Fugazi

"Argh. I'm not sure we can make it though this without our Druid." Galen throws his Shuriken at Rhodus B from the back row.

It's still possible to achieve this in the rich text editor. Simply type the normal text you want to become a link first, then select it and click the insert link button. Type in the URL as usual. The selected text will become a link, and the URL address will not show.

"Well spotted, Alexandre!" Galen attacks Ice Blade B with his katana from the front row.

Galen attacks Ice Blade A with his katana from the front row. "Let's hope I do better this time."

"Keep at it, we'll prevail even if it must take us a week. His defences are growing weaker by the minute, and eventually he will stop regenerating that Blade of his. This time I believe that all but Rhodus A are illusions." OoC: Because of the shortened ellipsis in "What is he planning..."

Galen attacks Ice Blade D with his katana from the front row.

"Got it, Rhodus D is the real one." OoC: There's an extra comma after Dodge, Thrust, Parry for Ice Blade D.

"Hmpf, it doesn't seem like we're making much progress. I like this wrench. Not a very stylish weapon, but it packs a nice punch!" OoC: Shouldn't Rhodus have lost some ether in the process? Oh and has the Frost Aura been permanently changed to 1/2?

"Well done, we got rid of that Blade without anyone getting maimed. I can tell you that we need to target Rhodus C, there's something slightly different about him" OoC: The Frost Aura special is different! Galen throws the Goblin's Wrench at Rhodus C from the back row.

I'm not sure if it's feasible to allow only a few specific three-letter searches. And allowing all three-letter searches would create excessive load on our server. It might also be possible to add a Google custom search box to the board, if this is something many members have a problem with.

As mentioned in the Eurobricks FAQ, if the built-in search engine doesn't work for you the best alternative is to use an external search engine (eg. Google) and add the 'site:eurobricks.com' search parameter in the search box. That will definitely allow you to use three-letter search items.

"It's all right Sylph. It's really difficult to determine our priority. On one hand the Blade increases Rhodus' stats, and we have to defeat this one before he happens to generate another one. On the other hand, if we manage to kill Rhodus the Blade(s) will be automatically defeated. So I guess the main incentive to defeat this Blade is to avoid multiple Blades stacking their effects and making Rhodus invulnerable."

"All right then, Rhodus it will be." Galen attacks Rhodus D with his katana from the front row.

"Well, it seems that Sylph saved us from a disastrous first contact with Rhodus. But with Alexandre's guardian angel watching over us, I believe we're free to pummel both Rhodus and his ice blade without any fear of retribution. Let's use the opportunity!" Galen attacks Ice Blade D with his katana from the front row. "Ice Blade D's *Badly Poisoned* effect is slightly different to that of the other blades. I believe it's the one we're looking for." OoC: JMB, is the Goblin's Wrench a throwing weapon exclusively, or could it be used directly from the front row without having to retrieve it afterwards?

I believe that Byggis was a Swedish clone brand, but I wasn't aware that their bricks were made in Denmark. Hopefully someone will have more information.

Though tables would be useful, as far as I know and perhaps an Admin could confirm, HTML is disabled on EB for security reasons and it's likely to stay that way.

"Oh I see, you want me to poison Rhodus. Good plan. But you're asking two different things of Punii!" Galen attacks Rhodus B with his envenomed katana from the back row.

