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In lugnet.color, Ross Crawford wrote:
> I still question the assertions people make about reduced quality - I still
> have many of the bricks I purchased in the late 60s and 70s, and they have
> colour differences, the edges don't line up exactly, and stacks of the same
> number of bricks are different heights. I would contend that the quality is
> {NOT} decreasing, it's just that we, as adults, notice the differences much
> more than we did as kids.
It's dropping-- not by huge leaps and bounds as people might lead you to
believe, but it's dropping. But there's not much I can say other than "it's
worse than it was before". I compare elements molded in roughly 1999 to elements
molded today, and there's a difference.
The color variations are probably the worst offenders, though. The differences
in heights, etc, really don't seem that severe to me, although I can tell the
difference when I'm looking for them. The color variants are bad though.
Sometimes individual elements are darker on one side than on the other.
With dark green, for instance, I bought a bunch of 1x4? bricks from my local
PAB, and built a wall out of them. It was interesting because the bricks formed
a very distinct pattern of variation, where all the lower right corners (or
left, whatever) were lighter than the bricks adjacent to them. Wasn't just one
or two, but the pattern repeated throughout the entire wall (maybe 80 bricks or
so).
> I have a collection that is probably pretty average around here, 100-200K or
> so, and I have only had:
>
> * 2 <http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=102288 badly molded
> bricks>
> * 1 incorrectly packaged set
> * 1 <http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/x1144 part> that fitted loosely
I've had 12 sets containing errors with a ~540K collection.
They used to be amazingly good. But errors have increased in frequency so much
that I started needing to keep track. I used to know every single mistake I had
ever received in a Lego set, and could recite them for you instantly because
they were so memorable. Now I find I'm forgetting all the sets that I've
purchased that contained errors, so I've made a list that I'm maintaining.
This data isn't perfectly accurate with respect to *exactly* how many sets I've
purchased per year (some of these were used when I bought them, so they weren't
MISB), but it's increasingly accurate until you get to about 1996, after which
point I'm not sure I've ever bought a used set, so it should be perfectly
accurate for my collection. Anyway, ignoring the stuff I *know* isn't valid
(pre-1980):
Year - #Sets - #Mistakes - % Errors
1980 - 1 - 0 mistakes - 0%
1981 - 5 - 0 mistakes - 0%
1982 - 2 - 0 mistakes - 0%
1983 - 6 - 0 mistakes - 0%
1984 - 22 - 0 mistakes - 0%
1985 - 12 - 0 mistakes - 0%
1986 - 24 - 0 mistakes - 0%
1987 - 26 - 0 mistakes - 0%
1988 - 10 - 0 mistakes - 0%
1989 - 11 - 0 mistakes - 0%
1990 - 14 - 0 mistakes - 0%
1991 - 34 - 0 mistakes - 0%
1992 - 19 - 0 mistakes - 0%
1993 - 38 - 0 mistakes - 0%
1994 - 27 - 0 mistakes - 0%
1995 - 30 - 0 mistakes - 0%
1996 - 41 - 0 mistakes - 0%
1997 - 79 - 0 mistakes - 0%
1998 - 112 - 1 mistake - 0.89% (broken elements)
1999 - 173 - 2 mistakes - 1.15% (missing element, broken element)
2000 - 353 - 0 mistakes - 0%
2001 - 156 - 0 mistakes - 0%
2002 - 218 - 0 mistakes - 0%
2003 - 179 - 0 mistakes - 0%
2004 - 228 - 1 mistake - 0.44% (missing element)
2005 - 109 - 0 mistakes - 0%
2006 - 100 - 4 mistakes - 4% (missing elements)
2007 - 85 - 2 mistakes - 2.35% (missing elements)
2008 - 23 - 3 mistakes - 13.04% (missing elements, malformed element)
Technically, there were 6 sets I purchased with mistakes in 2001 (would make it
3.85% error rate), but these were all Guarded Inn's, which were initially
packaged with the incorrect horse (Indian printing on it instead of plain
white). That was an error, but not strictly a packing error, omission, or broken
element. Plus, I bought 4 of them *knowing* (and with Lego knowing) that they
contained the error, so it would definitely be wrong to count those 4 against
the track record. That'd bring it to 1.28% if you wanted to count those.
Not included are some elements that ... "broke" in normal assembly, such as some
2003 1x2 tiles that had a hairline fracture down the short end when being
assembled onto hollow studded elements. I've noticed this a few times since, but
it's so difficult to see that I haven't really kept track of these sorts of
problems.
I also recall that a friend of mine received an incorrect element in a 1987
(could've sworn it was 1988) copy of the 6990 Monorail Transport System. At the
time, I was amazed at hearing this because I had nearly 100 sets total, and had
never had an error.
