LEGO at the Deutsches Museum - Munich, Germany

One of the great things about being an American living in Europe is the chance to see a lot of places you’ve never been to before without having to fly across an ocean to get there. I recently got back from a road trip with my family to see a few places and one of those stops was to Munich, Germany or München as it translates into German. While there, my family stopped at the Deutsches Museum to walk around. It was an interesting museum that had enough to keep my kiddos interested and it had some English translations too for those of us who can’t speak German.

One of the sections of the Museum was the Technical Toys area. As expected it included LEGO. The picture here is Godtfred Kirk Christiansen who was the third child of Ole Kirk Kristiansen. He was also the managing director of the LEGO Group for many years. You can read more about him on the LEGO website here. According to the museum exhibit and Google Translate it says that he was the “inventor of Lego-plastic construction kits.”

The LEGO article has some information I had never heard of. The “10 Lego Characteristics” are spot on. I definitely think they met their goal. Good thing they decided to go away from wooden toys. Otherwise, where would we be?

The museum display had some bricks placed in some fun designs, but more importantly it had some of the boxes from the very first LEGO System sets. Even better, some of the boxes are in German. The box towards the upper right corner says “System im Spiel.” Google Translate says it means “system in the game,” but a spielplatz is a playground so I’m pretty sure it is system of play or something similar.

I think the museum could use some AFOLs to help beef up the displays they have. While the designs are good, they could use some new designs. Maybe some German architecture?

It was hard to get good pictures of the boxes from behind the glass display case, but here is one of the boxes. I looked it up on Brickset and I think it is 311-4: Airplanes from 1961. Am I right? Maybe some LEGO history experts can help me out here.

Interestingly enough right next to the LEGO display was IDEMA. I took some pictures because I wasn’t familiar with this toy at all and I couldn’t read the German next to the display. The best I could find was a website from Portugal that says it was a German building toy started post World War II made of Bakelite. I had to look Bakelite up as well… it’s a kind of plastic. Anyways, IDEMA did not catch on and ended up fading away in the 1970s. Looks like part of the reason it didn’t catch on was competition from LEGO. Hard to say as I couldn’t find a lot of info on it. Here are a few pictures to include a mug shot of its German inventor Josef Dehm. Here is the website I found which looks like it is Portuguese. The site has a good picture comparison picture between IDEMA bricks and LEGO bricks. You’ll also notice a a version of London’s Tower Bridge which isn’t quite as detailed as set 10214-1, but still is pretty impressive.

And finally a Ferris Wheel along with a few other builds out of this toy. Interesting stuff. I had never heard of IDEMA before. It might be that the toy didn’t make it out of Europe so we never saw it in the States. I don’t know. If you’re in Munich and you have some free time, check the Deutsches Museum out.

Set Review - #75951-1 - Grindelwald's Escape - Fantastic Beasts - Wizarding World

The second Fantastic Beasts move will be released in the US on 16 November 2018 (if you believe everything you read on the internet). Although here in Germany you can get movie tickets for 13 November. This one is called “The Crimes of Grindelwald.” Beyond seeing the trailer, I don’t know much about the movie so no spoilers to report here. I initially thought the first movie was just an attempt to keep the series going after a successful and profitable run of Harry Potter books and movies, but the first movie was actually pretty good. Hopefully this movie will be good as well.

Onto the set… #75951-1, Grindelwald’s Escape, was released in the US on 24 August 2018. It retails for $19.99, but I was able to pick it up for 16% off at Amazon.com. It has 132 pieces and 2 minifigures so that works out to $0.151 per piece which is rather steep in my opinion. I’m not sure if this is due to the Thestral figure which is unique to this set or not. Full disclosure, I had to look “Thestral” up. Otherwise, I would have just said winged-horse. Is “Thestral” even right? Anybody?

Here is the box. It’s the standard look with the set featured on the front and the play features on the back.

I had my 4-year old help me build this set (you can see her hands in the picture). As we opened the instructions, we had to follow them exactly as printed. One of the pictures shows a minifigure separating the pieces by color. This is the first time I’ve ever done that and it actually makes building very easy since you know which pile to look in. With smaller sets, I’ve never actually bothered, but it worked good for both of us.