Thank you Dave for your input. You certainly raise points that I hadn't considered. I understand this problem. On more recent parts the mould vs cavity (thanks for pointing the correct term!) confusion is lessened as the mould number is often underscored. On older parts it may become problematic, and sometimes only one number is present (the cavity number?). I would probably make mistakes myself. I guess that by picking dedicated collaborators and keeping records so that any unusual reports can be double-checked, good quality data can be obtained. I agree, and I think that the second option is more appealing even though it means the project progresses more slowly. I would rather collect a little amount of good data rather than a huge database of dubious information. There's no time frame or performance objectives involved here -- it's a long term project that I think should be tackled carefully. True, but the purpose of such a repository would be to determine which parts are likely to belong in a given set, not the life cycle of a particular mould. So if there are odd findings, such as a batch of 1999 parts resurfacing in 2005, then it would validate the use of those parts in sets released in 2005. Considering this, instead of giving a mould number range for a part every year I realise that the enumeration of every mould number used that year would be more informative. Sets with availability spanning many years are a headache -- their inventory will obviously not only reflect the moulds used for their parts in the year of release, but also in all the subsequent years they were also manufactured. Not to mention the instances of refreshed inventories you describe. Which is why using information from only the sets that had a short life span is tempting. In which case the information generated would be aggregate -- not the specific moulds used for one part in one set, but for that part in the sets manufactured that year. It's less precise, but I could live with using a replacement part that I know was manufactured the right year though maybe not in that specific set. It's a highly debatable point of view, of course. This kind of thorough inventory could be used in different ways, but it may go beyond what would be required for this specific purpose. Depending on how many assumptions and approximations we can make and still remain relevant, would it be possible (and desirable) to limit the workload? Is it important to know how many of each part come from a specific mould, or is the list of mould IDs for each part in a given set sufficient? Can we assume that the same part in different colors will come from roughly the same moulds during a given year, or will there be a huge disparity? Do we need the cavity number to double-check for eventual mistakes (swaps), or do we trust the people doing the inventory? Do the end-uses of this data require exhaustive and precise records, or is a decent approximation of reality good enough? And perhaps most importantly, would anyone care?

"This monster is pure madness... I can't even hit him with that kind of defence. And which one should we choose?" Galen blinked and rubbed his eyes. The illusion was perfect. Almost perfect. "Go for Rhodus B, I have a feeling about him." OoC: He's the only one whose special is determined by a dice roll. Galen attacks Ice Blade B with his envenomed katana from the back row.

"Perhaps someone else should use Decaying Venom as I have already envenomed my blade." OoC: Would Deadly and Decaying venoms' effects stack if applied to the same weapon?

For some people it matters. If I'm MOCing I don't care about the age/source of the parts I'm using. But if I want to display or preserve a classic set, or rebuild a set I had in my childhood, I will try to find parts that are contemporary with the set. It can also become more important when one is trying to restore a set for selling. I agree with most of what you said though, and the idea is not to find if a brick belongs to a set but whether it's within the correct age range for that set. I think it can prove easier and more accurate to check a mould number than trying to compare clutch, colour variations or other subjective characteristics when looking for a good match. Your suggestion of determining the appropriate mould numbers for a given year is very good, though for many sets that were available for a number of years the year of manufacture may not match the year of first release. And in order to build a record of mould/year progression, the method is roughly the same -- mould number inventories of a number of sets from each year. Edit: What you're suggesting would look roughly like this (fictitious numbers), only much bigger:

