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Brokering Bricks: The World of Lego Investing

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Re: Brokering Bricks: The World of Lego Investing

#31

Post by primitivesuave »

errantspark wrote: post #5
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an intermittent toy collector, I've had the same frustration with a lot of childhood favorites. But the nice thing about Lego is that it's...well, Lego. You can be just as creative and have just as much fun with new sets. If the only thing you want to do is build the same set from your childhood in exactly the same way, and then sit back and admire it, then yeah, unfortunately, you are kinda compelled to pay colle…

> You can be just as creative and have just as much fun with new sets. You absolutely cannot. Don't get me wrong, I love Lego to this day but late 90's Technic is unmatched in it's versatility by a looooong shot.

Completely agree - there were also far more interesting components in sets. Take for example the Lego technic backhoe 8455 (from 2003), which had pneumatic cylinders that could be repurposed to all kinds of interesting builds, as compared to the current Technic backhoe 8069 which uses plastic axles and simpler mechanics.

Re: Brokering Bricks: The World of Lego Investing

#32

Post by shantly »

roel_v wrote: post #30
shantly wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno. I've gotten my kids a lot of LEGO and the new sets are really high-part-count but it's tons and tons of fiddly little short bricks, mostly, to build relatively small sets. All I can figure is they went overboard with CAD and/or started letting too many "pro" types who care more about the finish of the final result than the building experience run the show. I pull out old sets of mine with similar part counts…

shrug You're entitled to your opinion of course, but my point was that there is no objective measure for past sets being better, there's anecdotal evidence that (at least some) kids enjoy legos as much as I/we did 30 years ago, and there's plenty of scienfic evidence for 'rose colored glasses' wrt childhood memories, the subjective nature of 'enjoyment' and preferences being formed in childhood/adolescence. I'm not g…

Yeah, my kids still love LEGO, but the sets don't seem to be well-designed for play (for younger kids in what used to be their primary target age-range) anymore compared to what they used to be. I bet the nicer-looking art tests better and moves units just fine, but once you actually put them together and watch kids assemble & play with them playability has clearly taken a backseat. I think assembled size vs. part count is a pretty good way to illustrate the difference.

LEGO itself is fine. Brick buckets are still great value. The sets just aren't as good for playing with as-is or for building/customizing on top of, anymore. With some exceptions I'm sure, but they used to just about all be designed, seemingly (in hindsight, now that we have modern ones to compare them to) play-first.

Re: Brokering Bricks: The World of Lego Investing

#33

Post by gpderetta »

shantly wrote: post #29
roel_v wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I still prefer the old school kind" Of course you do, because it's an emotional experience. Just like how those tomatoes you ate at nanna's summer cottage in Italy tasted incredible, yet if you'd eat those exact same tomatoes in your drabby work canteen on a rainy tuesday morning, they'd be nothing special. My children don't particularly like my old legos, yet I somehow see them as "obviously" superior over the ones…

I dunno. I've gotten my kids a lot of LEGO and the new sets are really high-part-count but it's tons and tons of fiddly little short bricks, mostly, to build relatively small sets. All I can figure is they went overboard with CAD and/or started letting too many "pro" types who care more about the finish of the final result than the building experience run the show. I pull out old sets of mine with similar part counts…

As an another anecdote, I recently built 70618 Destiny's Bounty with my 5 year old. It was great to build, fun to play and amazing to look at.

Compare this to my brother's 6274, Caribbean Clipper. The price, inflation adjusted, was in the same ballpark.

That set did look great 30 years ago, but the new one not only has more details, the hull is almost completely brick built instead of begin made of 3 big pieces. It is also bigger as far as I can remember.

Re: Brokering Bricks: The World of Lego Investing

#34

Post by bathtub365 »

primitivesuave wrote: post #31
errantspark wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can be just as creative and have just as much fun with new sets. You absolutely cannot. Don't get me wrong, I love Lego to this day but late 90's Technic is unmatched in it's versatility by a looooong shot.

Completely agree - there were also far more interesting components in sets. Take for example the Lego technic backhoe 8455 (from 2003), which had pneumatic cylinders that could be repurposed to all kinds of interesting builds, as compared to the current Technic backhoe 8069 which uses plastic axles and simpler mechanics.

The Technic AROCS (42043) has a full pneumatic system that’s pressurised by an electrically-powered pump and has valves for directing air around to different components. It also has a full gearbox for directing power from the electrical motor to the different electrically-powered components in the model. I think Technic is still creating interesting new, reusable mechanical components.

