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The gray traction tires on my 7722 train are cracked and brittle. Would the ones from the seller mentioned above work for this model? hoeij mentioned derailment problems if they're too thick; do these seller's tires work well?

Tested with the multimeter, and all of the battery boxes seem to be in working order. I gave all of the metal contacts a good scrubbing with rubbing alcohol, and they seem to be working much better. The lights still have some problems at times, probably just need to keep scrubbing a few more times.

Mods, please move this post to the correct area if it doesn't belong here. My light & sound sets are in both the space and town themes, so I figured I'd post to the general forum as opposed to a specific theme. I have several light & sound battery boxes (http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/4760c01), plate pieces with the built in electrical contacts (http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/4758), lights, sirens, etc. They've been sitting in a (relatively) sealed plastic storage bin in a basement for the past 20 years or so. I recently dug them out, popped a new battery in, and tried to test them out. I tried all combinations of the 4 battery boxes, with the different lights and sirens, and none of them seemed to work. I took one of the boxes and cleaned the contact area with some rubbing alcohol and a cotton swab. I also cleaned the contacts on one of the lights and siren pieces. I managed to get the lights working, although it is very finicky. You have to press it on just right, and if you nudge it, it'll go out again. Same with the siren, it has to be fiddled with before it'll work. Has anyone had issues with their light & sound pieces like this, and how did you fix them? I'm assuming that the contacts are just dirty or corroded with age, can someone suggest a cleaning product to use in order to restore these pieces? I'm afraid that certain cleaning products, like the electrical contact cleaner you can buy at Radio Shack, might discolor or damage the plastic.

I don't see this as the downfall of Lego. Even if printers come down in price so that it's affordable for the general consumer, I'd have to believe that it would still be expensive to print out any Lego set with a reasonable part count. Lego has economies of scale going for it. It can buy raw materials (plastic) in bulk. A set that Lego sells for $50 might cost $100 to print on a 3d printer at home. So I don't see this as affecting the *new* Lego market. However, as mentioned above, I can see it affecting the secondary market by producing bootleg versions of popular retired sets. Since these go for 3 or 4 times the original selling price, it would be cost effective to print it out, and sell it as genuine.

The stiffness seemed to be ok, but honestly I don't know what they'd feel like "brand new" right now, as the set is over 20 years old. They feel stiff enough, and hold their shape quite well on the masts. The red color didn't fade at all. I've used this techique to get stains out of regular clothes in the past, I've never had a problem with colors bleeding or fading. If you want your sails stiffer, you could spray them with a bit of starch before your iron.

I had some age spots (aka mildew) on some of my sails for my Black Seas Barracuda. I soaked them in oxyclean overnight, they look brand new now. Just give them a good soak, rinse, and then iron right away so that they don't become wrinkled. I did put a cloth between the sails and the iron just in case.

Great looking sets, must have been a lot of fun to build. Before you go and make an offer, maybe a conversation with the owner is in order. I'm not sure what stage of life they're in, but when I was in my dark ages I didn't give two thoughts about my old Lego. If someone came along and offered me hundreds of dollars to take my collection, I probably would have sold it. Now that I'm older, have some stepkids (and another child on the way), and have been bitten by the Lego bug again, I'm very thankful that my parents had the foresight to seal up all of my Lego and stash it away for me instead of getting rid of it. I have a lot of fun building my old sets and reliving childhood memories, and also get a kick showing my stepkids my old toys. I think it would be a nice courtesy from one AFOL to another potential AFOL who might not realize how much they'll want their Lego down the road. Of course, after that if they still want to sell make a reasonable offer. I'm kind of in the middle on the raised baseplates. I would prefer that they were brick built, but that would add a lot of bricks to a set just to build up the base of the main building (like Eldorado), and drive up the cost of the set. I really wish the ramps on them were studded though. They're just a useless waste of space the way they are now. You can't put minifigures on it, or vehicles because they'll fall off or roll down. And you can't build anything on them.

