Soluzar

TRU have a few smaller Pirates of the Caribbean sets available for a fiver each. One of them was Isla de la Muerta, and I'm sorry to say I can't remember what the other one was. It's not a theme I'm too interested in so I barely glanced at it even seeing the 'sale' tags. This was the Derby store, at Pride Park. Decent stocks of both packs.

I recently picked up an 8880 and a few other (smaller) Technic sets of that era. I love the older, full-stud construction Technic. As I'm fresh out of my dark age, I haven't yet had much opportunity to come to terms with the newer, studless construction sets. I don't exactly hate them, but for modern LEGO I find I'm at least initially drawn to other themes... such as Star Wars. I picked up the 8880 explicitly because the price has come down a little. As Mobi said, I'll be using my part collection, as it grows, to try to re-create the older sets. There are some cases where I don't think that would be the economic option though. With the 8868 set including a compressor, a motor and lots of pneumatic parts I really don't know how easy it would be to acquire the missing elements. I'm also not sure how well complex parts like that will work after a decade or so. Anyone who has one can comment on that? It's a worry I have about a lot of the unusual and discontinued parts from that era. Especailly the complex working parts, like motors, pneumatic parts and fiber-optics. Maybe that's also responsible for the downward slide in value of these sets.

I'm sad to say it lasted about 20 years... I kept on telling myself that I couldn't afford, didn't need and didn't really want LEGO all that much. I've recently given in to the urges though. I hope I can afford a decent sized collection.

I was a big fan of LEGO in my youth. Primarily Technic, but pretty much any kind of LEGO had my respect as an awesome toy. I just chose to concentrate my acquisitions on that one range. Not to mention that my friends mostly had Technic stuff too, though I remember one guy had an awesome pile of castle themed stuff. Sadly, I have no idea what happened to any of my collection from back then, I only know that I don't have it anymore. It's been a while since the last time I touched any LEGO at all, until recently. I've been getting the urge to acquire some LEGO for a while now. In fact I showed most uncharacteristic restraint, but I finally gave in to the urges and picked up some older Technic sets from ebay. I've not really experimented with Studless design at all - my initial reaction to it was "this is not LEGO Technic", but I'm somewhat open to it now. I prefer the square look of studded building though, even if it offers slightly more limited possibilities. I might be inclined to incorporate a few studless-type pieces into a design as a minority of the total parts if they enabled my ideas, but really studless doesn't appeal to me, aesthetically. I find that unlike in my youth, models from ranges other than Technic are appealing to me. LEGO Star Wars didn't even exist when I was a young 'un! I'm not inclined to go crazy ordering every set that there is, but I would like to snag a few things from the Star Wars range, and maybe some other ranges too. I'm not entire familiar with the current division of themes, so I'm really not too sure what I want. I'll probably still limit myself to just one or two themes to avoid stretching the budget too much. Right now I'm exploring the possibilities rebrickable has to offer, trying to see if I can pick up enough 'loose parts' to make the models from extra sets without having to spend too much. I've discovered bricklink, which is great. Building up a good pile of spare parts in addition to whatever sets I buy definitely seems a good way to go. Before I go... why can't I view profiles or send PMs?