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In lugnet.announce, Suzanne D. Rich writes:
> There's a new TLC press release at:
>
> http://www.lego.com/info/press.asp
>
> here's the good stuff:
>
> http://www.lego.com/press/
>
> -Suz
This is excellent news!
I can see an excellent possibility with the release of instructions on-line,
perhaps there will be a 'Buy the parts for this set' button along with each
set's instructions? i.e. they might essentially end up re-releasing old sets?
It all depends on which bricks you will be able to buy, all types or just
traditional ones? It would be great if LEGO could confirm the answer to this.
Ben.
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How about LEGO stickers? Will actual ones be available?
Dan
dandman1@concentric.net
In lugnet.lego.direct, Ben Rogers writes:
>
> This is excellent news!
>
> I can see an excellent possibility with the release of instructions on-line,
> perhaps there will be a 'Buy the parts for this set' button along with each
> set's instructions? i.e. they might essentially end up re-releasing old sets?
>
> It all depends on which bricks you will be able to buy, all types or just
> traditional ones? It would be great if LEGO could confirm the answer to this.
>
> Ben.
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Daniel W. Gregg writes:
> How about LEGO stickers? Will actual ones be available?
>
> Dan
> dandman1@concentric.net
> I can see an excellent possibility with the release of instructions on-line,
> perhaps there will be a 'Buy the parts for this set' button along with each
> set's instructions? i.e. they might essentially end up re-releasing old sets?
>
> It all depends on which bricks you will be able to buy, all types or just
> traditional ones? It would be great if LEGO could confirm the answer to this.
>
> Ben.
If they would even issue PDFs of the stickers so that they were scaled
properly, that would be awesome. I'd print them out myself on the color printer
and use them. The custom generator for the Silver Champion stickers doesn't
work at all: they are not in proportion and the text engine does not work
correctly (text is flipped).
As for being able to buy all of the necessary parts and instructions for
hard-to-find kits, I'm both happy and sad. I'm happy in that great kits like
the Airtech Claw Rig (8868) would be, in essence, available new again at a rate
MUCH less than the currently going price of US$300 on eBay. I'm sad, however
that this will hurt eBay Lego trading of older kits. Personally, I buy to
build, not to collect or for an investment, so I would just as soon buy a
custom kit from Lego S@H for an 8868 at around US$140 than I would buy it
original for US$300 on eBay.
Also, I fear this will actually continue the "juniorization" trend to the
extreme. I see custom pieces going by the wayside, so we might not see an 8880
be available in it's purest form because of the four custom suspension
"buckets" used in the 4WD component (and in no other kits from what I
remember). Lego will either have to pay their model makers to adapt the old
instructions to the currently available elements, or offer "upgrade kits" that
have the additional components necessary to complete an older kit.
- Sean
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Sean Harrington writes:
> As for being able to buy all of the necessary parts and instructions for
> hard-to-find kits, I'm both happy and sad. I'm happy in that great kits like
> the Airtech Claw Rig (8868) would be, in essence, available new again at a
> rate
> MUCH less than the currently going price of US$300 on eBay. I'm sad, however
> that this will hurt eBay Lego trading of older kits. Personally, I buy to
> build, not to collect or for an investment, so I would just as soon buy a
> custom kit from Lego S@H for an 8868 at around US$140 than I would buy it
> original for US$300 on eBay.
If you do buy sets purely to build with, why does the eBay market getting hurt
make you sad?
I buy sets only to build with, and hurting the eBay market makes me neither
happy nor sad. The only thing I see in it is that I can finally buy sets and
pieces that I want at a price that cuts out the middleman, and therefore is as
inexpensive as possible. Especially considering that I would theoretically be
able to design a "set" that had only the pieces in it that I wanted/needed,
elminating the need to buy a large set for a handful of pieces.
