Brick le France - with beaucoup de retired sets

If you’re an American AFOL, you’ve probably glanced at notices for new sets and have seen pricing in other countries listed. You’ve probably also seen AFOLs from around the world complaining about how sets are priced in their country as compared to US prices. As an American AFOL living in Germany, I figured I would take a look to see what I could learn.

Before I go into a specific example, I wanted to point out a difference in taxes. In the states, depending on where you are, you pay a sales tax. This tax is priced in after you make the purchase. So LEGO sets its retail price (or Walmart, or Amazon.com, etc.) and then you pay an additional percentage at checkout. In Europe, from what I’ve seen, the Value Added Tax or VAT is built into the price. Your receipt tells you how much the item actually was and what you paid in VAT. So keep that in mind for those Americans who forget the sometimes 8% to 10% sales tax that gets added onto purchases.

Back to my main point… I stopped at a Cora store in France a few weeks back. For those of you in the US who have never been, Cora is kind of like a Walmart only the one I went to was much nicer than a Walmart. While there, I of course had to check out the LEGO selection.

First off they had a lot of retired Collectible Minifigures, but not the current Harry Potter Collectible Minifigure series.

As you can see from the pictures, they had the Ninjago movie minifigures still on sale for €3.99 each. These were released back in August 2017 in the EU and apparently they still have them at retail price. Next you can see the Batman Movie Series 2 minifigures. These were released in the EU on 1 January 2018 and Cora had them for €3.50 which is less than the original retail of €3.99. Finally they had the Series 18 minifigures for €3.50. They were released back in April and again Cora had them for less than retail. I’m wondering if this is a trend in Europe or an anomaly. At Walmart or Target, usually collectible minifigures go fast so I was surprised to see so many options

Next up were a few City sets.

You can see #60104-1 - Airport Passenger Terminal - Retired in France in November 2017. Retail was €99.99, but selling for €94.99. Also #60051-1 - High-Speed Passenger Train - Retired in France in June 2018 and selling for €10 under retail. #60052-1 - Cargo Train is right next to it. It retired in June and they still have it selling at the original retail price. The last one I’ll mention is #60103-1 - Airport Air Show which retired in France back in January 2018. I have no idea on pricing from the picture I took because the label does not match the set. Anyways, interesting to see some retired sets still out there.

I didn’t go nuts taking pictures of all of them and I didn’t buy any either, but one that stood out was #75105-1 Millennium Falcon. It retired in France back in January 2018 and was done in the US back in November 2017. It was still at Cora and there were multiple copies. I know I have seen the price of that set going up on BrickLink.com and I may have been one of the sellers of those a few months back.

If any Americans are reading this, should I have bought some of the retired sets you can’t find in the states anymore? Even with the exchange rate of around $1.20 to the Euro, would it be worth it? What do you think?

A Visit to Gartenschau Kaiserslautern and the Awesome LEGO Display (Summer 2018)

As an American AFOL living in Europe, I had to store some of my collection back in the USA and I have relied on reading fan sites and listening to the Bricks King podcast to stay in tune with the hobby.  My NLS and I decided to take our kiddos to a park and I ended up hitting the jackpot.  The Gartenschau (Google Translate says it means "garden show”) Kaiserslautern is what my kids refer to as the dinosaur park.  It has lots of great garden areas surrounded by large sculptures of dinosaurs.  It also has a lot of playground equipment for kids and a bunch of other things to do.  Here is the link to the site if you want more info (it's in German, but Google Chrome asks if I want to translate it).

As we walked into the park, we saw a sign advertising a LEGO display so we went into the building where it was located.  And then I started to drool...  Wow!  It is advertised as creations and builds from builders from Germany and Luxembourg and boy is it ever.  There were glass cases stacked with MOCs and sets from LEGO.  Then there were huge display areas with some giant creations.  At the end was a kid play area with LEGO System bricks, DUPLO, and some large toddler friendly rubberized LEGO bricks.  To top it off, there was a LEGO store with some sets on sale (that wasn't open when I was there).  The display is on site until the garden closes at the end of October 2018 (not sure it comes back regularly or not).  If you're in the area, definitely check it out.  If not, here are a few pictures of what is there.  The lighting is not super great for pictures so my phone didn't capture the best shots for a website (sorry).  

You'll notice in the one case on the top left there is a brick build sign that says Lauter Steine EV.  This is a LUG in the local Kaiserslautern area that is connected to a LUG in Luxembourg (per LEGO's web site).  

A few more display cases... I won't show them all, but you get the idea.  

There were also a few MOCs of existing buildings.  This first one is of St. Michael's Basilica in Mondsee, Austria.  Here's a link to an Austrian web site with a picture of it.  As an AFOL, I wish they had more info about the builder, some of the techniques used to build it, total brick count, etc.  You know, all those geeky AFOL things that we're into.  I realize the display is meant for non-AFOLs so it's all good.

I'm not an expert of the area yet, but I'll find out where these buildings are and post some actual pictures or links.

The Statue of Liberty at around 6 feet tall.  I left the case next to it so you could get an idea of the size.  I also threw a picture in of the train case next to it just because I'm a big LEGO train fan.

