A selection of the latest news and blog posts. The results are now in the 2016 Second Review for LEGO Ideas creations. Congrats to 20tauri’s Women of NASA creation! This creation will be made into an official LEGO Ideas set. More details for the set will be available in late 2017 and 2018. 02/03/2017 - Toys N Bricks The “Trash Doves” sticker set is a strange phenomenon that erupted across Facebook quite suddenly as a meme during the week of Valentines Day, starting in Thailand and soon spreading across the globe. In Thailand ‘nok’ is the word for “bird 02/03/2017 - The Brothers Brick In 1985, when Super Mario Bros was all the rage, the very first enemy that approached Mario was Goomba. To this date, the fate of a Goomba has been to be stomped on again and again, for eternity. The Goomba that Cecile Fritzvold crafted is an evoluti 02/03/2017 - The Brothers Brick While this particular cathedral is not actually based on a real building, Swedish builder O Wingard was inspired by some of the world’s most beautiful Gothic architecture.
He mentions Notre Dame in Paris, Koelner Dom in Cologne, and Uppsala Cathedr 01/03/2017 - The Brothers Brick The most enjoyable aspect of Rogue One (for me, personally) was all of the Darth Vader scenes and content. One of the new Vader-related areas of interest was the canon appearance of his infamous castle on the planet Mustafar (which is confirmed to be 01/03/2017 - Brick Nerd Remember that awesome scene in the first hour of Star Wars The Force Awakens where Finn and Rey are running toward a Quadjumper on Jakku, but it gets blown up and they're forced to escape in the "garbage" Millennium Falcon instead? This summer, we'll 01/03/2017 - Brick Toy News There are some things money can’t buy, and this Italian supercar is one of those. The Lamborghini Centenario had a run of just 40 units worldwide, and they’ve all been snapped up. But that doesn’t stop any of us owning one in brick form, provid 01/03/2017 - The Brothers Brick February was a pretty news heavy month and here's a recap of some of the more popular LEGO posts from the month.
01/03/2017 - The Brick Fan Not long ago YOS Lego introduced us to LEGO versions of our favourite sisters from Frozen, and we were all wondering if they had had too much of a fright or too many energy drinks with those wide eyed expressions! And now apparently Ariel the Little 01/03/2017 - The Brothers Brick Formula One racing cars have been the subject of LEGO products since the 1970s and their design has evolved according to the changing selection of pieces available. 75879 Scuderia Ferrari SF16-H represents the latest model in the series and has been 01/03/2017 - Brickset Ayrlego built a tall and layered story-inspired build. It appears that some colonial period soldiers are on the hunt for a man and woman... 01/03/2017 - Brick Nerd I think its safe to say that Brother Steven likes the LEGO "Bigfoot" and "Yeti" minifigures. Why do I say that? Well, for starters, he features them in several other builds, and now he has this recent three-part addition. Not only is this an interest 01/03/2017 - Brick Nerd
A little over a year ago, LEGO issued a statement that initially appeared to indicate LEGO Digital Designer (LDD) had been discontinued. Check out all the new sets available this month! Including LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Minecraft, LEGO Super Heroes, LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean, and more! 01/03/2017 - The Brick Blogger Continuing with some of our new content, we're starting March off with another technique! Builder Simon NH has been gracious enough to share two simple, but interestingly detailed wall techniques with us. As Simon says, "These two techniques are very 01/03/2017 - Brick Nerd LEGO Architecture series has always caught my eye, but it has never been able to encourage me to part with my hard earned LEGO dollars. It’s one of those themes that generates a lot of discus... 01/03/2017 - All About The Brick This LEGO skateboard by French builder Jimmy Fortel reminds me of my middle school days of skating and playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. The detailing in the trucks and the bends in the nose and tail look realistic, and the skull deck graphic ties th 01/03/2017 - The Brothers Brick
Ten of the first series of BrickHeadz sets, not including Pirates of the Caribbean, are now available at shop. and Brand Stores - four Marvel (Cinematic Universe), four DC (Batman Movie) and two Disney (Beauty and the Beast). The most comprehensive LEGO Star Wars fansite includes coverage on all other LEGO licensed themes including Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Toy Story, and Batman. 01/03/2017 - From Bricks To Bothans As well as releasing dozens of new sets today LEGO has also launched a lot of Gear (or, what we here at Brickset like to call 'tat'): keychains, role-play toys, stationery, housewares, minifig frames and so on. This month’s cover photo is this smart yellow and black triple-axle trailer truck by builder MiniGray!. As well as being highly detailed, this model’s cab can house multiple LEGO minifigs and has working a tilt mechanism that reveals the engine b 01/03/2017 - The Brothers Brick LEGO recently released a new series of sets called Brickheadz, cute brick-built characters that seem to be the LEGO equivalent to Funko’s Pop Vinyls.