This set has 2 bags of parts which are not numbered and an instruction booklet. There are no stickers to apply. YAY!

The set starts off with the minifigures. There are 2 which are Seraphina Picquery (in the lighter blue) and Gellert Grindelwald in the black with white hair. I have yet to see the movie so I’m not going to comment on whether they look like the movie characters or not. They both have dual faces and both come with wands and what Brickset calls a “mini shooter.”

The Thestral is next and you apply a brick harness and the wings. I’m curious to see if this figure will become popular on the secondary market or not due to its uniqueness.

Lastly is the coach. Nothing overly spectacular about this build. My kiddo had a tough time with a few of the attachments and I had to help a lot, but still it is a fairly easy build. The pieces aren’t overly exciting, but the wheels go back to the LEGO Castle days. I like the doors to the coach as well.

My overall opinion… this set isn’t too exciting. If you’re a big fan of the movie series, then it may be worth getting for the minifigures, but it didn’t do much for me. Check for sales on Walmart, Amazon.com, and/or Target. Hopefully it’ll go down in price more if you’re looking to pick it up.

Happy building!

Sign Ups are Open for the LEGO® Inside Tour 2019

Have you ever wanted to get inside the factory in Billund, Denmark where LEGO bricks are made? Do you think it would be cool to get to spend time with LEGO designers. Would you like to have the opportunity to shop at the employee store? Are you a LEGO fanatic and would eat, breathe, and sleep LEGO given the opportunity?

If you said yes to any or all of those and you can cough up over $2,000 (not including transportation), then sign up for the LEGO® Inside Tour. Sign ups started today (29 Oct 2018) and end 2 Nov 2018 at 1000 AM CET (Denmark time). The tour is 2.5 days long and the funds you spend include meals, lodging, and some cool freebies (or not really free because you paid for them). If you want more details or if you want to sign up, go to the LEGO House Website. Also, do a web search on your favorite search engine for write-ups and videos from previous attendees.

It used to be a first come, first serve kind of thing and sign ups ended in a minute or 2. Now it appears to be a lottery system where everyone can sign up and they pick people out of that pool. I looked at a number of reports from previous attendees and they said over 5,000 applied for around 175 slots. I’m not sure how accurate those numbers are, but it’s probably fairly close.

There are 4 tour dates listed:
8-10 May 2019
12-14 June 2019
11-13 September 2019
18-20 September 2019

The form you fill out to register lets you select dates. I selected all 4 as right now I am available for any of them. If you know you can’t make one or another, don’t select it. The rules say you have a 3 day period once selected to turn it down so you are not locked in right away. The form asked for some basic information (name, contact info, age) and it asked some LEGO info. Are you in a LUG? What is your favorite theme? What do you like to do with LEGO?

I’m curious to see how they narrow it down. Or we’ll never know.

Good luck if you sign up. I hope you can attend. Or maybe I’ll get picked and I’ll see you there. Since I can drive there, it makes attending a bit more affordable. If I don’t make it and you do, let me know how it goes.

Happy building!

Set Review - #75955-1 - Hogwarts Express - Harry Potter - Wizarding World

As I’ve stated, more Harry Potter sets to review… This one is #75955-1 Hogwarts Express. It was released on 5 September 2018 in the US and retails for $79.99. I picked it up on sale at Amazon.com and since buying it the set has moved up to 20% off. Anyways, the set has 801 pieces and 6 minifigures. It works out to $0.10 per piece at retail (obviously less if you get it on sale). That’s right about average in my mind and not bad for a licensed set. Onto the review…

Standard box… Front shows the set with all of the minifigures. The back shows the play features with the Dementor appearing 3 times. I think this set will be popular just for the Dementor alone.

The set includes 7 bags of parts, an instruction book, and a sticker sheet.

Bag one starts to build Kings Cross station to include platform 9 3/4. It also includes the minifigures for Professor Remus Lupin and Ron Weasley as well as a baggage cart. 9 3/4 is a wall on Technic pins that rotates when you run a minifigure into it. Bag one also includes a piece separator.

The second bag includes the rest of the station and the Harry Potter minifigure. One of the nice features of this set is the mix between stickers and printed parts. The 2x2 newspaper tiles are printed which are 2 less stickers to worry about.

