fred67

I wrote your BL account; I need to hear back from you soon or I need to un-PENDING the set.

I'm sure she saw something like "2 boxes of 60 units" and did good 'ole American High School math. (sorry; yes, I'm an American and a public high school graduate). I'm wondering if anyone knows where I can order a case in the U.S. without markup (or even a discount). If it was somewhere in this thread then I must have missed it (I do recall seeing some that were over MSRP). I'm not nearly as anxious as I was with the second and third series... my LEGO store still has S3 and S4 still available, but while I think series 5 is awesome, I just don't feel like standing in the store feeling up packets. I'd rather sit back with a beer and feel up minifigures while watching porn The Simpsons in the comfort of my own living room.

See my latest post.

For future reference, replies by private messages are better/preferred, but since others may be interested in the pictures... I will try to answer your question about shipping in a PM. Naboo Fighter, set 10026; in sealed box with minor shelf wear... tiny crease (visible in larger picture - click the images). DSCF0847 by FredJH, on Flickr DSCF0848 by FredJH, on Flickr OK... can't answer in PM because it's your first post, which makes me wary, but shipping to Belgium should be no more than $30.00. I can be more specific if you are really interested.

Lowered prices on just about everything.

More Amazon selective garbage... $30.54 for me. Still a good deal, but I thought they stopped doing that.

Oh... I don't know. If it's really supposed to be some sort of Scottish Highlander, it wouldn't be very detailed. Interesting idea... guess I'm just not very creative. I wouldn't mind some female elves, too... Edit: Hand's backwards on the highlander... just saying (I know, it's a matter of point of view).

LOL at the butcher!!! I love the butcher!!! I can't wait to see what people with with those accessories and zombies! See, I think this is why TLG (and LEGO in general) is so ingenious... they can't outwardly give us themes like Resident Evil, but they give you enough to do it yourselves. Ditto Lord of the Rings and the fantasy era sets. I can't think of why I'd want the Statue of Liberty... maybe a microscale city MOC. The skater is fine with me, they should have done a female skater before doing two male ones, but whatever... Now you can do a great Highlander MOC... maybe using the last skaters torso for the Kurgan. All in all, even with only knowing about half the figures, looks like a great series!

Look in the CMF trading portal thread... pick up some extra series 5 and you can trade yourself into some of the older ones perhaps. Edit: link to thread.

See my latest post.

That Statue of Liberty will be the next Architecture set. It will have a couple hundred pieces as a base, and cost $99.00US. . . . Ok, not really. Looks very good. I think, from my American perspective, they are releasing these at the wrong times; the graduate, for example, should have been released in the last series so people could give them as gifts for spring graduation. The Statue of Liberty should have been released for Independence Day. From an American perspective, it's like releasing a Santa Clause in February.

I've found that, especially for certain pieces and colors in quantity, the S@H PAB price can be a lot better. It may not beat the lowest BL prices (sometimes it actually does, though), but sellers with higher quantities often are the highest prices on BL and multiple orders can kill you on shipping - LEGO S@H starts looking very reasonable by comparison.

On the first question, I'd say it's both, but this drop is really more coinciding with ME's release and the subsequent reviews letting people know that it works well. As to the second point, I don't think it does, because 9V is simply not being made anymore. It might just increase the demand for 9V parts, ultimately, since staying with 9V instead of changing just got a whole lot cheaper.

What program are you using? I think if you capture in GIMP you could "onion skin" by fiddling with transparencies, but that would be really tedious.

And, of course, LEGO is making table-top roll playing games (Heroica)... four games so far), even if not to the caliber of Warhammer or DND. There's also "brickquest." LEGO does own the rights to many of it's parts... the patents on basic bricks may have expired, but anything relatively new will still have patents. I've been using LEGO to play DND with my son and his friends as opposed to "wasting" money on the DND figures they want you to buy, as well as the dungeon tile sets they sell.

Got two cups last time I went... Cup 1: Barrels x72 Reddish Brown 2x6 plates x37 Trans-black 1x2 bricks x72 Reddish Brown Windows w/ Rounded Top x38 Reddish Brown 2x4 Bricks x3 Small Leaves x3 Grass x24 Flower Sprues x3 Lime 1x1 x89 Green 1x2 x62 --- TOTAL: 441 Cup 2 (I was rushing by this point): Reddish Brown 2x6 Plates x17 Reddish Brown 2x4 Bricks x46 Reddish Brown 2x6 Bricks x8 Green 1x2 Brick x12 Small Leaves x8 Grass x7 Light Green 6x12 Plates x12 Lime 1x4 Bricks x16 Lime 1x1 Bricks x89 Trans-black 1x2 Bricks x15 Red Flower Sprue x1 --- TOTAL 216

I tried for a while to have blocks of bricks put together to both save room and help me count (I'd have stacks of 5 or 10), but I've since decided not to do it that way and actively have taken them apart. I've seen too many stories recently of people complaining of cracked bricks from remaining under stress, and it just prompted me to sort better and get more storage.

