fred67

$350 is too much for me, too. I've never paid more than $200, and even then that was very difficult for me. They don't even seem to give you any bonus economy of parts for buying large sets. I love the MOC, but I honestly only want a facade anyway.

That's awesome! I need to get cracking... I have a few ideas, but yours is really cool.

@kelceycoe, I understand I could get away cheaper buying Velma and Daphne separately, but using your own logic it would be cheaper to buy the mansion and sell it (minus Daphne and Velma) for, say, $60 (if that were possible); in fact, it seems a lot of S.D. fans would love to max-out their mansions with some expansion, but wouldn't need figure duplicates. Some people who missed the MF Haunted Mansion and just want something fun for a Halloween display would be more than happy with it - I know I would. Going further along my lines of thought, consider this - Daphne is actually selling for only around $11 on bricklink; Velma for less than $20. No need to buy from Mexico or anywhere else. I missed the Haunted Mansion (and will not pay the going price for one), so I get a mansion and a bunch of other figures for $60 - a bargain (and, as you point out, can still sell Shaggy and Scooby). If I want to go as cheap as possible, I can get both for $31 on bricklink - but you get a LOT of extra value for $60 more. If you're looking for value, and not just "what's the least expensive way to do this," it's clear it's better to buy the set than paying $20 for a single figure. It's doubly true if the mansion is appealing. I never said it wasn't appealing, just that it's not an iconic Scooby Doo set - that if you want something to reminisce about Scooby Doo, or something someone like me would put in their office (I actually work for Turner Broadcasting - which includes Cartoon Network, so a LOT of people have stuff like this in their offices), the Mystery Machine is the only set that is iconically Scooby Doo. EDIT: I guess, in a nutshell, I'm saying that I think you're conflating economy with value. I'm not necessarily looking for economy, I'm looking for value.

+1 Darkdragon for Daphne!

Threads like this usually don't close unless the OP asks; the OP should generally come back and edit the post or something after the set's been either sold or they decided to withdraw the offer. It should be pretty obvious, though, if you pay attention to the dates, that the post really isn't valid anymore... you're close to three years from the original post.

It's not that the mansion is lacking in features, it's that the only universally iconic set is the Mystery Machine. I explained why that's losing idea in my post.

^^ Agree the Mystery Machine is "the" set for someone that wants some Scooby Doo memorabilia, but you need Daphne and Velma. I think the Mystery Mansion is not necessarily a great representation of S.D., but it seems like a great set on it's own, and I really want Velma (I actually want to give the Mystery Machine along with Daphne and Velma to a friend of mine, but I also want them myself). The only way to get Velma is to spend $20 for a single figure on bricklink, or $90 to get both figures and a whole lot more in the set.

Sometimes it's a little effort... sometimes it's a LOT. I don't mind building my own things if I can get the pieces, but the way they build most sets these days (most) is with very specific pieces, making it hard to accumulate a lot of certain basic building bricks in certain colors - for example, a thousand 1x2 in LBG for castle builders. I know, I know - bricklink. That's everybody's answer to that problem, but while bricklink is great (and this year I spent more at bricklink than on new sets from TLG), it's just not all that, and to get a lot of bricks in a specific color like that is unduly expensive when TLG could release a "castle bucket." As the OP pointed out for various other themes, too - a pirate bucket, a western bucket - that could include more brown and ship pieces or something (although, in this context, a castle bucket makes more sense). That's the "AFOL" version, if you ask me, and suitable for kids, too. And my guess (and I admit it's only my feeling on it) is that such buckets would sell very well - the same way the doors and roof slope sets sold VERY quickly (and, in fact, I never once saw them in the store - my local LEGO store was always sold out, as was S@H). My guess is they know it would sell... but they'd rather us buying 20 sets we don't need for certain pieces than one set with what we really want. I get it - it's business, but I do think we have a right to say something about it.

Those are the worst looking minions I've ever seen. They're not even yellow.

I'm not happy with the compressed air cans - they do run out, they're not exactly free. I've been toying with getting a compressor, but they're expensive. I buy cans of compressed air at a warehouse club in six packs. You can't use them very long - the cans start getting cold, the air pressure drops - no, I don't intentionally shake the cans, but I tend to wave the can back and forth as I'm dusting. But... while I've done a lot to clean off the smaller things off my shelves (like putting away the minifigures that come with the modulars), they really do come in handy on my occasional cleanings.

I just built the Mystery Machine last night; I didn't see a Eurobricks review. It's disappointingly.... small... I guess. For $30 I thought it'd be a bit more substantial. I guess that's LEGO pricing these days. Still think it's awesome, and still looking for the mansion.

