What do you think is the worst LEGO Castle set before 1990?

[Formendacil]

There's more than inflation happening (although we've certainly had some of that). TLC has quite simply raised its prices.

I remember that Lego seemed to get more expensive about five years back. Maybe the drop of the Canadian dollar could account for that. But do you think the prices went down at all since the Canadian dollar started recovering?

Not on your life.

If anything, its worse.

[rogue27]

Hello!

It was at most $3 when it was new. Maybe $2.50 even. If they tried selling it for more than $4 or $5 today, there is no chance that I would ever buy it. We have not had that much inflation.

In 1984 King's Castle 6080 was about €50 (DM 100 then) with 664 elements, 12 figures, no useless scorpions. In 2004 the Castle of Morcia 8781 is €99 (632 elements, 8 figures). That's quite an inflation.


Bye
Jojo

You can't compare just on piece counts. Heck, the Blacksmith's Shop in 2002 and 2003 was $40 and had 622 parts, while castle of morcia with it's 632 parts is $90. TLC can still sell lego at a good price when they want to. It's the raised baseplates and custom parts that make everything expensive, not the part counts.

[cnelson]

I also subscribe to the "poorest billionaire" argument--it's hard to find a worst one, especially among today's standards.

I always thought that the 6039 Twin-Arm Launcher was a weak design because the catapult buckets easily got loose and just flopped around. It's a poor poor copy of the much better 6030. But two round gray shields and that wonderful horse barding made it a great parts set.

In the same vein, 6017 King's Oarsmen was made a bad design by its stupid sail. (Are they oarsmen, or sailmen? A boat that size with a man-height sail just doesn't work.) It's the poor cousin to the Viking Voyager, but once again, I'd buy multiples today just for the parts.

Carl

[Jojo]

Hello!

You can't compare just on piece counts.

You are right. However, I compared the biggest Castle sets of their respective time, and the biggest Castle then was only half the price than the biggest castle today while they still have almost the same piececount. I agree that the huge baseplate is several single bricks worth but not that much! As for expensive custom pieces: Back in 1984 those castle wall parts have been as new as the new wall parts in 8781 are new now.

Heck, the Blacksmith's Shop in 2002 and 2003 was $40 and had 622 parts, while castle of morcia with it's 632 parts is $90. TLC can still sell lego at a good price when they want to.

3739 was at a very very very good price. TLC was able to sell it that cheap because they didin't have costs by inventing the design (design by Daniel Siskind) and by selling it directly through Shop@Home and their brand stores. So when you paid your $40 TLC got $40, when you pay your $90 for Morcia at WalMart probably also just $40 go to TLC.


Bye
Jojo

[wlister]

So by that logic, when you buy a set a full retail price from S@H the $90.00 just went straight to TLC. So why don't they give us a better deal on sets and bulk pieces?

S@H aside from site maintenance and order processing is pure profit for TLC. Why don't we see a better deal from them? Why is the bulk discount the same for 500 bags as it is at 15. If that bulk discount offerered more, I am sure people would buy more. I know I would.

Aside from Legends and sets like the Blacksmith shop, I'd never buy a set from S@H, I can usually find cheaper sets at retail. Why should I pay more just to give TLC more of my money? What has S@H done to entice me as the consumer to buy from them?

On top of it all they have one of the highest prorated shipping costs of any of the large online retailers. If TLC woke up and realized that free or discounted shipping is becoming the norm for large online retailers, they might be better off. When I pay $18 for shipping on a $200 order, It really bugs me. I can spend that kind of money at Amazon and have no shipping charges at all. Unfortunatly it has to be for books since Toys are not shippable to Canada. But that is not the point.

Online sales go right into TLC's pocketbook, so why don't they do more to encourage people to buy from them? It seems like it is another one of those corporate mess ups that keeps them for being profitable. Just my thoughts anyway.


Anyway I'm done my rant and I'm back on topic. I'm glad so many people agree with my assessment of 6016. Of those stes, it really does lack something.
Will

[rogue27]

Hello!

Hi!

You are right. However, I compared the biggest Castle sets of their respective time, and the biggest Castle then was only half the price than the biggest castle today while they still have almost the same piececount. I agree that the huge baseplate is several single bricks worth but not that much! As for expensive custom pieces: Back in 1984 those castle wall parts have been as new as the new wall parts in 8781 are new now.

Good point. The horses were also new in 1984, but the 1984 castle line contained a large number of sets to split development costs across. The number of new parts in King's Castle is probably smaller than the number of new parts in Castle of Morcia.