Re: Brokering Bricks: The World of Lego Investing

#35

Post by shantly »

gpderetta wrote: post #33
shantly wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno. I've gotten my kids a lot of LEGO and the new sets are really high-part-count but it's tons and tons of fiddly little short bricks, mostly, to build relatively small sets. All I can figure is they went overboard with CAD and/or started letting too many "pro" types who care more about the finish of the final result than the building experience run the show. I pull out old sets of mine with similar part counts…

As an another anecdote, I recently built 70618 Destiny's Bounty with my 5 year old. It was great to build, fun to play and amazing to look at. Compare this to my brother's 6274, Caribbean Clipper. The price, inflation adjusted, was in the same ballpark. That set did look great 30 years ago, but the new one not only has more details, the hull is almost completely brick built instead of begin made of 3 big pieces. It i…

I'm not trying to say there's no fun in the newer sets—that'd be dumb—but they're harder to build & maintain in play due to higher part-counts for the same (or smaller!) size, and tend to devote a lot of that part count to smoothing over surfaces or building up odd angles, which harms customizability. If a lot of what you liked about LEGO sets (versus brick buckets) was customizing, building atop, or re-theming them, the modern ones are a huge step back for that, though they definitely look way better.

The way higher part-count of mostly-tiny bricks also makes them miserable to pick out of a mixed set of bricks. Damn near impossible to re-construct if they get torn up and make it into a well-populated brick bin. I remember being able to mix the generic bricks and a dozen largish sets freely and never having much trouble picking them back out—phew man, these new ones are not like that.

My kids have lots of fun with LEGO but the sets are... not a big contributor to that, minifigs aside. Once they get busted up—and again, they're harder to restore post-customization or repair as they take a little damage here and there—that's it, probably never see them together again, and my kids are drowning in tiny pieces from those sets and starved for larger ones when they build their own stuff. Brick buckets and large plates purchased piecemeal are much better bang-for-the-buck, the way they use them. We're mostly sticking to those and much smaller sets, having been burned by the big ones.

The new ones definitely aren't as well suited to the same play-purposes as the old sets, though maybe they're better for some other play styles or uses than those were, I dunno. They absolutely, 100% look much better.

Re: Brokering Bricks: The World of Lego Investing

#36

Post by gpderetta »

shantly wrote: post #35
gpderetta wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an another anecdote, I recently built 70618 Destiny's Bounty with my 5 year old. It was great to build, fun to play and amazing to look at. Compare this to my brother's 6274, Caribbean Clipper. The price, inflation adjusted, was in the same ballpark. That set did look great 30 years ago, but the new one not only has more details, the hull is almost completely brick built instead of begin made of 3 big pieces. It i…

I'm not trying to say there's no fun in the newer sets—that'd be dumb—but they're harder to build & maintain in play due to higher part-counts for the same (or smaller!) size, and tend to devote a lot of that part count to smoothing over surfaces or building up odd angles, which harms customizability. If a lot of what you liked about LEGO sets (versus brick buckets) was customizing, building atop, or re-theming them,…

oh, I understand your complaint, but also consider than a few years ago people were complaining that newer sets were "dumbed down" or "too few parts per dollar" or "using large prebuilt parts" instead of using smaller parts. In the end you can't please everybody :).

Re: Brokering Bricks: The World of Lego Investing

#37

Post by shantly »

gpderetta wrote: post #36
shantly wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not trying to say there's no fun in the newer sets—that'd be dumb—but they're harder to build & maintain in play due to higher part-counts for the same (or smaller!) size, and tend to devote a lot of that part count to smoothing over surfaces or building up odd angles, which harms customizability. If a lot of what you liked about LEGO sets (versus brick buckets) was customizing, building atop, or re-theming them,…

oh, I understand your complaint, but also consider than a few years ago people were complaining that newer sets were "dumbed down" or "too few parts per dollar" or "using large prebuilt parts" instead of using smaller parts. In the end you can't please everybody :).

Yeah, for sure. For all I know there's some major play-benefit to the newer sets that I don't know about and haven't happened to see with my kids, off-setting the use/play cases for which they're definitely less well-suited now.

Re: Brokering Bricks: The World of Lego Investing

#38

Post by bane »

systemtest wrote: post #26
froindt wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an industrial engineer and geek out about manufacturing stuff. Lego used to make custom pieces all the time. That, along with other missteps, nearly killed the company. Product variety means changeovers (switching molds in the plastic injection molding machines). More quality problems will occur. Low volume parts for one set may use a tiny fraction of the mold's useful life, making the unit cost much higher than…

The upside of custom pieces is that I was able to identify all my LEGO sets from a single pile of bricks. By grabbing the custom pieces and looking them up in online databases, I could see which sets they were used in. It was usually two or three sets and based on my memory I would pick the one I most likely owned. Going by the database I was able to grab all other bricks belonging to that set and build the item. I w…

It's weird, I never cared for the sets the bricks came in, I just wanted bricks. I might build the set once, and then tear it up and never again. I usually ended up tossing or segregating the really special pieces somewhere else so they wouldn't pollute my buckets of normal pieces. I never really understood that other people actually really were into the sets and as I grew up, and as Lego got more and more into the ultra specialized sets, the magic went away and I stopped enjoying them as much.
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