When faced with the prospect of restoring a classic LEGO set, rebuilding a childhood set from a mix of parts, or evaluating the authenticity of a set bought second hand, the same old issues crop up for the perfectionist in me. I like to make sure that my restored set is made of correct vintage parts, with vintage colour, vintage clutch and vintage moulding characteristics. Sometimes it's easy to tell apart a 1980s part from a modern one, using mould variations, colour changes, mould markings. Buying a 'vintage' part off Bricklink often proves more difficult, especially in the case of common parts -- for instance standard bricks and plates. More often than not a part will be described as New or Used, without further details. The seller most likely won't know the approximate age of the part, and certainly not the original set it came from. Which brings me to this idea I'm bringing up for discussion. Yesterday I opened a mint polybag, set 30210 Frodo With Cooking Corner (Brickset). Could I write down an inventory of this set that would help me to rebuild or restore it in the future, or make it possible to determine if other (opened) sets like it are made of the correct 'vintage' parts? This would involve describing the 'age' of the parts this set is made of. And the best and (to my knowledge) only consistent way to do this would be to inventory the mould numbers used for each part. What are the mould numbers? Most parts nowadays have engraved somewhere both the part number and the mould number. In the example below, a picture borrowed from member tomdobs55, 3710 would be the part number and 58 the mould number. '2' is this brick's position within the mould, and very often this information would be moulded as 2-58 or 2-58. The mould number is a rough estimate of the part's age, mould numbers increasing over time as moulds wear down and are replaced. Very common parts and/or parts introduced a long time ago generally have higher mould numbers, recently introduced parts start at mould number 01 and work their way up over the years (if ever). In my previous example, the 'Vintage Inventory' of set 30210 would look like this: part number - mould serial number 2343 - 03 2489 - 09 3004 - 183 3020 - 77 3021 - 45 3040 - 27 3069 - 62 3626 - 41 3741 - 11 and 12 3742 - 07 3794 - 32 4032 - 16 4073 - 41 4528 - 03 4599 - 07 4865 - 15 10048 - 01 52107 - 05 64647 - 02 unreadable mould number: minifig torso, 3062, 41879, 95228 no mould number: 33078 Note that I don't keep track of part colours or the number of each part in a set. Such information is possibly superfluous for this purpose. If a few more people were to do the same with their copy of this polybag, we would obtain a range of mould numbers for most parts in the set. This range could be very small (a single mould number for some parts in every 30210 polybag produced) or much wider. It wouldn't be the last word on the 'age' of the parts in this set, especially in this case where production may still be ongoing. But it would still constitute a useful resource for: - finding appropriate vintage parts for rebuilding/restoring this set in the future, and - verifying the authenticity of a second-hand/opened set. There are limitations to this concept, including: - Not all parts have readable mould numbers - Parts older than circa 197x? have no mould numbers - Inventorying a set is time-consuming, and - Requires either a mint set or a set kept separate from other parts since its opening. But I still think this approach deserves consideration. Such a resource would grow more valuable over time, and as older sets are added to it. It might not matter today whether my Frodo polybag has the right parts, but in 50 years time when mint 30210 sets might not be available any longer, collectors would want to have a reasonable guarantee that their Frodo set is made of 2012 parts rather than much later ones. This would help the obsessive-compulsive collectors but also the more casual ones who are only trying to make sure that their classic sets are reasonably accurate and not a hodge-podge of parts from all eras. Selling sloppily restored sets as 'authentic original parts' for a premium would become more difficult. But this would also help people Bricklink the right parts for their needs. For instance, if I need 40 1980s-vintage yellow 1x2 bricks to restore my Yellow Castle and the seller agrees to pick those that have a mould number of (fictitious number) '70' and lower, then I can at least be reasonably confident that the bricks I'm paying for are 80s bricks and not more recent ones with different clutch, colour or moulding properties. Mould number ranges can also be matched with other descriptions that are currently used on Bricklink, such as moulding pip positions or 'Pat pend removed' for a more complete picture. So while I'm personally convinced that this sort of (long-term) endeavour is worthwhile, there are probably issues that I haven't though of and this is why I'm opening this discussion. One question that I have considered without reaching a conclusion is the format such a resource should take. Ideally this information would need to be matched/merged with an existing online database such as Bricklink or Brickset. How much information would be enough? Every part of every set, or only the most common (and thus more difficult to filter by age) parts of each set, or even only the most common parts of the most collectible sets? How many individual copies of each set would have to be inventoried in order to achieve an representative range of mould numbers, and how should those set copies be selected -- ideally from different countries? Who should be allowed to contribute to such a database? Has anything similar been attempted before? Any input (comments, suggestions, mockery, potatoes) welcome!

You can also check out this topic for more information.

Galen envenoms his blade with Deadly Venom. "I am ready. I wonder if Rhodus will have company."

"I thought that Rhodus was with you, Ayla. I don't like this, I smell a trap. Johon, what are you doing?"