DaveE
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In lugnet.color, David Eaton wrote:
> The color variations are probably the worst offenders, though. The differences
> in heights, etc, really don't seem that severe to me, although I can tell the
> difference when I'm looking for them. The color variants are bad though.
> Sometimes individual elements are darker on one side than on the other.
I believe I read somewhere that the ABS pellets are now transparent, and color
is injected during the moulding process? Whereas before, the pellets came
colored prior to being used. I could be wrong though.
But as for the color variations that people have been reporting over the past
few months, I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the QA people DID realize they
had a large quantity of "less-than-ideal" parts. However, by the time they
discovered this, it was at a critical point of time in the year. It was either
"dump those parts and re-mould them, but disrupt their production cycle
severely" (i.e. lose even more money), or "use them in sets anyway, learn from
this mistake, and make sure it doesn't happen again".
It may be easy for us to make a decision, sitting in front of our computers, but
I bet the person(s) in charge thought long and hard about this before ultimately
going with the latter choice.
-Bryan
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In lugnet.color, Bryan Wong wrote:
> I believe I read somewhere that the ABS pellets are now transparent, and color
> is injected during the moulding process? Whereas before, the pellets came
> colored prior to being used. I could be wrong though.
>
> But as for the color variations that people have been reporting over the past
> few months, I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the QA people DID realize they
> had a large quantity of "less-than-ideal" parts. However, by the time they
> discovered this, it was at a critical point of time in the year. It was either
> "dump those parts and re-mould them, but disrupt their production cycle
> severely" (i.e. lose even more money), or "use them in sets anyway, learn from
> this mistake, and make sure it doesn't happen again".
The keynote speech at Brickworld 2007 by Richard Stollery, the head of LEGO
community, contained these points and specifically mentioned the orange garbage
truck with pieces you could almost see thorough. They had the choice of not
producing a lot of sets or packaging sub-standard parts because there was not
enough time to redo the botched production runs. He stated these parts would
take about a year to flush out of the system. We first noticed them about 8
months ago so quality should get better about 4 months from now. Also stated was
the fact they are keeping a closer watch on QA to ensure this does not happen
again.
Doug
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::snip::
> > I have a collection that is probably pretty average around here, 100-200K or
> > so, and I have only had:
> >
> > * 2 <http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=102288 badly molded
> > bricks>
> > * 1 incorrectly packaged set
> > * 1 <http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/x1144 part> that fitted loosely
>
> I've had 12 sets containing errors with a ~540K collection.
::snip::
I'm sure that packing errors are devastating to kids (who start a model but
can't complete it), but I don't mind so much, in light of how I received at
least 2 bags of extra parts with my new Town Plan! It seems that duplicates
were included for two of the parts bags. The only other packing errors in my
collection that goes back to 1985 or so? Those were in the latest Fire Station
set, the new Creator Townhouse, and Cafe Corner. The statistics would seem to
indicate that something is amiss with the more recent sets. As long as LEGO is
happy to correct these errors, I will not complain much, though.
-Jordan
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In lugnet.color, Jordan Schwarz wrote:
> ::snip::
> > > I have a collection that is probably pretty average around here, 100-200K or
> > > so, and I have only had:
> > >
> > > * 2 <http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=102288 badly molded
> > > bricks>
> > > * 1 incorrectly packaged set
> > > * 1 <http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/x1144 part> that fitted loosely
> >
> > I've had 12 sets containing errors with a ~540K collection.
> ::snip::
>
> I'm sure that packing errors are devastating to kids (who start a model but
> can't complete it), but I don't mind so much, in light of how I received at
> least 2 bags of extra parts with my new Town Plan! It seems that duplicates
> were included for two of the parts bags. The only other packing errors in my
> collection that goes back to 1985 or so? Those were in the latest Fire Station
> set, the new Creator Townhouse, and Cafe Corner. The statistics would seem to
> indicate that something is amiss with the more recent sets. As long as LEGO is
> happy to correct these errors, I will not complain much, though.
I find very few, if no packing errors which always amazes me. Thousands of
parts in a set and they are always perfect. When I build sets with my Grand
daughter she will say this piece or that piece is missing. I tell her to look
harder, she does and then finds it. I think what is being talked about is not
packing errors, but color and tolerence errors. It would not be so noticable
today except that it didn't happen in the past. I have thousands of older sets
and i do not find a problems with color matching in any (except for the red and
yellow small parts made of a different plastic, the air tanks and 1x2 plate
ladders and 1x1 clips and headlight holder.) I have 2200 sets under set number
1000. I have just spent the last 2 years going through them and have not found
a color variation in any. When there was a part missing in my set and I went to
put in a spare to complete it, matching it up to the right era brick, no
variation. It is probably something we will have to live with and it is not as
great a problems as them changing the colors of gray, dark gray and brown. If I
remember, they didn't care about anyones opinion at that time.
John P
>
> -Jordan
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