The station itself is pretty simple, but to make it any bigger would bring the price up. For the set, I think the platform gets the key part which is the wall to go through. If builders want more of the features, they can build them on themselves.

The third bag starts the engine itself with the wheels and the bottom part of the engine. The wheels are a pretty simple assembly as compared to the Emerald Night set.

The next bag completes the engine. I was glad that the front curved piece (what’s the official term? Nose?) was printed as well as the “Hogwarts Castle” rounded tile piece on each side. The only thing that confused me on this set are the turning ratio of the front 4 wheels. There is an assembly that can be moved up to allow the wheels to turn and then put down to lock them into staying straight. For someone like me who plans on motorizing this train eventually, this piece seems unnecessary. I would rather have the front able to turn all the time without the awkward piece to lock it into place. This will be something that I redesign eventually.

Everyone else has brought this up and I have to as well. This train is not motorized. There are numerous videos and sites out there where you can see how others have motorized this train. You can use Power Functions train motor or an M motor with some Technic pieces. Either way, it is possible to motorize it without totally wrecking the design. While I would have preferred for the train to come motorized, I think this would have brought the price up pretty high… maybe over $100?

The fifth bag adds the tender and Hermione. The tender is a very simple build and it is connected by Technic pins versus the magnets of trains of old. My guess is that this helps to keep the cost down. Thoughts? I’ve heard builders complain about them and others say they are okay so we’ll see…

The next bag starts the passenger coach with a Trolley Witch. The coach is a pretty simple build and is fairly small. I think I would have made it larger, but it fits the scale of the engine. I will add that to my to-do list… re-designing the coach and adding some more.

The seventh bag completes the coach and adds a Dementor. On the positive side, the Dementor is a cool design and in my mind it matches the actual character well considering it is a minifigures. On the negative side, the coach is small and only has 4 wheels. If you go back to the coaches in the Emerald Night or Horizon Express, they have 8 wheels and each set is on a piece that pivots with a Technic pin that fits into the car itself. This one has wheels that are just attached to the car without the ability to pivot. Since it’s such a small car, the wheels are closer together and it shouldn’t be an issue that they don’t pivot. This car is similar to this old set…

So I realize that I am not the intended audience for this set. After all, the box says it is meant for ages 8 to 14. I would have beefed up the coach, motorized the engine, and added in a few pieces of straight track. I will add “building more coaches” to my LEGO building to-do list. In the meantime, I think this is a great set. It does the Hogwarts Express good justice and I think the play factor for this set is good given there are 6 minifigures. While there were a lot of stickers, I think they added some good detail to the set and they weren’t too bad to apply. In the end, I recommend buying this set. Try and pick it up on sale at Amazon.com, Walmart, or elsewhere.

Happy building!

Train Related Idea Reaches 10,000 Supporters - LEGO Ideas

A while back I wrote a post about the need for another LEGO train related set. You can find it here. I don’t know how many people read my article and then acted, but one of the sets I recommended achieved 10,000 supporters! It’s the Chemical Plant by Ymarilego. At ~1,900 bricks, it would be a pretty big set, but the LEGO Ideas set #21311-1 - Voltron is 2,321 pieces so there’s a chance that LEGO will release another big Ideas set.

The next review cycle should look at projects that reached 10,000 supporters between the September and January time frames (if LEGO follows what they did in the past). Now we just have to sit back and wait to see what they do. As far as I know, there is no way to lobby LEGO to pick one set over the other. I’m hoping this one is easier as it doesn’t have any licensing concerns to worry about. Also, it’s built in Octan colors and it would be great to get another Octan related set.

While you’re waiting, there are a few more to check out…

The Continental Comet by NickBr1cks is low on the votes (under 1,000), but looks pretty awesome as an Amtrak engine with a car. I would like to see a US based, modern train model again.

The Motorized Union Pacific SD40-2 and Cooling Wagon by Bricky_Brick is at under 1,000 votes as well. LEGO has done a BNSF set and I think a Union Pacific set would be a great addition. This one has a lot of great details too.

