The price is right...except at the big box stores

 My favorite thing in the 80s was to leave my parents and look at the toy aisles....it was customary to look at each box of the same set to see if they made a mistake with the price tag...usually the ones in the back that had been put out earlier

My major find was a dollar off the spaceman set at gold circle...mom had to get me that!

I saved a dollar off the $3.99 price!!

Image from brick economy 

Flash forward to 2 years ago at a big box store 12/26.  The price for set was 20$ or so off.  The compassionate highly focused cashier rang up the set and said it wasn't on sale "because that's not what the computer said" I went and got the tag on the shelf and brought it back to her...she said "I cannot believe you took that off the shelf" to which I said" well it's not doing anybody any good!". I thought the big box store security was going To get me booted out but they were arguing at the register about getting their employee discount on legos! 

Hard work to get this set at big box store!!!

25$ vs 45$ ..I'm just lucky the computer didn't say $70 because thats what the wheel said

Image From datagenetics.com

Ha ha I thought the price is right ended with the showcase showdown, the price was right for me, but it ended in the cashier/register showdown

Foundational lego piece

 It seems like now days anyone who talks about legos has a certain style or theme of legos that they like and reference in their mind.  But I think there's a generation of builders that trace their lego memories back to one piece that wS the center and foundation of legos and that is the green baseplate.

It could be the foundation of a house, an uneven terrain for lego cars to manage, a massive car or wagon when 4 wheels were attached, or the balcony of a huge tower.  It was like kindergarten or a rite of passage where any lego collection started

Any model from lego or moc starts with pieces coming together in perfect order and sequence, the key is the solid foundation for all other blocks to build upon .

Excitement of mail order

 In this day and age it's so hard to think of having to wait for mail deliveries but thats how lego used to be even into the late 80s.  There were always service packs to order and here is examples of this...in reality I only ordered 1 time

Nowadays the catalogs are so different and wouldn't it be amazing to be able to buy these pieces again at the old prices!

Tribute to open lego buildings

 I touched on 493 set being the first open set in a prior post, but found some pics that really show this.  

I remember paying with the above sets, but the play was limited to bringing cars in and out of the bays for parking.  Then came the open bud concept started with set 493

The sets below really show how far this building concept has come

The word playability used to describe lego sets is sure enhanced with the open building concept!...also see the Disney castle and now the daily bugle set.

Manual labor!

No more room for my lego manuals... 

This weekend i finally confronted an issue I knew needed managed.  I have a huge collection of lego manuals that take up so much space in my already filled to the max lego room.  So I finally decided to let go.  Why we hold on to things thinking they'll triple in value the minute they're thrown out ill never know.  But I pared down 2/4 sterilite containers that can be used to store legos for better building  I found some manuals that I intend to give to someone at work so their kids can hopefully have fun building more of the generic models.  Here are some of the highlights of this weekend...

I loved the new gray 2x2 1 stud pieces new with heroica sets!!

Gray 2x2 1 stud tiles (pic from ebay)

Loved the star wars mini sets!

I gave up taking pics and just pitched 2 other garbage bags of lego manuals.  It just seems easier to be digital and get stuff online, but the old guy in ne wants something I can hold when I build!  Well for now I feel like i created more room to build!

If the way to put legos is infinite, the same model can have infinite instructions

 I miss the lego 4 wide cars from the 80s...while I stumbled on the instructions on google images, I found the same car with multiple steps to build the same model

I included screenshots from repubrik, suncentral inc., bricks and brickinstructions.com, worldbricks.com

Well, the important thing is the car gets built regardless of how many different steps are needed!!!

This was one of the best lego cars ever...essentially the model t of legos...the double windshields,  the headlight bricks...people in this day and age dont realize how hard these type of pieces were to get enough of...and how we had to walk to school up hill both ways!!!man I'm old!

Major breakthrough with the little red bins!

 Well, by mistake and no idea what I was doing, I came up with the best idea ever...I present my bin storage solution 

I thought I could jd weld the plastic to metal to carry around to sort in different places...I left the middle part open

And duct tape just peeled off after a year

So the bins fit perfect in this wood frame from menards

No tools needed and the tight fit hold the bins perfectly!!!  Truly a bin/bin situation!!

Sentimental memories from lego idea book 6000

 To this day, I think the 6000 lego idea book left the most impression on me.  It was so amazing as a kid that there were so many legos and that they could make an entire world..  Now I look at the pictures and they take me back to the child years i.e. before school.  Me and mom would run errands and grocery shop and play, then pick up my brother from school.  Life was so simple and no worries, just play and it was good!  The lego book 6000 kind of shows how small my little corner of the world was.

Well those days are definitely over!  But its neat to think there was at one time such A simple real and lego world!

Pics from lego idea book 6000 from brickz.argz.com

 

A journey of a thousand miles

 Sometimes I remember when I was finishing college and volunteering in a hospital dept. How overwhelming it felt knowing the amount of schooling I knew I would need.  At the end of the tunnel from the garage to the hospital there was another tunnel that led to the dept. Where i volunteered.  There was a sign going the other way that said the well known phrase "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." And there was a person walking on the beach.  That picture inspired me and made me chuckle because it took 20 mins from the car to walk where I needed to get.

When I go to build a giant set of legos, I'm always amazed at how the most complicated models begin with a single step, then another and another etc...the beginning looks nothing like the end product.  Sometimes I have trouble seeing the finished product because the chaos of a  pile of lego next to a developing creation.  Sometimes I get too focused on the pile of chaos and feel overwhelmed.  Yet at the end there is such a feeling of accomplishment and you look back wishing you could do it all over because it was enjoyable.  All because you took a single step towards creating something.   I need to remember that when I look at my lego room ..although I like having so many containers and things it feels overwhelming...but after an hour of organizing it starts to look so much better.  

Screenshot from pinterest.de "lego gram"

More observations on lego stereotypes

 I have noticed just this year since November that target is getting more diverse and more expensive lego sets.  The boxes are black to indicate the toys are for grown ups

So in my opinion these sets are so specific for adults, the box tells you that 18+ implying that kids can't play with these and the adults welcome sign kind of indicates these are adult sets.

A recent article I read stated that adults like relaxing and following some one else's instructions, there's no mention of just creating what you want with legos.

So I came home and saw a neat link for clearance legos that let me to Walmart website and it said

Legos are listed here as "shop for boys", after all the attempts by lego to destroy the myth that legos are for boys.  I think lego did good coming up with different ideas for sets, but people unfamiliar with lego sell them or think that they are boys sets or girls sets or adult sets.

I guess I just wonder where this is going...are we going to have an adult, a kid, an age range on the box that people need to follow.  I just miss the sets with limitless potential and alternate builds.

And the prices are so high because of licensing fees...  in my area, these black box adult sets aren't moving since early December 

So keep being creative and play well with your own passions and ideas even if you're young or older!

France on the horizon!

 The horizon express is a special set for me.  

When I was in the lego store I just caught out of my ear a person saying "so thats a real train."

I got to live in France for a month in 1988 in a town called LA ciotat which is next to the tgv station...trans of great speed..or trains de grande vitesse (tgv)

Here is the station

So when I was at a lego store, someone asked if it was a real train and it was! I saw it!!!

Awesome set!!!!!  Lego was on track with this model!

La ciotat 1988 july