Castle of Morcia has other problems too. Fancier box artwork must cost a lot of money. Thicker instruction books due to comics and / or pictures of "action parts" in the castle add pages to the book and weight to the packaging. (I have not seen the instructions for this set, but I'm 98% positive that it has comics or action pictures in it.) They also slop in those cards for the US versions of the sets.

I think part of the problem is that they artificially bloated the price of this castle, since the "action toys" crowd usually doesn't mind that as much as the building toy crowd.

3739 was at a very very very good price. TLC was able to sell it that cheap because they didin't have costs by inventing the design (design by Daniel Siskind) and by selling it directly through Shop@Home and their brand stores. So when you paid your $40 TLC got $40, when you pay your $90 for Morcia at WalMart probably also just $40 go to TLC.

Yes, I always thought it had the value of a $50 or $60 set for $40. However, TLC did spend some time developing the set. The model they released has many significant changes from the one Daniel Siskund developed. There are two factors that lead to the good prices on Lego Direct models. First, they are only sold in LEGO brand stores. Second, and more important, they are required to only use existing parts. I'm pretty convinced that new molds are the biggest source of high prices today.

Why is the bulk discount the same for 500 bags as it is at 15. If that bulk discount offerered more, I am sure people would buy more. I know I would.

I've always wondered that. I think they should take the bulk discount up to at least 20% or 25%. They might have to slow down how quickly the discount increases after a while though. Maybe 25 bags gives you 20% and 50 bags gives you 25%. As it is, most of their bulk part bags are overpriced.

Aside from Legends and sets like the Blacksmith shop, I'd never buy a set from S@H, I can usually find cheaper sets at retail.

Actually, they typically have an assortment of sets that are 40 - 50% off on S@H, and the assortment changes each week. They recently had Chamber of Secrets on sale for 50% off, and I plan to get more Quality Quidditch Supplies if they are ever 50% off on there. However, for regular stuff like the KK2 sets, it's not worth buying them online because shipping is much more than sales tax.

On top of it all they have one of the highest prorated shipping costs of any of the large online retailers. If TLC woke up and realized that free or discounted shipping is becoming the norm for large online retailers, they might be better off.

They generally do offer free shipping on orders over $100 in October and November or something. They really should do this year round though. I've suggested it to them on one of their surveys.

I can spend that kind of money at Amazon and have no shipping charges at all.

Actually, LEGO rarely has free shipping at amazon, aside from select items. It's not like books or DVDs where you get free shipping for spending $25. Wish it was. However, Amazon's prices on things like baseplates or service packs are higher than they cost on S@H before the bulk discounts.

[medib]

You guys stole my thunder...

I was going to say that it wasn't inflation...
it was just Lego trying to fleece the peasants!

Benjamin Medinets,

who misses out on really good thread content due
to having to go and work!

[medib]

Responding to Rogue said about the price of bulk from
Shop@Home.

Brad Justice, who was in charge of LEGO Direct (division
that included Shop@Home) said to us at Brickfest (2002),
If I remember correctly, that its easier to lower prices
later than to increase them.

The fact that since the 3 some years that Shop@Home has
really kicked off, and that the only discount still offered is
the 15% discount is pretty inexcuseable for LEGO but
some parts of the company move VERY SLOW.

There was some rumours of a more substantial discount
in the works, but I think that went by the way-side with
all the internal changes within the company.

Last year, at Brickfest 2003, Jake Mckee, LEGO's North American Community Liason hinted that shortly we would
see some nice changes to LEGO.Com including something
that would allow the user to design his/her own creations
like the Mosaic Program.

He did not comment on when that would happen. I
think this too fell victim to the internal changes within
LEGO.

Just some things to think about.

Benjamin Medinets

[David Girard]

About the subject, I'm not agree that 1974 is the worste set before 1990. It's one of the nicier, but it's not very solid. That the weak point.

Many people think that 6016 is the worst. I'm not agree again. It's not the more appealing but it's well done.

The worste for me is 6017. I think it's an ugly one. The design is not good. The proportion are bad too. The sail is not appealing at all.

6016, 6017 are not the best, anyway.

