joelfinch

One of the simplest ways to detect scams is to take a couple of the photos used in the auction, upload them to Google Images, and see if they're used anywhere else on the web. Since scammers don't have the sets they're scamming on, they have to get images from somewhere...

Unlike most LEGO boxes, the 41999 box is designed like the LEGO Games boxes, to be opened without tearing perforations or glued panels, so that it can be re-closed. So in this particular instance, having an undamaged (unpunctured!) box has some value even if you plan to open it and build the set for yourself.

Not my order, but I saw this recently in another LEGO thread I read - perhaps yours and this were in the same batch? http://www.flickr.com/photos/chemenski/sets/72157634140626056/

I open the bags into one or two cutlery trays from IKEA, matching the size of the pieces roughly to the size of the compartments. It keeps all the pieces from the same bag together, while giving access to all the pieces at once. Because the compartments have smooth rounded corners, it's easy to scoop even the small pieces out, and one big advantage is that if I get interrupted while building, I can put the trays away easily, without pieces escaping. http://www.ikea.com/au/en/catalog/products/30177224/ http://www.ikea.com/au/en/catalog/products/80177226/

That's odd, several other websites say that his internship with LEGO started in January 2011. It looks to me as though what he's describing as a "temporary contract as a set designer" is in fact what LEGO itself would call an "internship". http://www.brothers-brick.com/2010/11/27/its-not-like-i-applied-for-the-job-just-for-giggles-an-interview-with-jordan-schwartz/ Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against the guy personally, I just prefer to see the facts represented accurately. If it was an internship, call it that, don't dance around it.

It's worth noting that he was a LEGO intern, not a full designer (unless someone else has information to the contrary), and his contribution to the Palace Cinema was the initial "sketch" build, which was polished and completed by an official LEGO designer, Astrid Graab

How about a free lifetime membership to any upcoming premium features on the hypothetical website where this competition is run? You'd have to be able to access the website to enter to contest in the first place, so everyone who can enter should be able to get the same value out of it. I have a ton of LEGO, and while there's really no such thing as too much LEGO, the reason I'm visiting the hypothetical site isn't to get more LEGO directly, it's to get more *information* about LEGO. I'd rather win something uniquely valuable from the hypothetical website itself :)

Too specialised, I would guess - for every crossroad in someone's layout, there's 40 or 50 straight and curved segments, so it wouldn't be a huge seller, in a theme that LEGO already apparently considers not a huge seller. I'm kinda glad they still make points! :)

The official 9V crossroad track piece sits at around $20 each at the moment - I wish I had a bunch! No sign of a PF track version either... My 4yr old Thomas the Tank Engine fanatic is quite insistent that the LEGO trains be able to crash together properly, so I built a crossroad from more common parts: http://www.flickr.com/photos/41066434@N08/8582940504/in/photostream Hopefully this method will be helpful to someone else out there!

The simplest solution there is to make "Did not leave feedback" a black mark in itself. That way, if one party leaves feedback and the other doesn't, even if the feedback is never revealed, the non-responder will effectively get the worst rating possible for the transaction. If the other team doesn't show up for the match, it's an automatic forfeit. I can understand Ebay not wanting to make feedback mandatory, since they're all about milking their market for as many transactions as possible, but in a more focused marketplace like Bricklink or LEGO sales generally, I think you could make a strong case for a site that comes with the condition of leaving feedback. You want to use a marketplace which works well for everyone and has lower fees? Your responsibility is to leave feedback.

As an example, I think Bricklink handles this quite well - feedback goes both ways. That has allowed me on several occasions to look up the people who have made complaints against a store I'm considering to see if they're a bad buyer.

I think we settled on "dropscammer" in another thread :P

Yeah, the "short-circuit" excuse would have been more believable if *all* of the escape pods had fired off at once. Honourable Mention goes to Oops-Forgot-To-Close-The-Docking-Bay Guy - without him, the droids would have escaped from the Tantive IV... into the docking bay of the Star Destroyer.

You're thinking of Anonymous Hold-Your-Fire Guy, when the droids are escaping to Tatooine. If he had been Anonymous Blow-It-Up-Anyway Guy, the trilogy would have been very short.

Actually, R5-D4 was sabotaged by R2-D2 to engineer the breakdown at the Uncle Owen's farm, so the crown for Most Pivotal goes back to R2-D2 http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/R5-D4

R2-D2. Can't open a door? Stuck in a garbage compactor? Need someone to hide your secret plans? Shoot you a lightsabre? Repair your ship? Comic relief with pre-beeped-out cuss words? He's the story-teller's swiss army knife.

It's a visibly different shade of grey than it used to be, now known as "light bluish grey" or "light bley". No more classic light grey. Visual comparison: http://www.flickr.com/photos/47970632@N06/6121056018/

The problem was that the engine with two motors had enough pull that if the magnets weren't aligned to give the best connection, it would go rogue and speed off by itself! It wasn't so much that the magnets weren't connecting at all. Apparently they rotate within their capsule to get best alignment, and sometimes get stuck, which gives a weak connection (tapping them is reported to help). When the connection is "right" the magnets are strong enough to keep the engine under control.

I've built two Horizon Express sets, good fun I found that with one Power Functions motor, the train had a hard time getting started, particularly if it was on a curved section (or worse, flexi track). I could have motorised both ends, but I didn't want a situation where they got out of sync due to one end not receiving the IR signal properly, so instead I added a second motor to the same end that already had the motor and battery (I used a short PF extension cable so that the doubled-up power connectors could be tucked inside the train instead of being visible from the top). This also has the benefit that you don't need another IR receiver or battery. If you decide to go this way, you'll need a couple of extra of "decorative side" pieces for the motor since the bogie that the motor replaces doesn't include those pieces. It works much better now for me, much easier to start. I did find I have to be a bit more particular about making sure the magnets connect properly; you can also use a black 1x2 plate or tile to "permanently" connect the couplings so that the magnets aren't a factor.

I previously voted "scam shipper", but would prefer "dropscammer" now that it's available :)

I wouldn't do that! Lots of $1 items is one of the ways that people on this site are identifying dropscammers. Maybe start out with your lower value sets? I've got a few Friends calendars tucked away for this purpose later in the year, just to boost feedback with something relatively small.

Could be an option for "premium member" status when we offer one. Speaking for myself, I'd be happy to pay a membership to support the site (and to avoid the hassle of maintaining a separate spreadsheet to calculate this stuff myself :)

One feature I would like to see is a personalised CAGR for each set in a folio, based on the date of purchase and the price paid. The percentage profit is definitely handy, but by itself it doesn't give an indication of how long I've been sitting on a set to achieve that.

I'm 40, and I run a web design, development and usability consultancy. I'm father of a four year old boy who already has about a thousand times more LEGO than I did growing up, and my wife loves LEGO too - we built the Grand Emporium recently, and I was only allowed to be the lowly parts-sorting monkey!