Inzane

I hope these posters come rolled and not folded.

All orders have come in. I now have all parts in hand. (minus the minifigs and sticker sheet). I gave up on trying to obtain an original hardcopy instruction manual. ($$) And likewise the OEM sticker sheet. However I noticed there are replica stickersheets available out there. I will try to post pictures soon. Note: This is for bricklinking the 10221 UCS SSD set.

UCS sets shouldn't have any minifigs, so be thankful you get one. ;-P

In Canada the UCS X-Wing is $250, and yet Slave 1 is $230 and the new TIE is expected to be $230 as well. Both the TIE and especially the Slave 1 have a higher piece count than the X-wing as well. That is part of the reason I haven't picked up the rehashed X-wing yet. Price, plus I own the original.

The Star Wars theme didn't exist until 1999, and the first UCS sets didn't appear until 2000. Even non-SW sets that I'd consider "displayable" such as Statue of Liberty, Sopwith Camel, etc. also didn't appear until 2000 or later. I wouldn't really call anything in the 1991 lineup particularly displayable any more than any other year around then. (Unless I'm missing something really special from that year).

Well my finally tally is in, adjusting for actual exchange rates charged and factoring out any filler parts in my orders not related to this project. Total cost of Parts: $397 CDN Total w/ Shipping & Fees: $477 CDN (shipping was 14% of total, and fees about 3%). I guess from a project management standpoint I'd fail given the 19% cost overrun. :) I guess I wasn't as close to my "$400 w/shipping" target as I thought. Oh well. I'm still faily happy with the result though. Now I just have to wait for 6 of those 8 orders to arrive in the mail.

I agree completely. After doing this again recently putting the SSD set together, I have a bit of a theory on the parts pricing. My impression is the Lego pricing (BnP, PAB) has more to do with their production costs for a part. (for example it kinda makes intuitive sense that a plate twice as large costs near twice as much as a smaller plate). Whereas the bricklink pricing has more to do with supply & demand and relative availablity of certain parts. For example, if a part is large it is probably going to cost a lot on BnP. Large and fairly common and you will probably find it cheaper on bricklink. If it's large AND rare, it's going to cost a bloody fortune on BL and you're better off ordering from BnP IF they still make it/have it. PAB is another beast entirely. I made extensive use of it last year when I was doing the modulars (CC, GG, MS), but those sets contained more conventional parts, mainly bricks and slopes etc., things like that. PAB is less useful for more exotic less typical building elements (plates of unusual sizes, uncommon wedge sizes, etc.). PAB also used to have a considerable price advantage last year relative to BnP up until around Feb/March when there was a noticable increase. In my recent cost analyis of the SSD set parts, PAB had way less of the parts even available overall (compared to BnP) and was cheaper only in a couple/few instances. Every time else it was advantage Bricks n' Pieces. I didn't even bother placing a PAB order this time around. PAB does have the advantage of earning VIP points and FREE shipping if coupled with an order exceeding $75, so there's that going for it.

No worries mate. I'm actually not too concerned about the color substitutions. For inside (re: non-exposed) parts, it's inconsequential, and I'm not bricklinking the set for resell purposes. I want it to HAVE it. I could care less what the inside structure looks like.

