Karto

Watch out for the 6359 Horse Trailer. The last two times I have seen this one for sale in MISB, it went for more than 300 Euro. It's not that rare though... I'm wondering how much you'll get for the 6349 Vacation House. I still have that one MISB too. Maybe it's time to get rid of my 40 12V MISB sets

I saw it once sold MISB on eBay.de, it went for around 1200 Euro. If I'm right, it was that crazy Milanese Gufolo guy who (as usual) bougth this rare piece. And the real sick part, is paying 200,99 Euro for a small bad shaped, unwrapped MISB 6358 Fire Engine while you can find one on Bricklink for half the price (only 90 Euro according to www.xe.com), in better shape and still shrink wrapped: ABC BELGIUM on Bricklink I guess the 5 Euro extra shipping charges killed the guys

I don't have any vehicles anymore but I still have some basic Cellulose parts (bricks, roofparts, windows, etc.) in MINT condition and also some accessories like garage boxes, light masts, flags, Esso Petrol Pumps, road signs, etc.

I don't really understand why these magazines aren't available in Belgium. They exist in dutch for The Netherlands, in french for France and in german for Germany, which are the three official languages from Belgium...

As said before, there are two main causes for yellowing: • Sunlight • Smoke I have parts from 1958 which are in perfect condition (in Cellulose Acetate, even more fragile than current ABS bricks). Bricks won't yellow just by aging. ABS is a strong base material and if stored correctly, it won't move in a century. If you keep your bricks from sunlight and from smoke, you're safe. They'll age only by the way you handle them (scratches, etc.). In my case, I kept a Black Sea's Barracuda for 15 years, uncovered in a dusty, dry and cold place (ceiling) and after cleaning, parts were as new. If you have yellowed parts, you can 'clean' them with Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2 or Bleach). If you know a good pharmacist, ask for industrial 100 Volume Hydrogen Peroxide (30% concentration if I remember right) but be careful as this is a very unstable and quite dangerous liquid. To be handled with gloves and avoid any conact with skin, cloths and other liquids. Leave the yellowed parts for 24 to 72 hours in the bleach and the thin film of molecules on the surface that caused the yellowing will be removed. If the part was unused, it will be shiny as new. Don't leave the parts for too long otherwise the bleach will attack the shape of the brick itself. It works for all colors, also for grey and blue. Printed parts can also be cleaned this way, the printing won't be affected as long as you don't leave the parts for too long.

Woah, shipping is free If anyone is interested in his minifig collection, I give a 100 more for the same price and with helmets...

I think that this is the fundamental problem and the reason why they are trying to put some control: Matel, which is a brand as known and respected as LEGO (especially with Barbie) is one of those companies that had to recall several product lines because of lead contamination. TLC has, just like Matel, production lines in China. The problem with Matel, as far as I know, was not really the location but the lack of quality control on base materials. So, I think that if this law is really restrictive, they won't make any difference between these two companies (and don't forget the fact that TLC is not an american company, knowing how extreme protective they are, you'll understand...).

I don't know how it works in the US, but usually if anything is illegal to be sold by official retail stores, it will be also the case on private sales. The main difference between private and official is that on private sales, you don't have to pay sale taxes. Also, I think you may count eBay as an 'official' place, even if most of the users are private. A lot of secondhand stores are dropstores; people leave the items and get a part of the money back when it's sold. This is the way eBay works. eBay will have to comply to the legislation (even if I really doubt it will come that far).

I guess they do mention the piece count on the US boxes because of legislation requirements as stated above. I guess they don't use this kind of information in other countries while it is not required and this for marketing purposes: People would compare the count to other cheaper brands who usually display it (which is obviously unfavorable for TLC), people could feel disturbed by the price/piece ratio that differs a lot between the sets (and therefore ignore entire lines) and finally some sets look very big (as the price) while having a low piece count like the last RC passenger train and vice versa.

There are no 'official' Lego stores in Belgium. The best places were you can make some good deals are: - Colruyt: click here (select French and add '1000' for Brussels when prompted for City code) To have an idea of the prices, go to "Jeux, musique et hobby" > "Contruction" and there you'll find some Lego categories (can't give the direct URL as it is hidden). You normally have to order the sets and pick them up at the Colruyt stores, but at Christmas they have most of them directly available. I checked the exchange rate and you probably won't make any good deal though The GBP is at 1.07 Euro while it used to be 1.5... - Makro: click here (go to page 13) They have a nice City Value Pack for sale: 66255 Super Pack 6 in 1 for 79 Euro (74 Pounds). Note: for this store, you'll need a one-day pass (availalbe at front desk). Normally it is supposed to be a wholesale supplier (but anyone goes there...). You have only one of thse stores near Brussels (Machelen, not too far away from Brussels Airport). Both are general stores. If you go to the specific toy stores such as Maxi Toys or Dreamland, you will have a larger choice but only at standard retail prices. Note: It's cold and rainy here, so will feel like at home

I was in the US for the past two weeks (my first time). I went to the Wrentham Village Premium Outlets near Franklin MA. There was a KB Toys store... If all their stores are like that one, I'm even surprised they survived one Christmas...

