fyrmedhatt

The castle looks pretty cool, and I love the 20's adventurers style overall, but am I the only one who gets flashbacks to the time cruisers/time twisters theme? There is something a little eclectic about this theme, where they have pieces collected from different themes that give me that vibe, especially when looking at the train set.

This is such a cool idea! We ended giving a bunch of Lego to Toys for Tots this year, but in all honesty this seems like such a personal way of giving to someone, where you will actually see who gets the sets and know how happy you're making them. I'd love to do something similar next year as a group, you guys should feel great as you are truly making someone's holidays special!

I don't know if you are wanting a completely brick-built solution, or if you are willing to use hull pieces. If the latter, this piece could easily give you a nice six-wide bow.

I had a great transaction with 1001 Bricks, and they shipped from France to the US quickly in my eyes, something like a week and a half, which I found to be fast when considering their low shipping prices. The parts I ordered all arrived in great condition as far as I can remember, so I'd recommend them.

I won the same set at an ebay auction with a couple of tiny sets a few months ago, and It's just such a nice set. The whites in this set were super crisp as well, I think it's just the plastic used for this set that is not as prone to yellowing. The one problem I had was severe fading of the red crusader torsos, if yours are pristine count yourself as lucky.

Amen! I'm excited for LoTR, but I'm so sad Kingdoms is going away now, as I think it was the strongest of all Lego's themes in 2010-2011, with awesome sets and minifigures that were just detailed enough to be interesting. I'm just glad I have bought all the sets of the line, and I'm also getting two of the joust sets as well.

I've gotten a 10173 Holiday Train set for the Misses, should be a success as she is a huge fan of the Holiday village sets, and I'm also undecided on whether to pick her up the VW Bus as well, which I'm hesitating about as she has quite expressly said she doesn't want too much Lego.

The helicopter is great, but that ship is truly amazing! I'm absolutely awestruck and I'm extremely exited to see this in real bricks. Awesome job!

They have discontinued a bunch of sets before this christmas, in fact they have been marking lots of items as sold out, and then in some cases setting the status back to available, so I'm fairly certain that if the item is marked as backordered it will be back in stock. The fact that this set is selling so well is great for us as collectors, as it means Lego will release other big sets in the future. I truly think the Death Star is an awesome set, it's a surprisingly interesting build. I'm sure it will be remembered as one of Lego's greatest sets in the future.

They are most likely not coming back. 8038 was already sold out earlier this year, but Lego appears to have produced one last batch due to popular demand, if it's now gone again then it's most likely gone for good. As for 8097 I wouldn't be surpised if it will be discontinued, as most of the Star Wars sets from the summer line of 2010 appear to either have already suffered or is about to suffer the same fate. Either one of those I'd get a hold of as soon as possible, they are both great sets.

The winter village sets are fantastic, and you will not go wrong with them, but do not underestimate the Imperial Flagship. It's a magnificent ship, and probably the greatest of all the pirate ships, in that Lego decided to make a version without the many compromises they usually have to make when making sets for the kids. Remember that this will most likely be your last chance to get this set, it's already marked as sold out in the US so whatever they have left in the S@H stores in Europe is it. I absolutely loved the build personally, and it's a magnificent display piece. Don't worry too much about being a town/train collector, this ship is a lot easier to incorporate into a town layout than the pirate ships. The two sets you should get as soon as possible of your options is the Toy Shop and the Imperial Flagship, and I'll give the advantage to the IF for the reasons above, and the fact that you're probably going to have some more time to pick up the Toy Shop, which is the one Winter Village set that is most likely to disappear first.

I think we can safely say this line sold pretty well, just notice how all the 2010 sets sold out without being discounted, and a good while before christmas too. There is no reason to think that kids disliked the line either, I saw lots of kids pick up the sets, and I don't think AFOLs would be able to pick shelves clean of the sets without the help of KFOLs. The signs are pointing towards some kind of Lego LOTR line by now, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw some images at the toy fairs this spring.

And then you can use the new bottle design for spitting or beer. It's only too bad Lego won't do drugs or alcohol in their designs, as the possibilities would be endless with meth labs, moonshiners and booze runners, as well as pot growers. Rural people really get the shaft when stereotyped, don't they... Anyways, I've built the new ambulance, and have the camper and the garbage truck waiting to get built, and overall I must say I really like them a lot. I agree with what has been said with regards to the overly long instruction manuals, but it's a lot better that juniorization of the pieces, so I'm not going to complain too much.