Ok... I was not expecting to round the corner and see this on display.  WOW!!!!!  The Cologne Cathedral looks phenomenal.  If you believe the Wiki page I found, it took 2 years and 900,000 bricks to build.  Another site I saw said it was more like 500,000  If anyone can find other references, please let me know.  I could spend a whole post talking about this build, but I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.  If you want to see more, definitely Google it.  There are tons of additional photos and some videos if you want to see more detail and close ups (with better lighting).

The display also includes a few dioramas. Here’s a picture of the pod racing scene from Star Wars episode one..

This picture doesn’t do it justice, but here’s the fight scene from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi on the moon of Endor.

This picture doesn’t capture the whole scene either, but here is a LEGO Space display.

And of course, they have a giant LEGO city. Here are only a few pictures of the many I took. It’s quite an impressive scene with a farm area, a fairground, a train, a giant town square, construction, and plenty of buildings ranging from MOCs to some of the modular buildings from the Creator Expert line.

I’m hoping they do this setup again next year because it’s awesome! Thanks to my new neighbors in Europe for putting this together!

Set Review - #60169 - Cargo Terminal - LEGO City

I don't review a lot of LEGO City sets as they tend to repeat.  The fire fighters, police cars, and others tend to repeat every year.  The cargo theme along with a few others, tend to repeat less often.  I saw #60169, Cargo Terminal come out and was interested.  It originally came out on 27 May 2017. However, the original retail price is $79.99.  With 740 pieces that comes out to $0.108 per piece.  I found that to be pretty high, but thankfully I picked it up on Amazon.com for 20% off for $63.99 or $0.086 per piece.  So definitely better.  Sadly, the set was only 20% off on Amazon.com for a small amount of time.  Keep watching it though and it may come back.

Onto the review...

The set box is similar to most city sets.  The front shows the full up set.  The back shows the play features along with the standard minifigure that is saying "Hey!"

The contents include 8 parts bags numbered 1 through 8 to go with the instructions.  Bag one includes a piece separator as you can see in the picture.  There are 5 instruction booklets and then a sticker sheet.  Thankfully the stickers are mostly license plates and a few others so it's not a massively stickered set like some in the past have been.

The first bag is a forklift.  This is not the first appearance of a forklift in a City set.  It has been in the Cargo Terminal #60022 from 2013 and Cargo Truck #60020 from 2013.  This one includes a female minifigure, a hand cart to move things around and a small pallet with miniature LEGO sets on them.  These have appeared before to include in 2010's LEGO City Truck (#3221).  Not too much has changed on this forklift design although it is in red versus orange or yellow.

I pictured some of the extra small pieces included at the bottom of the photo for reference.

The second bag is a crane that has a movable arm.  That is the arm rotates up and down but the hook part does not move in and out of the arm.  The hook attaches to a crate that you build in yellow with the LEGO logo stickers on either side.  The forklift can load the pallet of LEGO sets into this crate.  The set includes 3 other crates that can be picked up with this crane.

The third bag is the start of the truck to carry the crates.  Nothing too special about this part of the build.

Bag number 4 completes the truck.  It comes with a driver who has a beverage and one crate with a mini-jet ski or similar type item in the crate.  The truck has room for 2 crates in total.

The fifth bag is a trailer that attaches to the truck to carry additional crates.  This allows you to load all of the crates that come with the set onto the truck.  Nothing too impressive about this build.  My only complaint is that the front axle has a ball attachment to the back of the truck and then the axle itself is on rotating plates.  When you attach it to the truck and have it turn, it can over spin.  I would go with either the ball attaching to the truck or the rotating axle, but not both.  Too be fair, it doesn't take away from the trailer or the set that much... it's just a nit picky complaint that I have I guess.

The sixth bag is 2 additional crates.  One has a small four-wheeler and the other is... um... maybe a snow plow that is supposed to attach to a larger truck?  I'm not really sure.  You could pretend it is a number of things I guess.  The crates are built similar to the others where the fork lift can lift off the cargo and the crane can pick up the crate itself.

The seventh bag is a small hut that could be the entrance to the cargo area.  There is a female minifigure that sits inside with a coffee maker, some cookies, a camera with a view of traffic, a wrench, a walkie talkie, and a barrier arm that swivels up and down.  Like many City sets, this leaves a bit to be desired with no back wall to the building and not a lot else to it.  It's sets like these that I enjoy because I can then use my own pieces and parts to expand upon them to make them better.  Also, it can be a good addition to a larger cargo yard that you are building.

The eighth bag is a rack where the forklift can place the pallets.  There are four slots for the 4 items with the set.  As mentioned with the building, the shelving could stand to be expanded, but that's where your imagination can come into play.  It's a good start to what could be a larger cargo yard.

Here is the entire set.  In my opinion, it's a great set.  There are lots of play features, there is room for expansion, and it's not a repeated City set that you see re-hashed every year.  Definitely a good set for a kiddo or for a nerdy adult like me who builds city scenes with LEGO bricks.  Look for the opportunity to get this on sale.  In early May 2018, the set is around 19% off on Amazon.com in the US.  LEGO seems to add to the cargo theme every few years versus annually so if you can't get this one, you'll have to wait a few years.

Happy building!