Belgium You can make some nice deals at Colruyt right now. A lot of sets are on sale (red price) on their Collishop website. If u have the "Extra Savings" card, you'll get an extra 10% discount on all sets (running until 6th of december). If you know someone working at Belgacom, you may ask for the "Affinity" code and you'll get another 5% discount on top of it. A few examples of prices including original "red sale price" and 15% discount: 4210 Coast Guards Platform: 33,96 Euro (almost 50% off regarding S@H price!). 7662 Star Wars MTT: 84,15 Euro. 7734 Cargo Plane: 33,95 Euro. etc.

Where did I write that these aqua themes weren't meant to fit to each other??? I told that even with all these sub-themes together, I still don't see a 'major line with plenty of models'... I know my English isn't very good, but still... OK I've been to bricklink and what? One set that barely reaches the value of a mid-range town set of the 80s - W O W - and all the other crap is wothless... Looking at the sales for the last 6 months isn't very glorifying either. Now that's a good one I would really like to hear TLC's CEO telling the CFO at a board session that the priorities are the values, the morality and the imagination and not the profit (that sounds Harry-Potterish). Tell that to the guys who lost their jobs when production lines were moved to the cheaper Czech republic or China (or even earlier when full automatization entered the game)... In other words: it's all about money and nothing else. By the way, TLC started making wooden toys back in the 30s (and some metal). When the very cheap cellulose acetate (rubbish plastic, art silk) was released on the market at high production rates (30s-40s), it became and interesting base material for toys because of its price and because of the easy way to shape it. They released the 'cheap' toy (in comparison to wooden and metal toys of that time!) in the 50s and in 1958 it went outside Denmark. It was later (1962 if I'm right) replaced by acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), which is more rigid and easy to mold. I don't feel like TLC remained 'true whit the fanbase' back in the 90s. Apparently I wasn't the only one because sales were catastrophic. Well I do generalize because I find all these sets ugly and full of useless parts. It's my opinion, nothing more. So yes it is definitely the case - for me You seem to give a little too much value to imagination. Apparently you even imagine that companies are there to follow moral guidelines It sounds a little like american tv shows: You can see one bad guy putting his Magnum .357 in another ones *ss, but when he says 'f*ck', it's beeped out, rofl. The 'morality' followed by TLC has always been a joke either. It's pure marketing - a lot of parents don't like to see their children 'play war' (but the parents usually loose this fight!). So what's TLC's compromise: they release themes to play war in all sorts of timelines but not contemporary. Aqua = war Pirates = war Castle = war (besides the dwarfs who prefer digging and hairy women) Star Wars = look at the second word Space (Classic Space, Futuron, Space Police, Black Tron, M: Tron, UFO, etc.) = war Ninja = war Western = war Dino = war Insectoids = war Exo Force = war Fabuland = psychological warfare (just kiddin...)

I would say: 6374 Holiday Home, but it's totally sentimental as it was one of my first town houses.

That's exactly what TLC did starting mid 90s and that's probably the main reason why they lost almost everything. The toy market moves a lot like any other one for sure, but there are always trends that remain unchanged: children love the 'adult world' for example, so they like to build towns with policemen, firefighters, workers and other classic elements. In the past they did it with wooden cars, today it's with video games or advanced light&sound toys. A company has to evolve and stay tuned with the latest technology developments, this to increase the quality / playability of their success products (more parts, more details, more features and bigger) and not to make some weird turnarounds and leave everything behind. During the past few years, TLC came back to their success lines (castle, classic town and pirates soon) and guess what, the profits are growing with amazing amounts regarding today's difficult market (20% improvement only for the first half of 2008!), what a coincidence! What would happen if the Brandstätter group would stop (or juniorize) their Playmobil city line and replace it with a bunch of aqua- rock raider- dino- time cruiser- ZNAP- alike short-term lines? I bet it will be quite ugly to see. Today, the few small lines such as Agents and the upcoming Power Miners will probably stay as secondary product lines behind the main themes (Mindstorms, City, Castle, Star Wars, TECHNIC). I doubt TLC would make the same error twice by giving the importance to the amount of small lines instead of the amount of sets within a few main classic lines.

