jamtf

I may as well post my Fish Merchant here as well (it's dark-brown-o-rific!) In what set did this minifig head for the fisherman appear? I tried to find it but couldn't. It ain't part of the new pirate line, is it? You also used this bearded face on a pirate in your medium sized Pillage the Village contest entry Quartering the Quartermasters, if I am correct.

The first batch of pirate sets was found in a Disney resort in the US but some of these sets are being offered by a seller in the UK. This basically indicates that they have been spread around in more countries. I guess that this 2009 release was not meant to be that strict. With a little luck some of us will be able to acquire the new sets in time before Christmas.

Tada : New small Lego set

He is definitely one of the good guys. The good cowboys and villains have a smart distinction: the expression on their face. The good guys usually have friendly looking (smiling) faces while the villains have angry and mean looking faces with vicious eyes and frowns.

Nice set, black fedora's for the first time to appear in a set. Not too fond of the car wheels though. These look <insert that tiresome argument> and are also available in some of the small Lego Creative Building starter kits and other sets such as 7623 Race for the Stolen Treasure (small Jeep) and 7625 River Chase (amphibious vehicle). Basically, this means that a Jeep and an amphibious vehicle have the same wheels as a suburban gangster car and a luxurious oldtimer. A more sophisticated wheel design (which could be used for other vehicles in future sets as well) would have made this a whole lot better.

An Aztec / Inca theme would be nice with ancient ruins, temples, jungle and matching minifigs. This could go the way of "Cortez" (a Spanish conqueror at the time) featuring Inca's against the Spanish invaders or something like Adventurers with an archeologic background. Basically, the Adventurers Jungle theme (with minifigs like Señor Palomar and Max Villano just to name a few) was pretty close to what I would like to revive again.

The pirate wench seems to have the first ever Lego female head with an "imperfection". She wears an eyepatch to cover up a cut up or missing eye.

Because I am a collector. The used sets are for building and MOCing. I like to have my sets complete with the original boxes and instructions if not MISB. Maybe some day I will sell one of the sealed 6277 sets. Time will tell. For a conversion of € 400 I suggest you take a look at www.xe.com for today's euro vs. USD exchange rate.

The first sealed one was purchased on eBay in September 2006 and in very good condition. I paid € 400 for it which is about right for this set, especially when it is in great shape. There was no shipping charge since I went to the seller and picked it up myself. The second sealed one was a purchase through ebay.co.uk and acquired on 24 May 2007. Box was in rough condition with some missing print due to price sticker tear offs and other damages. Both box seals were broken but all parts still sealed in their original plastic bags. I had to re-arrange everything inside since the seller had messed up things by taking all bags, etc. out of the box for photographing. The plastic insert, raised baseplate and bags were misplaced and put in the wrong section of the box. Fortunately, I was able to arrange things properly and exactly how it should be done. After all, I already had that first MISB set in perfect shape with everything in place. I ended up paying £ 110 (GBP 110) including shipping from England to the Continent. The 2 used copies were purchased in 2005 and 2007 I believe. The first one was less than € 75 including shipping, the second one was in the € 90 region including shipping although I did not keep records of these like I did with the sealed copies I own.

- yes, it is marktplaats. - I have sent you 1 email about 2 weeks ago through the marktplaats email system. - receiving email is your own responsibility, if necessary, adjust the spam filter in order to avoid missing out on important messages and notifications that are meant to inform you. - the fact that you have 4 replies has to do with marktplaats sending notifications to each bidder, no matter how many bids this person has made, indicating that something in the listing has changed. - usually bidders on marktplaats remove their earlier (lower) bids and keep their highest bid in place in order to clean up the bidding list, bidding 4 times on the same auction without someone else bidding against you therefore does not make sense. - marktplaats does not have a feedback system, even if you are the high bidder, you can not be sure that you will win the auction since there is always someone else who will talk directly to the seller through email. - you could have sent me an email asking if you were able to buy the items and if not, how much I wanted for them since communication is the key for success on marktplaats. - no problem, I will resend a message next time if I see that you are bidding on my items. - check out my current listings including a boxed 6267 Lagoon Lock-Up and a boxed 6274 Caribbean Clipper but maybe you already have these in your collection.

I already have 4 of those , 2 MISB + 2 boxed.