There are a lot of great steam trains in the running, but this one stood out to me. It’s called the Blue Tornado and it is by user dylanfarrow. Maybe it’s the color scheme used, I don’t know, but I think it looks pretty awesome. The scenery around it looks great too with the plants and track ballast. You could use this as a display model or run it on a track. It also opens up a lot of potential for making your own passenger or freight cars.

Please help bring more cool train sets to LEGO’s lineup!

And come one LEGO!!! Pick the Chemical Plant for the next Ideas round!!!

Happy building!

Set Review - #75950-1 - Aragog's Lair - Harry Potter - Wizarding World

You can tell I’ve been on a trend lately as here is another one from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. This one is #75950-1 - Aragog’s Lair. It was released in the US on 24 August 2018. It has 157 pieces and 2 minifigures. This puts it at $0.095 per piece. I picked it up on Amazon.com for 14% off or $12.92. Not a huge savings, but I’ll take it. If you can be patient, I’ll bet the savings will be better closer to the end of its shelf life.

This set depicts a scene from “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.” Hagrid tells Harry and Ron that they should follow the spiders to get answers (there’s more to it, but that’s the shortened version). They follow the spiders and end up meeting Aragog and a myriad of Aragog’s offspring. If you’ve never seen the movie before and you don’t like spiders, I would advance through that scene. If you have seen it, you know what I’m talking about.

Onto the set… The box is pretty standard. The front shows what you get and the back shows some play features.

This set contains 3 parts bags that are not numbered and an instruction booklet. Best of all, there are no stickers. Yay!

Due to the low piece count, it’s a pretty quick set to build. You start with minifigures of Harry and Ron. Both figures have 2 faces. I took the picture with the content faces and you can see the distressed faces on the box. The build starts with the tree and then finishes with Aragog. Nothing too special about the tree, but Aragog was an interesting build. I’m impressed with how realistic the builders got it to look in such a small set. Also, you can adjust the legs and abdomen to move Aragog around. The set includes 5 smaller spiders (2 black, 3 tan) and while it’s not completely accurate compared to the number of spiders from the scene in the movie, you can get the idea that there were a lot of spiders.

For play purposes, you can add this to #75953-1 - Whomping Willow as they are from the same movie. The Weasley family car plays a big part in the scene in the Enchanted forest with Aragog.

Overall, it is not a bad set. Considering the piece count, you get a bunch of details and 2 minifigures. It’s under $0.10 a piece which is good considering it is a licensed set and if you pick it up on sale, even better. Definitely shop around to see where it is cheapest. If you’re a Harry Potter fan, I would look to add this one to your collection.

What are your thoughts?

Set Review - #75953-1 - Hogwarts Whomping Willow - Wizarding World - Harry Potter

I reviewed the collectible minifigure series and some Brick Headz for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Now it’s time to look at one of the sets that was released. #75953-1, Hogwarts Whomping Willow is a recreation of a scene from the movie “The Chamber of Secrets” where Ron and Harry are in Ron’s family’s car on their way to Hogwarts. They end up landing in the tree and the tree seems to get upset that they are there (this shouldn’t be a spoiler, the movie and book have been out for a while). Anyways, this set was released on 24 August 2018 in the US. It retails for $69.99, but Amazon.com had it on sale for 15% off or $59.68. It has 753 pieces and 6 minifigures. If you get it at full retail in the US, it works out to $0.093 per piece so not too bad for a licensed theme.

The box front is pretty standard. It shows the whole set, provides details about age, set number, title, and number of pieces, shows the minifigures in the set, and has a picture of the actors from the movie. The back shows the play features of the set and how it was made to be connected to set 75954-1 Hogwarts Great Hall.

The contents of the box are 5 bags of bricks, 2 instruction booklets, and a sticker sheet. I’m not a fan of stickers, but they aren’t tiny so while the sheet is bigger, it’s not a lot of stickers.

Bag one is the Weasley family car and minifigures for Ron and Harry. The build is pretty simple. The doors swing open and so does the trunk. The trunk fits 2 minifigure suitcases. Since the minifigs have the shorter legs, they can’t actually sit in the car. So Ron has to stand to drive and if you position them correctly, you can fit the 2 minifigures in the car at once. And just for reference, bag 1 includes a piece separator.