I like the early sets too. They have that classic sci fi feel to them, and I liked the mix of parts. Plenty of basic bricks, and the specialized pieces like wing plates, radar dishes, etc were all extremely useful for MOCing. The closest thing to space in the current lineup is Galaxy Squad, which is based around nothing but conflict with aliens. I'm not a big fan of sets like that, I like the peaceful explorers (why is there no spaceman smiley? that needs to be included for this forum!) I agree, I think these sets really did fit in with the sci fi that was coming out at that time with Star Wars, Star Trek, etc. I also liked the sets that included the trans green canopies and pieces, but for some reason I never had any of those in my collection.

Great restoration, thanks for sharing. This makes me want to get out all of my classic space sets too. I'm hoping they don't need as much cleanup as this, they've been stored in my parent's basement in covered plastic bins for the last few decades. The Galaxy Explorer was a little before my time, as I started playing with Lego in the mid-80's, but I do remember it as some of my friends had it in their collections. I always loved that trans yellow, gray, and blue color scheme.

I used this retr0bright method on a used Eldorado Fortress. The parts were all yellowed like yours are. Having the bricks in the solution for 24 hours with a UV light on them made them all bright white again. Some of them are still a little yellowed, but I'm going to do another round of retr0bright on them to see if they can get brighter.

When building MOCs as a kid, I always paid attention to details like colors as I wanted to make sure my models looked realistic. I was lucky enough to have a ton of bricks growing up, so I rarely ran out of a color I needed. I was like this with all aspects of my building. If I were putting jet engines or other parts on a sci fi spaceship, I needed to have a story in my head as to what function it served. I guess it was a bit of OCD coming out, and I still build that way 20 years later When I watch my 5 yr old stepson building, he builds the complete opposite way. His models have random colors and parts on them, but he always has a story about what it is. Everyone's imagination is different, and I love watching him build those "rainbow MOCs."

I think a common trap afol's fall into when coming out of their dark age is spending a lot in a very short amount of time. The combination of discovering new sets that interest you, as well as wanting to buy older sets that you missed out on can become costly. I admit I splurged a bit when I rediscovered Lego, but now I only purchase Lego out of my "hobby" budget. Set yourself up with a Lego budget, keep to it, and enjoy building again

I think this was a bit of an over-reaction regarding this sticker. Yes, it's distasteful but sometimes things slip through the cracks in a large company, especially something like this that is farmed out. I've been playing with and buying Lego for most of my life and I've never come across anything remotely sexist like this in any set or ad coming out of the company.

Older Lego has a tendency to turn a yellowish color due to a chemical reaction with oxygen and certain chemicals in the plastic, mostly noticeable in white, gray, and blue bricks. Retr0bright is a solution of hydrogen peroxide and oxyclean. Put your bricks in the solution, expose it to UV light, leave for 24 hours, and the yellow disappears leaving you with bricks looking like new. I bought Eldorado very cheap because the white bricks were yellowed, and I figured I would try this trick in order to restore it. Worked great! http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com/

I'm guilty of "biting" Lego when I was younger, but as stated above it was to help separate stuck bricks and not to see what they taste like. This was before the days of fancy brick separators. I used teeth, butter knives, anything I could use to get a little leverage on something that was really stuck. Kids just don't think about leaving marks on bricks, they just want those things separated! Luckily much of my old Lego is in very good condition due to my slight tendency towards OCD behaviors . Anything too chewed up is easily replaced via bricklink.

Glad to hear that you got reacquainted with your old sets. I'm currently in the process of rescuing mine from my parent's basement. The pirate sets were among my favorites as a kid, so I rescued them first. I have: 6235 - Buried Treasure 6245 - Harbor Sentry 6270 - Forbidden Island 6274 - Caribbean Clipper (technically my bro's, so it's "on loan") 6285 - Black Seas Barracuda I always wanted 6276 - El Dorado Fortress, it is such a cool fortress. I managed to find a very "well loved" but complete set on ebay for a pretty reasonable price. After much cleaning and a retr0bright session (works like a charm, no more yellowed pieces!) it looks as pretty close to new for such an old set. It looks awesome next to my other sets.