My home owners insurance limits more than cover the contents of my home, but in order to prove it I am in the process of taking a lot of pictures and storing them online. I don't know how I'd value BL and PAB pieces... I have no idea what my collection is worth. The individually bought pieces are easily several thousand dollars. Definitely looking forward to hearing what others have to say about this.

Bricklink has really helped me, too. Aside from this tool, I'd look up a part in the catalog and click on the link that shows you which sets that piece is available in.... that takes you right to sets and, if you see one that looks like you might have the other pieces, you can immediately go and look at that set's inventory.

No doubt... it's the most "worth it" set by an objective measure... but on top of everything else I buy, $20 is easily do-able, $100 is pushing my limit; $200 is just "no." It's not like getting a modular building that fits in with the other modular buildings (the architecture series are not anywhere near scale with each other), and sets that can be used in conjunction with other sets in vignettes and train layouts and so forth. It's really just a very nice conversation piece. I just sold a Green Grocer to someone in Australia... shipping was like $75, but if the box was a few inches bigger it would have been a LOT more... enough to kill the deal. In fact, the guy at the post office told me the box (marginally larger than the set box... really couldn't be any smaller) was too big, but I could take the chance and it'd probably go through. If you re-box, an Ausie would do well to have a U.S. contact. For the record - parcel post, FedEx, USPS... all over $400 shipping. I just barely made priority international for about $75. If there was also tariffs, that could be a factor, too, but I don't know if there was or not.

It's not entirely lost on me that we've been looking for the "magic" $0.10/piece price ratio since... well... since I came out of my dark ages about 10 years ago. I have a few things I try to objectively value sets, but it's impossible, but it does make some sets that look like bad deals seem not too bad at all, while other sets seem even worse. At some point, you HAVE to subjectively say "but some pieces are worth more than others." I don't think prices are any worse than they were 10 years ago when you adjust for inflation. LEGO is expensive, IMO, and it always has been. I didn't buy it when I couldn't afford it... that's all there is to it. Ultimately, no matter how "logical" you want to be about it, it's entirely subjective and either worth it to you or not. I'll tell you where I'm getting a bit disappointed... the architecture series. It started out as a premium priced (relative to the pieces you got) series. $20 seemed ridiculous for the Sears Tower and Empire State Building... but it was a nice niche and something serious us architecture fans could display in our offices and so forth, and it was "only" $20. I've kept up with each one until now, but now the next set will be $200.00. Sorry... not going to happen. I just can't see me buying that set. I get so much more from modular buildings costing $50 less, and they're only one a year, so I can afford to keep up without difficulty. I will add this, too... at my peak I was spending upwards of $6k/year on LEGO (more I think, but I didn't keep very good track and certainly don't want to admit it to my wife). It was ridiculous... I was buying every Star Wars set that came out, Modular, Trains, Castle, any many other various sets from Creator and other themes, plus pick a brick and brick link... Now I'm about half that and falling... haven't bought Star Wars (except a second hand B-Wing here on EB) this year; a couple castle sets... and even though I very much like POTC, I decided there's no way I'd go all in like I'd done with other themes... I got a couple of the cheaper sets, and that's it... if I can get QAR on sale, I'll consider it. I got the Emerald Night and Maersk trains, but no sets, and no intentions to - I simply haven't seen any complete sets I liked in years. Even track I'm getting from ME now... you won't sell straight separate? I'm glad the community came through. But then I'm an AFOL, so TLG doesn't much care... that's fine, I probably spend too much already... in a way, they're doing me a favor. I'll still be spending a lot on LEGO.

Dead... and replaced with something else. What is Hero Factory except more fleshed out Bionicle (a better Bionicle) with a new story? I don't think Bionicles will come back, but that style of building will probably stay around for some time, regardless of the "theme." And 9V died, but trains didn't... there were replacements. I'm not saying they'll bring monorail back, but I do believe that when LEGO says "dead," they mean: we have no plans to bring it back and, if we do bring it back, it'll be different.

We will then turn the most popular characters into an exclusive LEGO Minifigure set, only available to LEGO VIPs! So... sounds like they'll take the "x" most popular characters (probably 3 or 5) and make a set. So... I wouldn't pay $15 to get an Elf and four characters I don't want any more of. It would be better if they made a real set based around the character.

Got it... 6:30pm EST, voted for the Elf, of course... force them to finish the fantasy line instead of leaving us hanging!!! Edit: It does sound like they'll just make a figure set... but what's the point if we already have our favorite one?

Uuuhhggg... it's beautiful, and the price/piece is the best in the architecture line so far - better than a lot of other sets, but I need to start thinking about stopping buying this line if they start topping $200... I mean, that's more on the order of an Eiffel Tower or London Bridge than an architecture set.