MAB

It might help to have an outline in the first post in every rumors and discussion thread of what can and cannot be discussed in the thread. The thread title is "rumors and discussion" but the 4th July post says "This is a thread for rumors" and doesn't use the word discussion. What discussion is allowed? General discussion of the sets or only discussion about rumors? Looking back at the posts seems to suggest general discussion of the sets has been allowed to go on (hardly any of it is rumors), yet the 4th July post says otherwise.

I wouldn't use dichloroethane, it is carcinogenic. The plastic will always be softer than real lego afterwards, as some solvent remains in it and also you have swollen the polymer. If it is very soft, you have used too much solvent. You really want the smallest amount (which is much less than you think). It needs to dissolve slowly. A couple of drops on a brick, give it a day, then another drop, and so on. That way, the minimal amount of solvent is in the "paint".

I like the build. However, for the presentation, it gives the impression that this is in a large piazza when of course there is only a narrow walkway before you are in the canal.

Disney CMF? Shouldn't this be in Star Wars :-)

With all their pre-planning, I would imagine they knew they could reuse the eagle molds for The Hobbit.

Will they do CMF series for Ninjago and Batman though? TLM2 I can understand them doing it as for TLM. But for two already existing themes, I'm not so sure doing CMF would necessarily follow. For example, there are already loads of versions of the Ninjago figures. Unless there are a lot of new figures in the movie, then they are going to want to save the movie versions of the important characters for the movie tie-in sets, not a CMF line.

Yes, I agree. But then that is also the reason to make some changes. Ideas has moved on from cuusoo, it seems to get votes you really need to think about not only the subject, but also the photography / rendering, making sure everything is thought out well before submitting and so on. I don't necessarily mean changes to the models, but changes to the way they are portrayed.

I didn't bother with Riddles for the Ring, as I already had the minifigs but every other set I bought was 50% off (this is in the UK). Some of them were 50% off even within a month of release (Dol Guldur Battle). I think there was a combination of discounts for the previous LOTR sets that people were used to (33% off was very common) and some supermarkets in the UK trying to partly out-battle each other in a bad climate and partly reduce toy stock that lead to discounts of 50% off for most Hobbit sets. Once that precedent was set, people knew they could wait for discounts and wouldn't purchase at retail price. For the investors in this scenario, staying at RRP will probably be fine as this represents a doubling of their money (before fees, etc).

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).