Legoist

3) Ignacia Village by quy - 1 point 7) Temple of Amset Ra by Gabe - 3 points 13) Attack on the Nile by Yatkuu - 1 point 20) The Walking Pyramid by Sandy - 1 point 32) The Final Ruins by Jalkow - 1 point

Tervetuloa!

S4 is already everywhere here in Finland, since a couple of weeks ago. S3 can still be found in some of the stores who haven't sold all of their bags yet, but has mostly disappeared (it was on clearance at 1.5e in some chains just before the arrival of S4). S2 can still be found... if you know where to look for ;) Thanks a lot for your dots sheets! So it was true after all what I speculated in the other thread, that the EU dots pattern are often the reverse of the US ones...

Thanks for the review! I am not a Lego pirate fan, and I look at pirate sets mostly for interesting and useful parts. While I think the new PoTC theme is very good in this regard, I think this set is one of the least interesting of the bunch. And that's it, because in terms of building there is even less... Even the minifig accessories aren't convincing me. At least the minifigs are plenty and great (pity tho, that I avoid fleshies, and I really find the new skeleton legs "wrong"), and some colours here are unusual. But all considered, I can't think of this set any better than "below average".

Thank you for the perfect review! This is exactly the kind of reviews we need most, you have highlighted so many details, good or bad, that we now know the set inside out :) I can't decide on a vote tho... I'm not an expert of pirates sets, and frankly all large sized Lego pirates ships always looked fantastic to me.

Lovely vignette! There just isn't a single detail that doesn't look great. If I have to pick a highlight, I'd choose the floor for its unusual colours.

I would need a spare house to do such layout Good work! About the naming of stations, how about using simple words in a language that is not yours? For instance if you're german-speaking you could give them very simple names like Chateâu, Camembert, Paix... or maybe combine two of them like Chateâu-Paix. I understand that for a lot of people this sounds like a lame choice. But consider that there ARE small villages named like objects or food (the latter because the food originated from it). For example in Italy I know a small town called Paese, which means... "town"! And another called Alberi ("trees"). Then there is of course the town of Gorgonzola. Here in Finland there is a town called Nokia and so on...

Hi lightningtiger, is the whole shelf at the exhibition your own? Honestly I have to tell you I'm not impressed, because it's mostly a selection of official Lego sets displayed, and not even with at least a significant arrangement. They're just gathered up on a table... BUT Those custom shops and the custom locomotive are very nice. Especially the tyre shop is really great! (here it can't be seen but I've checked its own thread before) So why don't you try to bring only MOCs to this kind of exhibition? You have the skills and I think it would be so much more interesting!

Interesting observations... I am personally more interested in MOCs like you, and I have no "collecting" interest at all, but I do fall for pretty sets often My issue is that if I buy a really good-looking set, I won't have the heart of dismantling it to re-use its parts in MOCs, and I will be over-protective with the set in fear of losing some parts which are not easy to replace. This happened to me for instance with the Emerald Night. It's got a lot of fantastic parts for MOCing, but I can't tear it down... so it sits on a shelf for display, and that means its value for money in my case was actually less than the average set the content of which gets used over and over and over. There are two ways of dealing with this problem: either buy multiple copies of the best sets (so you can build one and keep it "MINT" and use the parts from the others for MOCing) which is of course quite expensive, or simply avoid them. This is more or less the reason why I have never bought modular buildings: they all look absolutely fantastic AND they are made of excellent parts for MOCing, but with their high prices* I feel uneasy on buying them for parts. I don't own any Star Wars sets but I think they are also good for parts but have exactly the same issue. *consider that I almost never buy a set at full retail price, I always wait for significant discounts, so for me Exclusive sets bought from S&H (therefore with higher-than-average retail prices AND shipping) easily cost twice my average

This is indeed a good point. Not to mention that a lot of people have much more expensive and/or destructive/immoral hobbies, they just don't call them "hobbies". In many ways, sport cars and motorbikes are toys, and one of them can cost more than a lifetime Lego collection. Why should we be childish and they "adults"? And then to think that there are people whose real hobby is heavy drinking or cheating on their wifes

My wife obviously knows it, but that's it... I asked her not to tell around. When our children are old enough so that nobody knows who exactly is playing with what, and it will seem that we're just playing all together, then it'll be easier to tell friends and collegues. Actually, I don't think my problem is feeling ashamed of the hobby itself, but feeling ashamed that I'm yet not good enough at it... If I could make locomotives as good as Sava the Aggie's, then I'll have no problems telling the whole world Edit: I realized that "ashamed" is really a strong word, I don't feel that bad about the hobby! Just a little embarassed... And I second that my embarassment is because of the current results...

