PxChris

Brickset has good scans of pretty much all of the old LEGO Ideas books. https://brickset.com/library/ideasbooks

I love this little fort build! I've kept one displayed with my Pirates collection for quite a few years now! It's definitely worthy of a place next to the other "official" sets.

Not my beloved 4 Juniors pirates!!!! But, in all fairness, the end results are pretty dang fun!

Without jumping into all the detailed you covered... I would have to agree wholeheartedly that the Caribbean Clipper is the superior ship to the Imperial Flagship in practically every way! I've frankly never been a huge fan of the IF even to this day, and I own a couple of them.

For me personally, it will always be the Barracuda and then Eldorado with the 1-2 punch! I never owned a Barracuda as a kid, but I longed after it sooooo hard! As an adult I've owned 3 (I sold one of them, so now I'm down to 2). But as a kid, the first Pirates sets I remember was being gifted the Eldorado Fortress and Caribbean Clipper in the fall of 1989 (it is possible I got one of the really small sets earlier than that) so those will always hold a most-special place in my heart. And to this day, I still think that Eldorado is the best Imperial fort they ever released. Sabre Island will also always hold a very high ranking in my estimation. But all that is somewhat arbitrary because I can say nothing bad at all about the entire first wave of Pirates sets - they're all 10/10 in my nostalgia clouded brain!

Better late than never... Yes, I have long since completed collecting the entirety of the 1989-1997 Classic Pirates theme! You might want to check out some of the other updates on other threads I've made since.

Congratulations to the winners! @Marooned Marin on the double whammy!

I love the Goonies, one of my absolute favorite childhood movies! I also happen to live in Oregon where it was filmed and have visited many of the filming locations from the movie multiple times (the Goonies House, the jail, the final scene beach, the location where the restaurant was, etc., etc. I'm extremely excited for this set! I can't wait to see what the LEGO designers do with the concept model.

The pistol is 3D printed and came with the 3D printed Captain Redbeard that you can see back behind the cassette tapes. The parrot is a build from the Spring 1992 issue of Brick Kicks magazine. I love it because it's very period-appropriate in build style! The display will be up through August so a pretty good length of display time. I do miss being away from my sets, but I'm also very happy to have them out where so many people can really enjoy them. Plus the store isn't too far from my house so I can make it there pretty often.

Thanks! I love that shirt! It is from a now defunct designer on Teepublic who had a whole bunch of really awesome shirt designs. Unfortunately he got a cease and desist from TLG and closed down his whole shop. I was able to purchase a few of his designs though before he went out of business.

I have had the awesome opportunity to set up a display of my complete Classic Pirates (1989-1997) collection at a local independently owned aftermarket LEGO store nearby me. Featured is the complete run of sets from the theme's debut in 1989 until it's initial retirement in 1997 along with some other items from my collection such as the comic, storybooks, and German audio cassettes. I'm super grateful for this opportunity to get to share all of these awesome sets with the public for the next month and a half or so. I love this Islanders shirt!

The Pirates part of my collection hasn't been my main focus the last couple of months, so unfortunately I haven't been doing a whole lot with it. I am getting ready to set up another display at a local independent LEGO aftermarket store this week though which will get much of the collection back out of boxes and setup as they were meant to be! Once I get that all together, I will of course share some photos. I was given a couple Pirates sets in 1989 when I was 10 years old - the Eldorado Fortress and the Caribbean Clipper - that's what first ignited the love of the theme. I was the absolute perfect age for the theme and it really resonated with me. Beyond those, I acquired a number of the other smaller Pirates sets in the early 90s, but I never had a massive collection of them. I always liked the Bluecoats best back then, so I wasn't super into the Imperials once they switched the colors. I did get a couple of the smaller Islander sets (absolutely loved the catamaran) around '94 though. I have lots of very fond memories of staring at the catalog pages for hours just dreaming about having a huge Pirates layout. The Black Seas Barracuda was always a major white whale set for me, from all the way back in '89. Most of my collection did not survive intact and in good condition into my adult years. When my kid was younger we took all of my old LEGO and mixed it in with his (which I have regretted ever since ) and so reconstructing my old sets out of that was to be near-impossible, not to mention that many pieces were missing, broken, yellowed, etc. So, fast forward to 2020 when I picked up a partial set of Eldorado and a couple other smaller sets at my local LEGO Convention right before the pandemic started, and that started the collection avalanche. Over the next couple of years I completed the entirety of the 1989-1997 Pirates theme which was a childhood dream come true. I've also expanded beyond just the classic Pirates with quite a few of the other ships and a miscellaneous assortment of other Pirates or Pirates-related sets. My biggest enjoyment is getting to set up large displays of the sets which I've had the awesome opportunity to do now at a few conventions and as I mentioned will soon be doing at a local store.

I love the Brick Monarch streams - I watch them live every Monday whenever possible!

I can't argue there... I am 1984-1998 Castle complete.

Not too shabby! I too love collecting the ships. Depending on how one counts them I'm in the 20-something range as well.