And it’s no surprise that fans are responding with their own characters in this style. Tokoyo Ta 01/03/2017 - The Brothers Brick UK based builder Nick Sweetman has created a fantastic build for Pancake Day (also known as Shrove Tuesday). My new favorite LEGO creature – the lobster – is helping himself to a bottle of something from the sink as the Chef and his new apprentic 01/03/2017 - The Brothers Brick We receive loads of requests to blog digital creations here at TLCB, and our answer is almost always ‘no’. However this time we’ve bent our usual rule, because this, readers, is h... 01/03/2017 - The Lego Car BlogMany Lego-related blogs are written about modern sets. This especially applies to investment-related blogs. In a series of articles I try to generate enthusiasm for some of the more interesting vintage Lego sets. We enjoyed building them as kids, whereas probably more often we jealously admired them in our best friend's collection or in the Lego catalogue we devotedly picked up in the toy store.
This is primarily a blog of nostalgia. However, investing in vintage Lego can be an interesting and fun pastime. The quest to find rarer sets, to restore incomplete sets and to assess your recently purchased lot of bricks can be exciting, relaxing and rewarding. In this series of blogs I will describe sets, show pictures, provide general and set-specific information for collectors and investors, and finalize each blog with some fun stuff. After reading a couple of these blogs you'll hopefully get a certain confidence in this matter. Let's start with set 1592, the Town Square. Those who are not interested in this set's history and contents are invited to fast forward to the "tips for collectors and investors" below. There's a festival in town! It's the end of summer and everyone is out on the streets to celebrate the last days of sunshine. Behind the medieval castle walls there is a party. Here on the town square a procession comes by... a classic car, a flower float, minifigures in historical costumes... come and join the fun!
Of course, this set being a promotional item, there's a commercial detail. In this case, the minifigures are invited to have a soup with some smoked sausage. This set was first issued in 1980 in the United Kingdom as a promotion for the British cereal producer Weetabix. Although the link between this set and cereals escapes me (the sign crowning the snack bar says "fish & chips" rather than "breakfast cereals") that doesn't make the set any less desirable. The UK set, produced between 1980 and 1982, features stickers "books", "ice cream", "Legoland carnival" and the UK flag. After its initial sale in the UK, from 1981 the set was sold in Australia, Canada, Sweden, Germany1 as well as Japan2. Clicking this link will show you a German advert from around 1981. The advertiser, Fachgeschäft Spielzeugring (German toy retailer group), tells us this is a 'large city centre-themed gift set with a lot of content and endless playability'. Then in 1983 a new set 1592 was issued, being a promotional item for the Dutch company Unilever.
Already then one of the largest Netherlands-based companies, Unilever has produced a wide array of foods, cleaning articles and personal care products. One of the many brands held by Unilever is Unox, best known for its soup and its (delicious) typically Dutch smoked sausages. To this day movable carts just like the one seen in set 1592 are used to sell these sausages and sometimes soup. In winter soup with smoked sausage is just as commonly seen here as fish and chips are (or should I say, were) in the UK. So The Lego Group and Unilever both did the math, resulting into the advertisement seen here3 (scroll down a bit). "Send me Lego box no. 1592 "Village with procession" for the special Unox-price4 of €18,13 inclusive of shipment. I enclose payment plus 3 promo wrappers. N.b. of course you can order more than one Procession set. For every specimen, use a new order form plus 3 extra promo wrappers (maximum: 3 per family). U can also get the box without promo wrappers, in which case we will need to charge €2,97 shipment- and administrative costs.
