Lego Appreciation Thread (split off from Random Raves XLII)

[really]

I has this castle - it is smaller than I remember. Other big sets I had were a governors harbour from the pirates series, a cargo ship and an airport. I probably played with it for longer than most and never made the socially acceptable leap to Technics at the time.

As an adult I got the Lego Technics big digger? Excavator? And bulldozer.
I enjoyed putting them together but due to a small change in my life I had to put those away. Now I play with Duplo.

I read an article about how kids play with Lego these days and yes it has changed.

One thing I don't like has been the genderisation of it. Lego Friends aimed at girls might not be with the rest of the Lego aisle.

 

[timtofly]

I still have the first Technics set (the blue go-cart) I purchased myself with my money. It was not huge, but it fit in both hands when assembled. I put it together so many times, that I memorized the steps, and the pieces no longer stuck to each other.

The sets of the 2000's. No longer had nice storage slots, the instructions were easily lost, and they all got jumbled together so you had to put them together your own way after a while.

 

[Kyriakos]

I has this castle - it is smaller than I remember. Other big sets I had were a governors harbour from the pirates series, a cargo ship and an airport. I probably played with it for longer than most and never made the socially acceptable leap to Technics at the time.

As an adult I got the Lego Technics big digger? Excavator? And bulldozer.
I enjoyed putting them together but due to a small change in my life I had to put those away. Now I play with Duplo.

I read an article about how kids play with Lego these days and yes it has changed.

One thing I don't like has been the genderisation of it. Lego Friends aimed at girls might not be with the rest of the Lego aisle.

Those black-and-blue soldiers were my favourite

I was always annoyed that my own castle set apparently had soldiers from 3 or 4 different factions, all sharing the castle. Maybe it was a crusade

Nowdays you can get custom 3d-printer produced lego sets, so the buildings look authentic, instead of ridiculously generic as those in the past...

 

[warpus]

What city set should I get next? I'm open for almost any type of set, but don't think I want to spend more than $50 or so for my next one. Wouldn't mind some sort of a building or something like that, so it feels more like a town and not just a bunch of random buildings (edit: errr I meant vehicles not buildings), but I'm open to anything.

 

[Kyriakos]

What city set should I get next? I'm open for almost any type of set, but don't think I want to spend more than $50 or so for my next one. Wouldn't mind some sort of a building or something like that, so it feels more like a town and not just a bunch of random buildings, but I'm open to anything.

Why just city, and not the City?
eg Byzantine cataphract set or greek fire set ^^

 

[Lexicus]

Did anyone else build the real sets once and then destroy them and build their own things?

I was always annoyed that my own castle set apparently had soldiers from 3 or 4 different factions, all sharing the castle. Maybe it was a crusade

I always rearranged the minifigs in a way that avoided this problem.

 

[warpus]

Those are cool and I could include them in my city in a LARP or museum type capacity, but I'm more interested in expanding my city for now

 

[PhroX]

Did anyone else build the real sets once and then destroy them and build their own things?

You mean there are people who don't do that? Isn't the entire point of LEGO to rebuild it into whatever you want?

 

[Lexicus]

You mean there are people who don't do that? Isn't the entire point of LEGO to rebuild it into whatever you want?

I don't know, people aren't really talking about the awesome stuff they built themselves so I want to nudge the convo that way.

 

[timtofly]

What city set should I get next? I'm open for almost any type of set, but don't think I want to spend more than $50 or so for my next one. Wouldn't mind some sort of a building or something like that, so it feels more like a town and not just a bunch of random buildings (edit: errr I meant vehicles not buildings), but I'm open to anything.

They used to have square base plates that had various style roads on them. Unless that is too predetermined for some here.

It has been over a year since I visited toys r us. Which had the largest selection out of any other store chain. I have no clue what is even available these days. I always liked the semi or every day utility vehicles available, to show the town was being maintained and taken care of. When it comes to buildings how many different styles of police and fire stations can a town accommodate? I think they even had a hospital a few times. But as pointed out, mix and match parts and create your own imagined city and set of vehicles.

There are trains, planes, shipping ports, airports, and all kinds of ships as well, I guess available somewhere for a price.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Those are cool and I could include them in my city in a LARP or museum type capacity, but I'm more interested in expanding my city for now

Do you mean elements of a city, or actual buildings?

I found these on Amazon.ca.

It's a lot more than $50, but if you want a spaceport...

 

[warpus]

@timtofly Yeah I do want to buy some of those plates! But first I need to have enough sets to warrant such a thing.

@Valka D'Ur I love some of those, but I want to stick to CITY stuff, so that it's all to scale. A lot of this stuff seems to be not to scale - but it does look great. As for that space shuttle.. that seems way overpriced!

 

[Takhisis]

Just buy a lot of legos and build a new city/space structure/castle/giant death robot, man. The possibilities are endless.