[Terry Tuffnuts]

I will say 6055-1 Prisoner convoy because I have a lot of nostalgia for the 6016 wagon (Knights arsenal)

Reasons why 6016 isn't the worst: it is refreshing to have a set that isnt just warriors at eachother, instead we have a chap moving the weapon supplies so it adds depth to the wee lego world

Reasons why 6055 is: its simply a worse version of 6042-1 Dungeon hunters (which is one of the best sets of all time). The cart is too blocky like a kid built it and too heavy. Too much red pants. Colours are overall garish

[DaleDVM]

I am late to the game. I am going to add my two cents. The people in this thread know their castle sets and have picked out many of the worst sets.

I agree with pretty much all of the arguments.

I am one of the people that really dislike the yellow castle. However, it was groundbreaking and contains some good stuff in it so I can't vote it the worst.

I agree the Knight's Arsenal is not good, the design of the cart is lacking... but with 2 swords, 2 hatchets, a spear, a lion shield, and a horse it isn't the worst for me. Plus I like the generic printed armor piece, and cape included with the minifig so he can be included with multiple factions.

The twin arm launcher was kind of lame/flimsy as well. In fact a lot of the siege weapons back then were pretty awful. The 6062 battering ram, and 6061 siege tower sets were all monochrome black siege weapon builds that were uninspired offerings. However, both had wall sections and a decent number of minifigs to make up for it. IMHO the 6030 catapult set is the worst of the siege weapons sets, the minis are fine, but the black parts are not the most useful to me as I don't like using a lot of black in my builds. This would be my vote for the worst set if it wasn't for...

6017 King's Oarsmen. This set is just a terrible excuse for a boat of any type. That sail, the latticed fence pieces on a boat, there are no oars ( I know oars were not introduced for 2 more years), and the parts are literally useless for castle MOCing. The only redeeming quality are the figs which are nice and the two different "Lion" shields. The minis are unable to make up for the no oars oarsmen and thus my vote for worst castle set pre 1990.

This was interesting reading. Thanks to all that shared.

[Bishons]

In my opinion there are no worst sets. All of them are nice , (even though I'm not a fan of vintage castle) so I can't say any of them are bad like the "dumbest" genius.

[AK_Brickster]

By definition, there *has* to be a "worst" set, unfortunately. For example, if I gave you a list of ever Castle set made before 1990, and asked you to rank them from your least favorite to your most favorite, you couldn't rank all of them #1, could you?

[LEGO_KNIGHT]

I wouldn't say worst but I'm not a fan of those Classic Knights from 70's. Before anyone brings out the torches and pitchforks! Yes, including the holy grail 375/6075 Yellow Castle. I just don't prefer their generic emblems.

[DerBum]

I guess, as I'm not the one resurrecting a long dead thread, I'd like to cast my vote for 6077: Knight's Procession.

If you were looking for an army builder back in the day it was probably fine, but my brother got this set when we were kids and without an opposing faction it was somewhat boring. I bought a yellow semi truck on that same trip (I didn't realize that I loved castle Lego back then) and we ended up not really playing castle until I finally got around to buying a Castle set which I believe was 6102: Castle Mini-Figures... that was around 2-3 years later and I split the cost with my brother since neither of us could afford it on our own. That got the ball rolling, but I've spent time thinking back to if that set had come with an opposing faction so that we both could have had actual soldiers... maybe my path on the road to Castle Lego would have been started sooner. It's water under the bridge now, but I don't think most kids do "army building" per se and I really realize after having my own kids that they play with a Lego set longer if each set is a playset on its own. TLG has gotten it right in that regard, a police car needs a robber, a fire truck needs a fire, a castle cart needs an ambush, etc.

I realize that a lot of my favorite sets from childhood only included a single faction, and consequently I ended up focusing on the Lions while my brother took to the Black Falcons, but with the availability of the Castle Mini-figures I always ended up with a handful of troops from other factions. Even if I only had 6 Black Falcons until the 6062: Battering Ram came out, which provided me with the only Black Falcon "castle" I owned as a kid, I still had those 6 BFs to raided into my Lion lands when my brother wasn't available to play. I don't know... I'm rambling now. Long and short, Knight's Procession could have been a lot more and TLG later released perfect examples of what could be done as far as cart ambush sets to illustrate what could have been.

PS. I sincerely hope that TLG releases actual multi-faction Castle Mini-Figures sets if they ever mass release a castle theme in the future, those really were/are game changers for kids with little money but who still want a lot of play value. 6103: Castle Mini Figures is a great example with 2-BF, 1-Lion, 2-Forestmen, and a peasant... an imaginative kid could create an entire castle world with two of those sets and some generic bricks. Ultimately, I ended up buying two of those to beef up my forestmen... boy were those ever the days.