It seems you can not even afford to buy anything at the time since you bid on stuff I have for sale on a Dutch marketplace (you know which one I refer to Mr. zorro3999) but you did not even reply to my message nor did you follow up on your offer. Fortunately, I ran into a buyer who was willing to buy the stuff and it is gone now...

Yeah, I see them every time I log on and thought that this was some sort of personal initiative undertaken by Mister Phes and the other mods in order to promote pirate Lego amongst the EB Comunity. I did not know that eBay had to pay for this service but I guess that this was negotiated with them under the obligation for the mods to keep the ads running and to highlight certain areas such as armies, soldier bases, pirate bases and small and large ships.

Mister Phes is taking quite a lot of time to post the rules... maye he wants to wait until this thread has at least 10 pages or more, then throw in the rules somewhere in the middle (so they will be hard to find for people ) and then start the contest. What puzzles me is who brought in the prizes (1 person or more) and who can afford to simply give away this amount of Lego sets... Judging from what I read around here, most people do not even own a BSB or even a single pirate set to start with. I admit that some EB members might have been too young when the theme came out (between 1989 - 1997) but I got my very first pirate set in 2005 when the theme was out the door for almost a decade or so (except for the more recent the re-releases of course). If you need pirates, there is always eBay and BrickLink for instance with many previously owned vessels, figures and sets that can get you started into the theme.

The answer to your question really depends on a few deciding (and personal) factors: - do you have the money? - how much do you like the sets? - are you prepared to spend a serious amount of cash on these sets? - what is the purpose of buying (collection or future investment)? - do you expect that these discontinued sets that are already 30 years old will keep their value or maybe increase in value? First of all, you need to have the cash in order to be able to afford the purchase. Furthermore, you need to be sure that these sets are absolute musts and indispensible for your collection. They are hard to come by, that is for sure. I have only once seen a sealed 383 sell on eBay a year or so back. The 375 is somewhat easier to find as I have seen these more often. They usually sell for figures between $400 and $800 on eBay. A few years ago (around 2005/2006), a sealed 375 sold for $600 on BrickLink. The seller also sold a sealed 1592 Town Square for the same amount. Most likely, these were purchased together by the same buyer since they appeared to be gone at the same time. Then you must ask yourself if you are prepared to spend the money on just these 2 sets. That is something you should consider all by yourself. If they are meant for your own collection and the aforementioned factors have brought you to a positive decision, then you should maybe buy them. If they are meant to be put away for some years and to be sold later on, I would say that it will be hard to get the same amount again. Of course, no one can look into the future but $2500 is a nice sum already these days and considering no one took the $1800 set on BrickLink so far, it can be hard to run into a fellow enthusiast who is prepared to buy your sets in case you need to sell them. In case you want to open them and build the sets... do not proceed! In that case, I would certainly look for a cheaper alternative and buy a used copy of each with original box and instructions instead. I myself would pass up this offer, but I already own 2 boxes yellow castles and 1 boxed knight's tournament. All are used and pre-owned Lego sets but they are generally speaking in good condition and that suits me just fine.

Hey CopMike, how generous of you to organise a raffle . Please add me to the list of participants, I am definitely in!

Check this forum, it might help: Lego that fits in pirate theme

Based on the pictures, Sir Nadroj already owns that new 8630 Agents set (including the villains head with gold teeth and eyepatch) and the 7676 Republic Gunship (with the flesh cartoonish Obi-Wan Kenobi head) or he bricklinked those parts together.

The first batch was picked up at TRU Arnhem. Venlo does not have a TRU as far as I know. The Hoth Rebel Base and Republic Cruiser were still available at the Arnhem store, although there were not many left. These are from 2007 and becoming hard to find already. The other 2 batches were picked up at a local Top1Toys nearby. I knew they had some old stuff on the shelves but did not buy these sets earlier. With the discount they gave me, I reckoned they were reasonably priced and I decided to buy them all. The Sail Barge is also not that old, I believe it is from 2006 but out of production. They were lucky finds as I remembered they still had these on the shelves when I was there in January. Fortunately, they were still there when I revisited the store this past week. In fact, they still have quite a few older HP sets but also sets from themes such as Aquazone, Aquaraiders, Adventurers (mostly Orient Expedition and Dino Island), Spyrius, Batman, Spiderman, Castle Knights Kingdom I, Studio, Belville, NBA, that kind of stuff. Nothing that's left is very spectacular, especially since I raided the store a year or so back and left with € 1.200 worth of Lego (and I did not get a discount but I was happy that I found all this in a store). I found many older SW sets (including 7171 Mos Espa Pod Race), a few nice HP sets (including 3x Escape from Privet Drive), the largest Ninja set (6093 Flying Ninja Fortress) and many other nice items.