Bag 2 builds the Whomping Willow itself. The build starts with the base that has Technic elements. I wasn’t expecting that, but it made sense as it went on. The Technic elements allow you to rotate the tree similar to how it moves around in the movie. The branches of the tree can be re-positioned as well. I’m not a huge Harry Potter fan, so I can’t tell you the significance of the door underneath the tree, but I do recall it being used in one of the movies to go somewhere. I think the tree itself lacks detail, but the LEGO designers probably had to do a cost-benefit analysis to determine if it was really worth it to put more effort into making the tree look more realistic versus increasing the price with more pieces. The tree does hold the car for play purposes although there are some green flower stem pieces that do not stay in real well.

The third bag builds what I think is Gryffindor tower. Maybe… It includes a sleeping area, an area on the bottom floor that is (I’m not sure), and then space in the tower at the top where Hedwig is placed in the instructions.

The next bag adds a potions mixing room and an outdoor walkway area. These areas attach to the main area with Technic pins. While I’m not a huge fan of this part of the build, I realize that this set is meant for play and not detail. For a detailed set, I should probably buy Hogwarts Castle (#71043). For play features, I think this set is fine.

Bag 5 completes the build. It adds Professor Snape and his office. Considering the size of the set, I think the designers packed some good details into this area along with some fun pieces to include potion containers, a lamp, and a copy of the Daily Prophet.

Here is the final set with all of the minifigures. It has some great play features, a lot of great pieces, and I like how the set can connect to 75954. If you’re a Harry Potter fan, I would pick this set up if you can find it at a discount like I did. As Christmas approaches, it might come down even more so watch for it.

The minifigs are (top to bottom, left to right) Professor Snape, Filch, Seamus Finnigan, Ron Weasley, Harry, and Hermione. They all have dual faces, but I am only showing one side on this review. Except for Filch, everyone has a wand. Filch has a lantern which is cool looking, but about half as tall as he is. The 4 students are all shorter minifigs. Hermione and Seamus have on their uniforms, but Harry and Ron are in their street clothes. I don’t own any of the old Harry Potter sets so I don’t have much to compare these to, but I’m impressed. In my opinion, they resemble the characters from the movie pretty well.

I have never read the Harry Potter books, but I have seen all of the movies. I enjoy the plot line and while I’m not a super fan, I find it entertaining. I never purchased any of the older releases, but this release impresses me so far. While it is not the most detailed build, it lines up fairly well with the movie. If anything, I think the pieces included are good and can be used for other builds if you want to take this one apart. The minifig selection is good for this set with 6 included and the stickers aren’t too daunting. Overall, I call this one a buy if you are a Harry Potter fan.

Sustainable Bricks

LEGO bricks are made out of plastic which comes from oil that is removed from the ground after it is refined. And that’s about as technical as I’m going to get… I applaud the LEGO Group and their efforts to move away from oil. When your main product is derived from oil, it puts a lot of pressure on to make changes and LEGO has done it. Set 40320, Plants from Plants was released as a promotional set back in August.

It included 29 pieces of foliage made from sugarcane. I realize I’m a bit late in reviewing this set, but I had to do it because I was a bit skeptical. LEGO has high standards on quality and I wasn’t sure if they’d hold up to those standards.

LEGO proved me wrong. I am impressed that the pieces feel the same and look the same. I am unable to see any major differences and I don’t see any issues with quality. I guess the real test will be to see whether they hold up over the years like the plastic pieces do.

It looks like LEGO is going to start rolling this material out into sets too. The Vestas Wind Turbine (#10268) being re-released this November (2018) is reported to have some plant based plants too. I’m guessing we’ll see more appear as TLG continues to produce them.

Bravo to The LEGO Group for following through this this initiative!

Brick Harry Potter is Back

Harry Potter themed LEGO sets first appeared in 2001 and new sets last appeared in 2011. In case you’ve been living under a rock or maybe you’re like me and you’ve been through a move, Harry Potter is back in brick form, but there are some new things that haven’t been seen before.

