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The struggle...

Hi guys, Earlier this year my wife and I "completed" our journey out of the dark ages (thanks again to this community for making that possible for a -relatively- reasonable amount). Having acquired all of the retired sets we wanted (within reason, sorry UCS Falcon and Grand Carousel), my wife mused that our city needed a zoo. I agreed, so I decided to make one. I posted a MOC a few months ago but this is my first end-to-end, all the bells and whistles effort at something special. It took about 10-12 weeks. I built it and my wife provided constant feedback, answering "what do you think of this?" and "how does this look?" over and over hahah. I also received input some friends, family, and even an esteemed member on here (shout out TheOrcKing for his feedback and, really, everything he does and contributes to this community). Anyway, I thought I'd share this one with you all, too... The concept is that it's a modular building that has modular exhibits, in that you can remove them from the building and place them side-by-side more like a traditional zoo. Depending on how you configure it, the play area becomes as large as 50" wide, but is easily stored and placed into your city on a single standard 10"x10" baseplate: Behind the facade, there are 7 exhibits and 1 food stand & lab. Here's a look at one of them (link to others below): And this is what it looks like as part of a Lego city street: There's a complete video overview here: https://youtu.be/3q6l0Ud5C3c And lots more pictures here (no pressure to vote, of course.... not that I'll stop you lol) https://ideas.lego.com/projects/145483 Thanks for looking! Thoughts?

Started this Friday night, just finished. I was always underwhelmed by pictures of this set. I was mistaken as it's quite impressive in person.

our first used Modular on local eBay, first purchased locally here in Brazil, at BRL 1300 (USD~385 -EUR~349) extremely well kept, first time no missing pieces at all (previous used set experiences always with missing pieces 75093, 79003, 7965, 8038, 4842, etc.), as you can see below seller placed back the pieces into the original numbered bags...

Built Big Ben and added lights from Brick Stuff. What a slick addition to the model - I added two white LEDs in the top of the tower, and two green LEDs behind the colonnade above the four sided clock. Next step is to illuminate the facade and light the Tower Bridge displayed next to it. For those builders and MOCers that have thought about diving into lighting, you will not be disappointed.

When face with this dilemma I typically custom build a box. I have had to do when selling a group of sets like the latest castle series. I do this when selling a single 10664 Creative Tower. Find a box with the right height and one of the dimensions and custom build the rest. In the U.S. we are charged shipping on dimensions and weight. So smaller is better as long as the set has a little room to breathe. just my 2 cents.

Amazon 75091 - Star Wars: Flash Speeder - $20.99 (30% off)

Finally got around to building (and photographing) 10197 Fire Brigade. It was the first modular I ever constructed. I enjoyed it, but, it wasn't as life changing as I expected. I'm in the process of tearing it down so I can sell it, lol. But I am looking forward to building others in the series.

TRU....Offer starts 7/01-

I'll be sure to post pictures when I crack open my Maersk Train and SSD this fall. I always planned on building the SSD from sealed box and my partner convinced me that the Maersk train would look great in our new city. What fun is LEGO investing if you can't indulge every once in a while? I've got quite a few others that were acquired for more than MSRP or have yet to be built and have since retired... No worries, they'll be built too! What's the point? Just slice open those boxes and build them! You won't regret it!

Didn't know the VA had licensing agreement with LEGO?

This is what it looked like Friday. I bricklinked it, could not bring myself to open a new one. I should have just bought a used one, would have cost the same as bricklinking.

The sand green elements for the July wall reset are 1x1 bricks and 1x2 plates.

Don't bricklink a Town Hall. Buying a used set will cost the same and probably be cheaper. I did a town hall, spent over $400 and didn't get a manual plus I'm still missing a few minifigures. Didn't do enough research before diving in.

Your 70x50x16 (cm) box isn't too big in terms of air space around the edges if you utilize air pillows. I would be more concerned about the height of the box. I would cut your box in half length wise. This would make your box height 8cm. After cutting the box length wise tape up the top and bottoms. Package your set in the bottom and add cushioning around the perimeter and perhaps some bubble wrap on top of the set. Then slip the top over the bottom. Bc the box top and bottom are the same size you'll need to pinch one of the corners on the bottom box to allow the top to slide over. Hope this helps pm me with questions.

Coupon code 66926. Free $15 Staples® Gift Card with your regular-priced packing and shipping supplies order of $50 or more. Would rather have a coupon than a gift card, but my low inventory of shipping boxes will push me to use this code.

Minor deal, but I'm seeing $2 back on $5 Toys and 10% back in points showing up at KMart.com. Maybe good for some small item purchases?

I dislike the prequels, but like this set and Captain Tarpals.

Bonsai by Full Plate

Aquamarine AQ-24 IMG_001 by Red Dragon Industries

Ferrari Testarossa 512 TR by Firas Abu-Jaber

Corner Grocer by Rob Bender

And remember: Excel (or any other spreadsheet) is your friend. Keep a list of all the pieces you need (extract from BL), and keep track of what you've purchased from where and how many (plus cost + shipping if you want to find out how much you saved versus just buying a used one). BTW, unless you're really strict on yourself, you might find you get close to what you would have paid if you bought a new one ... And the obligatory warnings: You will most likely run across incomplete orders (i.e. you ordered quantity X from a BL seller, but got X-1, or got a different part or something like that). Plan for this - unless the part is really expensive, just buy a few more than you need (if the seller has them available). And you will inevitably go hunting for that cat, or that lady minifig, or those sand green bricks with groove etc. Resist the temptation, you must.