You can get extra soft toothbrushes... unless you ground it into the LEGO, it will not scratch. So I use compressed air, if that doesn't get it, I use an extra soft toothbrush.

A few price adjustments; added a couple dozen polybags, updated list of haves/wants.

I bought the Enterprise shown in the first post - Woot.com had a sale on it one day, it was like half off. It's not that bad, but it's really not very good, either... and the Kre-O figures are terrible.

Neat idea! I'll make a minifigure with shotgun, and we can put the two together.

^^ Gives "brain freeze" a whole new meaning.

I basically started off in LEGO as an adult with trains, but having been 10 when Star Wars came out, it's always been a love of mine, so I eventually started getting a lot of Star Wars OT sets, a few other licensed sets when I saw they were on sale (Indiana Jones, for example). I got a large creator crane truck because I thought it was cool and would go with the trains, and so I started buying things I could use to build a city for the trains, like modular buildings - although the city sets seemed too simple, so I didn't really get those. Being a LOTR fan, I started getting into Castle when they had the Fantasy Era; architecture when it was just those four original sets, Harry Potter during the last era of those sets, Modulars, CMFs, LOTR/Hobbit, Simpsons, Pirates of the Caribbean, as well as just picking up anything I thought was really cool or fun (that was reasonably priced), or had some ridiculously cheap clearance price. Then I had that happen. Moreover, I felt I was spending WAY too much money on LEGO, so I cut WAY back. While I bought a few non-Fantasy era castle sets, I decided to mostly stop buying castle; the architecture buildings got too big and expensive, so I cut them out. I don't need multiple ships, so unless they release a Star Wars OT ship I don't have, I don't buy any. Most of the licensed themes I liked ended... So now it's CMF, Modular, a slightly more than passing interest in Super Heroes (just figures, really). I would say "Trains," but I don't like the train sets they've released lately, so it's mainly creator trains when they release one every few years. There's a few various other things, but I spend about 1/6th what I used to spend on LEGO. Well... in new sets, I do spend more on bricklink for parts. That, too. I want the Scooby Doo crew - not all the sets, but the Mystery Machine and the gang. I picked up a "tow-mater" from Cars, who is now hiding out in a driveway of one of my LEGO houses. I got an Alien Invaders set I thought was fun, and also a Pharaoh's Quest set; Monster Fighters for the Zombies. But I'm not "in" to those themes, there was just some stuff I liked... some Ideas sets, too.

Nice build; I like the changes, including the roof; I do miss the "portholes" though. For the record, I "won" a Sante Fe auction some time ago, but had to bricklink the cars, as they were just far too expensive. The big culprit piece is: Light Gray. $3 minimum, and you need 14 of them for the Super Chief, 32 of them for one of the cars. When I did the cars, I used LBG, because that was the color that was available - but TLG had only limited releases in LBG; it wasn't for sale on PAB, and nobody on BL had any decent quantity. So I had to come up with alternate roofs. Although I had some good plans, I ended up just using this piece in black, which was abundantly available. But now this piece in LGB is abundantly available, too, directly from S@H.

^^ reminds me of when some schools painted Disney murals; you could do this in your private residence, but not a public school or business. Disney threatened to sue them - Hanna Barbara stepped in and let them use their characters on the school murals for free. The more you tighten your grip, the more systems will slip through your fingers.

Thanks for the advice. Superheroes are kind of a side hobby.... I really don't even know why I started, but I ended up with a few and started a display... now I have three display cases with figures. I only just saw Winter Soldier, and while I recently did a trade for the Winter Soldier, I didn't even know about Falcon. Knowing there was no figure for him, I started looking around at what others were doing. I even built a wanted list at bricklink for various heads and torsos.... But now I see there are Civil War sets coming next spring, and in the Marvel 2016 thread, they say there will be Falcon (as well as others... I still don't have Black Widow). So I think I'm going to go with that.

Made a new trade; updated list of haves and wants, and condensed my CMF and trading posts into this one thread.

Thanks. They don't really have the right colors though, do they. Wonder if it's time to paint. Not something I really like doing.

Sorry to revive an old thread. I just saw Winter Soldier for the first time last night; I already had the official Winter Solider figures, but after seeing the movie I would like to make a movie version of Falcon as well (another what-the-heck why didn't TLG make one moment). The Pharaoh's Quest wings are absolutely awesome, IMO, but completely the wrong color. Wondering what wings those are in the OP.

So the game doesn't specifically mention "Anansi," she just turns into a giant spider? That makes more sense (in as much as something like morphing into a giant spider can make sense).

The Xanth series of books started in the late 70s; I was just wondering because there's a character "Jonathan the Zombie Master" who can reanimate the dead.