Deepwoods

I have dozens of em' just so there's always a couple near by (they work better in pairs) . I've seen them in red & yellow but have only green and 3 shades of grey myself. I've heard that there are blue ones out there thou.

being said totally sarcastic... right!

Yikes... summer of 1966 with set #120-2

Definately an essential tool for every builder's toolbox! I've only ever seen them damage the newer more modern plates (softer & thinner plastic, I'll bet) & only if you try & pop long thin plates in one go rather than taking several loosinings along the entire length... older pre-turn-of-the-century stuff seems quite abit more stable. using two separators makes short work of stubron stacked 1x2 plates or when used side-by-each on 1x10s etc.

A couple years ago I ordered the green cargo plane along with a few other sets & at the time they had a deal that gave you a free rubber icecube tray if the total was over $99... of course the boxes arrived without the cargo plane set but it had 12 of the icecube trays I called to inquire about the missing set & also mentioned the 12 icecube trays, the attendant was very helpful & said I could keep the icecube trays free anyway. 6 weeks later the cargo plane set arrived at my door... ...with 12 more rubber icecube trays!!! (I'll bet they made a note on the order suplement that was misread by the packers somewhere) btw, the tray's have since gone to the local girlguides for making chocolates for their community bake sales.

There are some advantages to using credit cards... if you get the right one & use it correctly. Most cards like visa & amex have a 2% cash refund reward on every purchase, that's a bit of a little bonus. Also so long as you pay off the balance monthly you can keep the cash you would have otherwise spent in a high interest savings accn't at 4-5% for the month. You are paying the 2.3% price bump on all retail purchases that accept credit cards anyway so you might as well take advantage of it. (thou some stores will reimburse you their credit fees if you pay in cash... not many thou) also you don't have to carry cash in your wallet. Some banks also give you an additional 1% usage bonus when you transfer funds to pay a credit card balance using their on-line banking facility... so in the long run you make 3% or more back on every purchase + the few cents in savings interest (better if your credit card uses a "don't pay for 6 months on purchases over $200 like the BORG - Big Orange Retail Giant also known as Home Depot)... just don't get too far ahead of yourself.

Humm... I thought that was a pretty common occurance, a few years ago I purchased 100x 7779 Catwoman Pursuit sets & had 12 of them with this same problem. TLG will replace the part free if you call (& of course don't have another replacement request in the previous month)

Agree whole heartedly! The new dark brown is soo "chocolaty" (if that's a word ) it quickly became a favourite as did the dark green & red. ... not so much the dark orange, yuck!

Not an extra, but a replacement... I received an Anakin Skywalker torso in 7241 Fire car instead of the fireman's torso (just didn't quite fit the role so well :-)

The Viking Chess set had a pretty cool box! :-)

We have long term testing underway still... (over 8 months now) Thus far from our testes there has been NO obviously decernable colour change affect on any of the new dbg, lbg, rb, & white (2x4, 1x4 sample bricks & plates of each) (old bricks of representitive colours are also taking part in the same test) Our test are pretty basic - control subject - unopened boxes of sample set containing each new part to be opened for final comparison in 2 years. (stored in downtown office building to replicate the affects of retail storage) - one each of each sample element left on window sill on each side of the house (NEWS) for each level of exposure (standard baseline room temp of 22C, windows are non argon & non UV protected circa 1979 double sliders) - one each of each sample element left outside (wired to firm wooden surface in middle of lawn) (Canadian seasonal changes from -40 wcf to +35C, snow coverage of 3-4 months) - one each of each sample element left under hydroponic "Day Glow" plant starter lights (24/7), variable humidity - one each of each sample element left under UV philatelic lamp (on a timer for 2 hours every 24 period) the following samples are stored on the washing machine & are thus agitated once a week & have average lighting coditions of a suburban basement) - one each of each sample element left in mild solution of soapy water (room temp) - one each of each sample element left in mild solution of 20% vinegar/80% water (room temp) - one each of each sample element left in "Johnson & Jonhson" contact lens saline solution (room temp) the 2x4 brick in Reddish Brown on the Southern exposure window sill and in the vinegar solution may have the slightest hint of colour lightening when a generic sample is held next to it but there's some disagreement between my nephew's 8 year old eyes and my 40+ year old eyes... I just don't see it :-) The old dark grey 1x4 brick and 2x4 plate, old light grey 2x4 & 1x4 bricks in the South facing window have minor but obvious signs of the begining of yellowing (I expected this in the white as well but it's not visible yet) which kinda clouds my previous theroy against the afects of lighting causing the yellowing. It's waay to early for conclusions but local afols suspect that the newer colours (or perhaps ABS material) are more stable than the previous ones - but the old bricks have 12-15 years on them that I wasn't able to find a suitable replication for. BTW each element is untouched even for cleaning (thus dust on the north window bricks and the outdoor bricks is a variable but a ligitimate sample for display models... in our opinion) We'll report back in April...

