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Subject: 
Re: Fwd from a builder: Colors don't match, among other things!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.general, lugnet.dear-lego
Date: 
Mon, 17 Nov 2003 19:38:38 GMT
Viewed: 
6974 times
  
In lugnet.general, Joe Meno wrote:
   Hi all,

This is from a friend of mine, Gareth Bowler:

Got into my first 2004 sets today; the MINI star destroyer set, and promptly scrapped them for parts, only to find, to my shock and dismay, that the colors don’t match. Further more, the studs are rounded, making connections significantly weaker, and the parts overall just have a cheaper feel to them.



The two parts labelled “old” are both from 2003 sets, and have never had a chance to yellow or been exposed to sunlight. The photo was not altered in any way and is the raw output from my scanner.

Color me.. disappointed.

I think it’s kind of entertaining that several folks have counseled either a ‘wait and see’ approach or that they personally were just going to sit back and see how it pans out. Honestly, what choice do we have? TLC has said on numerous occaisons that AFOLs are just not a big enough market segment. Given that, then we shouldn’t factor into this decision much if at all. If we write letters or whatever.. seems unlikely we will get an answer (hopefully I’m wrong on that).

I’m not convinced that the color change or chamfering is based on anything other than economics. I’m can’t see why tweaking colors will sell more lego to the 8yr old boy market segment. Perhaps the chamfering (if it’s there) shaves 1/1000 of the weight of the brick (stretching here).. ? Saved weight means less plastic and saves money?

In terms of color, perhaps they are trying to make the colors more stable or perhaps they subcontracted and that’s how they came out. It seems they have had other subcontracting problems such as the train wheels. However, someone posted that they had word from an insider that it was intentional.. and there was more to come... that was the most ominous/worrisome non-information on this topic!

Perhaps cheaper dies or cheaper process that affects the color are the cause?

I just have to believe it’s direct production ecnomics more than anything else.

On a side note, I came across some mega blocks I had from the early 1990’s. This set had light yellow, dark red and navy blue. To my knowledge TLC only introduced these in fairly recent times. Is that true? Or were those out by TLC even at that time?

I concur with the sentiment that the two grays are colors they really should not mess with. A lighter brown.. okay, I often desire a color between tan and brown. I would much rather see them just transition the use of the basic colros to alternate if color shifting is a goal of some kind -- like light yellow for regular yellow. It is interesting that sets like knockturn alley and privets drive have almost none of the historic basic lego colors in them.

Even if this is some short term glitch in the subcontracting or whatever, then there is still the hassle that peeron and bricklink will probably need to address this. Also, knowing what you are getting on ebay is a hassle already, is it faded, is it light or dark etc. some of the images are horrible.

If someone could get a solid answer out of lego -- seems that’s all we can try for at this point.

Ken



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Fwd from a builder: Colors don't match, among other things!
 
(...) Are you serious??? If by "big enough" they mean more than 50% of the actual head-count, they may be right... but I'd bet anything that if they looked at the bottom line, how much money gets spent, they'd find that more is spent annually on (...) (21 years ago, 17-Nov-03, to lugnet.general, lugnet.dear-lego)

Message is in Reply To:
  Fwd from a builder: Colors don't match, among other things!
 
Hi all, This is from a friend of mine, Gareth Bowler: Got into my first 2004 sets today; the MINI star destroyer set, and promptly scrapped them for parts, only to find, to my shock and dismay, that the colors don't match. Further more, the studs (...) (21 years ago, 15-Nov-03, to lugnet.general, lugnet.dear-lego, FTX) !! 

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