Random set of the day: Creator Value Pack
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 4518 Creator Value Pack, released in 2004. It's one of 48 Creator sets produced that year. It contains 800 pieces.
It's owned by 68 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
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A lot of parts in this set are not shown on the box art.
Pretty interesting rare parts in there as well, Sand Blue minifig head only in this 1 set.
It's only owned by 68 people.
THAT'S A LOTTA BRICKS
What great value...
I lack imagination to create good stuff with this set.
I wish lego could make set like large creative brick box but for adults - with piecies selected for making dioramas and small MOCs. As all current boxes are not very usable for that.
Growing up I had no trouble creating with basic 2xn bricks, but it got old really quickly. That's been my only gripe with it. I'm glad LEGO Classic has so much parts diversity now, even if it's been at a major cost of quantity of basic parts.
^ The closest to an AFOL-oriented free-building set was the microscale (as with all other Architecture sets) 21050-1 Architecture Studio, that was all white and trans-clear. We could definitely use more sets like it. Preferably with at least a splash of color (and not a smorgasbord).
^ That looks like a great way to pick up a lot of white bricks.
^ If you can stomach the Architecture + retired tax :P Not a wallet-friendly price-to-part ratio unfortunately.
Is that guy on the front holding a club?
These sets were good value and included colors I find actually useful. The current "Classic" boxes contain way too many pastels and the like.
These sets were good value and included colors I find actually useful. The current "Classic" boxes contain way too many pastels and the like.
@sanders2221: I think a lot of the LEGO Classic brick boxes are well-suited to adults, but more the sort of adults who use it as a therapeutic activity or a freeform creative exercise or warm-up than for the kind of elaborate, detail-oriented MOCing that a lot of us who are part of online AFOL communities or LUGs tend to focus on.
During the year that I studied at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston there was a team-based LEGO building competition. For the initial elimination round, each team was given two copies of 5508-1 and given the rather broad task of creating "something awesome" within a specific time limit that I can't remember off the top of my head.
My team (me, @Lyichir, and a third student who I don't believe is involved in the online AFOL community) built a Tokusatsu-style fight scene between a giant monster and giant pizza-shooting robot built out of a pizza delivery truck, and advanced to the finals: https://s3images.coroflot.com/user_files/individual_files/large_563827_jxhwqramrbnpw2vb4jdphqd8f.jpg
For the second and final round, the remaining teams were given a third copy of the same set and a longer time limit in which to build a castle. Our team won the competition with our microscale castle, which featured a central keep, an outer wall and gate, a moat with its own drawbridge and moat monster, a tall tower, a castle town with houses and a church, and a dragon inspired by our giant monster from the previous round (but with added wings and fire breath):
https://s3images.coroflot.com/user_files/individual_files/large_563827_h8xkhxhna54ck8umta4qadi8m.jpg
Suffice to say there's a lot of creative stuff that you can do with colorful basic bricks as an adult even if it's not the sort of sculptural masterpieces that get exhibited at conventions or shared on The Brothers Brick!
More specially tailored parts buckets could definitely still be interesting, but I think it might be tricky to figure out what would really appeal best to AFOLs when our tastes are so varied.
I've seen a lot of people say they want just basic elements like the Classic theme but in more subdued earth tones. In that respect the Minecraft set 21135-1 is somewhat well suited to that purpose (with more single-stud-wide bricks/plates/tiles, hinges, SNOT elements, hinges, etc. than its precursor 21116-1). But of course the price per piece is not nearly as generous as Classic, probably due to both licensing and the number of theme-specific prints and molds.
Other people would prefer a whole range of older-skewing Classic sets for different sorts of builds — for instance, one with parts for Space builds, one for Castle builds, one for Pirate builds, etc.
As awesome as this would be, I suspect that LEGO might be hesitant to create a range that extensive in one go. For one, we're a smaller and trickier to satisfy audience than the all-ages audience of the Classic range, which is already fairly limited.
What's more, LEGO knows how compared to kids or casual buyers, most of us are really good at finding the best value for the parts we need either by buying regular themed sets as "parts packs", by using community support platforms like LUGBULK, or by using sites like BrickLink or BrickOwl. That skill we have at picking and choosing might dilute the market for even the most carefully pre-selected parts assortment. Certainly even among existing sets tailored to older buyers, there are many that end up so divisive among us that some AFOLs begin to think LEGO doesn't understand their tastes at all.
But as LEGO as a whole gets bigger, and the AFOL community with it, I will be interested to see AFOL-tailored sets expand beyond the current emphasis on display-oriented models and functionally intricate Technic vehicles, and into other categories like brick assortments, kinetic sculptures, buildable jewelry and accessories, etc.
@cody6268: I dunno if I agree… especially in the mid 2000s, a lot of these kits also had their fair share of unusual colors, just not in enough quantity or variety to be genuinely useful.
For instance, take a look at this set's inventory (the BrickLink version, because it's a little more complete than Brickset's): https://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemInv.asp?S=4518-1 Out of 805 parts, it contained 41 different colors.
The 5 most common colors in the set (about 12% of those included) were used for 61 to 93 parts each, or 400 parts total (about 50% of the inventory).
Whereas the 21 LEAST common colors in the set (about 50% of those included) were used for a mere 1 to 3 parts each, or 35 parts total (about 4% of the inventory).
A lot of the colors were also redundant, because it included both older colors and their replacements: e.g. Brown and Reddish Brown, Light Gray and Light Bluish Gray, Dark Gray and Dark Bluish Gray, Pink and Bright Pink.
By comparison, take a look at the inventory of set 11005-1 Creative Fun: https://brickset.com/inventories/11005-1.
There are 900 parts and 38 colors. That's only slightly more parts and fewer colors, but the balance has changed considerably.
The set's five most common colors (about 13% of those included) are used for 54 to 82 parts each, or 336 parts total (37% of the inventory).
The set's twenty least common colors (about 52% of those included) are used for between 1 and 16 parts each, or 157 parts total (about 17% of the inventory).
That's a LOT more evenly distributed, even though basic colors still get considerable priority. I see that as a net positive.
Overall, I suspect that sets like 4518-1, as well as the assorted Bionicle part buckets that started coming out around the same time, were probably less of a strategic choice to provide parts useful to builders, and more of a part of the recovery efforts after the company's disastrous performance in 2003 nearly left them bankrupt.
Selling sets like this with seemingly arbitrary part and color selections (including a mix of current and retired colors) at ludicrously low, "everything must go" prices suggests to me that these were an attempt to wring as much money as possible, as QUICKLY as possible, out of all the costly, poorly-managed inventory that LEGO needed out of their warehouses as they cut down on their severely bloated part and color palette.
Now that LEGO no longer needs to do that, I really appreciate how both in the Classic theme and in general, they've started using the color tints/shades/tones that remain on their now much smaller color palette in more substantial quantities across a wider range of sets, rather than using them so scarcely and sporadically that they're nearly useless to EVERYONE and can barely justify their existence on the LEGO color palette.
The set's name is Creator, while it's from that theme! Weird!