As I said yesterday, I really can't stand having my building pleasure interrupted by missing pieces. Unfortunately, if like me you buy the occasional old, retired set off Ebay, you've just got to accept that the sets you buy will often arrive with a few pieces missing. While I genuinely don't believe that this is because there are a lot of dishonest sellers out there, the reality is that most people selling LEGO on Ebay aren't collectors or professional traders, they're just people trying to raise a bit of cash by selling off their old toys, or mums and dads selling their kids' old toys to clear some space in the loft. Consequently, their idea of a "complete set" is often not the same as mine. They may for instance not think twice about substituting a missing piece with a similar but non-identical one, or even replacing it with the same piece in a different colour. Or they may just ask little Johnny if the set is complete, Johnny shrugs and says "I guess so", and 5 minutes later the set is listed on Ebay as "complete".
So what to do ? Well, as is often the case, the online LEGO community is here to help. Allow me to introduce you to the joys of Peeron and Bricklink. Amongst other things, these miraculous websites contain databases which capture every single piece (part number, colour and quantity) contained in pretty much every single set that LEGO have ever produced. Just think about it - at some point, an army of selfless, unpaid individuals have carefully sorted through all these thousands and thousands of sets painstakingly documenting which pieces they contain, how many and in which colour. And all that information is available to all of us, free, gratis and for nothing. The end result of all this generosity is that it's possible to check whether your set is complete before you build it. I personally tend to use Peeron for checking my sets - while it's been somewhat neglected of late and doesn't contain information about the newest sets, I just prefer the way it's laid out. The process is as follows : go to Peeron website, enter set number, and hey presto - up comes a listing of all the parts that the set is supposed to contain, with full colour pictures of each piece should you wish to see them.
Using the Space Shuttle Launch set I got a couple of days ago as an example, click the link below to see the full parts listing. Space Shuttle Launch parts listing How cool is that ?! So you've checked off the pieces against the online listing, and to your dismay there are a couple of pieces missing. Irritating, but thankfully not terminal thanks once again to the joys of Peeron and Bricklink. Believe it or not, the world is literally full of nice people who make it their business to help you replace missing pieces. They'll also supply you with pretty much any piece in any colour and any quantity for that life-size LEGO model of Chewbacca that you're constructing in your living room, if that's your thing. Most of these sellers don't do this for a living - it's a hobby. And let me tell you that these people are worth their weight in gold. Peeron and Bricklink generate a listing of the sellers who have the part(s) you need, in the colour(s) you need, and all you have to do is pick who you want to buy from, make sure they ship to your country, and you're laughing.
And unless the replacement pieces you're after are particurly rare, obscure or huge, an added bonus is that they're often pretty cheap - literally pennies in many cases - although you'll obviously have to pay the postal costs on top. I generally use the Bricklink website to connect me to sellers who can replace missing parts, and touch wood I've never had a bad transaction so far. So you've checked your set, replaced the missing pieces and now you're ready to build ! Never underestimate the satisfaction you can get by sorting an old set, replacing the missing pieces, and returning it to former glories. It's like restoring an antique. Welcome to Rebrickable v3! About 18 months ago I had a dangerous thought - "what would I do differently if I were to start again?". The answer was "a lot"! The first 5 years of Rebrickable has taught me so much about building and running a large website, I learned about fields I didn't even know existed :) Rebrickable v3 - Preview/Testing As previously announced, I have spent most of the last year on completely rebuilding Rebrickable from scratch.
