellow. In historic, I have more of a problem. Fleshie for licensed historic, yellow for non-licensed. I don't find it too big a deal these days, as there is a good mix of heads in both yellow and fleshie. And more brown heads are becoming available too. It's the torsos that are difficult. Lego seems to put the slightest bit of yellow or flesh on where it really isn't needed, and that rules out the torso from crossing over to the other side. For example, this guy would be so much more useful if he was wearing a white shirt under his jacket, with no yellow showing at the neck line.

That is just plain false, the article does not say that at all. They are not replacing plastic. They are looking at reducing the environmental impact of ABS and possibly alternative plastics.

TBH, I'm not a fan. You have to display from the front only, and everyone has to be facing the same way, otherwise you'll see the reversible back print. Also the arms are going to need to be popped on and off a lot to reverse the torso. I'd just prefer two minifigs / torsos to do the same thing but better for display and better for not cracking the torso.

It would look better if you used the Eye of Sauron from the Wizard Battle set.

There was a seller on bricklink that had a large number of unprinted but genuine LEGO ones. No need for customs, and no need for brasso.

They are not necessarily going to change the plastic (ABS). If they can find other routes to making the same chemicals necessary for production then it may be greener. For example, vegetable derived ethanol (already can be done), ethanol to butadiene (can be done, Russia was already doing this during WW2). While all steps to greener production for one of the components can be done, the others need to be worked on. Also they need to be able to do it large scale and financially.

That's the nice thing about Ideas set boxes. You can open them without damage and easily close them. If all lego sets came in boxes like those, I'd probably save more of them. Especially if they were just big enough to store the set, not huge with loads of air space.

Did you use liquid or powder? I've always found powder the best. You often need to heat to about 60-65C and sometimes use a small amount of acetone in the water. I've found it a very good way to recolour brickforge parts too!

I doubt you will have time. Once they have gone from retail, they will only be available at secondary market prices and the price then is much less attractive even if you do sell off Smaug. As much of the european distribution is handled from one hub, it is likely to be gone from retail all over europe fairly soon if not already.

And with that, it is OOS at S@H (UK). It looks like they could have sold almost 3000 in a day from the european hub. That's double what they have sold in 3 months! It shows what it needed to get shifted, a proper discount. I still don't really see significant profit in them though, as these have almost certainly gone to resellers rather than consumers.

At least in the UK, Lonely Mountain is now retired at S@H. ASDA, Tesco, etc got rid of theirs 4-8 weeks ago at 50% off. John Lewis are out. Amazon still have some. Most other Hobbit sets are the same. The line won't have long left. If you can pick them up, I'd do so even if you don't care for Smaug. They have gone quite quickly. As they went quite quickly, there will be people wanting Smaug that have missed out. Give it a few months, and sell him. Current BL price is about £40. If you can sell at that, and sell off the other minifigs for £25-30 with their weapons then you have a nice fantasy MOC set for a very reasonable price.

Yes, it will be interesting to see what this does to the sales rate. For me, £20 is a good buy to build price, but not buy to invest price. I'm sure some resellers will jump in though.

Yeah, building a sealed box collection and displaying it creatively. :-) It really comes down to what you are willing to pay. The OP didn't want this set as much as the other person, or at least wasn't willing to pay as much as the other person. Whether he keeps it sealed or rips it open, throws away the box and MOCs, or builds it exactly as lego specified, or gets all the parts and spray paints them is neither here nor there. If it isn't going to get sold on, then it doesn't matter what the new owner does with it. It is one less set in the pool. If you don't want to complete with set collectors, then buy unboxed sets. There will be less competition (in terms of money).

Lego S@H (UK) very briefly had Lonely Mountain and the other Hobbit sets at a 25-30% discount this morning, and they have now all moved to "retired product", except for Lake Town. So if you are after one and see it somewhere, your last chance is probably imminent.

If you use black or brown RIT dye you will be able to darken the stems, but I doubt you will get either consistency or be able to match the official colour. RIT is great for making things go black. Any other shade is tough. It does work OK on some soft parts like stems but not handcuffs.

Make a jig, and polish off 20 at a time.

I think you've thrown down the gauntlet there, so the daily posts will never end. With this post, I've just done my bit for another day :-) Indeed, goodbye official sets and a continued hello to MOCs.

It's going to be monster fitness instructor, isn't it? :-) I'm also fine with them, if they have parts I can use. For example, your "Ocean Warrior" in the signature tab. To me that is just a rehash of the Ocean King and the Roman Soldier. Yet it would give another fish tail, probably another bare chested torso and a new colour Roman helmet. Which would be perfect.

Wave after wave of LOTR? I guess you are strictly correct. It was wave 2 after wave 1. Then it stopped.

I don't really see the point of resubmitting with no changes. If it took two years to get 500 votes, it won't do any better submitting it again.

Actually the physics (or chemistry) could well be different there, as they can be in different factories in Europe or in the US. ABS is a polymer, not a well defined small molecule, and the actual polymer made (both in the composition and in the distribution of the polymer molecule sizes) will depend on the manufacturing process. If the conditions are not the same, then ABS from different sources can have slightly different physical properties.