Vee

Interesting. I never thought about looking at it this way, the parts. But then I also noticed that it is not uncommon, rather actually common, that Lego uses at least one never-before-released part in new sets, usually a part that exists but with a color that never existed before but also sometimes parts that never existed. I don't know how difficult and costly it may be to reuse a part that was "retired" but it should not be worse than releasing a brand new never before released part. The thing is that I believe there is a more than big enough amount of Lego fans that would buy those modulars because they became too famous and that Lego would never lose money, on the opposite, they would make more money in each of those sets if they were re-released than probably they make with new smaller sets that they keep flooding us with. These modular buildings are premium sets, they are expensive, they never get discounted, which means they give Lego high profits. Also, they don't need to re-release them exactly as they were, they could well adapt them to current molds and they would still look just as nice. They could release improved versions of them, buildings that look similar but have better interior and small adaptations for missing parts that they don't want to bring back from retirement.

I know there is no way to know what Lego is going to do and I know that chances of it happening are slim at best but as I am seeing a few, well a couple, of Lego sets being re-released, like the Death Star and the Winter Village Toy Shop, both re-released recently although slightly different from their originals, I was wondering if Lego would ever re-release one of the three first modular buildings, Cafe Corner, Market Street or Green Grocer. I guess they will never do it, it would make the parallel/secondary market mad at them. But I have hope, one day it may happen. Lego is a mean company...

Now I know why tan and dark tan tiles have become so expensive... :-) It is very interesting and massive but unfortunately I still prefer to look at the modular buildings in their original sizes. This very same city square with more variety of modular buildings would look nicer to me. All I would do is, as new modular buildings are released by Lego, I would reduce the size of one doubled building to its original 32x32 size, and make room for the new one, also at 32x32 (although the newest one, to be released yet, is, I think, 32x48.

A very very simple MOD: the Bridge of Sigh must be between buildings!.

I had the opportunity to see the Ole Kirk's house, in Billund. It was sort of a disappointment, I was expecting to find it in some isolated part of the city but found it right there in the town center, mixed with stores, very near where they are building what will be the Lego House. And the house now is like the end of a much bigger building that it is part of. Anyway, it closes my short Lego Dark Age nicely ("Lego Dark Age" for me, opposed to what should be the norm, is the time I _was_ addicted to Lego). Sunset in Billund, Denmark, Easter Sunday, 2014, street where Ole Kirk's house is located. The "famous" lions in front of what was the Ole Kirk's house, now a Lego museum.

WHOA! I don't know if it's normal but I wonder how long did it take for you to go through 1384 million possibilities. I usually gave up much sooner and try to figure out a way to "help" the application by pinpointing the "problem" (usually some rare parts). Oh you just said, more than half a day...whoa, that is a lot of patience on your part.

Hahaha, yes, maybe it is time... Despite its age, it has only 65k miles.

Fishy definition as given by a Google search: 2. informal arousing feelings of doubt or suspicion. I could not have used a better word. No retracting from me. I am actually glad that these "unexplainable" parts exist in BL, and I may have even bought some of them (although I try my best to avoid them but sometimes... well... human weakness...) since it is the only way us mere mortals can have (very expensive) access to them but I still don't like what I see as a principle. I would never get jealous over a Lego thing, it is just not me. There are much better reasons to get jealous although I don't remember the last time I got jealous. Oh, no, I remember, when my wife, still as my girlfriend, a few decades ago, started what I thought getting interested in another man. Fortunately, I was wrong..

It may be insulting but it is what I think and you just made my point clearer to me since you offer no real explanation on the methods to getting these "special" colors from TLG. I understand that you want to keep it safe, keep it secret, but while it is safe and secret, it will look fishy and suspicious to me, and I can't help it since I have no good info and reason to make me think otherwise.

I was expecting to find a MOC of my car:

I always found very suspicious that some BL sellers have these "rare" and NEW parts, parts with colors that were never released to the public. For me, it does not matter how they managed to get them, there is something fishy and very wrong about it.

This is weird...

http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/end_early.html#fees "... ... Ending an auction-style listing early once it has received a bid can lead to disappointed and frustrated buyers who may be less likely to bid on listings the next time around, so you may be charged a fee if you end a listing early. This fee is equal to the final value fee (not including shipping charges) you would have paid if the listing had ended on its own and sold for the highest bid received when you ended the listing.... ..."

My strategy with ebay: - if I want the item so much and it has no bid yet, I will place the first bid at the minimum price just to avoid the seller from removing the listing; while the listing has no bids, the seller can always remove it and I have seen listings being removed quite often which drove me mad because I wanted to try to win the item; - if there are bids already, wait for the last seconds, no need for an application to help you because you need to figure out what is the maximum value you want to pay for the item such that even if you lose it for 10 cents of dollar, you will not regret. That is what I do. Once I have my highest value, I wait patiently for the last seconds, literally, like 5 seconds before the end, and I will place my bid. If I win, great, if I am outbid, no regrets, decision had been made before. This is the best way for me because it avoids me from playing the "bidding game", when you lose for some some cents or dollars and you get mad and you just start placing higher bids, higher than you would place in a normal state of mind, just for the sake of winning (damn stupid human nature). But, usually, what happens is that before the end of the auction, price will already be higher than the highest amount that I was willing to pay so I just give up. Also, as said here million times, those that bid before the last minute, days in advance, are dumb people that only help the seller and ebay itself by driving the price up (again the damn stupid human nature). I have seen many zero feedback buyers driving prices up like crazy by placing bids after bids until they are "winning". They are either very stupid dumb people or the seller him/herself artificially driving the price up. ebay is a great place to buy stuff, you just need to know how to use it and never lose your mind to the "bidding game".

Having lived for half a century now, I think I stopped swooshing a long time ago.