I don't collect based on a theme, I just buy sets I find interesting. When I was a kid I asked for space and pirates sets pretty exclusively, so my collection consists mostly of those. But as an afol I just buy what I think will look nice on my desk. It's all up to you. It's your collection, and that's the beauty of Lego!

When I look at the 2013 King's Castle pictures, it looks a lot like the older castles structurally, like Black Monarch's Castle. Lego seems to keep the same basic design for the large castle sets, and just tweaks the colors and accessories here and there. I agree, these are not very exciting sets from an afol perspective, but a lot of the older (80's/90's) castle sets weren't any more detailed, just different. Personally, I don't like the color scheme Lego used, the blue and red accents on the castle, etc. However, Lego must have done their research and received a positive response on the colors from children. I'm hoping for a big King's Castle style Lego Exclusive set, similar in style with the joust/MMV sets with brick built walls and lots of interior details.. I'm sure we'll get one eventually.

Cardinal, it seems like you have the same issue with Lego that I had when I came back into it. I have fond memories of Lego from the 80's and early 90's, when the main Lego themes were town, space, castle, and pirates. I will fully admit that I was unimpressed by what Lego had to offer the first time I walked down the Lego aisle at TrU as an afol. It seems like Lego as a company has moved away from making "models" that look interesting and have interesting build techniques, and towards "action" toys with more play features that shoot things across the room. It must be doing well for the company, since they continue to move in that direction and those types of toys must be what the kids are into today. However, I'm glad that Lego still produces nice sets in their exclusive series. These sets get to the core of what Lego was about: a good solid building experience, and a nice looking model once you're done. The Imperial Flagship and Medieval Market Village are great examples of this. These are directed towards afol, so I feel like the company has both groups of fans in mind when creating sets. As for licensed themes, I think they are fine if done well. Star Wars and Lord of the Rings have been great and I feel they do the source material justice. I haven't looked into the other licensed sets because I'm just not into their themes. I can't see how you can say that Lego has been neglecting their own IP by focusing on the licenses. I see tons of city, chima, galaxy explorers, etc on the shelves. Maybe, like me, you're just not into them? I don't think Lego necessarily has the adult fan in mind with those sets.

I like the way the pipe/antennae pieces are used as greebles on the 9495 Y-Wing model. I also like the use of the empty clip pieces. http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Gold-Leader-s-Y-Wing-Starfighter-9495

Yes, the 10210 was the first new set I purchased after coming out of my dark age. I paid well over retail for it, but I'm glad I have it and didn't wait too long as it's going for even more money now than what I paid. I haven't had the time to build it yet unfortunately. Since it's new it'll definitely have a different "feel" to it, and won't have the nostalgia factor that BSB has, but I think it still captures that charm the older pirate sets have. It's time to make new Lego memories as an adult collector! I already had BSB, Caribbean Clipper, Forbidden Island, and Harbor Sentry from when i was a kid. I just bought a used Eldorado Fortress, which is a set I always wanted back then, and also the smaller Imperial Flagship. Once all are completed I should have a nice little Lego pirate scene displayed!

I agree with the reviewer, the designer probably wanted to have this be 2 separate models, the land based cannon and a row boat for the officer, but Lego made them incorporate it into one model. Having cannons on rowboats just looks silly, one shot and that tiny dinghy would be blown to bits!

This set kicked off my Lego Pirates obsession! I got it as a gift (can't remember who gave it to me, parents probably), and it came with that flyer that showed the other sets. Mine must have been earlier because it featured the Black Seas Barracuda and Forbidden Island. I loved this set, it was small but very different at the time, especially the minifigure. I begged for the Barracuda and got it that Christmas! Let's just say that battles between it and the harbor sentry were anticlimactic This is true, I was in the Lego club and you did get a free set for your birthday. Granted, it was a very small set around the size of the harbor sentry, but hey it's free Lego!

Awesome, thanks for the info! I'm definitely going to keep on the lookout for these later this year. Do you know if they sell these are retail stores like Target, or just at the Lego store?

As a huge Ice and Fire fan (and Lego) fan, I thought this was awesome! The book has been out for over a decade, and that episode is over 2 years old. We shouldn't be concerned with spoilers anymore, although the title should probably be changed.