Now we know what they are for! In other words, Mr Götze doesn't know it either. I asked about these points back in the early 90s at some stores and none knew the purpose of these. I also had the chance to have my home right in front of TLC's Belgian distribution center (still back in late 80s - early 90s). I went out there to ask about the points and I got the same answer. Apparently the concept of points was introduced but never used (atleast in Belgium). I think that if it had any purpose, we would find some info about it in the catalogs. The catalogs from the Benelux doesn't contain anything about it. Maybe you guys can check your older catalogs...

Who knows, maybe the miners will be some futuristic dwarfs digging their way to the Earth's core with Pie bombs.

OK, I'll check the facts: Aquanauts: released in 1996 had 7 different sets (some of them were resleased under two different numbers but were still the same...) Aquasharks: released in 1996 had 5 different sets. Aqua-Raiders: released in 1997 had 3 different sets. Aquazone: released in 1998 had 7 different sets. Stingrays: released in 1998 had 5 different sets. Hydronauts: released in 1998 had 4 different sets. Aqua-Raiders 2007: released in 2007 has 7 different sets. You call this a huge theme with PLENTY of sets? I don't see it that way... Now I would like to see where's the 'core fanbase' who received well the Rock Raiders line because all the sets I've seen so far for sale on eBay are selling as good as ZNAP... They probably must have drowned when trying to play the big aqua monster in daddy's pool. I don't buy licensed themes such as Harry Potter or Star Wars, but I can easily understand that people like them. So, I'm positive about them because TLC makes profit which is, 'I think', the purpose of a company. If releasing ugly sets with a lot of worthless parts is called imagination, I'm glad they haven't too much imagination lately

Exactly. Aquazone is one of those crappy short-term lines. Same thing for Exo Force and Agents. The first one has already been discontinued. Hopefully, the second one will follow soon. I guess there are some remains at TLC's marketing and designers team that brought the company from the world's biggest (and greatest) toy producer in the 80s to its Dark Ages and the global bankrupt. Then wining around saying it was all due to computer games and not because of its own bunch of crappy lines. It took them almost 10 years to understand and finally the past two years were great; a nice and real city line (besides the RC trains...), Pirates wich are coming back, the Star Wars line stronger than ever, the new Power Functions concept, adult-oriented huge models, a few great licence-based lines, etc. Note: this is only my opinion

I thought TLC told they would stop making this kind of second class lines and concentrate on the major lines as 'they had learned from the mistakes from the past' (late 90s, early 2000)? It seems no to be a new space theme: I still think that sub-themes should fit in a major theme: - A new space theme could fit with Star Wars. - Elves, dwarfs, trolls, samurais can fit in a castle theme. - A lot of sub-themes fit into City (trains, racers, divers, even Indiana Jones...). Rock Raiders, Dino themes, Aqua themes, Alpha Team, Time Cruisers (worst of all...) etc. fit in nothing. They all had too few sets to be interesting. All these lines sell bad on eBay or Bricklink. Stores had always plenty of them and kept them a year long on the shelves until they put massive discounts... During the late 90s, TLC released many of these themes. During the same period, TLC almost got bankrupt (and I'm not even speaking about the city line which was replaced by the <insert that tiresome argument> crap...). They started the year with the Agents line and now this? strange...

The easiest and fastest way to reproduce logos and other similar designs such as LEGO decals (mostly with basic colors) is to use a vectorization program like Adobe Illustrator instead of Photoshop (which is a bitmap software). The concept is quite easy: you put the original design in background and re-design the logo with vector points on top of it. Once it's done you can easily re-scale it without altering the shape (ideal for printing). In other words, with a vecotrized version and a good printer (with post script functions), you'll get an exact match.

If you haven't enough hair, you can try the LEGO stud instead. I'm sure it will give an amazing look to have a flesh colored stud on top of a bold head

I stopped collecting LEGO sets in the early 90s because of this kind of sets. I've always been a classic town fan and I really didn't liked the futuristic design of TLC's newer sets.

The one set I always wanted during my childhood and that I've never got was the 6399 Airport Shuttle. It was probably too expensive for one set. It was also the first set I bought as an AFOL. I remember the face of the guy from which I bought it, when telling him it was for me I've always thought this was a fake. At least this would be the way how to do it; using the classic catalog background and add a 3/4 picture with an unused set number, modify slightly the 6396 airport baseplates (easy to do with PS) to have some 'exclusive' road design and voilà. It would be interesting if an ambassador could ask TLC about it! Note: 'LEGO buiders'...

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