BUMPING this old thread. Since this thread failed to provide the info I was looking for previously, I've since tackled the SSD project head long and am now going to provide the info here that I was originally looking for in hopes I can help the NEXT forum member thinking of tackling this set. As a couple people have alluded to, MOST of the parts of the SSD are relatively common and won't present much challenge sourcing. But I'm going to highlight a few exceptions. 1. Design ID: 32555 Yellow Technic Brick 5x5 right angle (qty 6) Similar to the UCS MF folks, this one is a challenge because it's now an out of production part. Lego BnP & PAB don't have it, and currently only about a dozen BL stores have 6 or more. Pricing ranges from $3 USD and up per. Had I known to focus on this piece a couple months ago when I originally asked my question I might've been able to have saved a few bucks on these vs. today's pricing. Oh well. My solution: substitute color, source in BLACK from Lego BnP: I paid 0.91 CAD each. (Surprisingly even the black ones were more expensive on BL). 2. Design ID: 2429c01 Blue Hinge Plate 1x4 swivel top / base complete assmebly (qty 22) Not too terribly expensive on BL, typically about 0.20-0.30 CAD. (Lego BnP = 0.70 CAD). However the problem was only about 25 BL stores list 22 or more in stock. 25 stores may sound like a lot, but compared to the HUNDREDS of listings for many of the other parts in the set, it is not. Trying to buy from one of those 25 stores wasn't ideal because their overall inventories didn't line up very well with my want lists (YMMV). You could certainly break the lot up into smaller totals and just buy from more than one store. However I was trying to balance number of orders and shipping cost vs. absolute parts costs savings. My solution: substitute color, sourced in TAN via BL. Tan seemed much more readily available and on average roughly half the cost of blue. I could've gone all black however I felt I wanted to still visually distinguish these 22 hinges from the other 6 black ones the set calls for. 3. Design ID: 30360 Light Bluish Grey Cylinder 3 x 6 x 2 2/3 Horizontal (qty 7) There is actually a newer part # that supercedes this one, Design ID: 93168. The difference is minor and it appears to be a running change and according to BL either part could've appeared in your boxed set. So sub'ing for the new part is not technically "wrong". The original part is no longer available from lego. The new part can be had from BnP for 1.10 CAD. There are currently only THREE BL sellers that have 7 or more of the old part # in stock. So your choice is either to pay their higher price, break the lot into multiple purchases and hopefully get a few here or there cheaper from other sellers, or source the new part. The new part is typically cheaper, more readily available particularly if you want to buy all 7 together. My solution: I purchased the newer part on BL. for about ~ 0.19 euro each. Those are the three main parts I felt worth highlighting from my learnings. Other than that, for some of the large plate quantities it can be advantageous to break those lots up into smaller chunks. I didn't do as much of that as I probably should have. All told, I managed to source the entire set (minus minfigs, instructions and stickers) as follows: - 429 elements, from my own collection (about 13 %) - one big Lego BnP order consisting of 28 lots. - 7 bricklink orders, of which 3 from Canada, 4 from Europe. (I avoided US based sellers this time around, because of curency exchange rates). I can't tally total costs yet because I'm still waiting to see final exchange rate charged via paypal/credit card on a couple orders, plus a few orders had some filler from other unrelated projects I need to separate out of my cost calculation. I'm fairly certain my total cost on parts was under $400 CAD. My goal was to try to stay under $400 WITH shipping, however I don't think I quite made that target. I'll see. If I did exceed $400, hopefully not too much. Overall impression, compared to the ginormous task of bricklinking the first three modulars (CC, MS & GG) and a few other larger sets in the past, the UCS SSD was actually fairly easy and straight forward. Hopefully this post will be useful for anyone else contemplating tackling the bricklinking of the UCS SSD set.

Megadeth Metallica - old 80s stuff Iron Maiden Testament - older stuff, before their vocals all sounded like death/deathcore style (ugh..) Anthrax then not as heavy, a whole slew of 80s hair-metal bands. + Joe Satriani and Steve Vai.

I see that you are in Canada. You might want to consider buying it right now from Toys R Us while its 20% off. That's a better deal than 2x VIP which is only worth 10%.

As ironic as it may sound being an AFOL and primarily OT based fan, I'm actually glad when a big chunk of the lineup tends to be based on PT, CW, EU, Rebels etc, because..... That gives my wallet a huge break. When I see these sets come out I breath a sigh of relief because I know they are definite passes for me, and I can largely ignore them (with a few exceptions here or there). I gave up trying to be an all things lego sw completionist years ago. The big turning point for me was the 2008 line up.

I love the 60051 high speed passenger train. (I'm an AFOL) It is only my 2nd train set, after the Holiday Train, and my first foray into the modern power function train system. I'm currently sourcing parts to not only add two more passenger cars but also to stretch all three passenger cars to a 28 stud length. (The only thing I didn't like about the set was how short the middle car looks relative to the engines on each end). I was intending to post pics when I'm done.

Speaking of the fibre-optics, I recently pulled out a couple exo-force sets and built them on a whim (the Sentai Fortress and the Bridge Walker) a few weeks back. I had forgotten how cool the light brick + fiber optic effects were, and wondered why we never saw anything like that for so long since. Such a shame...

What does that mean exactly? Claiming missing or damaged parts in a new set? (ie. asking for free replacements) Or attempting to buy too many parts via Bricks & Pieces? Either way, TLG always has the ability to just say no. I'm surprised they'd use that as a trigger for blacklisting.