Don't worry, I make my living as a lawyer. If you want everything... make me an offer... I hate to say that a 4955 Big Rig was added later today so take that in mind if you intend to make a bid.

Let's see. There is of course the Indiana Jones line with a couple sets with some useful elements: 7624 Indiana Jones Jungle Duel (contains cutlass) 7627 Temple of Akator (contains skeleton with conquistador helmet, cutlass skeleton heads and native warriors) Castle line: 7036 Dwarves Mine 7040 Dwarves' Mine Defender (a cheaper set) 7048 Troll Warship 7979 Castle Advent Calendar They all contain one or more useful pieces. To mention are the beards on the dwarves and the civilian lady (Advent Calendar). The Troll Warship set contains of course parts that can be used for making ships, etc. such as hull pieces, masts, barrels and a small rowing boat. Since the Viking line is merely out the door, it ain't worth mentioning since I do not consider it a current line anymore. Same goes for the Aquaraiders Shipwreck set. That set is history and already becoming very hard to find nowadays (in toy stores). It is however available on the internet of course. I might have forgotten other sets but this is what I can come up with.

September 4 (TRU get 3 pay 2) 7036 Dwarves Mine 7626 Indiana Jones Jungle Cutter 7628 Indiana Jones Peril in Peru (limited edition) 7665 Republic Cruiser (limited edition) 7666 Hoth Rebel Base (limited edition) 7672 Rogue Shadow 7674 V-19 Torrent 7675 AT-TE Walker 7680 The Twilight September 5 4729 Dumbledore's Office 6210 Jabba's Sail Barge 7038 Troll Assault Wagon 7040 Dwarves' Mine Defender (2x) 7416 Emperor's Ship 7620 Indiana Jones Motorcycle Chase 7625 River Chase 7657 AT-ST (2x) 7667 Imperial Dropship (2x) 7668 Rebel Scout Speeder (3x) 7676 Republic Gunship (2x) 7726 Coast Guard Truck with Speedboat 7733 Truck & Forklift September 6 1380 Werewolf Ambush (2x) 4709 Hogwarts Castle 6210 Jabba's Sail Barge 7627 Temple of Akator 7675 AT-TE Walker (2x) Of course, everything new and fresh from the toy stores. I must add that I am quite broke now...

Of couree, it is just behind Venlo. Then you must be familiar with the Mönchengladback TRU outlet. Went to the Arnhem TRU outlet today. Couldn't wait. The new Republic Gunship was sold out already when I arrived. They only had the model on display in a small case. I also expected to find the largest Indiana Jones set Temple of Akator but alas, it wasn't there. Anyway, I purchased the following sets, most of them were new to me (I admit that I had some catching up to do ): 7036 Dwarves Mine 7626 Indiana Jones Jungle Cutter 7628 Indiana Jones Peril in Peru (limited edition) 7665 Republic Cruiser (limited edition) 7666 Hoth Rebel Base (limited edition) 7672 Rogue Shadow 7674 V-19 Torrent 7675 AT-TE Walker 7680 The Twilight Compared to the prices on Lego shop@home I saved nearly € 200. Some items appeared to be more expensive at the TRU store compared to the average retail prices (for instance the Rogue Shadow was priced at € 72,99 instead of € 67,99 ) but the "get 3 pay 2 discount" really helped saving money.

It's your choice to let this pass up... Would you mind letting people know when the German TRU sale is? I have a TRU star card from the German branch but never get their information on sales, etc. which is a bit of a shame. I live closely to the German border and the Mönchengladbach TRU store (not too far from Venlo) is the one I always visit.

The green bandana (rag wrap) on the impulse pirate will definitely have an effect on the BrickLink prices for that item. So far, it only came in one set, 6071 Forestmen's Crossing, part of the early 1990s castle line and was considered a scarce item. I wonder if the green tone used for this one reflects the color of the one used in 6071.