I am now opening up the testing site for access to everyone, please take a look around and try it out! 2016 - Year In ReviewRebrickable has been running for five years now, and 2016 was an extremely busy time for me.The below chart shows the daily page views for the last 5 years. There is always a surge of activity right after Christmas which eventually tapers off, but the overall trend shows some decent growth. Top MOC Competition Winner for December (Final Round) The Final Round of the Top MOC Competition is over: Round 12 - December Final Rankings!. The prize for this round was €150 worth of LEGO. Top MOC Competition Winner for November Round 11 of the Top MOC Competition is over: Round 11 - November Final Rankings!. The prize for this round was €50 worth of LEGO.Congratulations to Chade for his entry: MOC-5945 - A-Team Van.Lego bricks are generally awesome, and by all accounts The Lego Movie, opening this weekend, is as well. So we thought we'd make sure the
folks at Lego didn't get too full of themselves by reminding the world of the worst toys, figures and building sets they've unleashed upon the world. JUST NO. I have no idea what possessed a single Lego engineer to create this cast-off from the Island of Dr. Moreau, let alone what made the company release it on an unsuspecting world. Or why they thought the two white round bricks underneath the nose-piece would represent two buck teeth and not some kind of abnormal growth. All I know is that all of these decisions were made in hate and fury. I put this is in quotes, because as you can see, while Lego assures us that this 1997 set is of a fire truck, it clearly looks nothing likeOh, it's red, and it is a vehicle, but that's pretty much where And what good is a completely bizarre fire truck without an equally bizarre fire chief? Admittedly, this fire chief is too good to ride on the truck with his peons, and has his own mini-vehicle, without doors or even
sides, to travel on. He also has his own little hose for… little fires? he's out fighting fires by himself? Because all the other Lego firemen think Call me crazy, but I think I'm got a pretty good idea how the robber could break into this bank. Or out, I guess. they behind the bars or in front of them? Is this guy trying to break into to access an ATM, or is he trying to get the endless void on the other side? either case, this thing sucks. Back in 1979, Lego created Fabuland, a line full of anthropomorphic animals, as sort of an intermediary set between Duplos andThey're kind of terrifying, like if Hunter S. Thompson had designed a toddler's Lego line while high on mescaline. But nothing is more chilling that The Fabuland Big Band set, featuring Peter Pig and Gabriel Gorilla. monsters would listen to a band consisting of nothing but a drummer and tuba 6) Star Wars Final Duel IIYes, now you can recreate the thrilling action of Luke
Skywalker's final duel with Darth Vader and the Emperor by… watching him walk down the hallway to his final duel with Darth Vader and the Emperor? long as he walks no more than four steps, because that's all the hallway In 1998, Lego introduced their K'nex-like building sets called Znap, because Zs make everything cooler. Indeed, the line wasn't overall bad — most of the kits looked all right, an they had crazy things like a Dino-Jet a giant ant along with the hover-subs and other vehicles. this piece of crap — which Lego tried to pass off as a "Jet-Car" — even more 8) Jack Stone Red Flash StationOkay, Lego, now you're not even fucking trying. Remember back in the early '00s, when Lego started trying to make sports games out of Legos? One of the earliest catastrophes was the NHL Slammer Stadium, in which sentient giant head statues from Easter Island played a rousing game of hockey. But what's worse is the rink itself — a flimsy
cardboard rink, surrounded by an even flimsier wall. If only Lego has some kind of more durable building material to work with! Horse and Clara Cow's Ice Cream Shoppe Another Fabuland set, obviously, begging a very disturbing question: Where does Clara get the milk to make the ice cream? Well before Lego Friends, Lego tried to reach girls with Belville set, a 1994 series which focused more on figures and playsets moreThe problem was the figures were godawful and the sets were a weird mix of fairy tale stuff and standard, mundane doll activities. Lego exhausted the traditional beauty salons and stables, they threw together this — sure, an interior designer is a pretty progressive progression for a doll to have in the '90s, but it kind of undercuts the message when her design equipment consists of a stand-alone sink, a bathtub (the hell?) and a brush. can think of a sadder image than a girl trying to brush her ugly, tiny doll's
plastic hair helmet, please let me know. I wasn't lying about the dolls. If Artoo had a skeleton, this is what it would look like. Lego couldn't be bothered to make a single piece that would prevent him fromFeel free to insert a C-3PO/Phantom Menace "I'm naked!" joke here, if you're a bad person. 14) Jack Stone Fire Response SUVDoes no one at Lego know what a goddamn firetruck looksOr an SUV, for that matter? In 2002, Lego had big plans for a new toyline call Galidor. They were so confident that they ordered a CG cartoon and had it on the air, about two teens named Nick and Allegra who are transported to an alien world threatened by evil aliens. It didn't do well at all, and I'm confident it wasn''t helped by this promotional figure of Nick, which looked like Chinese bootleg toy assembled by the blind and then stuck in a microwave for a while. makes Prince Justin look like Ryan Gosling. Peter Pig has murdered the sentient Turkey man of Fabuland