The reason why these sets are hard to find on Bricklink is that the store opening sets are coveted collectibles, and so they usually sell out quickly unless they are priced at very high prices. The entry for your Indianapolis set is here. Take notice of the price it has sold for in the past 6 months: $200, with additional listings for $175 and $399, it's certainly quite valuable. Most of these sets do not have any exclusive parts, they're simply collectible due to their limited packaging, so keep it mint!

I don't see why these sets will not be released soon, as there is already a Bricklink seller that has several of the minifigures of the line for sale, and no, not the preview figs but the ones included with the sets. While I know nothing of the ways he procured the figures, the fact that they are around is indicative of the production runs are well on their way. Edit: Typo

Amazon is having several Lego-related lightning deals today, it looks like some of the sets on sale will be Lego Champion, Ramses Pyramid, the City Airport as well as 8096 Emperor Palpatine's shuttle.

Managed to pick this one up at my local Hallmark store today, and have to say it's pretty great! They were sold out, and I was allowed to buy the display piece, but the cashiers were saying they might get more shipments in. This is actually not the first Hallmark Lego ornament, just look at this 16 year old piece: Here

Very little, if you consider that most Lego is produced in either Denmark or other EU countries, and thus there would be no tariffs to speak about when exporting to other EU countries. The biggest part of the reason for Lego's low prices in the US is that the US is a low price market where Lego still sees a lot of potential for their products. Germany is currently the number one market for Lego, with less that a fourth of the population of the US. That means that the average German family spends four times as much on Lego as an American family, and the situation is the same for many, if not most Western European countries. In order to create the same market in the US, they've been selling super cheap Lego in order to hook people on their product, before they will later increase their profit margin. The US is also generally a cheap market to sell in, with low labor cost and a massive economies of scale benefit, not to mention lower tax rates, where sales tax is usually 12% or below in many states, as opposed to European countries where it is incorporated in the prices and often goes up to 25%.

I've been wondering about this item for awhile, while I thought it was awesome, I wasn't sure whether the quality was up to par. I'm glad it is, now I just need to get a hold of this. Does anyone know the availability of the product, is it widely available at Hallmark stores, or is it an extremely limited item?

Civilian Lego City always has potential, especially if it's well designed. Lego City is full of fire and police sets, anything that is not part of those subthemes may not be seen again for years or even decades, and thus increases in value as new city builders need to fill their cities with those things that normally fill real-life cities. That was surely the case of the ambulance, it was the first one released in many years, and the only one that actually fits with modern six-wide vehicles, of course now the price will decrease as we have the great new city ambulance as people have already said. Supply and demand is the driving force behind these prices, and the high prices is usually from that sets are wanted by lots of people. I often feel it's too bad other people like the same sets as me!

I think I've just gotten the 3677 Red Cargo Train for $66. I bought it from TRU during last saturdays BOGO50 sale, and I was getting both 3677 and the passenger train for $211 after the discount and the $10 coupon as in-store pickup at my local location. Now the TRU didn't have the passenger train in stock, so they basically gave me the cargo train for an insanely discounted price (almost $100 off!), and according to the customer representative, the order for the passenger train was cancelled.

Too bad I get paid tomorrow, otherwise I'd pick some of them up right now! Looks like the vehicle sets in particular are great value, especially by Toys r'us standards, while the truck/police chase set is a little overpriced. We will see when the reviews come out though to make final judgement, but even that shouldn't be too long. I'm so excited, these sets all look great and are in my eyes a big bump up from the rather depressing summer wave this year.

It looks like a few sets in this line have now been discontinued, including the flagship set. 7946 King's Castle, 7948 Outpost Attack and 7950 Knight's showdown are all marked as sold out by Lego. As we have all seen lately, that does not mean they are gone forever, as sets seem to pop in and out of sold out status regularly, but there's a good chance the sets are gone, especially since this is not only one, but three sets. I'm still hoping for more sets in this theme of course, but I'd say it is pretty ominous when the only castle in a castle line is sold out.

The clear minifig heads have been around a while, and they've been used in every single modular house as streetlamps.

I think that depends on what you want to do, the price for the 7750 isn't bad, especially if it is in good condition. It's in many ways the holy grail of Lego trains, being almost 30 years old with lots of rare and unique parts, and it's probably the second best looking steam engine after the Emerald Night. I'd go for it if you are a big train fan as getting a set in good condition from a trusted source will be hard to do. The Unimog will probably be on the market for most of the next two years and so you will probably get another chance to pick one up.