This promotion runs until December 1983." "Unique Lego box costing you only €18,13 plus 3 Unox promo wrappers (shop advice price €31,54). "Village with procession" true measurements 39x29cm. Enjoy that tasteful Unox soup while saving for that unique Lego procession box" We are fortunate to know that the shop advice price was €31,54 even though this set was never available in any shop. The Dutch version of the 1592 set was only produced for the year 1983 and it was only sold in the Netherlands. Even in 1983, some UK set production leftovers were delivered in the Netherlands. This is what Gary Istok says5: "A Dutch acquaintance was a LEGO fan as a child... along with his 2 brothers... And their parents sent in 3 sets of UNOX Soup labels and money to get 3 of the Dutch 1592 sets. Well guess what arrived?? 2 Dutch and 1 British version of the 1592 sets!!" All of this makes Dutch 1592 the rarer of the two variants and also the most sought-after. SET SPECIFICS AND CONTENTS
The set comprises of 471 or 4916 parts, 10 minifigures 1 statue and 1 steroids-fed horse. Let's first look at the minifigures, horse and vehicles. Back row, left to right: a statue, costumed man (with cup for soup!), book seller, convertible car driver, 4 knights, soup and sausage seller (previous job: fish & chips seller), flower float driver, flower queen. Front row: convertible classic car, horse, flower float. There are stickers for the knight shields, knight torsos and horse eyes. I'm not sure the eyes are all that realistic and if aligned carefully they will make your horse resemble cookie monster quite realistically. One year later, in 1984, The Lego Group would issue a horse part (Bricklink: #4493c01pb02) with slightly less disturbing eyes. The convertible car is a very neat little build, cleverly using a pile of 2x2 wheel plate + 2x8 plate + wheel fender + 2x3 plate + 2x2 plate to make a black grille. On with the castle walls. Even the first time I built this set, probably as a six-year-old, I thought this was supposed to depict a relic rather than an 'abstract' full castle.
This was one of the reasons I liked the set so much: it stimulated the fantasy (history of the castle, what's behind those walls now?) A child could choose to pose the knights on and around the castle, or to let them walk in the parade. Probably, behind the castle walls other festival activities were going on. According to the poster, the festival took place from the 28th of August until the 4th of September. The Dutch flag consists of a white part + two stickers. The flag in the UK set had UK stickers, as mentioned. The second building is the book shop. The UK set has a sticker "books" for the kiosk one. The building is just lovely! The half-timbered structure is represented convincingly and the use of then-new windows and -door are very charming. The roof structure is rather complex and is fun to build. The building's only flaw is the use of the striped stickers on the canopy. I'll come back to that later. On the above picture you can also see the cypress tree which is considered a rather rare piece.
Not as rare as finding one actual cypress tree within the boundaries of a Dutch city though. As can be seen in the above picture, the book shop even has a modest interior. The rest of the set consists of two lampposts, a statue of a guy, a STOP traffic sign, a blue bench, fruit tree, an avalanche of flowers (some in pots) and of course the soup with smoked sausage stand. The sticker sheet contains alternate stickers "vers schepijs" ('fresh ice cream'). A main picture of the box can be seen in the beginning of this blog. Here are pictures of the sides of the box (third image is shown on both shorter outsides of the inner box): The bottom side of the box: Lastly, the inner box, sticker sheet and instructions. Note that there are spares for most stickers: 5 knight torsos, 3 knight shields, 3 kiosks, 2 statue stickers, 3 snack bar stickers, 3 pairs of terrified horse eyes and 1 festival poster. Most unfortunately, the two weakest and rarest stickers (shop canopy) are not offered as spares.
On the picture you can also see the great build of the car. Check out the way the designer designed that grille! TIPS FOR COLLECTORS AND INVESTORS Those who are interested in purchasing / investing in this set should note the following: On with the fun stuff. First, a picture of two sets of Dutch instructions. References1 See this Bricksetforum post written by Lego historian Gary Istok. 2 See this post on the Eurobricks forum written by Lego historian Gary Istok. 3 See this post on the Eurobricks forum. 4 The price in Dutch guilders was fl.39,95. 5 See this post on the Eurobricks forum.6 The 2008 Lego Collector Guide p166.7 Unofficial Lego Sets / Parts Collectors Guide, Gary Istok, price list. To see prices for very good, MIB- and MISB-conditions I strongly advise anyone to buy Mr Istok's magnum opus. It simply is a treasure chest loaded with facts, figures and pictures of every imaginable Lego-subject from the 30s up to and until the 90s.