First off are Brick Headz. I haven’t talked about this theme at all on the blog yet and this is my first step into the theme. I personally have not been impressed with the theme thus far. It appears as though LEGO has just taken all of its licenses and used this building method to sell more items that collectors might be interested in. You can collect from sub-themes like Disney Brick Headz or Marvel Super Hero Brick Heads or even try and get them all. These 5 are the first ones that I’ve build. They are 41621 Ron Weasley and Albus Dumbledore (245 pieces, $19.99 in the US), 41616 Hermione Granger (127 pieces, $9.99 in the US), and 41615 Harry Potter and Hedwig (180 pieces, $14.99 in the US). I did not get any of these on sale although Amazon.com had 41615 for 20% off recently (after I purchased it from LEGO Shop at Home for full price). My guess is there will be a Black Friday 2018 sale and then they will go on sale at Amazon.com or elsewhere towards the end of their shelf life similar to many of the other Brick Headz sets.

I am not going to go through the builds of these like I often do as they are all pretty similar. They all use some SNOT techniques to come up with similar designs. Other than some of the original or creative ones like the Valentine Bee (40270) or Easter Bunny (40271), these are all fairly similar. To be honest I’m rather disappointed and I don’t think I’ll be purchasing any more Brick Headz sets.

Is anyone else into Brick Headz? What do you like about them?

Part 2 is the Harry Potter Collectible Minifigure series (#71022) that came out in the US on 1 August 2018. They retailed for $3.99 each and there are 22 minifigures total in the set. The Collectible Minifigure series used to always have 16 each so it is interesting to see LEGO adjust the number in a series. I haven’t found anything on the reasoning yet.

Another difference in this series is in the break up of the minifigures. The movie “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” is supposed to come out in the US in November 2018 which is probably part of the reasoning for the return of Harry Potter in LEGO form. There are 6 minifigures from the Fantastic Beasts series of movies while the remaining 16 are from the original Harry Potter books/movies.

The first 16 I’ll discuss are from the Harry Potter books/movies.

I was trying to pick out which movie these are from, but it is a mix. For example, Luna Lovegood is introduced in “The Order of the Phoenix,” but Cedric Diggory is from “The Goblet of Fire.” Dobby the House Elf is introduced in “The Chamber of Secrets” and Professor Flitwick is first in “The Sorcerer’s Stone,” but his appearance like the minifigure isn’t until “The Chamber of Secrets” (thanks Google). So the minifigs are from a smattering of movies in the Harry Potter series.

The complete list of minifigures are (from front to back and left to right from my picture) Harry Potter with Hedwig, Professor Flitwick, Harry Potter with the invisibility cloak, Hermonie Granger with her cat named Crookshanks (another score for Google), Professor Albus Dumbledore, Cho Chang, Neville Longbottom, Cedric Diggory, Luna Lovegood, Professor Sybill Trelawney, Voldemort, Dean Thomas, Ron Weasley with Scabbers, Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody, Dobby, and Draco Malfoy. In my opinion, it’s a pretty decent set of minifigures across all of the movies. There are a few key ones missing, but I guess that opens it up for LEGO to do another set. Maybe include Professors Snape or McGonagall, Hagrid, some of the Weasley’s (Ginny), Beatrix Lestrange… the list could go on for a while. It will be interesting to see if LEGO does another series or not.

Next up, the Fantastic Beasts minifigs.

I have seen “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” only once and I have not read the book. There are 6 minifigs from this movie and besides Newt Scamander (center front in the picture, I am not familiar with them all. So from left to right, front to back, there are Percival Graves, Newt with his Knarl, Tina Goldstein, Jacob Kowalski, Queenie Goldstein, and Credence Barebone.

Overall, I think this is a good set of minifigs between the two movie themes. It gives a good variety of minifigures, the accessories that come with them are good, it adds some new characters/elements not seen before, and it does a decent job of capturing the likeness of the movie characters. If you are a Harry Potter/Wizarding World fan, I recommend getting these. If you’re a glutton for punishment and LEGO has sucked you into collecting all of the CMFs since series 10 (or earlier for some of you) like me then plop down your funds for 22 of these. Locally in Germany, I have not seen these out much. Either they sold fast or the retailers don’t have them. I had no issue getting them online and am looking forward to being able to sell my extras in the store once it re-opens in a few years.

I have a few reviews of the Harry Potter sets on the way so stay tuned.

Happy building!

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?