Ooo... a "veggie vig", always love them

Those types of sets are really good for the youngest kids, because they have a mix of basic bricks and non-basic but clearly identified bricks (wheels, windows, doors...) and they come with minifigs which all kids like a lot. Our daughter (3.5 yo) has played so far with some random selection of basic bricks from my wife's childhood (all mine were lost...) plus the Advent Calendar and some collectable minifigs. She loves the minifigs because she makes up lots of stories with them, and then she just freely builds some random stuff with the other parts. She could not follow instructions yet, so if you buy a set with instructions be prepared to build it for your son but don't try too hard to make him understand. Building something original is not as easy as it may seem I suggest the following: - play with your son or watch him play, and you'll get ideas on how to use individual pieces in a creative way - buy some small-medium sets from the Creator line, which always have multiple models and are a great exercise; also their pieces will be always useful later - copy from others' creations on this forum Stay here for a while and soon you'll get enough Lego fever (but stay calm, don't go on a shopping spree too soon) and lots of inspirations - you'll probably like many themes, but I suggest to start with one theme only so that all your bricks from different purchases will be easy to mix

Great vignette! My favourite detail is your creative use for the ice skates

Thanks a lot for the link to instructions! With the set being so expensive (130e in Finland, as usual the most expensive of EU), I wasn't really planning to buy it... otherwise I know I'll never have the heart to dismantle it to build something else. But I was indeed planning to build at least the locomotive, in alternative colours, since I don't have the BNSF either and their design is very cool.

It's quite rare, but this wasn't the first time I've seen such super discount. Here it may happen in cheap retail shop chains (typically stores selling house warez but not food) with recently discontinued sets. 7642 and 7633 are in fact discontinued, as they have been removed from the catalog in 2011, so probably they were just rushing to clear their shelf space and wanted to get rid of the last few boxes.

Dino_Bot, I didn't check your auctions on eBay because I'm not interested, but if you sell stuff on eBay do not put a high starting price. You should be confident that you will sell your Lego at a fair price even if you put a 1$ starting price for a huge set, at least as long as your set is complete an in good conditions. Actually, if you put a high starting price, many people will think you're just a young kid trying to milk money from other young kid. But if you put 1$ as a starting price, you'll attract a lot of customers hoping to get a good deal, but if at least 2-3 customers start competing for the item, you will sell it for a good price anyway*. Just trust the eBay mechanism, and put a long enough auction deadline, e.g. one week. If you're afraid it won't work, start with only 1 auction of a small-mid item and see how it goes. *not as high as if you sell it on Bricklink but that could take ages to sell, while in eBay you will sell it by your auction's deadline. Also generally speaking, you can be confident you'll make good money from Star Wars sets, but not the others.

I checked and 8$ for 1 minifigure called "custom" but really just a combo of parts from different collectable series 4 minifigs (which cost 2$ each) is not a reasonable price. IMHO For Castle minifigs I would just look for current sets on retail shops, particularly the smaller sets which have, and wait for shop discounts. (Unless you're really really wanting minifigs only and don't want any spare brick)

Same reasons as you, plus the members post GREAT creations and reviews. I suppose they post the same creations on brickshelf etc. but I prefer to watch stuff here, and the reviews of EB are vastly superior (for me they've been very useful to understand which sets to buy or not to buy). The only thing I don't like about EB is that I get tired of posting "Wow your MOC is fantastic" to almost every thread

Went for my second run with Series 4... using the "touch & feel" method I correctly identified the Artist and the Punk Rocker (and also two Sailors, but didn't get them). Then I bought a third pack randomly and it was the Ice Skater. NONE of these matched the dot patterns. BUT... I suddenly realized that some of the patterns are exactly reversed I was looking at the dots from the back of the bag (where it is so much easier compared to the front, which has printings on top of the dots). This is what I've always done with Series 3 codes. Maybe the guy who did the new code sheet was looking at the dots from the front? This is what I've found so far: - Kimono Girl => pattern reversed - Punk Rocker => pattern reversed - Ice Skater => pattern reversed - Hockey Player => pattern reversed - Garden Gnome => pattern reversed - Sailor => pattern reversed - Werewolf => pattern reversed but 1 extra dot to the left (same as in ScrypT's post) - Surfer Girl => pattern reversed but 1 extra dot to the left and 1 less to the right - Artist => hard to tell because it had lots of smudges -------------------------------------------------------- I think the Kimono Girl and the Punk Rocker are the easiest to "touch & feel", you can't miss the gown and the guitar respectively. The Surfer Girl should be easy because of the surf, but I wasn't sure (could have been the skateboard). I was sure of the Artist because I luckily isolated the brush (but could not feel the palette). The Sailors were also ok, once you get to isolate the monocular. The Ice Skater was impossible for me to guess. I could not find or identify at all the two I thought would be easiest: the Gnome (for the fishing rod) and the Hockey Player (for the stick) Just to share... Edit: added the Werewolf, very hard for me to isolate the bone, but once managed it's much easier to recognize by touch compared to what I thought

If you don't close a deal for the whole lot (but with such low price I think you will), the next best thing for you is to start selling the best sets you have, such as the modular houses. These have a high value and you can always get more than you paid for them (if they are discontinued); sell them on eBay if you want to sell them quickly, or on BrickLink or directly here if you want to make some more money. Then once you've sold your most valuable sets, you can re-think whether to sell all the rest in one lot or continue with your next-best sets if you still have time to spend on selling.

My collection is still very much a critical miss.

How old are you?

I think it would make a very nice small addition to any town, and the colour scheme for some reason just screams "tyres" to me!

I'm a "purist" just like you say, but I would make an exception for something that is meant to complement the TLG products offer, such as these rails by ME or stuff made by BrickForge or BigBenBricks, rather than being competitors. I haven't thought about ME rails yet tho... I'm not in need of metal rails per-se, since I don't use 9V, but I'd certainly dig the new geometries.