And I'll let you in on a secret: Collectors will always find something to
collect. Let's say I want a Metroliner and a Club car (which, at times, I
have- but not at current prices). In this Utopia we're all imagining is
coming, I can go online and "create" the Metroliner, and buy it from LEGO. But
I won't get the box, or the original instructions, or anything. And that is
what the collectors will go after, leaving people who just want the bricks for
building, like you and me, to just buy the bricks. It will create two totally
seperate markets, instead of one shared one.
eric
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Just keep a good watch on ebay, especially ebay.de.
I managed to pick up a Metroliner, Club Car, 4539, extra circle of track, 10 extra
straight track sections, and 2 track switches. No boxes, but all instructions.
Cost? $160 SHIPPED from Germany to the US. This was only about 2 months ago.
Lorbaat wrote:
> And I'll let you in on a secret: Collectors will always find something to
> collect. Let's say I want a Metroliner and a Club car (which, at times, I
> have- but not at current prices).
--
| Tom Stangl, Technical Support Netscape Communications Corp
| Please do not associate my personal views with my employer
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Tom Stangl writes:
> Just keep a good watch on ebay, especially ebay.de.
>
> I managed to pick up a Metroliner, Club Car, 4539, extra circle of track, 10
> extra
> straight track sections, and 2 track switches. No boxes, but all
> instructions.
>
> Cost? $160 SHIPPED from Germany to the US. This was only about 2 months ago.
Well. Certainly that is a good thing for you, but it's also an exceedingly
rare occurance.
It also kinda misses the point of what I was writing, which is not "I want a
Metroliner but don't want to pay"; rather, it was that with two collector's
markets going after the same items, the prices gets driven up.
I and many other people don't *care* if a set is the "original" set, in boxes
and with instructions and inserts. I personally only care about getting the
elements and building.
There are people, though, who like to collect sets.
Up until a short time ago, if I decided I needed grey train windows, I was also
competing with set collectors who had decided they wanted the most prized LEGO
set (in some circles). Now, those of us who just want the elements can buy
them from LEGO Direct, while folks who want to collect the old set can still
buy that- and there are enough of them that it won't *seriously* devalue the
Metroliner set, even if LEGO went so far as to re-release a la the
Metrostation/Retrostation.
eric
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Eric Joslin writes:
> If you do buy sets purely to build with, why does the eBay market getting hurt
> make you sad?
>
> eric
I guess, because I attribute my newly re-acquired AFOL status to being able to
get the sets I missed on eBay. Now that I can afford them, I'm glad that eBay
exists, and that people still trade MISB kits.
On the other hand, you're also right, in that I'd rather not go through the
heartache of having to throw away a box for a set (not enough room for the
Legos, let alone the boxes). What will be interesting though, is to see if we
will ever get to a TRUE per-part cost, and if that cost goes down if purchased
in quantity. I'm not talking about bricks or other elements that are easy for
Lego to manufacture: I'm talking about elements from multi-part molds and which
require assembly and/or painting for completion.
So, if in 2002 we get to the point where you can buy the Silver Champion either
as the whole kit or as a collection of custom parts, which will be more
expensive, the 8458 Silver Champion box or the "brown box" version? I have a
sense that the "brown box" version will be more expensive, mostly because Lego
will only be able to scale down to parts bags, not to individual elements
(except in special cases like turntables or other complex parts).
Right now, if you order a Lego Mosaic with a light grey background and only one
"pixel" each of the other four shades (white, grey, dark grey, and black), you
will get several bags of the light grey, but you will get no less than one bag
each of the four one-pixel colors (white, grey, dark grey, and black). This
means that you're getting 89 extra pieces of each of the four colors that you
won't use for the mosaic, right?
So, if you want to buy a "brown box" Silver Champion, you will probably have
many more extra pieces that you won't have in the 8458 Silver Champion kit.
That, by default, will almost surely increase the cost, even though Lego
doesn't have to pay for the expensive box and vacu-formed seperators, etc.
Then again, Lego may again start pre-packaging parts kits specific to older
kits. Who knows. It will be fun to watch...
- Sean
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