Having been on BL for about 3 years now I've placed about 300 orders as a buyer (from pretty much every continent) I now generally expect about 20% of orders to have at least some issue with it: either a missing part, wrong part, wrong colour etc. but it's almost always just a silly little mistake on the sellers side & I've never had one not fixed when I've taken the time to report it. those are all forgiveable in my opinion... It's the poor packaging, used maierials and worst of all the jumbled mixing of parts all togeather in a "just collect em & push em out the door" mess that I really hate! As a seller I know how easy it is to find yourself in the "goof-up" trap... - it's soo easy to find yourself reading an order sheet for what you think you've read but perhaps not really what is there. - another good one is to catch yourself looking at the part's picture & missing the text entirely... ohh those new reddish brown parts who's picture is still a generic white piece! soo many times I've been hunting for a white part, given up only to find I didn't read the colour text! - missing the details in the text is a good one too - reading something like a 3x3 inverted dish but picking out a more common & familiar 2x2 - then there's the size/quantity inversion - the order says & you read "black brick 2x8 qty 6" as you repeat this in your head as you go over to the bin shelf somewhere in the 20 foot trip it somehow turns into 8 2x6 instead! - then there's the mis-inventoried parts in the catalogue that are soo close in description they just get misinterpreted. not to mention the constantly changeing of part-out inventories after the fact, that always catchup to you much later! As a seller I appreciate any & all goofs being reported no matter how small - it's the communication that is of the most importance - most sellers want you back & the presentation of the order to you is the best form of an introduction & example of what can be done for you... alternatively haveing the opratunity to fix the inventory is worth it's weight not to have a future order goofed up for someone else as well - even an off-count of a single missing part can cause aingst when that next order comes in & is being fulfilled & you just can't find it! I've spent an hour trying to find something I no longer have - worst case is a trip out the the locals to buy a set that has it at full retail (an $80 set for an 8 cent part - but if the customer is happy - besides so long as there's no deay they never know & you can usually recoup your investment as the other parts sell ... eventually) I myself count everything twice, as it's being pulled from inventory & again as it's packed into the order, even check off the distinguishing text on the order sheet but mistakes still happen when you are trying to push out 8-10 orders a day in the few hours after your real-life job & midnight. (I'm getting better but still miss something every now & then, maybe 1 in 50 orders, but thats all part of the hobby of buying & selling such a diverse inventory) :-)

Being Canadian myself I figured I'd have some input (for my first message on here!) I've had buckets & buckets of lego in long term storage for years (7-8 or more) & this is what I've found... Your general everyday ABS elements are pretty much sound & unaffected by even wc-40 and extream swings in temp from -20 one day to +20 the next seem to be ridden out just fine. HOWEVER: ...there's always a "however" :-) the older cellulous bricks can become noticeably brittler in the cold (not to the point where they will shatter when dropped, but they just feel like they would) elements with stickers will have an unusual effect where the stickers become "dry" and glue that once held them firmly inplace seems to loose allot of it's adheasion & become almost crystalline (eventually the stickers just dry up & fall off) sometimes the sticker will turn a darker colour almost as if there is an oil stain on it? (I have no idea why this happens) (I would assume paper stickers can become a home to mould too) newer elements with printing can loose some crispness around the edges of the print (becomes flakey), I assume this is due to differential expansion of the plastic & the ink - it's not a huge affect but would be noticable to a veteran collector. soft elements like ship's masts, rope bridges, plants & plastic sails do become brittle & begin to show a weird veining in the plastic - kinda looks like the ice crystals you see form on a window in the cold... just not as pretty. These veins are perminent as far as I've been able to experiment with. An additional worse affect on the soft plastic (especially on the rope bridges) is that it tends to de-laminate ie: the outer most surface seems to want to peel off like sunburned skin (yuck - couldn't think of another example) oh yea, transparant portions of plastic sails will begin turn yellow or cloudy. one more affect I've found is that throughout periods of cold changing to warm & back & so on any dust that was on the elements seems to become more fused to the part - it's much harder to clean off but not a perminent affect - I think the humidity changes might allow the dust particles to work themselves deeper into the microscopic poors of the surface. also rubber tires turn a lighter weathered colour much quicker, they just seem to age faster. thin edges like the taper of a ramp, & corners of baseplates become brittle too - they are easily broken if impacted while still cold (again this is not a perminent affect once they warm up) Have a nice day! Andy M.