Picked up a CL lot from RI for $550 the other day which had a complete Town Hall as the main selling point. So far sorting the 75+ lbs or so it has about 30% non lego. 100+ minifigures I'd guess. Lots of instructions too. I'm now pulling out a 6211 and a 7665. Here are some pictures. Top two are the ones they had built. The bulk is a horrible mess of pieces. I'll sell it off after cherry picking.

Found these locally...

Saw this on ideas, It would be an awesome sister set to the haunted house. https://ideas.lego.com/projects/137916

Yeah, I suppose that wouldn't be a good idea. Never mind.

I actually asked the seller if he checked the figures to make sure they had the correct parts. He said yes. My main gripe is more on how he responded. Apparently, all the figures were correct and I wanted duplicates of the parts I was missing. Not sure how that makes any sense. He also told me to leave negative feedback so I did.

I've built all of the modulars at least twice. Cafe Corner and Fire Brigade are my least favorites. IMO Building them feels much more like a chore; you started at the bottom and should enjoy the others more.

Fair point and I can relate as well... mentioned just now in the other thread, Town Hall was my first modular, and I bought it about 5 months after retirement. Paid $540 for it, came home and sliced it open. It was awesome. But the wallet did hurt for a while. Edit: Now I'm indulging in custom modulars.... that can be heavy on the wallet too

I did 2 store pickups at Walmart for qty 3 on 6/24/2016 and they weren't in a case. So either I had the wrong magic number or maybe their source for those at this point are no longer original cases, I dunno.

I regret I haven't worked the points nearly as much as I should. Last week, I took advantage of the $25 in points on $100 to buy a MF through TRU on the marketplace. Not only did I get $25 bonus points back, but a $10 TRU voucher. Free money is awesome.

Bummer. They finally learned they could not make as much money with those discounts

This is for North America region. " We apologize that this item is temporarily out of stock, please check back with us in late fall. " I wonder if the Soccer/Foot Ball CMF production have to do with a slight pause in the Disney CMF.

Doooo it!

LOL...I did the same thing - Bricklinked it. And I found the cost to be similar, too. Oops!

Pictures they sent to me before I picked it up. Some Friends and Ninjago sets had only one bag opened in their box.

Meanwhile, back in Europe, ExoSuit currently has 612 units by 148 vendors with a starting price of 31 euros. Average sales per month since January are 10 units. Doing the maths that works out at another 5.5 years of stock assuming no one lists more items and the rate of sales remains constant.

From the fantastic BrickWorld 2016 display by PennLUG and Texas Brick Railroad:

Hell will freeze over before kids won´t like dinosaurs. This xmas should serve to flush out most of the stock.

Most of it was mint condition, or as mint as retail shelf items go. One of the Emma's houses had a crease, and some of the bionic let sets were dented at the bottom. Rest was as good as new, even the Ninjago Mech dragons and all the China speedors that filled the shelves.

Built the GB Firehouse over the weekend. This thing is a monster. I got through two movies and the entire oj made in america doc while building it. I just need to find a way to tie it into my modular town. Edit- think I have a plan

Yes, one of the more famous (for it's still-standing huge scale) in southern France called the Pont du Gard. I visited at a younger age and the monument has always stuck with me as defining the words impressive and awesome. This photo is from the perspective of my fourth photo. I have the model on the shelf displayed the other way round, such that the river is on the right. If you examine some other real-life photos, and then the model, you'll note some detailed accuracy (as much allowed for the scale anyway). Expensive due to my stubborn desire to have certain bricks in the right colours.... some of them turned out incredibly rare, I think I dropped $50 for 11 pieces somewhere along the line there.... Not sure what you mean by how long, so I'll answer in every way I can perceive the question... It took me about 1.5 months to gather the bricks from roughly 12 or 14 different orders. The total brick count sits at almost exactly 2100 pieces (I'm not sure the exact final count as a couple of unforeseen tweaks had to be made along the way... you can't test structural integrity in LDD unfortunately!). It took me approximately 3 6-hour sessions... I didn't have instructions, so hiding and revealing layers in the digital file ate some time despite all the bricks being pre-sorted (as orders came in). The build in dimensions is 67cm x 10cm x 22cm, or alternatively 84 studs x 12 studs x 24 bricks.

Posted a couple months back, this was my first real MOC I put together and ordered from scratch. Total cost came to around $500 CAD. But it's one of a kind and I'm very happy with that! Borrowed a friend's DLSR to take some proper "artistic" shots.

Took the instructions from the Maersk train #10219 and Bricklink'd all in black, bought some waterslide decals from a local hobby shop and then modified it a bit to be a Norfolk Southern locomotive in our little city. Nothing special, but we added power functions and it runs great.

The Bluesmobile by Chris Wight

VOLKSWAGEN T2 BAY - "SURFER PICK-UP" by Norton74

I'm sure we'll get some more practical sets.