You can't make no proper castle with a box of assorted rainbow colored rectangular and square shaped legos.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

@timtofly Yeah I do want to buy some of those plates! But first I need to have enough sets to warrant such a thing.

@Valka D'Ur I love some of those, but I want to stick to CITY stuff, so that it's all to scale. A lot of this stuff seems to be not to scale - but it does look great. As for that space shuttle.. that seems way overpriced!

It's Amazon. Some of the prices on that site are insane. One of the books I've been hunting for the past 35 years is listed at over $2000. I don't want it that bad. Ditto the James Burke "Day the Universe Changed" DVD sets. I'm willing to pay in the tens, but not in the hundreds.

Mind you, so are Walmart's prices on some things. I placed an order for some cat supplies last night. Needless to say I did NOT order the litter scoop that was priced at nearly $39.00.

I googled "LEGO CITY" and came up with this stuff on chapters.indigo.ca:

bus station

beach

There are more things, but I have no idea what you're interested in.

 

[Kyriakos]

I had a medieval castle too but I can't find it on the internets.

But I did have this badass pirate ship.

It's funny cause my parents had saved them both and took them out a few years ago for my niece and nephew. Was fun playing with them again.

I was envious of some classmate who had literally at least a hundred british redcoat lego soldiers, and other sets of the era -- including the pirate ship. Only large lego set i had was the black castle i posted (we were 12 at the time, and actually i wasn't into lego for 2-3 years by then, cause i got sucked into using my Amstrad and then Amiga computer and left all other toys ). Even prior to that (elementary) i mostly had playmobil, various castles, a pirate ship and city stuff. But tens of other types/brands of toys, eg plastic soldiers (various eras), action-figures (he-man, gijoe), and more idiosyncratic sets*. But - unfortunately - my toys would be thrown out from time to time (traumatic :/ ) so i never actually would accumulate vast numbers of them.

*"Code-zero" were my favourite game in the final year of elementary, and i had a few of the sets (not all of the following; eg the huge base i played with at some classmate's house)

The funny thing with Code-zero was that the 'evil side' had primitive tech, eg a ww1 plane, a school-bus, and goon foot-soldiers

 

[warpus]

It's Amazon. Some of the prices on that site are insane. One of the books I've been hunting for the past 35 years is listed at over $2000. I don't want it that bad. Ditto the James Burke "Day the Universe Changed" DVD sets. I'm willing to pay in the tens, but not in the hundreds.

Mind you, so are Walmart's prices on some things. I placed an order for some cat supplies last night. Needless to say I did NOT order the litter scoop that was priced at nearly $39.00.

I googled "LEGO CITY" and came up with this stuff on chapters.indigo.ca:

bus station

beach

There are more things, but I have no idea what you're interested in.

Looking for a good bang for my buck mainly, I guess. For instance the bus station one seems like you're paying a lot for not that many pieces. For $20 I bought a similarly sized set (it was smaller but not by much) , and a bunch of the pieces are interesting pieces that I could use in new designs. So that seemed like a good deal to me.

If the cost is right and the pieces are interesting, and it's something that would make a cool addition to my city, then I'd consider buying it. I don't want to specify trains or planes or whatever, because I do want a variety of stuff in there and all I've got right now is a truck and 2 dune buggies

It seems some sets cost more because they're rare. I'm not a collector so I'm trying not to pay collector prices. I'm just a kid who wants LEGOS

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Looking for a good bang for my buck mainly, I guess. For instance the bus station one seems like you're paying a lot for not that many pieces. For $20 I bought a similarly sized set (it was smaller but not by much) , and a bunch of the pieces are interesting pieces that I could use in new designs. So that seemed like a good deal to me.

If the cost is right and the pieces are interesting, and it's something that would make a cool addition to my city, then I'd consider buying it. I don't want to specify trains or planes or whatever, because I do want a variety of stuff in there and all I've got right now is a truck and 2 dune buggies

It seems some sets cost more because they're rare. I'm not a collector so I'm not trying to pay collector prices. I'm just a kid who wants LEGOS

In that case, have you tried eBay? Some sellers sell individual pieces (in packages of whatever number).

Of course, the exchange rate and shipping would be a lot, but if you found a seller willing to work with you, you can sometimes negotiate a good deal.

 

[warpus]

I have done some digging and it seems that for LEGOs prices for sets are more or less.. set. In that there seems to be a "going rate" for specific sets and everybody seems to stick to that, with rare exceptions.

I found a site where you can buy and trade LEGOs in Canada, but the prices were the same as amazon (for what I looked at). One benefit was that you could buy individual blocks.. if you happen to lose a block or need one for a design or whatever

 

[FriendlyFire]

i got sucked into using my Amstrad and then Amiga computer and left all other toys )

I didnt have lego so I was super jealous of all the other kids, mostly played with some cheap plastic soldiers until I got an Amiga which was like mana from the Heavens

 

[warpus]

In communist Poland I played with sticks and my favourite toy was my bike. My standards were low so now life is amazing