Conspiracy Falconists

Discussion of official LEGO Castle Theme sets and products
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Zurem
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Conspiracy Falconists

Post by Zurem »

Little play on words, there, changing up theorists with 'falconists', heh heh.

I was doing some research on Knight's Castle(6073), because I like to review factoids about some of the classic castle sets, and came across this little morsel:

"Despite widespread photographic proof to the contrary, some people claim that the Black Falcon's banners were coloured green and white in this set, and were changed to blue and white with the release of 1986's 6074 Black Falcon's Fortress."

Now, aside from the fact that I had at one point purchased a NIB Knight's Castle, and have personally seen for myself that the falcons have the same outfits as they do in the Fortress, I can't verify that because I already opened the thing and didn't record myself opening it on video, which maybe I should have done, in retrospect. But I've never come across someone who truly was convinced Knight's Castle's banners were different than Black Falcon's fortress's banners. I mean sure, it confused me that Catapult and Knight's Castle both were owned by Falcon knights, who had green/white flags(back before blue flags existed), but I just assumed that, 'Hey, I guess they changed things with the times', because green flags all but vanished later on, aside from seeing one in Guarded Inn, for a good while.
Going beyond that, I was slightly disappointed that King's Mountain Fortress had changed from yellow/red flags to red/blue flags, which I always thought of as belonging to the Black Knights(Black Monarch).

But for the sake of the argument, who here might have(or still does) subscribe(d) to this idea?

Also curious.... Did Lego plan in advance to use those white transparent shields from space set #452 Mobile Tracking Station for the lineup of Castle in 1984 when round grey shields appeared? Does anyone know? I was always curious why the circular shields appeared in the classic space theme first.
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Re: Conspiracy Falconists

Post by davee123 »

Zurem wrote:"Despite widespread photographic proof to the contrary, some people claim that the Black Falcon's banners were coloured green and white in this set, and were changed to blue and white with the release of 1986's 6074 Black Falcon's Fortress."
What exactly is the claim? That LEGO re-packaged certain 6073 Knight's Castle sets with newly colored blue/white flags in 1986, in an effort to be consistent with the colors that were released in 6074 Black Falcon's Fortress?

I suppose it's possible, but I find it highly unlikely.

First off, LEGO didn't seem to care much about consistency back then.
- The Black Falcon in 6021 had a blue flag in a year when both other Black Falcon sets featured Green/White flags
- Black Falcon's Fortress didn't even use any white flags (they actually had yellow flags of all things), and 6067 Guarded Inn, which came out the same year, used a green banner for its lone Black Falcon knight.
- 1987 was the only year to feature consistently colored banners for Black Falcons, using Blue/White (a combination they hadn't yet even used) in both 6062 and 6035.

Similar inconsistencies can be found with things like torso and leg color. The figure in 1986's 6041 Armor Shop being one of the strangest examples-- he looks like he was thrown together with spare parts. But also with things like 1990's 6018 Battle Dragon, which still baffles me in terms of intended factions.

So, I'd find it hard to believe that they made a conscious effort to be consistent considering how little attention they paid to it.

If green flags were removed from LEGO's production lines, you might make an argument that they tried to save money by using all 100% blue flags-- but since green flags were used in both 1986 and 1988, as well as 1991 and 1992 (and later), it wouldn't really make much sense. Plus, we know that at the time, LEGO didn't care much about cost-savings (or they probably would've used a blue flag for 6067 instead of green, for instance). Not to mention that LEGO probably would've wanted to re-photograph any re-purposed 6073 boxes with the new blue-flag artwork-- which would be surprising considering that the product was being removed from their offerings in 1986 anyway.

As far as I'm aware, the only non-documented discrepancies with Black Falcons were:

1) Some Black Falcon torsos (not any shields that I know of) were printed with the falcon head pointing to the LEFT rather than the RIGHT. I have about 3 of these myself, which I never noticed until someone pointed it out.

2) The Black Falcon torsos and 2x2 banner flag that were re-released in 2002's 10039 Black Falcon's Fortress used the same graphic as the shields, which did not match the original figures (this was fixed for the 2009 Vintage minifigure collection)
Zurem wrote:Also curious.... Did Lego plan in advance to use those white transparent shields from space set #452 Mobile Tracking Station for the lineup of Castle in 1984 when round grey shields appeared? Does anyone know? I was always curious why the circular shields appeared in the classic space theme first.
Well, before 1985, there were no 2x2 radar dishes for the space theme to use, apart from the round shield-- so it makes sense that they'd use that element in smaller space sets as a radar dish. It's possible that that was its intended use in 1979, and not as a castle shield, but it's hard to say (certainly the little handle that mirrored the triangular shield handle makes it more likely to be intended as a hand-held object).

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Re: Conspiracy Falconists

Post by architect »

davee123 wrote:Well, before 1985, there were no 2x2 radar dishes for the space theme to use, apart from the round shield-- so it makes sense that they'd use that element in smaller space sets as a radar dish. It's possible that that was its intended use in 1979, and not as a castle shield, but it's hard to say (certainly the little handle that mirrored the triangular shield handle makes it more likely to be intended as a hand-held object).

DaveE
I was told that most elements were designed to be used in multiple themes. The castle theme was fairly groundbreaking in that regard because the military headgear and weaponry were not used in the other themes. However there was quite a bit of overlap between town and space elements in the late 70's and 80's although often in different colors.

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Re: Conspiracy Falconists

Post by sassymanjohnson »

Zurem,
Where do you go to dig up factoids on Castle Lego Sets?
I was doing some research on Knight's Castle(6073), because I like to review factoids about some of the classic castle sets, and came across this little morsel:
Thanks!
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Zurem
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Re: Conspiracy Falconists

Post by Zurem »

sassymanjohnson wrote:Zurem,
Where do you go to dig up factoids on Castle Lego Sets?
I was doing some research on Knight's Castle(6073), because I like to review factoids about some of the classic castle sets, and came across this little morsel:
Thanks!

Brickipedia is my main source. I know some of it is unofficial, but as far as I know, it's still a decent source, judging from cross-referencing personal knowledge of my own with facts provided by the website, at least as far as Castle is concerned. One thing it does is that it is sure to mention sets that have one-of-a-kind pieces, such as the brown cape in Blacksmith Shop(The 80s one).
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